


Too Much rain

by orphan_account



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-07 19:54:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 151
Words: 870,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [too much rain](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/414951) by yes-2day. 



Chapter 1

 

Paul heard the word “cancerous” and he involuntarily shouted out the word “Cancer!” really loudly. He quickly realized he shouldn’t have done that, and looked up over the carol’s dividers and saw secretaries’ heads popping up from behind their carols all the way up and down the hall. So much for confidentiality, Paul thought, disgusted with himself. Tomorrow the tabloids would probably be filled with rumors about Paul McCartney having cancer.

“It’s a very aggressive form of melanoma,” Dr. Sid continued, determined to get his point across.

“And John won’t respond to your calls? Does he know about the cancer?” Paul’s voice was shaking with emotion, and Sid noted this with compassion.

“I left voicemails and sent him a letter by messenger to call me, and I let him know it was urgent, but I didn’t leave any details. No one wants to hear this news on a recording machine. The problem is that this is a very fast-growing cancer, and we really need him to get to the hospital as soon as possible if we’re going to get a good result. Every day counts.”

Paul heard that, and found his confidence returning. “Tell me what you need from me,” he said in a dead serious voice.

“Bring John to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea as soon as possible. He will be admitted immediately to the cancer ward.”

“Understood,” Paul said firmly. He was a man with a mission. Nothing and no one would get in his way: especially not John. As soon as he hung up, he called John at home. The phone rang until it went to the answer phone.

“John. This is Paul. I know you’re listening. Your doctor called me – he told me you have been ducking his calls for two days. Pick up!”

John heard Paul on the answer phone. He was seriously pissed that his doctor had called Paul. Wasn’t that a violation of some kind of privacy right?

“I’m on my way home right now, John! Pack. I’m going to take you straight to the hospital. No argument.” Paul’s voice was firm and brooked no nonsense.

John heard it, and felt terrified. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know. He scurried upstairs and jumped in the bed, pulling the covers over his head. Maybe if he pretended hard enough it would turn out not to be true!

It was less than 20 minutes later that John heard the back door slam, and then he heard Paul banging up the stairs. He pulled the covers even tighter over his head. He knew Paul would be bursting in any second, but he was praying the whole thing was a terrible dream.

“John! Jooohhhn!” Paul’s voice sounded firm but a little bit panicked, too. He burst into the bedroom and saw the telltale lump on the bed. “Blimey, John! You’re behaving like a five year-old!” Paul’s voice was solid and businesslike, and only around the edges could one hear the stress. He moved into the bedroom like a force to be reckoned with, and went straight to the closet. He found a suitcase and threw it on the bed, then opened it up. “Get up, John, we’re going to the hospital.”

John’s voice came from under the covers: “No, it’s your birthday!” As if this was a reasonable explanation for his behavior.

“My birthday was yesterday, and I’ve had 47 of ‘em. Get up. We’re going.” Paul’s voice brooked no argument, as he went to John’s dresser and started pulling out fresh night and under clothes. “Now!”

John threw the covers back. “Why? What is it? What’s wrong?” John’s voice was small and scared.

Paul saw John’s ravaged face and felt empathy and compassion. He sat down next to John, and grabbed one of John’s hands with both of his own. “I know it’s scary,” Paul said calmly. “If I were you, I’d be scared too. It’s a malignant skin tumor, John, and you need to deal with it right away. Pretending it’s not there isn’t going to make it go away. It will only get worse.”

John felt tears sliding down his cheeks, but his eyes didn’t leave Paul’s eyes. Paul forced himself to keep staring into John’s eyes, feeling as though he could inject some of his own strength and confidence into John.

“Your doctor says it is at a stage where you can deal with it, but its very aggressive, and so you need to have it removed immediately.”

John nodded, and sat up. Paul got back up, and started putting John’s bedside books into John’s suitcase. John got up, and went to the bathroom. He changed his clothes, and when he wandered back into the bedroom Paul said, “Don’t forget your music, John.” John – like an automaton – moved over to his bedside drawer and pulled out his headphones and tape player, and then over to the cupboard where he kept his tapes. He selected some and threw them in the suitcase. Paul was coming back from the bathroom with John’s bath kit and his own. It was at this point that John noticed that Paul was packing things for himself in the bag, too. Knowing that Paul was planning on staying with him in the hospital lifted John’s spirits.

Paul drove John to Chelsea, and entered the Royal Marsden’s private driveway generally reserved for doctors but also for VIP patients. Paul parked and got out of the car, but John stayed in the car. He felt as though his legs wouldn’t move. Paul came ‘round the side and opened John’s door, and held his hand out for John to take, and then helped him out of the car. He already had the suitcase in his other hand. And so they walked hand-in-hand into the check-in area. At that moment Paul didn’t care what people thought, or even what people said. There wasn’t anyone in the waiting room, however, and the woman who was ready to check John in didn’t seem to notice either.

“Please take him to his room immediately,” Paul said firmly but softly. “No point in him waiting here.”

“We need him to sign some papers…” the woman started.

“I’ve got a health care power of attorney,” Paul said sharply, cutting her off. “I’ll sign the paperwork.” At this he flourished some paperwork and pushed it across the desk to her. She looked at it for a moment, and then looked up to Paul’s I mean business expression and then rang for a wheelchair. (Paul had stopped for the paperwork in his office at Cavendish before charging over to the new house.) Soon an orderly arrived to escort John to a room.

John stared at the wheelchair and said, “I don’t need that thing.”

“It’s hospital rules,” said the poor, unsuspecting orderly.

“Well I don’t give a fuck about the rules!” John shouted. He was scared and that made him angry, and this was the first opportunity he’d found to take it out on somebody.

Paul turned away from the paperwork and stood up. He spoke softly and persuasively to John. “Please just sit in the wheelchair. Don’t make a scene. Someone will call the press and it’ll turn into a circus.”

John thought about this for a moment, and begrudgingly sat down in the wheelchair. He glared at the poor orderly as he did so. Paul gave the orderly a wan but encouraging smile, and then turned back to the paperwork. John, who was wearing a hoody, pulled it over his head, and stared down at his hands. He didn’t want to be recognized for fear someone would notice it was John Lennon sitting in a fucking wheelchair. Humiliating beyond words.

John was wheeled to the cancer ward, and immediately into a luxury VIP suite. It had two hospital beds, and off to the side a little sitting area, and even a very tiny kitchenette. The television mounted to the ceiling actually featured a VHS player, and there was a stereo system too. Paul had made sure to book the best suite possible when he’d spoken to John’s doctor on the phone. It was also very private, located just across from the nurse’s break room, at the end of a hall where no one else needed to pass by.

John got out of the wheelchair and stood in the empty room, feeling lost and afraid. Although it was – in truth – a very cheerful room, to John it felt cold and unfamiliar. It hinted at a future he wanted nothing to do with but couldn’t escape. A moment later a nurse hustled in holding a folded hospital gown.

“Here you go luv!” the nurse chirped in a voice that was plainly engineered to immediately get on John’s nerves.

“I’m not your ‘love’, and what the hell is this?” John’s voice was dry with sarcasm as he shook the folded gown out to its full length and then stared at it with open contempt.

“It’s your hospital gown,” she said, only this time a tiny thread of doubt had wended its way into her voice. She wasn’t sure if John was joking or not. John swore he could hear the word “silly” on the end of the woman’s response, even though she hadn’t actually voiced it. This set his teeth on edge.

“It’s not my hospital gown,” John declared arrogantly, throwing it back at her. “I don’t do hospital gowns.”

The nurse caught the gown, and turned on her heel to go get reinforcements. She was a fairly new nurse, just out of school really, and didn’t quite know how to deal with a mean, angry VIP patient. Best leave that to Matron.

The orderly had left John’s bag on a suitcase rack, and John opened it and pulled out his music, books, and crossword puzzle magazines. He stacked them on the side table in the little sitting area and then sat down. Almost as soon as he did so, the young nurse came back in accompanied by a much older woman who looked to be the one in authority.

“Ah, Mr. Lennon, I see you’re making yourself at home,” she said in a mellifluous voice. John’s back went up instantly. “It is such a pleasure to meet you!” She stood in front of him smiling down at him in a very patronizing manner, and because John felt at a disadvantage sitting down, he stood up to face her directly. He held out his hand and shook hers politely, but watched her with a slightly malevolent eye. Matron realized right away that this was going to be a pig fight. “I’ve brought you back the hospital gown. I think we must have had a little misunderstanding. All the patients must wear them.”

John was glaring at her now. “I’m not ‘all the patients’,” John said, mimicking her fruity voice. “And I’m not wearing it. I’ve brought my own pajamas.”

The nurse smiled, but there was steel behind that smile. John could almost see light glinting off her teeth. “Pajamas are quite out of the question,” she fluted. “It is too difficult for the nurses to get access.”

“Access!” John screeched. “No one needs to gain ‘access’ to me!” John had blown himself up to his greatest height, and was staring down his aquiline nose at the Matron now.

“It is just easier all the way around,” she said more soothingly. “It is a hospital rule.”

Well, that did it. “A ‘hospital rule’, a ‘hospital rule’, is that all you people know how to say around here? If it’s a fucking ‘hospital rule’, then I’m leaving! I’m not staying here!” John’s voice had risen to a legitimate shout.

Just then, Paul sailed in to the room, his ears on fire. He had heard John’s shouting as he got off the elevator. Oh lord, what now? He wondered. As he came in he saw John squared off between two nurses.

“What’s up?” He asked in his cheeriest fake I’m not concerned voice. Paul looked to John for the first explanation.

“These….people…” (John said the word as if he was referring to child molesters) “expect me to wear this stupid hospital gown!” John waved the offending garment around for a few dramatic seconds and then threw it back at the younger of the two nurses, who caught it.

Paul turned to the nurses. Matron spoke up. “It’s a hospital rule,” she emphasized. “All the patients have to wear them.”

Paul took this in and said, “I see. Well, John, why don’t I continue this conversation with the nurses out in the hallway.” Paul gently encouraged the nurses to leave the room, and then followed them out.

John smiled victoriously to himself. He knew at that moment he would get what he wanted. Paul could talk authority figures into anything. His band mates had used him as a kind of grown-up whisperer for years.

About ten minutes later, Paul came back in the room. His eyebrow was arched and he had devilish mischief in his eyes.

“What?” John asked pugnaciously, seeing Paul’s accusing look.

“Honestly John, there you go again, influencing people and making friends.”

“Well, they’re so officious around here. I’m paying them, not the other way around. They don’t get to tell me what to do or what to wear.” John was huffy, but then he remembered about the hospital gown. “So?”

Paul shrugged. “You can wear your pajamas, at least for now. After your surgery is over, maybe not. It’s a compromise.”

“How’d you persuade them?” John asked, grinning now.

“I called your doctor and he told them it was okay just this once.” Paul was quiet for a moment and then he spoke again. “You think that rules are made to be broken, Johnny,” he said softly, “but I’ve always thought it was far more effective to just ask for a waiver.”

 

*****

 

That evening, John was in his pajamas, lying on the outside covers of his hospital bed, and fooling with the remote control. Paul had left the hospital a few hours earlier to go explain to Linda what was going on, and to pick up a few more items to make their stay in the hospital a little more comfortable. The nurses had been, for the most part, avoiding John’s room, and giving him a wide berth. The last thing they wanted was another “episode”, or, at least, that was how the hospital gown furor had been described in the nurse’s logbook and John’s chart. He wasn’t on meds yet, as they were waiting for John’s doctor’s instructions, so there really wasn’t any reason to go in his room. Even the orderly had looked terrified when he had brought in John’s supper. With good reason.

“What the fuck is this shit?” John growled, when he lifted the silver lid off his plate to see something brownish, something whitish, something greenish, and a ball masquerading as a bun. On the side was a little container of pudding. He picked that up, peeled off the lid, and began to eat it. “This is crap!” he declared, as the poor orderly quickly left the room. The orderly made a face at the nurses as he passed by their station, taking the tray of uneaten food with him. They gave him sympathetic smiles in return.

Dr. Sid finally showed up at day’s end, at about 6 p.m., after he had finished his office surgery hours and had done his hospital rounds. He was surprised to see John so tamely ensconced in the room, and also a bit surprised to see him there alone. He’d have thought someone like John Lennon would have numerous friends and family members to keep him company.

“Where’s the party?” Sid asked cheerfully.

“In case no one told you,” John responded in his well-worn acidic voice, “I’ve got cancer. There isn’t any partying going on here.” John was glaring at Sid as if the cancer was Sid’s fault.

Sid sighed and sat down in the bedside chair. “I wish you would have responded to me two days ago, John. This has been unnecessarily stressful for all of us.”

John was not in the mood to be guilted. “What have you got to be stressed about? I’m the one with fucking cancer. And I don’t appreciate your calling Paul. Doesn’t that violate my privacy rights?”

Dr. Sid looked at John lazily. “John, you left his name and number with me as the person to be contacted in case of an emergency.”

John huffed. A moment later he said, “It was Paul’s birthday. I just wanted to celebrate it with him, and then I would have called you back. It spoiled all my plans.”

Dr. Sid blinked. John certainly had a strong emotional attachment to McCartney, but then – why wouldn’t he? They had grown up together, conquered the world together, lost each other’s friendship, and then found it again. John had left his wife, and apparently had no replacement for her, so in a way it made a crazy kind of sense that John leaned on McCartney like this. They were clearly like brothers – no, more like twins. “Where’s Mr. McCartney?” Sid asked, not feeling comfortable about using Paul’s first name.

John blinked for a moment until he realized that Sid was referring to Paul. How strange. John never thought of Paul as “Mr. McCartney.” That sounded to John like Paul’s father. “He went to have dinner with his family, and bring me a few more things,” John said. “He’ll be staying here with me tonight, though.”

This did surprise Sid, but he didn’t say so. John was a bit emotionally needy, Sid had surmised over the years, and perhaps McCartney was the more emotionally stable one in the friendship. It wouldn’t take much to be more emotionally stable than John, Sid thought to himself, and then tried to hide the amusement that threatened to flit across his face.

As if he had been conjured up by their talking about him, Paul suddenly breezed into the room. He was pulling a trolley with all sorts of things on it, including two guitars, and holding a bag of what turned out to be some homemade Linda food. Behind Paul was a nurse, following at Paul’s request, ready to set John’s food up on his bedside tray. John lit up immediately, and prepared to be wowed by the food. It was John’s favorite: shepherd’s pie (albeit without meat) – one of Linda’s special vegetarian recipes. His mouth was watering as the food was laid out in front of him.

Throughout this proceeding, Paul had focused exclusively on John, but once John had started eating, he turned to Dr. Sid. “You must be Dr. Greenstein,” Paul said warmly, holding out his hand, and gesturing for Sid to remain seated. “I’m Paul.”

“Yes, I’m John’s doctor, put please call me Sid. I’m sorry to have disturbed you earlier at work, Mr. McCartney,” Sid said in response.

“No bother. And please … it’s ‘Paul’.” Sid was favored with a genuine Macca smile, and he felt something inside of him relaxing a lot. Oh good. A grown up for a change.

Sid watched as Paul unpacked the trolley. There were some music tapes, headphones, a notebook, and a container full of what looked like business documents. Paul began to set up what looked like a little command center in the corner of the sitting area. When he finished, he pulled the trolley out into the hallway, and then returned, chipper and full of blameless energy.

“So, Doctor, tell John and me what is going on.” Paul sat in a chair directly opposite from Sid, and he leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring directly at him with a no-nonsense look. In one of his hands he held a steno notepad and a pencil.

John gave Sid a silent go-ahead in between greedy mouthfuls of mashed potato. Sid noted that as he started to speak, Paul sat back in his chair, and began to make copious notes in the steno pad.

“I don’t know how much John has told you…” Sid started.

“He’s told me nothing,” Paul said in a matter-of-fact, completely unoffended voice.

“Okay, well, he had his physical a few days ago, and he had pointed out a mole on his chest that he’s had for a few weeks. John, can you pull your top down so Paul can see?”

Obediently, John put his fork down, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his pajama top, and then pulled the fabric away. Paul got up and moved in to look at it. Paul was taken aback. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that he looked at it, it looked, well ... nasty. He sat down and faced Sid again.

“I took a biopsy of it…”

“Which means, “ John interrupted, speaking to Paul, “he leapt at me with scissors and just cut a piece off without warning!” And then he put another forkful of potato in his mouth and lost interest in the conversation again.

Paul made a duck face as he tried not to laugh at John’s interruption. He gave Sid smiling silent encouragement to continue.

“I took a biopsy of it, and it is cancerous. Melanoma. At this point I can’t say whether it is Stage 2 or Stage 3. We will have to remove it, and the skin all around it for about a fifth of an inch, and of course the lymph nodes nearby to see if it has metastasized.”

“What does that mean – ‘metastasized.’ ” Paul’s voice was cool and calm. His pencil hovered over the page of his notepad. He obviously intended to write everything down.

Sid had forgotten John was even in the room. This was a conversation directly with Paul. Paul’s will and energy had filled the room to the exclusion of everything else. “It means, basically, to multiply and spread throughout the lymph system and thus to other parts of the body.”

Paul froze in his seat for 20 seconds. And then he wrote something on the notepad. When he finished writing, he looked up and said, “How’d he get it?”

“It’s hard to say. It is probably from sun damage – UV rays. That’s the usual culprit. Or it could be heredity, or something environmental, or just bad luck.” Sid wished he had something more certain to tell them.

Paul took that in, and then said thoughtfully, “John has always loved his sunbathing.” From his place in bed, John harrumphed in agreement while still in the midst of eating. Paul then sat up a little straighter in his chair and his tone of voice became business-like again. “Okay. And now what?”

“So, tomorrow morning John will meet with the surgeons, and we will discuss the surgery, and then, once the tumor is removed, we will obviously test it, see how thick it is, stage the cancer, and see where we need to go from there.”

John had lost his appetite. Of course, he had already finished most of the food. But he put his fork down and was listening to Sid with his soul in his eyes. This was all so serious. This couldn’t really be true, could it? He looked to Paul for moral support, and Paul winked at him and smiled gamely.

“John’s a tough bird,” Paul said reassuringly to Sid, “and we caught it early, right? The damn thing couldn’t have spread too far in two or three weeks, right?”

Paul was looking for reassurance, and Dr. Sid didn’t like to say just how far an extremely aggressive cancer could spread in two to three weeks, and how long it had been growing before John noticed it, so he just smiled in general response, and stood up. John was unwrapping what looked to be a piece of delicious homemade pie. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone for the evening. I’m hungry now, having smelled that wonderful food.”

“Paul’s wife made it. She’s an amazing cook,” John said. Paul looked at his hands and smiled. John was actually being very brave, and in that moment Paul thought his heart would break, because he loved John so much.

 

*****

 

Linda had been horrified to hear about John’s diagnosis. She could hardly wrap her mind around it. When Paul had rushed home, he was fighting back tears, and worse than that – fighting off terror. He had flown into her arms, and hugged her fiercely, but had managed not to break down emotionally. He was in too much of a hurry to get back to the hospital. Back to John. Linda could not begrudge John this, and urged Paul to eat with the children, and while he did so she had packed up the food for John to eat. She even wrapped up a piece of her specialty rhubarb pie, which John was crazy about. She wished there was something she could do or say to comfort Paul, and to make it better, but in that moment she knew the best she could do was get out of the way and let him get back to John.

 

*****

 

John’s “surgery” was a pretty informal thing. He was given a local anesthetic in a very casual looking operating room, and the surgeon had completed the removal of the tumor and the skin around it in 30 minutes. It took only a 2” x 2” bandage to cover it up. John had been given a kind of anesthetic that made him feel loopy and even a little playful, and he flirted sloppily with the giggling nurses as they cleaned him up, put him in a fresh hospital gown, and then sent him on his way back to his room. John hadn’t even noticed the ubiquitous hospital gown, and was in quite the good mood when he made it back to his room, where Paul was waiting.

“Paul!” He greeted cheerfully as he was wheeled into the room. Two hearty orderlies moved him from the gurney to the bed. Paul was chuckling as he watched John’s flirtatious interactions with the female hospital staff. That was obviously some good stuff they gave John. Paul would have to find out what it was, so he could slip it in to John’s coffee once they got home.

“It’s over!” John declared, when they were finally alone together. He felt relieved and jubilant. The evil cancerous invader was out of his body, and could no longer cause trouble. John felt a strong sense of optimism that everything would be fine, now. Paul laughed at John’s antics, and then suggested they play some chess. Paul had brought a miniature chess set from home, and he set it up on John’s bed. It was while they were studiously checking each other that Sid and one of the cancer doctors came into the room.

Paul and John looked up, their faces a picture of confidence and contentment. Dr. Sid felt his heart sink. Despite the trash talk he and John exchanged, he’d developed a very strong affection for John Lennon. He didn’t like to be the one to bring them less than good news. Sid knew it could have been much worse, but for some reason this was no comfort under the circumstances.

Paul noticed and then interpreted the doctors’ expressions first, and then John saw Paul’s face fall, and soon was staring – mouth open – in fear at the doctors.

Sid and the surgeon came in and pulled up chairs. Paul had gotten up and had perched on the side of John’s bed, instinctively reaching for and grabbing hold of John’s hand.

“We have the test results,” Sid said directly. There was no point in mincing words. “As we feared, it is a very aggressive form of melanoma. Very rare. It has grown very fast in the two or three weeks since you noticed it. It is over 3.5 millimeters deep from the top down into the skin layers.”

John and Paul remained silent, staring at Sid with their hearts in their mouths.

“The good news is that we didn’t find any cancer cells in the lymph nodes closest to the tumor,” Sid continued.

Paul swallowed. “So what does that mean?” he asked. John was gripping Paul’s hand with both of his, and Paul could feel John shriveling up even though he couldn’t see him as he faced Dr. Sid.

“It means we are dealing with Stage II cancer, maybe IIC bordering on Stage III based on the depth of the tumor. We will recommend following up the surgery with additional treatment.” Sid said flatly.

“What kind of ‘additional treatment?’” Paul asked, his voice dropping to an uncommonly low register for him.

“Well, I think we need to go back in and excise more lymph nodes to see if any cancer cells are there. Depending on the results, we may suggest radiation, first, to kill any cells that may remain in the region after the surgery.”

“Just radiation?” Paul asked. It was as if Paul had suddenly become John’s voice.

“For now that’s all I can project, yes. We will of course need to watch it carefully to see if other growths appear. If they do, we will remove those too, and then see where we are. For the time being, we’ll take it one step at a time.”

“Radiation!” John yelped, finally finding his own voice. “Wait a minute! It was just a little mole! How did it come to this?”

Paul was squeezing John’s hands tightly, and shushed him gently. Sid noticed the body language and the tone of Paul’s comforting sounds, and felt as though he had just witnessed an intimate communication. Their reaction was exactly like those of married couples Sid had given troubling news to in the past.

“When do we know for sure what our treatment is?” Paul asked, having effectively shushed John.

Sid noted the “we” and the “our”. He’d only encountered that before with very loving, long-time married couples. Never with brothers, or close friends.

The cancer surgeon spoke up. “The oncologist is going to come up and meet with you in the morning,” he said. “By then we will have come up with a proposed strategy.”

Strategy. Paul heard the word. It sounded like war. Well, he supposed it was war. But that fuckin’ cancer was gonna have to go through him first if it ever was gonna get John!

After the doctors left, a pall hung over the room. John was in a kind of emotional shock, not believing that such a small mole could be such a serious problem. Why hadn’t he responded immediately when Sid had called him? What a fool he was! Paul, meanwhile, felt as if his world had shifted under his feet. Now what? How was he supposed to hold it together, knowing that John was in trouble like this? He supposed he didn’t have much of a choice. He would just have to do it. He looked over and saw John’s shell-shocked face. He had to do something to cheer him up.

It was at this opportune moment that someone knocked on the door, and a moment later Linda came in accompanied by Stella, Mary and James, and each of them was carrying steaming bags of food.

“Tada!” Linda sang loudly. John and Paul couldn’t help but laugh, both with relief and fondness. A flurry of activity followed, with Stella and Mary setting up places for all six of them to eat. The nurses had been enlisted in the scheme, and brought in extra trays and chairs. Soon all six of them had a plate of mouth-watering food in front of them, and Stella was regaling them all with tales of her life working in a Bond Street tailor’s shop. There was a lot of laughter and warmth, and the nurses were invited to join them when the main course of macaroni and cheese with a broccoli salad had finished, because Linda had brought a huge gingerbread cake with sour cream icing, and there was enough for everybody. Paul pulled out the guitars he had brought, handing one to John, and then he and John sang a few of their acoustic numbers, including ‘This Boy’ and ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ from their recent concert tour repertoire.

While everyone clapped and cheered and sang along (including a few young doctors who were in the area), Linda watched, and listened to the words of ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ as if she was hearing them for the first time. Wow, she thought, way back in 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, that is how John felt about Paul… Her eyes rested on Paul, and then John, and then back to Paul. As the two men sang, their eyes mingled, and their bodies leaned in towards each other, and the magic that surrounded them seemed to sparkle in the air around them. Linda felt herself tearing up. There was no fighting what was between John and Paul. It made no sense for her to even think of doing so. She would be there for Paul, just as she knew Paul would be there for her if it were her brother or sister in the hospital bed, and she would do what she could to buck both John and Paul up. John was, for better or worse, part of her family, and Paul would be devastated without him. She could not bear for Paul to be devastated, so she would do everything in her power to be a positive force in this fight against John’s cancer.

 

*****

 

“We need to go back in and do an excise of more lymph cells,” the oncologist was explaining. “From the surface the tumor did not appear to be very big, but once we got it out we realized that it was much thicker than we had anticipated. We can do that tomorrow, and then his chest needs to heal a bit from the surgery, then we will begin a radiation course. I would recommend a course of no more than two months. After we’re finished tomorrow, he can go home, and then return on an out patient basis in two weeks.” The doctor was talking to Paul, who had – as usual – taken control of the interaction.

They were all sitting in the office of the Chief of Oncology, who was consulting on John’s case. The paneled room was filled to the brim with oncology doctors with a specialty in melanoma, not to mention Dr. Sid and John and Paul. Paul was holding John’s hand with his right hand, while taking notes on his ever-present steno pad with his left. And while everyone in the room noticed the hand holding, no one wondered about it. When a person had cancer, he needed at least one friend who would hold his hand while he got bad news.

“With respect to the lymph node surgery tomorrow, I think John wants to do that.” Paul said this without doubt, and John’s head swiveled to look at Paul with surprise, but didn’t argue.

“But with respect to what happens after that, I’ve done some research,” Paul said to the quiet room. All eyes were on him, including John’s. “No offense is intended, but I want to get a second opinion about the next step.” Paul’s voice was non-judgmental but firm.

The Chief of Oncology barely blinked as he said, “Of course. And who are you calling in?”

Paul let only a brief moment pass before he said “We’ve got an appointment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in four days.”

Silence encompassed the room. Sloan-Kettering in New York was one of the best cancer hospitals in the world. Paul had certainly done his homework.

“I see,” the Chief Oncologist said. “So we’ll do the excise tomorrow, and then we will wait to hear back from you what your decision will be.” His pride was a tiny bit injured, of course, but if it were his wife in this situation, he probably would have done much the same thing. One didn’t want to take even minimum, microscopic chances when a loved one’s life was on the line.


	2. chapter 2

Chapter 2 The meeting with specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York was a subdued affair. John and Paul had flown there in a private plane. John was not eager for the press and public to find out about his cancer. He knew it was most likely an impossible task to keep the diagnosis and his treatment secret, but he wasn’t quite ready to have it be so “real” that he had to read about it the newspaper or hear about it on the radio. Paul was doing his best to accommodate all of John’s needs and demands (there were a constant stream of them), including this one. As Paul had suspected, a day or two after his outburst in the McLen offices one of the gossip magazines had trumpeted “MACCA HAS CANCER!” Paul had his press agent quite honestly deny the story, and after a few more murmurs, the rumors had died down. But Paul knew that the press was now on alert, and it wouldn’t be long before they were on to the scent of the real story. Consequently, no one at McLen knew about John’s condition. It was not their business anyway, and someone there had already proven he or she couldn’t be trusted with such explosive information. In fact, John didn’t want anyone else to know beyond Paul, Linda and their kids. Paul had urged John to tell Julian and Sean, but John was waiting for the second opinion before breaking it to them. Apparently, John thought a “second opinion” meant that he might not have cancer after all, and nothing Paul could say to him would disabuse John of this notion. But obviously their accountant and personal assistant needed to know in order to pay bills, and make travel plans and appointments. Paul also argued that John Eastman should know, as he had numerous contacts in the New York medical establishment due to his and his wife’s tireless charity fundraising for medical causes. That meant that Jody Eastman would know, because John told his wife everything. In any event, it had been John and Jody who had steered Paul to Sloan Kettering, and their contacts there had smoothed the way. So, it was John and Paul alone who unobtrusively entered the hospital’s private garage entry in their limo with blacked out windows. Their meeting was with the Chief of Oncology and the team of doctors who specialized in skin cancer and melanoma. As John and Paul entered the conference room, they noted a screen was set up, so it appeared that the team had prepared a presentation of some kind. Introductions were made, with everyone mumbling the obligatory and inevitable “honor to meet you/love your music” comments. If any of them were surprised by McCartney’s presence, none of them said so. The hospital administrator was there, too, and she had in John’s file the written confidentiality waiver form signed by John giving the hospital permission to share all of his medical information with Paul. For this reason, none of those assembled felt uncomfortable discussing John’s case with an unrelated adult, however odd a circumstance it might be. John might have felt relief at seeing such a glittering array of topnotch doctors before him, all dedicated to his wellbeing. But instead he felt utterly intimidated – not just by the team of doctors, but also by what he knew would be an avalanche of complex information coming his way. As he had always done – or for as long as he could remember he had always done – John looked to Paul for support, and Paul gave him a confidant wink and smile in return. By this means, Paul was basically telling John, don’t worry - I’ve got it covered. In that moment, John didn’t stop to think how amazing their connection was and always had been, or how lucky they were to each have someone he could communicate with wordlessly. The Chief Oncologist spoke first. “Mr. Lennon, we’ve all read your records from the Royal Marsden, and understand that you are seeking a second opinion.” John immediately turned in a panic to Paul, who was sitting right next to him. Paul responded. “Yes. We do accept the test results, of course - which were reviewed by a whole staff of doctors in London, after all. What we’re interested in hearing about is the treatment options. We want to make sure that the treatment is the best and most up-to-date available. You see what the Royal Marsden suggests, and we’d like to know how this hospital would handle it.” Paul’s articulate presentation was met with a respectful silence before the melanoma specialist responded. “We have some questions first,” he said. “The main question is, since this tumor was discovered so early, we have more options. Mr. Lennon, do you prefer an aggressive approach from the start, or would a more staged approach be preferable?” John stared at the doctor for a long moment, cleared this throat, but then gave Paul a pleading look. Paul spoke again. “Perhaps you can describe the differences between the aggressive and staged approaches in more detail?” The doctor explained that even though no cancer cells were found in the closest lymph nodes, there still was no guarantee that cells weren’t elsewhere in the lymph system or even in the blood. The aggressive treatment, he explained, would entail radiation at the area directly surrounding the site, followed by a course of adjuvant chemotherapy – chemo intended to kill any remaining cells after surgery and radiation that may have floated free from the infected area. “Of course,” he ended, “chemo hasn’t been the most successful treatment for melanoma, which is why it is so important to catch this type of cancer as early as possible.” The staged approach, the doctor continued, would follow the Royal Marsden treatment – a course of radiation of the site followed by a “watch and wait” strategy, to which Sloan-Kettering would add periodic full body imaging – with a fairly new technique called magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. “Actually,” the doctor said, “St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London has the most advanced machine and protocol for full body imaging in the world, so whatever decision you make, you should definitely seek an appointment there and determine how frequently you should be imaged.” The doctor added that this staged approach meant being ever vigilant about searching the body for new tumors, or responding to any potential symptoms, no matter how slight, by seeking immediate medical advice. John heard the second choice and sat up with excitement. It wasn’t necessary to do the chemo! But Paul had his wits about him, and had more questions. “What are the risks associated with these approaches?” he asked, his face expressionless. He had been writing notes on a steno pad throughout, while listening to the doctors as if with his whole body. The doctor explained all the risks associated with chemo – mainly side effects that ranged from minor to extremely unpleasant - adding that even if the full course of therapy was completed it might not keep the cancer from recurring. The risk of the staged approach was, of course, that loose cancer cells that had already made it past the radiation area, unchecked by chemo, could metastasize to a part of the body where it might not be found until it was too late, although the new MRI technology might reduce that risk somewhat if John was diligent about having it done regularly. “Let’s assume,” Paul said, “- just for the moment – that we choose chemotherapy.” John glared at him, but Paul ignored it and continued. “What does that entail?” “The main drug for melanoma is called dacarbazine. It comes in powder form, and then is mixed in a solution before it is pumped into a vein and thus into the body for systemic treatment. We don’t recommend anything less than a full course, which is comprised of 6 treatments over a period of approximately 6 months. Generally, you will receive some medication and a chemo treatment over a few days, and then three weeks without treatment, and then so on every three weeks until the course is complete.” By now, the doctor was speaking directly to Paul, and felt only momentary awkwardness by referring to the patient as “you” while looking at someone else. “Okay, so here’s the hard question,” Paul said. “If it was you, or your loved one, what treatment would you choose?” Paul was staring intensely at the melanoma specialist, who was clearly the point person on this team. The doctor squirmed. He hated this question, (and almost all patients asked it), because he had no idea what he would do if he were in that situation. He thought he knew – he would go in with all guns blazing. But he also understood the cost of chemo to a patient physically and emotionally, and the sad fact that chemo hadn’t really proven to be very effective in stopping melanoma once it made it into the lymph system. Maybe if he or his wife were the patient he wouldn’t do it. He really didn’t know. But patients deserve answers, and he had a stock answer ready. It wasn’t a very helpful one, though, because ultimately the decision had to be made by the patient himself. “I am a scientist, and so I would probably choose to do the radiation, the chemo, followed by MRI’s every 6 to 12 months until I was certain the cancer was gone from my body. But saying that, I realize that I might be going through a lot of unnecessary discomfort and I would be prepared for that and accept that fact. On the other hand, I have had many patients with Stage II melanoma who chose to forego chemo and their outcomes were excellent.” The doctor noted Paul’s confused expression, and decided to make it easier on him. “And I should add that it is considered very aggressive to do a chemo course on Stage IIC melanoma. It is not the usually recommended treatment.” Paul nodded. He felt a bit more knowledgeable now, although he was still unsettled in his mind about what they should do. For the following twenty minutes, the doctors showed some slides of melanoma tumors, how they look on different parts of the body, and listed symptoms to look for. Paul took copious notes and paid strict attention. John’s head was swimming, and about halfway through he lay his head down on his folded arms. Paul noticed this, and instinctively began to rub John’s back in sympathy with his right hand, while he continued to take notes with his left. He’d always been a fantastic multi-tasker. ***** As they climbed back into their limo, and headed for their loft on Central Park West, they were quiet and laden with heavy information. They barely spoke the whole way, and then went up the elevator to their floor in silence. When they let themselves into the loft, which their personal assistant had made sure was prepared, John went immediately to the sofa and collapsed. His head was pounding, and he didn’t want to hear the words “cancer”, “tumor”, “chemo”, “radiation”, “side effects”, or even “doctor” ever again as long as he lived. Too bad that wasn’t going to happen. Paul could tell that John had his surfeit of hearing about his illness, and forced himself to drop the subject, although he had a million questions and his mind was whirling with options and he wanted to reach a decision so he could bring the whirling to a stop. He knew he had to distract John in some way, and neither one of them was feeling sexual at the moment. He had a brilliant thought. “Let’s call Jason and Gerry,” he said brightly, “and have them over for dinner. Maybe we can watch that movie I keep telling you about – I brought the video.” John, who was in a cranky mood, had been prepared to shoot down any suggestion Paul had made, just because, but seeing Jason right now was just what the “doctor” ordered. “Okay, but don’t tell them about me,” John said plaintively. “I don’t want to talk about it tonight.” Paul nodded in assent, and picked up the phone to call. Across the park, Jason picked up the ringing phone and was amazed to hear Paul’s voice. They’d only seen each other about six weeks earlier, so he hadn’t thought he’d hear from them so soon. He was even more amazed to find out they were in New York, and just across the park, and desirous of his company - and Gerry’s of course. Paul ordered food to be delivered from a vegetarian restaurant, and opened a few bottles of red wine to let them breathe in anticipation of Jason and Gerry’s arrival. When he next stuck his head in the sitting room, he saw that John was sound asleep, sitting up. Paul didn’t blame him. The data dump they’d had that day combined with the last 5 days of stress plus jet lag were enough to put anyone under; Paul only wished he could sleep. He hadn’t strung longer than an hour or two of sleep together at one time since he’d heard the word “cancer” out of Dr. Sid’s mouth. He felt as though his body was in eternal overdrive. If he kept busy and occupied, then he wouldn’t have to focus on the chance – however slight it might be – that the cancer cells had made it into the lymph system and were lurking there underneath the surface, ready to pop up and slay their hopes and dreams at any time. Paul shook his head clear of this thought, and looked around for something constructive to do, but could think of nothing else. Fortunately, the doorbell rang at that moment. Saved by the bell! The bell didn’t awaken John, so Paul put his finger to his lips in the “shush” position as he opened the door to his guests. When they stepped in and saw John asleep, they both smiled warmly. “Should we go away and come back later?” Gerry asked softly. “You don’t need to go, and you don’t need to whisper, either,” Paul said conversationally. “Just come and sit with me at the dining table. He’ll wake up when he’s ready.” Paul poured them each a glass of wine, and they all took a seat. “What brings you to New York again so soon?” Jason asked. “We had some unexpected business, but we took care of most of it today, and we’re going back to London in a day or two,” Paul said. “It’s a good opportunity to see you guys again. We had a good time at your cottage,” Paul said, and then his face lit with mischief, “but somehow I think we had a better time than you did. Sorry ‘bout that!” Jason and Gerry grinned, remembering the sexual antics of their houseguests and the wonderful cartoons they had drawn to commemorate it. “It shamed us,” Jason said drily. “We clearly are not up to snuff in that department and need to step it up.” Paul laughed. “I think we were just so giddy after that tour finally ended,” he said apologetically. “We’re not always so…rude…as houseguests, so I hope you’ll consider inviting us another time. We’ll try to behave ourselves if you do.” Paul’s face was alive with merriment and humor, and Jason and Gerry were chuckling along as he spoke. Just then the doorbell rang again, and as Paul got up to welcome the catering waiter, John stirred on the sofa, and gradually noticed that Jason and Gerry were there. He shook himself awake as they approached him and took seats opposite from him in easy chairs. “John – you look exhausted!” Jason cried, noting that John looked older than he had looked just a few weeks earlier. “Yeah, too much gadding about,” he grumbled, running a hand through his unruly hair. The once lustrous and curly auburn hair was now a tad thinner, and lightly streaked with grey. “It’s a treat to see you again so soon,” Jason added. John acknowledged this, and spoke softly with Jason for a few moments about this and that. Gerry was smoking his pipe and periodically enjoying his wine as the others spoke, and Paul was directing the waiter on how to set the table. Soon the waiter had left, and Paul came in with a glass of wine for John, setting it down in front of him, and then taking a seat on the sofa next to him. “I thought we could watch this film from George Harrison’s production company – George sent me it – it’s from a few years ago. It’s called ‘Withnail and I’. I saw it with Linda while we were in St. Lucia, and the two of us nearly split a gut laughing.” Jason and Gerry were momentarily surprised to hear Paul mention Linda’s name so casually, because he didn’t speak of his wife and family in their presence – or he hadn’t yet. Jason looked up to see John’s reaction, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Well, of course he wouldn’t: he practically lived with the woman, after all. No matter how long it had lasted or successful it appeared, Jason and Gerry still had a hard time believing in the triangle situation John and Linda shared with Paul. “Sounds interesting,” Gerry said, picking up the video case and studying it. “Oh, Richard Grant. I really like him.” “Well, let’s eat before the food goes cold,” Paul suggested, feeling awkward, as if he were dragging the whole weight of the evening on his single set of shoulders. John did get up and sit at the table, but he toyed with his food more than ate it. Paul was watching John not eating with concern on his face, which Jason and Gerry each individually noticed, and then noted to each other via a shared look. Something’s not right, Jason thought. Paul is trying too hard, and John is totally out of it. The dinner conversation continued this way – stilted and lacking John’s wit. Paul spoke too much, and John appeared to be getting irritated by it. John finally said, “You don’t have to fill every second with noise, mate,” in a mean-spirited tone of voice. Jason and Gerry were horrified at the remark, embarrassed for Paul, and unable to meet anyone’s eyes. But Paul handled the insult well, subsiding in silence, and not appearing to pout. Everyone ate quietly for a few moments, until John spoke again in the same mean-spirited tone. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me either, you know, I’m not a fucking volcano about to explode.” He was glaring at Paul as he said this. It was another unprovoked jibe at Paul in front of them, and Jason wasn’t having any more of it. “I think we should move into the sitting room and watch the movie,” Jason said in a firm tone, putting his napkin on his empty plate and pushing his chair out. Jason glared at Gerry, and Gerry did the same. Paul then followed, and reluctantly, so did John. John was shaping up to be in a nasty mood. He was angry at the fucking world, and since his “world” consisted mainly of Paul, it meant that Paul would bear the brunt of this anger. They all trooped into the sitting room, but any chance of enjoyment in the evening was gone. Jason didn’t know if it would be better if he and Gerry excused themselves and left the two men alone, or if they should stay in solidarity with Paul, and watch the film. Perhaps the film would lighten the mood? “So what is this damn movie you insist on showing,” John growled, grabbing the video box, and then throwing it down in disgust. “And what the fuck does George know about movies?” Paul said, “I just thought it would be fun to watch, but we can do something else if you’d prefer.” Paul was trying to look upbeat and polite. “No, I don’t prefer” John said, imitating Paul’s voice in a denigrating way. He then plopped down on the sofa, crossing his arms in front of his chest like an angry 8 year-old. “I really think we should go,” Gerry whispered to Jason, who nodded back. Jason knew it would be his job to extricate them from this horrible scene. “I think perhaps we should do this another time,” Jason suggested softly to Paul, “John is tired, and you must be feeling the effects of jet lag by now.” He was trying to give Paul a graceful ‘out’. “Oh, you don’t have to leave, Jason,” John said, his voice dropping back into a more normal tone. “I’m just irritable tonight. Sit down, Jason. Let’s talk. I just don’t want to watch a movie.” John glared at Paul, who shrugged, and went to clean up the kitchen. Gerry saw this and followed him. “What’s gotten into you?” Jason demanded of John after Paul and Gerry had moved to the other end of the open-plan area. “You’re being really rude to Paul in front of us. It’s not something Gerry and I want to see or hear.” John looked surprised at Jason’s determined remarks, and then he smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.” “Don’t apologize to me!” Jason said sharply. “It’s Paul who deserves an apology, preferably in front of both of us.” “Maybe he deserves one, but he doesn’t need one. Trust me. Paul and I understand each other.” John was staring into his wine, now, and deciding whether to tell Jason about his diagnosis. He didn’t want to talk about it, he really didn’t, but Jason was – strangely – almost like a mother figure to John, and he knew that Jason’s reaction would be the right one, whatever it was. He wouldn’t become histrionic, and he wouldn’t say stupid things like, ‘I’m sure it’s nothing’, or ‘they’ve come so far with their treatments.’ He also knew he could trust Jason and Gerry not to tell a soul about his condition. In a way, this would serve as an explanation for why he had been so rude to Paul. In the kitchen area, Paul was stiff and quiet, loading the dishes in the machine as Gerry silently passed them to him. Gerry’s eyes were filled with empathy. It had never occurred to him, in all these years, that Paul was the one who was treated cavalierly in the relationship. He had always assumed it would have been John. Still, Gerry – like Paul – didn’t like to talk about messy things like emotions, so quietly helping him clean up was the extent of his proffered comfort. When they finished, Paul smiled at Gerry and said, “So - let’s go face the lion’s den.” Gerry laughed, and again felt a strong tug of affection for Paul. Jason was chattering on about the members of their salon group, filling in John with all the gossip. John was quiet, gathering his thoughts, and thinking of how he was going to break the news to Jason and Gerry. When all four men were seated again, John interrupted Jason’s stream of consciousness chattering with an abrupt announcement: “I’ve got cancer.” Everyone shut up and froze in place. Jason’s mouth was still open and he forgot to close it. Paul had been staring into his wine, but now his eyes were looking up over the glass and across to John. “Wha-what?” Jason finally asked, not believing what he thought he’d heard. “I’ve got cancer,” John repeated, his voice a little lower and less strident this time. “John!” That was all that Jason could find to say. Gerry spoke. “This is sudden. When did you find out?” His voice was calm and gentle. “About a week ago,” John said. “On Paul’s birthday.” Oh, great, Paul thought. Now it’s my birthday’s fault too! “John!” Jason repeated, but finding his voice. “Where? What kind?” “Skin cancer,” John said. Jason asked hopefully, “Is it bad?” “It’s melanoma.” The word “melanoma” hovered in the air for a few moments, and then Paul spoke. “It was one small tumor, and John caught it early. They removed it, and the biopsy shows that we’re only in Stage II, which gives us lots of treatment options.” Paul’s voice was subdued. “We don’t have stage II cancer,” John said nastily. “I do.” Paul bit his lip. This was John going back to his old defense technique. Treat Paul like crap when other people were around so they wouldn’t know or understand how much Paul meant to him. Of course, from Paul’s point of view, understanding John’s reason for acting that way never did quite make up for the hurt it caused. “I’m sure Paul feels as though the cancer is personal to him as well, John,” Jason remonstrated. “You’re lucky to have someone who cares that much about you.” Paul waved his hand at Jason in a don’t bother, it’s okay gesture and said, “John’s right. He is the one who has to go thru the treatments. I’m kind of left sitting around with my thumb up my ass. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I guess I’m nattering on and getting on John’s nerves.” When he had started talking, he hadn’t intended to say anything half so revealing, but his lack of sleep was beginning to show. The usual barriers he held up to shield himself from others were not quite so high as a result. Jason and Gerry’s eyes were filled with empathy as they watched Paul for a few uncomfortable moments. Into the awkward silence, a voice was heard. “Sorry, Paul, for being an ass,” John said roughly. “You can’t help being an ass, John,” Paul said with a smirk on his face. “You were born that way. Too bad there’s no treatment for that.” ***** The next day Paul managed to get John to sit down and talk to him about the treatment options. John had been dragging his feet. “It’s not like I have to decide right this minute,” John whined. “They can’t do anything for another week – until the surgery heals.” “It’s not easy walking around with this hanging over our heads, and there are still a lot of questions we need to ask,” Paul insisted. “What questions are those, Pud?” John’s voice was not unkind. “No matter what the answers are, we’ve got to go through it. Knowing all the details about it doesn’t make it any easier.” “Maybe not for you, it doesn’t,” Paul said, stung by John’s comment. “But for me, it’s very important. I don’t want us to make the wrong decision, and you don’t know what decision to make unless you have all the answers.” “You’ll never have all the answers, Paul,” John said softly. Why is it that this was so obvious to John, and Paul couldn’t see it at all? “I think I could go eenie meenie miney mo and make the right decision. Whatever choice I make, we’ll never be able to prove what might have happened had we made the other choice.” Paul was staring at John in frustration and wondering when he suddenly had become such a fucking philosopher. He sighed heavily and John relented. “Okay, okay. My preference is not to do chemo,” John said. “I’ve been reluctant to discuss this with you, because I think you’re gonna want me to do the chemo.” Until that exact moment Paul hadn’t realized that he – in fact – did want John to do the chemo. He wanted John to do the chemo, the radiation, the MRIs, wear garlands of garlic cloves around his neck, throw gallons of salt over his shoulder, and carry around a prayer rug wherever he went for frequent pleading sessions with God. But perhaps this wasn’t reasonable? “See,” Paul said carefully, tredding softly, “I’m afraid the only reason you don’t want to do chemo is that you think the process will be an ordeal.” “Well, d’uh, Paul…of course that’s why I don’t want to do it! I would if it was necessary, but you heard the doc – it is not the normal method of treatment for stage II, and there’s no guarantee it would even work!” “But,” Paul stressed, “if – and this is a big if, I grant you – but if even one cancer cell is in your lymph nodes, and it is no longer near the site of your mole – radiation won’t have any chance of killing it. Only the chemo has a chance, however small that might be.” “Yeah, but it’s poison, Paul, and it will kill a lot of healthy cells, too; cells I’m gonna need.” “And the cells will recover after the chemo is over. It is only six months, John. You can handle six months, can’t you?” John frowned and said, “Six months is a long time to be utterly miserable if you don’t have to be.” Paul was stymied, but decided to go for broke. “If it was me who had the cancer – what would you want me to do?” Paul already knew the answer. John grinned. “Well, if it was you who had the cancer, obviously I’d want you to suffer through the chemo. That’s a whole different situation!” Paul laughed along with John, but then sobered again. His voice became soft and beseeching. “And I would do it, you know. I’d do it for you and Linda and the kids. I would take every possible advantage available to me to increase my odds, no matter how small the advantage or the odds.” John slumped in his chair. He hated needles, he hated hospitals and doctor’s offices, he hated medicines, and he hated the whole shebang. Radiation seemed bad enough, but at least it wasn’t as intrusive. But he was watching Paul’s face, and he could see the hope dancing in the luminous hazel eyes, and he found that he couldn’t say no to that man. “Okay, Paul. We’ll do the chemo. But let’s do it in London. I want to be in our home when I’m going through it.” Paul felt a measure of relief with this huge decision made, and set about making the calls to have the New York doctors set up the protocols for the London doctors to follow. He would have preferred to have Sloan Kettering do it, since it was their procedure, but Paul knew when John had been pushed as far as he would go, and John had already reached that limit. ***** The night they got back from London, Linda made them dinner, and they sat around the Cavendish dinner table laughing and talking with the kids. No one treated John as if he were made out of fine china, and this suited him just fine. He was already self-conscious about walking around with cancer in front of people. It reminded him of how he’d felt as a 22 year old being married. He had likened it then to walking around with his fly open, which is how he felt now. This was the main reason why John didn’t want to tell too many people about his illness. He didn’t want the pitying looks, the “helpful” comments, and the poorly executed attempts to act as though nothing was wrong. Throughout the meal, Linda was watching Paul. He was her main concern, although of course she loved John and worried about him. But getting Paul through this was her job, just as getting John through this was Paul’s job. At the dinner table he appeared to be in good spirits, laughing and joking like everyone else. Later, when it was just the three of them – John, Paul and her – sitting in the living room, Paul explained what had happened in New York, and told her that John was going to do the chemo as a “belt and suspenders” kind of thing. Linda hadn’t been in the conference room or heard the talk about the relative ineffectiveness of chemo for melanoma, so she was cheered that the chemo was considered to be only prophylactic, and not strictly necessary. She felt that must be excellent news. As Paul explained the procedure, he seemed together and focused, and did not appear to be in need of much emotional support. Linda was gauging this carefully. She felt she would know the second the footings crumbled, and then she would be there to catch him; hopefully, before he hit the ground. John excused himself and left for his house, and Paul said he’d be over after he’d spent some time with Linda. They sat quietly for a few moments until Linda asked him, “How’re you holding up?” Paul smiled and said, “I’m a bit tired. All this jetting around, and the crash course on cancer didn’t help, either. When I do fall asleep I’m dreaming of marching armies of nasty looking cells.” He grinned to take the grittiness out of what he had just said, and then added, “I’m going to take a long, hot shower.” After Paul had disappeared upstairs to the master bathroom, Linda collected the empty wineglasses and carried them into the kitchen to rinse. As she did so, it suddenly struck her: of course. She headed immediately for the stairs. ***** Paul left the overhead light off, and allowed only the small nightlights to illumine the bathroom. As soon as the shower door closed behind him, and the hot water began to cascade down his back, he leaned his forehead against the tiled wall and groaned. Up from his lower stomach came a sound that he had never heard himself make before. It was the sound of a wounded animal. He turned around so that his back was to the wall now, and then slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting against it, with his knees bent in front of him. The sobs came then. They shook his whole body, and his hands went over his head as if to protect and shield him from whatever invisible harmful spirits might be lurking in the dark room. The pounding water covered the sounds and hid the tears. It was the only way he could allow himself to break down. Then, the shower door slid open, and Linda was there – naked. She stepped in and sat down next to him, and took him in her arms. She held him while he sobbed until there were no tears left, and the water had turned cold. She then got up and turned off the water, and sat back down with him and held him some more, even though the sobs had ended. She knew he didn’t want to talk about it. He just needed a safe place where he could be weak for a while, since everywhere else he had to be so strong.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Although to Paul John’s illness was foremost in his mind, and so much so that it threatened to take over his whole life, the relentlessly responsible part of Paul’s brain was reminding him that the world still did not know about John’s cancer, and neither did anyone at McLen. Therefore, he had to show his face there, and he had to make sure the business went on as usual. Of course, John didn’t see it this way. He didn’t want Paul to even leave his side. As a result, Paul had been sleeping every night with John, who could not bear to be left alone, and so far Linda had been very understanding. “You’re not bedridden, John,” Paul would point out patiently. “I can leave for a few hours, get some work done, and come back, and you won’t even notice I’m gone.” “When I’m alone I start worrying,” John would respond. “I need you to distract me. I don’t want to be alone.” They had this conversation so frequently, that Paul had finally hit on the idea of drawing on Linda as a back up. In truth, Linda had asked him how she could help, and that is what encouraged Paul to consider her as an option. So, on this particular bright shiny morning in late June, just a few days before John’s radiation treatment was to begin, Paul left for the McLen offices, wondering if John and Linda would still be alive and in one piece when he got back in a few hours. He chuckled to himself. Paul had persuaded John to give it a try. John hadn’t been enthusiastic, but realized that once Paul got a bone in his teeth there wasn’t much a person could do about it but go along. It had been Paul’s idea that John should spend a few hours over at Cavendish, and hang out with Linda, when Paul was at work. That way he wouldn’t be alone, he’d have someone to “distract” him, and Paul could get some necessary work done while flying the flag at the office and in front of the press. Still, it meant that John and Linda would have to spend significant alone time together without Paul there to mediate. Aye, there’s the rub. And of course it wasn’t Linda Paul was worried about… ***** John was pouting. Yes, Linda thought, as she snuck another quick peek, he was definitely pouting. It was the late morning, and Paul had left only 20 minutes earlier, having dragged John over to Cavendish for what he jokingly referred to as “babysitting.” (Just between the two of them, of course. John would not have been amused if he had heard the joke.) John reminded her of James, but of James when he was 8 years old. Now that James was almost 12 he wouldn’t be caught dead behaving that way! Linda brought what she thought might be the icebreaker out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where John lounged on the sofa dramatically in all of his gloomy splendor. Hot steaming cocoa and fresh-made warm banana bread is what she brought. She placed the tray on the coffee table in front of John, and then sat down on the other end of the sofa, forcing John to move his feet to make room, and she grabbed the other end of the throw blanket, not even asking him to share it with her. She picked up John’s mug and passed it over to him wordlessly, and there were a few seconds there when she wasn’t sure he was going to take it from her. Their eyes met. Although there were only two of them, it was like a Mexican standoff. And then John blinked. He accepted the mug, and sat up more so he could actually drink it without spilling it all over himself. His nose was perking; the warm banana bread had a seductive aroma that John was finding difficult to ignore. Linda solved the problem for him by leaning over (without being asked), and putting a generous slice on a plate for him. John took it from her a bit more graciously than he’d taken the mug, and a moment later he grudgingly said, “Thanks.” “You’re welcome!” Linda responded cheerfully. She had a sunny, uncomplicated smile on her face. John tried, but could find no fault with it. “Are you afraid about next week?” Linda asked, deciding not to beat around the bush. John was the type of person who never appreciated bush-beating anyway. John was actually relieved that Linda had pointed out the 500-pound guerilla in the room. He decided that this whole scenario wasn’t as bad as he thought it might be. Here he had a whole other person to whom he could lay out his complaints and worries. Paul had heard them all at least one hundred times by now, and John was actually pleased to have found a new ventee. “I’m most afraid of what I don’t know, if that makes any sense,” John said honestly. “I guess after I’ve been through it once it won’t be as scary.” Linda nodded sympathetically, and she showed every evidence of being interested in hearing more, so of course John could not turn away from what he perceived to be such an avid audience. “So what is involved in the radiation treatment?” Linda asked dutifully, drawing John out so he could vent some of his fears and concerns. “Monday through Friday for at least six weeks, they tell me. They say it may feel like a sunburn after a few treatments.” “Does it hurt when it’s happening?” Linda asked, sympathy etched on her face. “They say not,” John said dubiously, “but I’ll believe it when I experience it.” Linda nodded sagely. “And the chemo? When does that start?” John made a face. “I guess a month or so after the radiation is over. I’m not 100% sure. It is going to be a long-drawn-out thing, because it is 6 months of chemo after the radiation. Seems like a lot for one tiny tumor.” “Cancer is nothing to fool around with,” Linda said firmly. “It’s best to hit it with everything they’ve got.” “So Paul keeps telling me. Did he ask you to tell me that?” John was half joking when he asked, but he was disappointed by the fact that Linda just laughed at his remark without commenting. But talking to Linda had given him a sense of relief. Still, he didn’t want to give Linda the satisfaction of knowing that she’d set his mind at rest. The two of them had experienced a roller coaster relationship. They had careered from high heights, where they thought they really loved each other, to low depths, where they were convinced they hated each other, and everywhere in between. And John had noticed that ever since the concert tour, his relationship with Linda had been getting more and more strained. He didn’t think he was the one causing the strain this time; surprisingly, he had felt the strain coming from Linda’s direction. “Do you hate me?” John asked suddenly, apparently apropos of nothing. Linda’s carefully orchestrated affect crumbled. She took a deep breath. This was a moment of truth. She had to be clear, but she had to be honest. John Lennon would not accept anything less than that from her. “I don’t hate you, John,” she said, commitment to the communication clear in her eyes. “I feel, well, dogged by you.” John looked at her curiously. He didn’t get what she meant. “You’re like this cloud that hangs over my marriage; that has always hung over it. It followed Paul and me around everywhere. I can hardly complain because it was there from the beginning - I guess you could say I knew what I was getting into. But I thought that over time, the cloud would pass, and Paul and I would be alone in our marriage.” John heard this information from Linda for the first time, but for some reason it didn’t surprise him at all. It was too similar to how he felt in the 1970’s when he was separated from Paul, and he had lived with Yoko and tried desperately but unsuccessfully to build a new life for himself apart from Paul. So here was confirmation that Paul had been going through the same thing. What a pair of fools the two of them were! To put each other, and these two women, through so much emotional angst for no reason other than they could not face their own or society’s scorn over a same sex relationship! It would have been a total fucking waste if it weren’t for the children - Paul’s children, and Sean - all of whom would not exist if the two of them hadn’t struck out, for a time, on their own. It was hard now to regret the fact that those children were alive. In fact, John couldn’t imagine either of their lives without the children. In the end, things happened the way they happened because that was the way they were supposed to happen. No point in regretting it all now. John’s arm shot up towards Linda, and he held his hand out in open invitation. Linda, seeing this, decided to grab hold. They squeezed each other’s hands, and then smiled at each other - not with amusement or joy, but with sympathy and appreciation. “I’m a selfish bastard,” John said, his eyes lit with a warm glow. “I am so possessive and territorial. I know it isn’t fair to you, how much I demand of Paul.” Linda thought about what John said, instead of reacting immediately to it. Then she asked, “What do you think will happen if you let go a little?” “Let what go?” John asked, genuinely confused by the question. “If you didn’t hold on so tight to the people you loved - what do you think would happen?” “Oh,” John said. “I know what happened in the past -they always left me.” “Paul hasn’t left you. You were pretty horrible to him, and yet he didn’t leave you.” Linda was only just getting started. She had wanted to have this conversation with John for years, but had never felt as though the opportunity had presented itself. “You sound like my therapist, now,” John said, smiling warmly at her. “Of course, in my mind I know you’re right. But in any given moment my emotions take over, and I have to struggle to get back in control. Sometimes I don’t have the ability to overcome the fears and I act like a fool.” Linda chuckled. “I get jealous, too, you know.” “Oh?” John’s eyes danced with amusement. This was getting interesting. “Yeah,” Linda said, warming up and eager to share her thoughts with this, her long-time rival. “But my pride won’t let me act it out too much - at least not with respect to you. Other women - yeah! All the devils from hell would not be able to stop me, and Paul has heard more than his share of my swearing at him over his flirting with other women! But, for some reason, it’s harder to compete with you. It’s not just because you’re John Lennon, and you grew up together, and you’re creative partners. It’s also because you’re a man. There’s something a little difficult in competing when your husband is having a relationship with a man! So I just sort of swallow it. Doesn’t mean I don’t have all the same base feelings that you have. I guess I’m just better at not acting on them.” “It must be great to be Paul, with both of us desperate for all of his company,” John joked. Linda laughed but then said, “You know as well as I do that Paul is torn practically in half by it. If he were the kind of person to enjoy our pain, then he wouldn’t be worth our love, would he?” John was silenced by Linda’s sweet posit. He met her eyes and the wonder he had for her intuitive intelligence clearly was reflected there, and Linda actually saw it. It filled her with warmth. “No,” John agreed softly. “You’re right. If he were an asshole, we none of us would be in this mess.” **** When Paul got home he was fully prepared to go directly into damage control. He figured there would be deep strained silences, and perhaps even John had stormed home in a rage. When he stepped into the vestibule at Cavendish, the house was quiet. It was dinnertime, and there was the comforting smell of dinner, and as Paul approached the kitchen he heard the usual clattering sounds of dinner plates being set and several people talking to and over each other. He entered the kitchen filled with a sense of foreboding, but was presented with a cozy sight. Stella was sitting on John’s lap and the two were jabbering loudly, and Paul couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Mary, James and Linda were laughing loudly at their antics. “Hello?” Paul asked, his face lit up with a relieved amusement. “Dad!” James shouted. “Hello, darling,” Linda laughed; she was still shaking her head over John and Stella’s antics. Stella jumped up and threw her arms around her father, who hugged her fiercely back. Mary chimed in from the kitchen island, where she was putting the finishing touches on a salad: “Hey dad! Welcome home!” Paul’s eyes searched for and finally met John’s. John looked genuinely happy to see him, and Paul couldn’t see any evidence that John was faking his cheerfulness. Well, that was a relief! Paul thought. Having someone to share the burden of John’s neediness with during this trying time was going to make a big difference in his ability to function. ***** The hospital corridors felt like they were closing in on him, as John, accompanied by Paul, followed the signs that led him to the radiation department. The previous week he had gone to St. Bartholomew’s and had a full body MRI, and then they had also done a detailed MRI around the surgical site. The purpose was to help the doctors plan his radiation treatment and to look for more tumors. They had not found more tumors, and now the pre-treatment tests had been done and the radiation schedule developed. It was subject to change, of course, as the weeks progressed, but it was at least a starting point. As he sat in the waiting room, he grabbed Paul’s hand and squeezed. He didn’t consciously realize he was holding and squeezing Paul’s hand, but Paul finally squeezed back hard enough to register in John’s mind, and he loosened his death grip and Paul’s fingers went back to pink from white. “It’ll be over before you know it,” Paul said softly. “I’m looking at about 8 months of misery, Paul. It ain’t gonna be ‘over’ for a very long time.” John’s mouth was set in a hard, stubborn line, and Paul knew better than to respond. The clock ticked, and it seemed to literally crawl from minute to minute. Paul could think of nothing else to say, so he instead massaged the back of John’s hand with his thumb. John seemed to have disappeared into his own mind, although he was jiggling his right leg nervously at a fast pace, which was causing Paul to get nervous by proxy. ***** Now John sat on the cold wooden chair and stared at the machine. His expression was quizzical more than fearful. It looked similar to the MRI machine he’d already met, and that experience had turned out to be painless. Still. The big red warning signs everywhere - X-RAY - had reminded him that he was about to be blasted with radiation. He turned his head to see the doorway again. His nerves started kicking in. Paul couldn’t come in with him because the hospital didn’t want to “expose” Paul to any unnecessary radiation. Great. Not that John wanted to endanger Paul; it just reminded him again that the aim of today’s activity was to kill a whole swathe of his skin cells and the underlying tissue. The technician suddenly buzzed in, carrying heavy silver pads. They were meant to protect the innocent parts of John’s body from the guilty ones. John was shirtless, and shivered under the light weight of a hospital gown. He was greeted summarily by the technician, who was bustling around the machine. “I think we’re ready for you, Mr. Lennon,” he said. “You ‘think’?” John managed to squeak, forcing out at least a vestige of that old Liverpudlian cheek. The technician took him literally. “Yes. Now remove the gown and lie on the table. It will be a bit cold.” John hissed as his naked back hit the glass table. “A ‘bit’, yes,” he responded sarcastically. At least he was allowed to keep his pants and socks on. Again the technician missed John’s humor and said, “It will warm up soon with your body heat.” John made a face that was halfway between a smile and a smirk. No point in engaging in repartee with this fellow. He was strictly business, all the way. The table was pushed towards the machine, until John was looking up at the dreaded dark place from which the radiation came. The pads were being arranged around the rest of his body, and soon the only exposed part was the upper left quadrant of his chest. The radiation oncologist finally made her appearance. She was a tiny middle-aged woman of East Asian descent, and her serious dark eyes peered at John through thick glasses. “How are you doing, Mr. Lennon?” she asked. “You tell me!” John replied with a plucky grin. He managed to coax a small smile out of her, which made her eyes soften. This caused John to relax a little. She squeezed his hand. We are going to mark your skin with ink, and you need to make sure you don’t wash it off because it will guide us in all your future sessions.” She then proceeded to make some marks on his chest. The technician adjusted the machine accordingly. This took several more minutes. Finally, they were done. “I’ll be in that room over there, beyond the window. If you need anything, just shout out. We’ll hear you. Do you have any questions before we start?” “How long will it take?” John’s body had begun shaking. He couldn’t stop it, but he tried to hide it. “The treatment itself takes less time than the set up. It will only be a few minutes now, and you’ll be done for the day.” John had been told this several times before, but it relaxed him to hear it again. He nodded and then closed his eyes. He intended to repeat his mantra through the whole procedure. If he could remember it. The doctor was right. Minutes later it was over, and John was leaving the dressing room fully clothed and heading for the waiting room to find Paul. He hadn’t felt a thing, and there was an ersatz confidence to his gait. He saw Paul across the room - his face buried in business papers - successfully maintaining a low profile. John decided to sneak up on him. “Boo!” he declared. Paul didn’t twitch a hair. “Hey, John,” he said lazily, as he put his papers away in his satchel. “I saw you coming a mile away.” He gave John a mischievous wink. “How do you do that?” John demanded, as Paul stood up and adjusted the satchel strap across his shoulder. “I’ll always be at least one step ahead of you, Lennon; just remember that.” Paul chuckled, and then changed course as they walked back down the corridor towards the car park. “How’d it go?” John, who had regained his confidence, said, “It wasn’t bad at all. It was a little creepy to see those heads sitting in a room and staring at me through the window. It made me feel as though I was dangerously contagious.” “It’s a relief to have it over, though, isn’t it?” Paul responded as he opened the passenger door for John without thinking. John stood still and gave him an odd lock, and Paul finally noticed it. “What?” he asked. “You never open the car door for me. I’m not an invalid yet.” John was smiling as he said this, but his busy mind had felt Paul’s protective gesture as a kind of blow - he sees me as a sick person, now. Paul said, “It’s a habit, I guess. I do it for Linda…” Paul was stammering because he was actually surprised at how his subconscious mind had just exposed his deepest fears to John. He had been trying so hard around John to be matter-of-fact and business-as-usual, and then this happens! “I’m sorry...” John saw the emotions racing across Paul’s face and laughed. “You don’t have to apologize for being polite to me, Paul. I was just teasing you.” Paul nodded but made a note to himself: be mindful of what your muscles are doing when your mouth is moving. ***** A week later, John began to feel the effects of the radiation. It started with the red irritated skin on and around the surgery site. There was a burning sensation that was sometimes followed by an itching sensation. Linda had bought him a bottle of aloe vera gel, and had been gently applying it to the affected area. “It helps with the kids’ sunburns,” Linda said, “and I asked your doctor’s nurse and she told me it was okay.” John was touched by the practical ways by which Linda showed him her concern. His relationship with Linda had continued to deepen, as Paul went about his daily business as normal, trying to fly the “all is well” flag for the world, but probably mostly for himself. On one level this bothered John, and he brought it up with Linda. “Paul acts like my treatments are no big deal,” he said carefully as he faced Linda on the sofa. They had taken to spending an hour or so together with hot tea or coffee, feet up, and sharing a blanket between them every day after his return from his radiation treatments. John was spending his days at Cavendish, appreciating the noise and warmth of the family over the haunting solitude of his own home. Paul would take him to his treatments, and then retreat to his music room or the office while John and Linda communed. “He is extremely worried about you, John. He just doesn’t want to upset you with his own problems right now.” Linda spoke softly. “He does a good job of appearing to be unconcerned, is all I’m saying. It worries me because it’s not natural. It’s how he acted when I first met him, whenever the subject of his mother came up.” John was staring into his coffee cup. He had been wondering if he should try to get Paul to open up more. Linda considered John’s comment and said, “I had a medical emergency during Stella’s birth. And Stella came out blue. It was a harrowing experience. Throughout it, Paul was strong, centered, calm, almost casual. He even joked a little to cheer me up. I remember feeling as though he must not care that much, but when I was packing to leave the hospital, the nurses told me he’d spent hours in the chapel, of all places, praying. Paul! I’d never seen him pray before, and I haven’t seen him do it since. Paul just needs to deal with stuff like this on his own. He processes it on his own, for the most part. I will tell you that the day you were diagnosed, he had a breakdown in the shower, and I had to comfort him.” A pathetic part of John was pleased to hear about Paul’s breakdown. It was reassuring. Then he looked up and assessed Linda quietly for a few more seconds. “He feels more comfortable showing you his grief I guess,” John said in a low voice. The words weren’t meant to be anything other than a comment, but as John heard them echoing in his brain afterwards, he actually felt a strong pang of jealousy. Linda smiled at John’s transparency. “It’s not about who he trusts or needs the most, John, it’s about wanting to protect you. If the situation was reversed - if I was the one with cancer - he’d feel more comfortable showing you his grief.” ***** The third week brought a new symptom. John was exhausted. All the time. It was all he could do to get up and dress, get his treatment, and go back to Cavendish, where he would collapse on the sofa. Linda would cater to him. She’d bring him treats, but more and more he didn’t want to eat them. She would watch video movies with him, although she (like Paul) was not a fan of the deeply depressing experimental European and Scandinavian films John preferred. She’d tuck him in when he inevitably fell asleep 15 minutes into the movie, and she cooked the hearty foods that John loved the best. (No meat, of course. There was only so far she was willing to go.) Despite her best efforts, John’s appetite had shrunk, and the cheeks on his face had begun to hollow out. John’s pervasive lethargy actually was a relief to Paul. He’d spent every night with John, holding him, and he had felt the fear and anxiety emanating from John’s soul even after John finally managed to fall asleep. But now that John was so enervated, the anxious vibes had disappeared. Of course, Paul had already sought reassurance from John’s doctors that the lethargy was a common side effect of the radiation and would most likely go away a few months or so after the treatments ended. And after this week, there were only three more weeks. Then they’d be halfway through. The end of the treatments could not come fast enough for Paul. Paul couldn’t think beyond the radiation treatment. He was taking it one stage at a time. But John was thinking ahead to the future chemo treatments, and he was worried that if radiation was this hard on him, how could be possibly endure chemo? He didn’t express these doubts to Paul. He didn’t have to confront the chemo issue until the radiation was complete, so it was a problem he could worry about later. Those were John’s favorite kind of problems. ***** It was in the fourth week that John began to suffer from mild nausea. He wasn’t violently vomiting, and the pains were not unbearable, but instead he had a vague feeling of being unwell all the time. It would wake him in the night sometimes. Day after day he dealt with the sensation that his stomach was on rollers, and could never quite settle. It made him cranky and querulous. He was picking fights with almost everyone, including Paul, and the only reason he didn’t argue with Linda was that she refused to be provoked. She had spent years caring for a famous creative genius, and she knew how babyish such men could be when things weren’t going right for them. Best to ignore their little snits and just cater to their needs quietly. It was near the end of the fourth week - the end of a very long month - when John’s irritability inflamed Paul’s stress-driven exhaustion and they had it out. “If you think I’m going to go through six months of this - or worse - you need to get a grip,” John sniped one night as he lay in bed, and Paul was undressing and preparing for bed. The nasty comment had seemingly come out of nowhere. Paul, certainly, had been unprepared for it. “What does that mean?” Paul’s head jerked up and he was glaring at John. His eyes looked like they were on fire. “That means I’m not doing the chemo. I’m done. After this is over, I’m gonna take my chances.” “’Take your chances?’” Paul echoed in disbelieving anger. “Yeah. I’m not doing it. That’s my final word.” Paul appeared to vibrate as he stood there, half-dressed, facing John. He was beside himself and couldn’t seem to put words together. That’s when John knew that Paul was really upset - near to tears probably - because Paul lost control of his ability to talk when he was really, truly, angry. He tended to stomp off somewhere instead. John didn’t care though, because he was tired of feeling sick all the time, and wasn’t going to go through another six or seven months of this misery, and didn’t want to have Paul’s expectation that he would do so hanging over his head any longer. “You don’t know how you’ll feel when this is over!” Paul declared, finally finding some words, but they were obviously hard to come by. “I’m gonna feel like I feel now - that I never want to feel this way again!” John was shouting now. If Paul wasn’t thoroughly exhausted from weeks of no sleep, and from constant worrying about John while hiding his worry from everyone, and if he wasn’t at his wit’s end having to watch John suffer so much, he would not have allowed himself to be provoked. He would have told himself that of course John felt this way right now, and he should probably just listen sympathetically, and allow John to vent. He could save his arguments about chemo for another day, when John wasn’t in an irrational mood. That was Paul’s usual methodology, but it wasn’t working for him on this particular night. “So you’re saying that my preferences don’t count at all?” Paul’s voice reflected his shock, as if he had just been gutted. “Not when it comes to my medical treatment, no they don’t, because you’re not the one who has to deal with this shit. If it was you, you’d be whining and crying your eyes out.” John was now just being contrary. He tended to do that when he was challenged; especially when the challenge was valid. Paul was dumbfounded. He felt stripped of his power. Paul always felt his world shift horribly when John divorced himself from Paul’s influence. It was like mid 1968 all over again, with Yoko smirking maliciously at him from under that wild mane of hair, while John told him that he was listening to Yoko now on business issues, not to him. As he stood there that night he felt the same feeling so strongly that he was left bereft of words. He re-buttoned his trousers, grabbed a t-shirt, and stomped out of the room. He could hear John jeering him as he went. “Oh, there you go, running to Mama. You always run away when I tell you the fucking truth! You can’t stick it!” The next thing John heard was the slamming of the back door. Paul was going back to Cavendish, and this would be John’s first night alone since he was diagnosed. John was still angry, but now he was mainly fanning the anger so he wouldn’t feel the guilt that was lingering there in the shadows. Why had he said those things, and why so cruelly? He knew he wasn’t going to do the chemo, but he didn’t have to break it to Paul in this horrible way. The anger was dying out, and the guilt was stepping forward to confront him. But the guilt made John feel sorry for himself. John didn’t like feeling guilty, so he tended to blame his victims instead of himself. He turned over on his side and thought Paul shouldn’t have let me provoke him. I’m the sick one. Thoughts were running through his head like a rush of water, washing away the guilt: He should have known I didn’t mean it the way it came out. Here I am, all alone, feeling sick, and he’s pouting! ***** Paul did go to Cavendish, but he didn’t go in the house. He went to the “glass onion” in the backyard. It was the place he went to in order to be alone, face his fears, and wrestle them back under his control. Neither John nor Linda knew how often he had to go to this private place over the last several weeks. Losing John was up there with losing his mother, his father, or - God forbid - Linda or any of their children. He’d lost John once before, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again. His heart was racing, and at first he paced the round room restlessly until he finally felt weary, and then he collapsed down on to the cushions there and allowed the grief to overwhelm him. He was turning into a water faucet, with all the crying he was doing. Paul was deeply ashamed of those tears, and he really didn’t want anyone to see them. When the tears finally receded, Paul knew he would somehow pull himself together, and then he would smile at John and make a joke about their argument, and allow life to go on as if this terrible night hadn’t happened. But he wondered if there would come a time - maybe some time in the distant future - when the ghosts of all these emotional injuries inflicted upon him by the angry little abandoned boy inside of John would materialize and taunt him, sending him right over the edge and into madness.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 It was the end of the final week of John’s radiation treatment, and John felt as sick as he’d ever felt. The nausea had increased to the point where allowing himself to feel irritated took too much energy, and so he just lay there looking miserable. Paul was seated on the other end of the sofa, and it was late evening. They were in their house, and classical music was playing on the stereo while Paul read a book. John watched Paul. His eyes caressed the perfect profile in repose. Paul was beautiful, that was non-debatable. John had been feeling bad for two weeks now - ever since the night when he had shouted at Paul, and told him he wasn’t going to do the chemo. Paul had returned to their bed that night, and had quietly moved over to spoon him, and eventually they had both fallen asleep. The next morning John had said, “I thought you weren’t coming back,” in a kind of joking manner. Paul had smiled at him, but the smile hadn’t seemed genuine. It hurt to see Paul putting up walls like that, but John supposed he understood why he did it. “No one else would have me,” Paul had said jokingly, “I apparently have a terrible temper.” He laughed, and then quickly looked away, effectively closing the topic. The laugh seemed a little hollow to John, but John laughed too. That was their MO. In the past, they had always just left the bleeding, gaping holes alone, and pretended they weren’t there. They’d then move forward hoping neither one of them would ever look back, but it never worked out that way. John had hoped they had grown away from that MO, but sometimes it still happened. And each time it happened, John felt he lost another little piece of Paul in the skirmish. No more had been said about it. John wanted to discuss his decision on the chemo treatments with Paul, but it was clear to him that the subject was a throbbing open sore to Paul, so he allowed the subject to drop, although he knew it was hanging over both of their heads all the time. As John buttoned up his shirt upon the conclusion of his last radiation treatment, he gazed at the red patch of skin, which was flaking and peeling, causing that irritating combo of itch and burn. The ink marks were faded and now John was looking forward to scrubbing them until they were gone. They were a visual reminder of the fact that he once had cancer in his body, and it might still be there, and even if it was gone, it might still come back. John was thinking that the time had come for him to meet with his oncologists to discuss his course of chemo, and so the aching divide between Paul and him was going to be forced to the forefront with that meeting. There was no avoiding it any more. Paul had been patiently waiting in his usual seat in a corner, and was again buried in paperwork. John didn’t know how Paul could stomach the boring business stuff, but Paul always said it was interesting to him. “I’m done for good!” John had said as he approached, a grin from ear to ear (however strained the grin might have been). Paul looked up and smiled. “Congrats!” Paul almost asked if John wanted to go for a drink to celebrate before he remembered that John wasn’t allowed to drink, and shouldn’t do so for a few more weeks, and even if he did, the poor man was suffering from constant nausea and never wanted to be too far away from a toilet. Instead, Paul thought maybe they could celebrate in some other, more personal, way. “Let’s go home to our place, and just be together for a little while,” he suggested, and was relieved to see the gratitude pass across John’s thin face. With that, they struck out shoulder-to- shoulder towards the car park, and headed for home. And now John was admiring Paul’s profile in the quiet of the evening, and watching his long, beautiful fingers as they turned the pages of the book he was reading. “Pud,” John finally said, his voice a hoarse whisper. This had been the last in the side effects he had experienced from radiation. His voice was raw and he coughed a lot, because of irritation to the linings of his lungs and throat. Paul was deep in his book and at first didn’t look up. “Hmmmm?” He asked. “Pud, look at me,” John said. This time Paul did look up, and closed his book. “What is it? Are you okay?” Anxiety flickered in Paul’s eyes. “I’m fine. I just want to explain about the chemo,” John said. Paul tried not to show any of what he felt. He kept what John called his “bland face” on and held his breath. He didn’t want to ruin the evening. Paul knew he would not allow himself to be provoked tonight. He’d learned his lesson on that score. But Paul didn’t want John to tell him again how little his fears meant to him. It hurt too much. But there was no avoiding it now, since John had dragged it out into the open, violating their uneasy truce. Seeing Paul’s face go dead and his body go still, John sighed inwardly. This was going to be difficult. Paul was going into defensive mode, and what he really felt and thought about the subject was not going to be expressed. Thus, it was going to be an agonizingly difficult one-way discussion for John. But he soldiered on. “We have to be on the same page, because my appointment with the doctors is next week. I need you on my side when I tell them I don’t want the chemo.” John was giving Paul his best pleading look. Paul heard what John said and felt outraged by it. He couldn’t help it. The comment about being on the same page when John had told him his opinion didn’t matter was too much for him. But he didn’t show his anger. Or at least, he thought he hadn’t shown it. John saw it, of course, and sighed heavily. “Babe, look, the likelihood of me still having cancer under the circumstances is very minimal - almost non-existent. I was going to suggest that they do another MRI in a few months, and if it is clean, we’ll forget the chemo. If it’s not, then I’ll do the chemo. I think that is a fair compromise.” Paul said nothing. He didn’t agree with John - not one tiny bit. Oh, he knew that the chance of the cancer still being there was minimal. He just didn’t agree with him that the risk was minimal. How could it be minimal if there was any chance at all that John could die from it? On the other hand, Paul didn’t feel like he could tell John what he really thought about it, because John had obviously made up his mind and didn’t want to consider Paul’s point of view. Paul didn’t feel it was fair of John to expect him to act in front of the doctors as though he agreed with John’s “compromise.” He was stuck in between these two obstacles, and didn’t know what to do or say. So he sat, still, saying nothing. His silence spoke volumes. “It’s okay, Paul, you can tell me what you really think,” John said, a little exasperation sneaking its way in to his scratchy voice. John saw the look of “yeah, sure” that swept quickly across Paul’s face before it was banished, and felt frustrated. Paul could be such a handful sometimes! “Say something, Pud,” John urged. “Whatever you want, John,” Paul finally said wearily, and forced a half smile on to his face. “You know I’m always on your side.” Was there a tiny reproach hidden in that remark? John wondered. Paul patted John’s leg, and met John’s eyes. “We’re done then?” Paul asked. John nodded weakly, giving up, and Paul went back to his book. This is bad, John thought. He’s not going to let me off the hook. John sighed loudly and then closed his eyes. A vagrant thought intruded. Maybe I should just do the damn chemo, if it means so much to him. He shouldn’t make me go through it, but I don’t want to lose our friendship over it. ***** There they all were: the ganglion of doctors sitting across the table from him, each with some important looking files in front of him or her. Only Dr. Sid sat next to John, clearly showing whose side he was on. Paul sat on John’s other side. Paul had sat in stony silence on the limo ride to the hospital. He knew what was going to happen, and he was not happy about it and couldn’t pretend otherwise. John was starting to get angry with Paul’s withdrawal tactics. Couldn’t he be the victim here, since he had the cancer? Still, Paul had come with him, and was sitting there next to him in stolid support of a decision he didn’t agree with, so John had to give him at least that much credit. It was kind of like the time when Paul had gone to that meeting with the EMI bigwigs to persuade them to distribute John and Yoko’s Two Virgins album, despite Paul’s privately expressed dislike of the naked photos on the cover. As the chemo oncologist opened the meeting with the explanation that the chemo course could begin in three weeks, John cleared his sore throat and said, “Before you go further, I need to tell you I am no longer sure I want to have chemo.” The room was deafeningly quiet. Dr. Sid was visibly surprised, and blurted out, “Why?” before any of the other doctors could do so. “The radiation treatment took a lot out of me. Every side effect in the book - I got them all. I could barely tolerate it. Everything I’ve read said chemo is worse. I’d do it if I felt there really was a significant risk that I still have cancer, but you’ve all explained to me that the risk is very small.” The Chief Oncologist had been there, done that, many times before. “Yes, the side effects of these treatments are often debilitating. I wish there was a way to treat cancer in a way that isn’t a miserable experience, but the only reason you feel so bad is that the medicine is working.” John heard him out but then said, “Poison. You called it ‘medicine’, but it’s poison.” The Chief Oncologist let this go. He looked to McCartney, who in the past had been in real control of the meetings and John’s treatment, and what he saw saddened him. McCartney was staring at his hands, which were folded on the table in front of him. His knuckles were white, and his mouth was a thin line. He clearly had tried to dissuade Lennon from this decision, and he just as clearly had failed to do so. The doctor was on his own. “Yes, the drug is classified as a poison, but so are many medicines, actually. To kill living cells you need to use chemicals that are inimical to their continued existence. But the treatment is targeted. The healthy cells can regenerate; the cancer cells cannot.” John’s jaw looked fixed, and he had a stubborn vibe about him. He was digging his heels in. “But didn’t you all tell me - and the doctors in New York told me - that the possibility of the cancer having survived the surgery and the radiation is very low?” Dr. Sid decided to take the laboring oar. “The likelihood may be low, John, but it is not non-existent. How high does a risk have to be before it concerns you? One in ten? One in twenty? What’s your number? And if you are the ‘one’, it hardly matters what your theoretical odds were.” John heard what Sid said - it was pretty much what Paul had said over and over. He wanted to turn to Paul for advice in that moment. He was feeling weak and unsure of himself. But his pride was in the way. “Well, can’t we do an MRI, and see if it is still necessary?” John’s voice was wheedling now. “And see what?” The radiologist said, shocked at Lennon’s ignorance. “You can’t see tiny loose cells on an MRI! Only tumors of a significant size! By then the chemo might be too late.” John was taken aback. Somehow he had gotten hold of the notion that the MRI was all knowing and all seeing. Apparently not. Now he was scared. Without thinking, he turned to Paul, who had sat through it all stoically, saying nothing. Paul sensed that John was looking at him, and tore his eyes away from his folded hands. John looked scared - and well he should be - and he was lost and confused. Paul had to step in. It was his job, and he had to do it. “How long is it safe to wait before John would have to take the chemo course? Can we wait longer than 3 weeks, so John can have a chance to recuperate and feel better for awhile?” John turned eagerly to the doctors to hear the answer to this question. Paul was right. He needed a break. Maybe he could face the chemo better if he had a few weeks of relative health behind him. The doctors began to confer together, and they finally agreed upon an answer. The chemo oncologist said, “Well, of course, my advice is to do it as soon as possible, but the difference between 3 weeks and, say, 6 weeks, is negligible in the grand scheme of things.” “Six weeks,” Paul repeated. He turned to John with the question in his eyes. John nodded his surrender. Paul turned to the doctors again. “Ok. Six weeks. Should we meet again closer to the time?” It was agreed they would meet again a month later, and soon John and Paul, accompanied by Dr. Sid, were walking out of the hospital. “Want to get some lunch?” Dr. Sid asked shyly. “Sounds good to me,” Paul said. “John?” John looked defeated, but nodded bleakly. “I won’t eat much though. I never do.” ***** John was having a hard time getting used to normal life. He didn’t have to go to the hospital every Monday through Friday morning, and he no longer was developing new and ever more distressing side effects. First, his skin started to heal. His throat and chest started to relax a little, and his coughing decreased. The nausea began to fade, and he could almost forget what it felt like at its worst. His appetite finally kicked in, and he could actually drink wine and whiskey again. The little luxuries of life began to interest him again. But part of him knew it wouldn’t last, and that it wasn’t real. He still might have cancer, and he still had chemo looming ahead of him. One good thing was that Paul had forgiven him for his behavior over the chemo treatments. He had even apologized to John for not being more patient. Of course, he had chosen to apologize to John when he was on top of him, and they were rubbing their pelvises together slowly in anticipation of a great fuck, and John had been a little distracted under the circumstances. Yes, John’s sex life with Paul was perking again, after many weeks of his not being able to even countenance the thought of sex. He had feared that he would never feel sexual again, but now John laughed himself. With a partner like Paul, who could disdain sex forever? Paul had been encouraging John to focus on songwriting. “If you’ve got a project - something to work on - then you’ll get thru it better,” Paul said, turning on his Paul-in-full-pitch mode. Most people found it irresistible, but John was still skeptical. “I don’t want to start something and not finish it, and if I feel even half as bad as I did with the radiation, I know I won’t be able to finish it.” “But, you can use what you’re going through and write about it. You can at least work on lyrics. If you want to, maybe on this album you’ll write the lyrics, and I’ll write the music. That might be fun, and different.” Paul was working every inch of his charm. “What’ll we call it? ‘Melanoma Memories’? Oh, it will be incredibly popular.” John’s snarky-ness was leaking out. Paul laughed. “We have to write it first, and then we can name it.” “Gives me a lot to think about,” John said, amusement in his expression. “Which misery do I want to write about first?” “Well, give it some thought, John. I’m anxious to get back to work.” “You’re always anxious to get back to work. That’s why Ringo and I would hide in my garden, if you remember.” Paul scoffed. “Yeah, if it wasn’t for me we would’ve stopped recording after ‘Revolver.’ Honestly, the three of you were the laziest people ever.” Having planted the seed, Paul wisely left it alone to grow in the underground darkness of John’s subconscious mind. And grew it did. John began to muse about putting his experience into words. Not really literal translations of what he’d been through, but capturing the essence of it all. It was a challenge, and he wasn’t sure if he was a good enough poet to do it. And life went on, as life is wont to do. John now enjoyed spending an hour a day with Linda, sitting usually in her kitchen, and catching up on her activities and those of the children. The kids almost felt like his kids now, in an odd sort of way. They treated him like a kind of father figure, although they didn’t take him anywhere near as seriously as they took Paul. John was also excited because the school year was ending, and Sean was going to spend the last 3 weeks of his non-chemo treatment vacation with John. Still, as each day ticked to a close, he felt himself inching ever closer to the day when he would again he subjecting his body to a kind of torture. ***** Thinking of Sean, John remembered how he had broken the news to him about his cancer. Paul had suggested John fly to New York and see Sean in person, and John did so, although he hated going on his own. Paul had stayed home for some time alone with Linda and the children. John had taken Sean to a grown up restaurant, and he had sat across the table from his much-grown 13-year old son and was flush with pride. Sean was such a smart, charming, loving young man. After the meal, John had finally managed to broach the subject. “I had some surgery the other day,” he said quietly, and Sean’s head jerked up in concern. “Not serious,” John added with a calm smile. “What?” Sean asked, worried. “I had a mole on my chest, and I had it checked out, and it turned out to be a tumor.” “A tumor!” Sean repeated, his voice low but stressed. “I have something called ‘melanoma’. It is a kind of cancer that you get on your skin.” “Cancer!” Sean had sounded like a parrot. John had reached across the table and squeezed Sean’s hand. “They took it out - that was the surgery - and it looks like that will be the end of it.” Sean calmed down, and then asked, “So it’s all over now?” “Well, the cancer is most likely all over, but the treatment for it isn’t. Just to be sure, they will be giving me radiation treatment, and then I’ll be doing some chemotherapy.” Sean had looked at his father with suspicion in his eyes. He wasn’t sure he was getting the whole truth. “That’s it. That’s all of it,” John said, smiling. “There’s nothing more. I’m going to do the treatment, and then it’ll be back to normal.” Sean’s face had slowly lost its distrustful expression. He was beginning to calm down now. He smiled tentatively and said, “So, nothing for me to worry about?” “Nothing at all.” ***** Having remembered his conversation with Sean of a few months earlier, John was visited by a strong jolt of guilt. He had never sat down with Julian to tell him about his cancer. Why John had consistently refused to do so, even as Paul had shown his displeasure about it and urged him to do so, John didn’t know. He still wasn’t sure about his relationship with Julian. He worried that Julian wouldn’t even worry about his cancer. John still hadn’t fully accepted his parental role in their relationship, and this didn’t seem the best time to suddenly start doing so. But it would be unforgiveable if he never spoke to Julian about it. So John finally broke down and gave Julian a call, and suggested they go out to a restaurant. Julian was pleasantly surprised. His father hadn’t called him in over two months, and although Paul had called him several times over that period, Julian had felt as though he had allowed himself to be hopeful about his relationship with his Dad, only to be let down again. Of course, Julian already knew what his Dad was going to tell him. But he would act as though he hadn’t known. Paul had broken the news to him over lunch several weeks earlier, and had explained that John hadn’t wanted his sons to worry about him. He’d asked Julian to act surprised when John finally broached the subject with him, and Paul had kept him abreast of John’s progress throughout the radiation treatment. Julian had been hurt that he hadn’t been asked to help John during this period, but he had long ago accustomed himself to being a non-essential detail in his father’s life. John had asked Julian to pick the restaurant, and his choice was a very trendy place, full of vibrant young people doing what vibrant young people do - talk, laugh and drink, all at an astounding rate. They were cozy in a corner, and John had pulled his cap down over his face so as to remain anonymous. So far this minimal disguise had worked in a crowd of young people who were more interested in Nirvana than they were the Beatles. “So, what’s up with you, Dad?” Julian asked innocently. He made a great effort to concentrate on his large tap beer - managing the frothy head, and taking care not to spill. “Oh, things are good now,” John said. There was a ‘but’ that was unspoken. “But?” Julian asked. John met his son’s eyes and smiled. Here was another fine son. How had his miserable genes turned out two such handsome, smart sons? Must have been their mothers’ doing. “But,” John said, exaggerating the word and smiling, “I’ve got some news I’ve been holding back, and I feel as though I should have told you it already.” “What’s that? Are you okay?” Julian’s concern was real, even if - in a way - he was acting. “I’m okay, I truly am, but a few months ago I had a mole removed from my chest and it turned out to be cancerous.” “O-kay,” Julian said in a slow voice, as if he was dealing with the news for the first time. “I finished the radiation treatment 3 weeks ago, and there is virtually no chance that there is any cancer left in my body.” “That’s good…” Julian said, still watching his father’s face. “But I’m going to start chemotherapy in about 3 weeks, just to be extra sure.” John was watching Julian’s face and saw a combination of concern and patience, and he wondered about the latter. “You want me to go with you?” Julian asked. “To your chemo treatments?” John was touched. He hadn’t expected that. “Well, Paul was going to come, but I bet that he’d like a break every once in a while. Maybe you could take turns?” Julian allowed himself to smile. “I would like that.” “So would I.” ***** Later that night the phone rang at Cavendish. Paul had just finished dinner with the family, and was the one who answered the phone. “Paul, it’s Julian.” “Hey, Jules, how are you?” “Fine. He told me tonight.” “He did? Good.” “I offered to go with him sometimes, and he said you and I could take turns.” “That sounds like an excellent plan, Jules.” ***** James wanted to share his room with Sean again, but John wanted Sean to stay with him in his own house. John felt like a jealous 8-year old, but he couldn’t help himself. This time, Sean was on John’s side. He was 13, going on 14, and he really didn’t want to hang out so much with James, who was 11, going on 12. For some reason, that was a big age difference, especially since James was a lot more immature than Sean, who had been raised surrounded entirely by effete adults, and thus really didn’t have the knack of acting like a kid. Still, neither Sean nor John wanted to hurt James’s feelings. In the end, Paul explained to James that because of John’s illness, he needed and wanted to be close to his son, and James had accepted this excuse gracefully. So John had Sean to himself for much of the time that summer, and Sean was proving to be excellent company. Oftentimes they invited Julian over, and made a family party of it. This had allowed Paul to spend more time with Linda and their children. He had neglected them during John’s radiation treatment, and was going to be neglecting them again during his chemotherapy. This was a good opportunity for him to try to even the scales. John opened up to his sons about his illness and treatments once they were staying together in his house, and had gotten over the usual stiffness of seeing each other for the first time in a long time. They were extremely mature and supportive of him, and John was humbled. Far from needing to be protected, they were both extremely protective of him. They would jump up to get him things, and would bring him the pills he had to take pre-chemotherapy and make sure he did so on time, every day. They were like two mother hens, and it made John smile with love and pride. Paul would come over every other night and spend the evening with them as they laughed, joked, or talked seriously together. He was keeping a sharp eye on John throughout, because he was still afraid that John would chicken out and say he wasn’t going to do the chemo at the last moment. He even warned Julian and Sean that John might try something like that, and he enlisted them in his army of people who would stand up to John if he tried it. John, meanwhile, was getting very horny. Paul wasn’t sleeping with him; he was sleeping with Linda. And Paul didn’t feel comfortable fooling around under the same roof as John’s sons, just as he hadn’t felt comfortable doing it under the same roof as his own children. And Paul was also frustrated with John because he wasn’t working. He had obviously decided not to follow Paul’s advice to write about what he was going through. John - in actuality - hadn’t decided not to do it, he had only wanted to take a vacation and hang with his sons for a while. It was only a matter of time before these issues would rise to the surface. “Paul,” John whispered, leaning in and speaking directly into Paul’s ear as they sat at the dinner table with Julian and Sean sitting across from them. “Yes,” Paul whispered back in an exaggerated whisper, his eyes snapping with amusement. How silly of John to whisper. Why did he need to whisper? “I am so fucking horny I’m about to burst,” John whispered. Paul nearly choked on his wine, and putting the glass down he put his napkin to his mouth to catch the wetness that had escaped due to his surprise. “John!” Paul whispered back. “Not now!” “Then when?” John said, in a normal tone of voice. Paul was mortified in front of John’s sons. They had both looked up curiously, wondering what all the whispering and fuss was about. Paul cleared his throat and said, as an aside, in a very low voice, “Later, when we’re alone.” John laughed and said out loud, “I’m holding you to that, mister.” Julian and Sean looked at each other, questions in their eyes, and then they both shrugged. Sean was thinking, they have their own secret language, and Julian was thinking, no doubt it’s about sex. After dinner, John pulled Paul into the powder room, and locked the door behind them. He immediately pushed Paul against the wall and himself against Paul’s body. He moaned as he did so, moving in for a messy kiss. When it broke, Paul was chuckling. “You’re always dragging me into bathrooms, and rubbing your cock on me!” He giggled. John smacked him on the side of his ass - or the side he could hit when the main locus of Paul’s ass was against the wall. “Behave. I want to fuck. Tonight. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.” “When do you ever?” Paul said, saucily, and John’s hands moved down to either side of Paul’s ass cheeks, and he squeezed them. Hard. “Ouch!” Paul protested, but then his voice was swallowed by John’s greedy open-mouthed kiss. It appeared that John was in charge tonight, and Paul was going to be fucked. In truth, this excited him. It had been a long while since John had done the dirty deed - months, in fact, since before the diagnosis. If John was feeling his oats again, it must mean the effects of the radiation were finally gone. Paul decided it would be churlish of him not to oblige, so he allowed himself to morph a tiny little subtle bit. His masculine stance melted somewhat, to be replaced by what could easily pass as a coquette. His eyes tended to look up through heavy eyelashes, and there was a flirtatious quirk to his mouth. This was driving John crazy - absolutely crazy. But he didn’t want to do it in the bathroom. He really needed a larger, more expansive canvas upon which to express his sexuality tonight. He pushed himself away from Paul’s very submissive embrace reluctantly, and, dragging Paul by his arm, headed for the stairs and their bedroom. Down in the sitting room the boys were choosing a movie to watch. “Hey Dad! What do you want to watch tonight?” Sean shouted, as he heard the noises. John shouted back as he thundered up the stairs, dragging Paul behind him, “You go ahead! I’m going to bed!” Sean looked at Julian. “That’s weird.” Julian smiled and said nothing. Someone’s gonna get it, is what he was thinking, although in truth it grossed him out a little. Paul had just decided to give in to the night’s events, and soon found himself face down on the bed, with John grabbing on to the waistband of his pants, and jerking them off in one terrific yank. Paul instinctively grabbed hold of the sheets, and prepared himself for a rough ride. John was impatiently searching for the lube. Where the hell was the fucking tube when you needed it? Little swear words were escaping his mouth as he pulled things out of the drawer of his bedside table and threw them around the room. His cock was huge and throbbing. In front of him, in its robust, pristine ripeness was the most beautiful sight on the planet - Paul’s ass - and he couldn’t find the fucking lube! He was just about to give up and go without, when he saw it sitting on the top of his bedside table. It had been there all along. D’oh! Paul heard John’s frantic scrabbling, and then a moment later, he felt John’s fingers, lathered with lube, eagerly probing his anus. Paul closed his eyes tight and prepared to be entered. It took less than a few seconds before John’s lube-coated cock pushed its way in, all the way in, in one powerful thrust. “Oooohhhh!” Paul cried out in pain and surprised outrage. He had tried to prepare himself, but nothing could prepare himself for that entrance. Paul’s squeal did nothing to discourage John. He was overwhelmed with a desire to conquer and dominate his lover, and he wasn’t going to let any namby-pamby little things like Paul’s comfort get in the way! His thrusts became harder and faster, and he felt the drum of desire beating inside him. Take that cancer! He thought as he gave Paul a hard thrust. Take that radiation! “Oh! Owww!” (This from Paul.) Take that chemo! John was greedy in his attack, now. Feeling the walls of Paul’s tight rectum sucking hard on his penis was like heaven to John, and nothing would stop him until he had spent himself. “Oofff, oofff, ooff…” John was uttering these sounds as he plunged into Paul, stroke by stroke. He felt his engorged penis throbbing as if it were about to explode. He wanted to hold it one more…one more…moment… “Ahhhhhhh!” John’s shout was loud, extended, and penetrating. He was oblivious to Paul at this point, and was totally involved in his orgasm. It even hurt a little, just at the point when the pressure was greatest, and - guiltless - he allowed himself to come in Paul’s anus. The thrusting went on for several seconds, even after John had shot his wad, because it was an instinctive late reaction to his orgasm. He then let himself relax on Paul’s beautiful, sultry back, and allowed his hands to move up and hold on to Paul’s deltoids. Criminy, he loved this man! The warmth of his seed was beginning to cool and congeal, and it occurred to John that Paul might be feeling his weight, so John rolled off Paul, and was now on his back, facing the ceiling. Paul was spent, too. There had been moments of rude pain, and moments of blindingly exquisite pleasure, and he had come, too, in the midst of John’s orgasm. And now he lay there, also spent, his face buried in the sheets and a blush slowly growing on his cheeks. Part of Paul hated this need of his to be conquered - owned. It wasn’t natural. He was a man. He shouldn’t want to feel like the vanquished female, but notwithstanding all of his internal dissonance, Paul had totally given in to the urge to be dominated. Eventually, Paul managed to turn over on the bed. He, too, was emotionally and physically spent. He lay there in silence for several moments before he allowed his hand to reach out and grasp John’s. John turned his head to the side to meet his lover’s eyes. “You know, babe,” John drawled softly. “I’ve been thinking. I am going to write about my chemo experience - but in a journal. Maybe later I’ll be able to put it into lyrics, but right now I only feel up to prose.” Paul held John’s eyes with his own. He was disappointed that John didn't want to write with him, but he felt that any kind of self-expression for John at this time was a good thing. “I understand, John. I think that is a great idea."


	5. Chapter 5

I think I want to record my experiences going through cancer treatment in writing, John wrote. He bit the end of his pencil as it hovered over the yellow legal pad on which he was planning to write his Great Thoughts. John was in the hospital, and he was trying to start his memoir from the beginning of his treatment. The chemo was being delayed by another lymph node dissection, recommended by the chemo oncologist after rethinking his strategy. Perhaps John could be spared the agony of chemotherapy if nothing showed up in the lymph nodes just beyond the region of the surgery site.

John’s illness had finally percolated into the tabloids, and the reporters and paps were congregating wherever John or Paul went, demanding answers and taking the usual plethora of unflattering photos. It was a major drag, and the McLen spokesperson finally acknowledged that John had melanoma “in its earliest stages”, and was having “prophylactic” chemotherapy, but nothing really to worry about. Of course everyone went crazy with the news, and pretty soon (according to at least one tabloid) an alien conspiracy was suspected. Meanwhile, the PID’ers were convinced that “Faul” had done something nefarious to cause John’s cancer, and a huge “bounty” was set for the first pap that got a shot of John looking bald and sickly from his chemo treatments. This distressed John more than it should have; Paul had learned to ignore tabloids years earlier, but John had a tendency to want to know what people were saying about him, and then get mad at what he heard.

John and Paul had moved into a hospital suite again, readying themselves for the lymph node dissection, and Paul had set up his little command center. John felt comforted by Paul’s busy activities as he set the room aright. John sucked on the pencil lead for a moment, and then began to write again. His pencil began to race across the paper:

Within a few minutes, Paul had set up a little mini-office in my hospital room, and he brought in a guitar, a tape recorder, a pile of business papers… so much shit that I asked him if he was moving in permanently. The nurses – instead of giving him grief - were tripping over themselves to make him comfortable and accommodate him. Not only does he act as my gatekeeper, advocate, negotiator, caretaker, and constant companion, he also insinuates himself into the lives of the hospital workers around us, so that they absolutely adore him and will do anything for him. Which means that they will do anything for me. In our last stay here, he even fixed the dripping sink in the nurses’ bathroom! Ever since I’d been diagnosed, Paul was the one who paid attention; he took notes, asked questions, did extensive research, got second opinions, and educated himself on the different treatments and medications and always came equipped with a number of really educated questions; he even kept asking the doctors to explain it until he understood it. Little by little he had gained the respect of every doctor who was treating me. When they came into my room they would talk directly to him – they wouldn’t bother with me, and they used pretty technical language that he, increasingly, understood. 

So, yesterday afternoon I had surgery, or, actually it was more of a “procedure” but I think “surgery” sounds more dramatic and will draw more sympathy from people. It was called a lymph node dissection. I think. I insisted upon being knocked out this time, because I did not want to know what was going on. After the procedure, I came out of the twilight zone created by the drugs, and I felt discomfort in my chest, but no real pain. I had a reaction to the drugs – unrelenting shaking – and then I felt as though my body was on fire with itching. Turns out morphine and me didn’t get along too well. These were common reactions to the drug. I remember being in the recovery room just shivering and itching, and itching and shivering. I asked the nurses where Paul was, and they said I couldn’t see him. I started to cry! When I’m on these drugs, I can’t control my emotions. They got very upset, and some time later I had Paul there, all dressed in a white uniform with a mask over his face. 

He whispered in my ear: “Nothing gets between you and what you want, does it?” I was chuckling inside, and I felt warm tears sliding down my cheeks. I was so grateful he was there. You have no idea. I squeezed his hand, and told him I was itching like crazy, and shaking. He gently wiped the tears off my face, and told me little jokes, whispering them in my ear, and somehow this made it bearable to me when before he was there, it wasn’t bearable. Paul finally persuaded them to give me something to put me to sleep, and I awoke sometime late that night and Paul was asleep in the chair next to my bed. He had fallen asleep holding my hand. 

It was another few hours before I awoke fully, and I was alone. This upset me greatly. I wondered where Paul had gone, and was about to hit the button for the nurses, when Paul sailed in the door of the room, looking energetic and cheerful. 

“John! It all went well! Now we only have to wait for the test results on the lymph nodes!” This was pretty slim good news by any account, but somehow Paul was able to sell it to me with his cheerful and positive attitude. I was cheered up  
immeasurably. Suddenly I was chatty Cathy, full of good will for everyone. The nurses were my new best friends. Paul was quietly amused by my transformation, understanding better than anyone (even me) that this reincarnation could turn on a dime, and I might need an exorcist at any time. 

The evening after the procedure, a chevron of doctors suddenly appeared in my room. Paul was up on his feet to meet them. He asked them, before they could say anything, “Is this good news or bad news?” I can’t tell you how grateful I was that he had done that. I didn’t want to suffer in anxiety anymore. Paul’s point was: we’ve been waiting in agony, just tell us flat out what we’re facing, and then we’ll deal with it. 

The Chief Oncologist took the lead and told me, “The news isn’t bad, but it isn’t entirely good, either. We found one loose cancer cell in one of the nodes.”

“Only one?” I asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately,” the doctor said, “one is enough.”

There were things I did not know about my disease: things that Paul had found out over the last few months by researching, and cross-questioning my doctors. I had been there while most of the questions had been asked and answered; I just hadn’t understood, or paid much attention to it. There are several kinds of skin cancer, but melanoma is the worst. It is the cause of 75% of deaths caused by skin cancer worldwide. Catching it early – when the entire melanoma can be removed surgically - is the only way to be fully cured from the disease. If not treated before the cells spread to the lymph nodes, which usually happens within the first few months after it appears on your skin, you will spend years fighting off re-growths, and even facing death if it metastasizes to your organs. There are different stages of melanoma, with different prognoses for each stage. Before this second dissection procedure, I had been diagnosed with Stage IIC, because my tumor was over 3 ½ mm thick (this means it was measured, going down from the top of my skin into subcutaneous levels, at over 3 mm.) It was not ulcerated, although the doctors said an ulcer was just beginning to form, so they told me that I was borderline Stage III. Stage III is where the cancer cells have spread to the lymphatic system. Now, after my second dissection procedure, it seemed to be happening - a cell had been found in my lymph system, I was officially Stage III, and so chemo was now inevitable. It was no longer a choice for me.

Chemotherapy is a way of poisoning yourself at low enough levels to kill off certain types of new cell growth but hopefully not to kill the host (you). Over the years, research scientists have come up with ways to target the types of cell growth they want to kill without doing too much damage to other, beneficial, cell growth, but they have not perfected it 100%. In other words, much like “surgical strikes” in an air war, there is always some “collateral damage”. 

The “medicine” (read: poison) they ultimately used on me is called dacarbazine. It comes in a powder form, which they mix with a saline solution, and then it gets injected into your arm through a continuous line. Each treatment takes about 4 hours, during which time you sit in a comfy chair hooked up to a machine. You sit and watch as the poison enters your body, and try not to think too much about that idea. If you’re like me, your attempts not to think about it will only lead you to think more about it. 

Of course, when I was lying in my hospital bed the day after my dissection, I really didn’t know or understand any of this. All of this information was flowing around the room, circling my head, and had turned into some kind of weird background noise. Lucky for me, though, Paul had a photographic memory, and as soon as the doctors left, he started writing down notes in a notebook in his beautiful handwriting. (Of course, he had brought a brand new one, and had neatly labeled it, “John’s Cancer”, which I thought was quaint.) Into that book he wrote notes of all his interactions with doctors, nurses, or other hospital staff. Before they put any intravenous or meds in me, took blood, or gave me meds, he asked them what it was, what amount, he watched them do it, and then wrote the information down in his notebook, along with their names and the time. I noticed that soon all the people coming in taking blood or changing the IV bags suddenly became extremely careful, meticulous, and studious as they approached me. Paul would get up and watch them like a hawk, making little notations throughout. 

This soon became a lifesaver, because late that second night a man came in to my room with a trolley of medicine. I was awake but drowsy, and Paul was asleep in the chair next to me. The guy had gotten the rubber tie band around my upper arm and was about to plunge in a needle when Paul awoke and said, 

“Wait! What are you doing?” He grabbed his notebook, which had been on his lap (he had fallen asleep holding the pencil, which I thought was touching.)

The guy was quite annoyed, but stopped what he was doing and before he could say anything, Paul saw the sign on the cart:

“Insulin!” Paul shouted, reading the sign.

The guy dropped the needle, checked my wristband, and took the rubber tie off, and Paul was like…

“Whoa…where are you going? Were you going to give him insulin without even looking at his wristband first?”

The guy was saying, “No, no, it was just the wrong time to give him his meds…”

“What meds?” Paul persisted, as he followed the guy out in to the hall (the guy was trying to escape). “John isn’t on any meds yet.” The guy scarpered down the hall. Paul went to the nurse’s station and demanded an explanation. After an investigation, (that Paul insisted upon), we found out that the guy was in the right room on the wrong ward, and had almost shot me up with insulin, which probably would have killed me! Paul made it clear that he wanted everyone to sign in before entering my room to do blood, intravenous or meds, and write down what they were giving me, along with my name, so he could be assured they were in the right room. The nurses balked at this, but he insisted. I think he won because they were afraid we would make this terrible lapse in hospital routine public. (Imagine yourself the hospital administrator, and hearing the headline on TV: “Negligent Hospital Nearly Kills Beatles Legend John Lennon!”) 

The next day, Doctor Sid (as opposed to the intimidating phalanx of cancer doctors) came to see me, and lolled about in a chair talking to Paul and me idly about this and that.

“The suspense is killing me,” I finally said, “do you have anything to tell me other than the time of day?”

Sid looked mischievously at me and then laughed. “I almost forgot. You’re going to have another procedure tomorrow.”

“WHAT!” This was from both Paul and me, shouting out in perfect harmony. He took the high note and I took the low note; funny how we can do that even when we’re not trying.

Sid said to me, “They’re worried about the lymph nodes, and want to remove some more, just in case, and do more tests for cancer cells. It’s just a precautionary thing. They’re afraid of you two. They asked me to tell you.”

“Who would be afraid of little old us?” I asked.

“We need to know all about this surgery before we will sign the release,” Paul said seriously. “It isn’t enough they tell us ‘here’s what we’re going to do’, we need to know why they’re doing it, what alternatives there are, what are the side effects, and what are the risks.”

Sid made a face at us. “It’s routine, you guys, ‘chill out’ as the Americans say. Now that I have broken the news, I’m sure they will have the courage to come and tell you all about it,” Sid said. “When they do, please don’t scare them away. They’re the best there are in London, and we’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel without them.”

I was a little put out that my doctors had so little courage. How were they gonna face my cancer if they couldn’t face me and Paul? Paul, meanwhile, as Paul always is, was still stuck on the details. 

He was almost petulant when he said, “They had better explain why they need to do a third dissection, because otherwise we’re not signing the release.” (I love how Paul said “we” throughout the whole ordeal; it was clear he was thinking of this as “our” cancer, not just mine. One time he actually said that, when an officious doctor made the mistake of saying, “I don’t owe you an explanation, only Mr. Lennon. It is Mr. Lennon’s cancer after all.” To which Paul responded, “It isn’t just John’s cancer, it’s my cancer too. And if you don’t get my buy in on what you want to do, John’s not signing squat.” To which I nodded firmly in agreement.)

Later in the day, after the sheepish doctors explained all to Paul’s satisfaction, and he had summarized it neatly in his notebook, I signed the release for the third procedure. It seems that their main objective was to implant a port near my throat area to receive the chemo treatments, and while they were at it they thought they’d take a third dissection further away from the original site of the tumor. When they told us about it, I wasn’t that scared. I guess you could say that I was getting blasé about the whole debriefing situation. But later that night I had a terrifying dream. Paul was sleeping in the chair next to my bed. When I woke up from this terrible, frightening dream, he was holding my hand and trying to calm me down. I think it was because I was so vulnerable in that moment, I just blurted out: “I’m so fucking scared! I feel like my body is my enemy, and I can’t escape from it!” 

Slowly picking his way through wires and tubes and layers of bedclothes, Paul got up on the bed with me, and held me in his arms. I asked him to sing to me, and he quietly sang, “‘Til There Was You.” I made him sing it 3 or 4 times through before I finally fell asleep. 

The next morning, Paul walked beside my wheelchair all the way to the door of the operating room, holding my hand, primarily because I refused to let him go. I was looking up at him hopefully as they pushed me into the little examining room that doubled as an operating room. No doubt my expression said, ‘Can’t you make all this go away?’ Somewhere in a corner of my lizard brain I believe that Paul has magical properties, and he can make things happen that shouldn’t, given the circumstances, be possible. This time he couldn’t make “it” go away, I knew that, but he did see the expression on my face, squeezed my hand, and said in his best Liverpudlian drawl, 

“Don’t worry, John, no one dies from ports being implanted! Anyway, you’re too ornery to die. Heaven doesn’t want you, and neither does Hell!” 

That made me smile, which was the next best thing to making the whole thing go away.

Paul was right. I didn’t die. The third dissection did not turn up any more cancer cells, and the port implantation was the stupidest little operation where they put this mesh tube along my shoulder blade just below my throat. It was kind of an anti-climax, except later I was sore. When I’m sore I get cranky. It was also now two whole days I’d been in the hospital, and I was so over it! Back in the room, as I waited for the appearance of my suddenly elusive doctors, Paul made a beeline for the extra bed. His eyes were looking a bit heavy, and it occurred to me that he was going to fall asleep. I, of course, was thinking only of myself, and I blurted out, 

“Does this mean you aren’t going to keep me company?”

As soon as his back hit the bed he sat up and said, “No, no, what do you want to do?” I’m afraid I didn’t see how exhausted Paul was at this time, and I insisted that he sit in the chair next to me and keep up a steady stream of chatter to divert my thoughts. 

By this time of course, Paul had worked his magic on the nurses. They all loved him. They would come in and flirt with him regularly, enjoying his ebullient personality, and persuading him to do little chores for them that the hospital maintenance staff never seemed to get around to. One nurse told me, “I don’t know what we’re going to do around here without Paul once you leave. Perhaps you’ll let us keep him?” I glared at her so fiercely, she later told me, that she quickly added, “I’m only teasing.” 

We weren’t going to get news about the final diagnoses and when the chemo was to start until the next day - apparently only because the damn doctors were “busy”, and thus not willing to drop everything for my benefit (the nerve!), so we spent another anxious night together in the hospital. Paul had asked my P.A. to bring round a favorite film of his, and he played it for me after managing to hook up the video-player to the hospital television. (Don’t ask me how.) The film was “Withnail and I.” This was a film made in the late ‘80s by George Harrison’s company Handmade Films, and for some reason I had never seen it before even though Paul had been pushing it on me forever. (Probably I thought if Paul loved it so much, it must be about steamy heterosexual sex or car chases, neither of which rings my bell.) To my true surprise, it was hilarious. There was one scene at which Paul and I laughed so loudly that the nurses had to come in and ask us to quiet down. It was the scene where the two main characters are chasing the farmer in the tractor and begging hysterically for help: “We went on holiday by mistake!” When we finished howling, Paul said, (having paused the movie so we wouldn’t miss anything) “I’ve always thought that sounds like something we would say.” (It sure did.) Then there was the scene where they were “fishing” with a shotgun. And that awful great gay uncle, chasing the poor straight guy all over the house in his underwear… priceless! By the time the movie was over, we had accumulated an audience of about 3 nurses and 4 student doctors, (all of them were off duty). They’d brought popcorn, which I thought was thoughtful of them. Anyway, it was the absolute perfect thing to watch the night before you found out when they’d start pumping you with poison.

The news, when it came, was not good, although it could have been a whole lot worse. Because they had found that cancer cell “floating free” in my lymphatic system, aggressive chemo was the recommended course of action, which they wanted to start as soon as my surgery wounds healed. Paul asked if I could go home while the wounds healed, and the doctors said they’d prefer it if I stayed there, where they could daily search my entire body with a magnifying glass for new tumors, and the soonest they would consider doing chemo was two weeks. “Of course, if you get another tumor, we’ll have to remove it, and it will change our timeframe.” Of course.

Paul had his hands full. I was not a good patient. In fact, Paul jokingly referred to me as an “impatient”. I was rude, cranky, whiny, and sick and tired of lying in bed. So Paul would persuade me to get up, and we’d go wandering around the hospital when the nurses weren’t looking. I wasn’t in an intensive care unit, and our room was near the door of the ward, so it was easy to sneak out. We were wandering around in the basement one day and a maintenance man was cleaning some ashtrays. As we walked by, the guy said: “Hi Paul!” And Paul responded: “Ramon! How’re things hanging?” They chatted about Ramon’s wife and children for a few minutes, and Ramon shyly asked me how I was doing, and then we continued on our walk. We didn’t get 20 feet before a kitchen orderly walked past, pushing a huge trolley of food trays. “Hi Paul!” he said cheerfully. “Lionel! How’re things?” We stopped and chatted for a few moments about the results of Lionel’s test in his night class at a nearby night college, and then we walked on. As we passed a nurse’s station the whole contingent of nurses sitting there – there were about 3 or 4 of them splayed around the station – all yelled “Paul!” really loudly at him and giggled, waving, and he responded: “Behave yourselves ladies!” as we walked on. I finally stopped him. 

“Is there anyone in this hospital you haven’t befriended by now?”

Paul had to think about it. “I’m sure there are some,” was all he could come up with. But I’m not so sure. In fact, I’m pretty sure he knew every damn one of them, and the names of their spouses, kids and pets too!

The few days went by so slowly they reminded me of my years in the Dakota in the late ‘70s. Dead, dull, endless nothingness followed by boring, repetitive bullshit. Paul did his best to cheer me up and entertain me. He never left my side. I would get upset when he would go to the cafeteria! He encouraged my son Julian, as well as Linda and some of our friends, to come over, and to bring some of the kinds of films I like (Paul calls them my “artsy fartsy” films), and Paul even agreed to sit quietly in the room while we watched these films (he was really working on his business papers, I could see out of the corner of my eye.) George and Ringo came over one night, and we put a handmade sign on the door and closed it: “BEATLES ONLY”. I think it was Ringo’s idea, although I’m pretty sure Paul made the sign. The nurses would knock on the door when they wanted in, and we’d all yell, “Go away!” in unison. It reminded us of how we usually ended up all four of us in a hotel bathroom, hiding from everyone and sharing funny cigarettes.

But nothing kept me upbeat for long. It took, I am sure, every ounce of energy and optimism in Paul’s body to keep my spirits up. But he never gave up, and he never lost his patience with me. I asked him later how he managed to keep his temper despite my constant provocations and complaining, and he said, “I never lost sight of the fact that you had cancer, John. You had a right to be an asshole because you had cancer.” 

There was one blip in the otherwise boring hospital stay. They found one microscopic tumor forming on my abdomen. They were able to remove the whole thing in an immediate biopsy, but then dithered about whether they should do another dissection procedure, to remove all the skin around it and the nearby lymph nodes. Thankfully, after studying the tumor, they were able to definitely prove that it was “in situ”, which is a Stage 0 melanoma, and it can be treated by biopsy removal, and topical medicine. This would add a few days to my “waiting for chemo to start” ordeal, but it didn’t require another dissection surgery.

Finally, one day Dr. Sid came in and announced that my chemo was going to start the next day. After he left, my mood had been dampened. I told Paul, “I’m blue.”

Paul perked up immediately. “Okay, I’ve got some cards. Let’s play cards.” He had asked my P.A. to find a “games board”, and we laid it out on the bed, and had a lively game of 2-man poker. Paul won of course, because of his photographic memory and also the fact that he actually paid attention to what was going on. I have never beaten him at a card game. (Of course, I’m notoriously bad at card games, and rarely beat anyone at them.) You’d think I’d give up on in it, but I’m always thinking -with the law of averages and all - if I just keep at it I’ll have to win eventually. 

 

*****

 

John was looking idly out the window as he waited in his room for Paul to return from his visit to Linda and his children. Paul had been literally living with John in his hospital room for a few weeks now, and felt he needed to check in with his family. John wasn’t exactly pleased with this - he was basically a spoiled, self-centered bastard - but he understood that it was important to Paul, and what was important to Paul was important to him. He picked up his pad of paper and his pencil, and read back what he had already written that day.

The next day I faced my first chemotherapy session. Paul came down with me to the chemo department, pushing my chair and enduring my constant stream of instructions (“go around this, I think it is this corridor, there’s the elevator! There!”) with admirable good humor. We sat in an office with a doctor who explained what they were going to do, and Paul took extensive notes about the drug I was taking, and its side effects and associated risks. By this time I had abdicated my role as caretaker of my own medical treatment to Paul. I just blanked it all out, and when the doctors were finished talking I’d look at Paul, and he would nod or wink, and then I knew I would be signing the release. I was already feeling overwhelmed by the whole process, and I couldn’t take on the extra burden of all that technical talk. Paul told the doctor he wanted to speak with me a few minutes before I signed the release, and she left us alone in her office.

“John, this medicine might make you lose all your hair.”

“My hair!” I cried. Paul had listened to that horrible laundry list of potential side effects and knew the exact one that would bother me the most.

“I know you have a thing about your hair, but it is important to know that if you lose it, it is temporary. It will grow back.”

“What will I do without my hair?” I whined.

“You’ll survive, that’s what. And if you don’t want to lose it in batches, I suggest you just have it all shaved off at once and be done with it.”

“I’d be bald! Completely bald!”

“But alive and well. That’s the thing you have to focus on. And it would only be temporary, until after the chemo stops.”

“But what if it doesn’t grow back?”

“It will, so let’s not worry about that. Would you feel better if I shaved my head too?”

“NOOOOO!” I was horrified at the thought. “I LOVE your hair! NOOOOO!” 

“Okay, okay. Just so you know I’m willing to, if it makes you feel better about it.”

“NOOOO!” So that was settled. I was probably going to lose my hair, but Paul wasn’t. When I thought about it some more, I got comfortable with that. After all, I didn’t have to look at me, but I did have to look at him. 

With this understanding, I was ready to face my first chemotherapy session.

It was kind of a letdown. I didn’t feel sick, I didn’t lose any hair, and I didn’t even feel a burning sensation in my arm, which some people feel when they receive their intravenous push. I was feeling pretty chipper that first night. For the next three days, I had the same pleasant experiences. But in the early morning of the fourth day in the hospital, I awoke with horrible nausea. I could barely move, and no position would make the discomfort go away. I had actually awakened myself with my own loud moaning. Paul too had been awakened, from the chair by my bed, and was wiping my forehead with a cool cloth.

“I’m so fucking sick,” I managed to say.

“What’ll take your mind off it?” Paul asked me quietly.

“Sing to me.” 

He sang a whole slew of lullabies (from his ‘dad repertoire’), a few Irish folk songs he’d learned from his mum, and finished with my favorite of his vocal performances, ‘Til There Was You’. I finally fell asleep during his third repeat of that song.

The next morning, I was really sick. I lolled in bed all day groaning and moaning. It was late afternoon when I suddenly felt so sick that I was going to…VOMIT! It shot out of my mouth, down on to my sheets, my chest, my face. Paul shot out of his chair and rang for the nurse. Instinctively, he grabbed a hand towel, wetted it, and washed the vomit off my face first. God bless him. The nurses came in, and my pajama top was changed, and so were the sheets and blankets. The nurse showed me the emesis basin (a kidney-shaped bowl you’re supposed to vomit into), and suggested I keep it on my lap and if I felt at all like I was going to throw up, I should move the basin underneath my chin just in case. 

 

*****

 

A few days went by, and John’s chemo treatments began to seriously affect him. But, as Paul had predicted, writing about it helped John to deal with it.

That day and night I threw up at least seven times. It got to the point where Paul and I had the timing down perfectly. I’d do a certain kind of groan that Paul would recognize as the sign of imminent trouble, he would shoot up from his chair, grab the basin, and put it under my chin, and within seconds I’d be vomiting into the bowl. He would then dispose of the vomit in the toilet, clean the bowl in the sink, and then wipe my face down with a cool towel. Paul was up and down with me all night long, catering to my nausea, and cleaning vomit off of me. He would anticipate what I needed before I knew I needed it; here a cool cloth on my face, there a sip of water.

A few days later I had to face chemotherapy again. Now I wasn’t nearly as chipper as before, because I realized that this stuff was making me sick. It seemed ludicrous to be allowing them to pump poison into me, I mean – volunteering for it! But still I sat there like a big inflated dummy, obediently permitting them to inject me with the poison. I had lost my will to fight back. I was very fatalistic at this point. Paul saw it and was worried about it.

 

*****

 

While John was busy writing, Paul was busy worrying. As the chemo progressed, John wasn’t himself. All of his more endearing qualities – the smartass observations, the sarcastic rejoinders, the provocations – had disappeared. He was just this sad, obedient, sick person. It scared Paul. He knew John was still in there somewhere, but Paul was running out of ideas to keep him entertained. Paul felt like a magician who had run through all his tricks three times, and was scraping the bottom of his bag searching desperately for something new that might work. The doctors had told Paul that a patient’s state of mind was an important part of a successful round of chemo, and this only drove Paul’s already over-active worry meter further off the chart. Still, without considering his own health and welfare, he soldiered on. John suffered pretty seriously from nausea and vomiting for another week before Paul put his foot down and insisted that they allow John to go home. For the rest of the chemo sessions, John would instead come into the hospital on chemo days, perhaps stay overnight if he was filling really bad, and then go home again. Paul hoped that being out of the hospital and surrounded by family would lighten John’s mood. 

Back at Cavendish (John had started thinking of Cavendish as “home” again), John had plenty to distract him. Linda, Julian, Sean, and the McCartney kids were in and around him all day long. During the day he would hang at Cavendish, and at night he would go back to his own home, and spend a quiet evening with his own sons, watching television, or falling asleep early. Paul at first divided his nights between John and Linda, but soon John’s restless nights and demands caused Paul to spend all his nights with John. John was too embarrassed to let his sons help him when he vomited or needed help on the toilet, so Paul had to be there.

Linda was philosophic about this. John was the kind of enfant terrible who demanded attention even at the best of times, so it was no surprise that he was hogging Paul’s attention while he was going through chemo. She did worry about Paul, though, who had not broken down (at least as far as Linda knew) since the night in the shower. Surely, there would be a day of reckoning for him? But when she attempted to get Paul to open up about it with her, he would do his best to reassure her that all was well. Meanwhile, Linda noted, John spent much of his time curled up like a kitten, writing in his journal.

 

*****

 

Our days fell into a pattern of going to the hospital every other week for a chemo infusion, and then going home and me throwing up for a week, and then long nights of misery, with Paul constantly clearing away my vomit and cleaning me up. I had lost all personal modesty. I got sick once while sitting on the toilet, and I didn’t think twice about screaming for Paul for help, and he came in and helped me without a word. 

One morning, about a week after leaving the hospital, I woke up, and slouched into the bathroom, and, after brushing my teeth I ran a brush through my hair. Hair came out in fairly alarming amounts. I was stricken – literally stricken. I was frozen in place. Then I went charging out of there, holding the hairbrush, and screaming for Paul like bloody murder. A moment later he came sprinting up the stairs and met me in the hall outside our bedroom, panting heavily and looking extremely stressed.

“My hair!” I screamed.

He grabbed his chest with his hand, and stooped to take a few deep breaths. He was obviously relieved, probably having imagined something much more horrible going on. He regrouped quickly.

“Come on, John, let’s go and see what’s going on here,” he said, leading me by the hand to our bathroom. I sat on the side of the tub, and he examined my scalp. “You’ve still got a healthy head of hair; you’ve a long way to go before you need to worry,” he said. He pulled me to the mirror, and held a hand mirror up to my scalp to show me what he was saying was true. Slowly my heart rate went back to normal. I felt it necessary to make a joke.

“I think all those years listening to people going on about our hair gave me a complex,” I said, “to the point where I think I am nothing without my hair.” 

Paul laughed and nodded in a way that showed he understood and agreed, but then he said – so sweetly and sincerely – “with or without your hair, you are everything to me.” 

Every night, he would hold me in his arms, and sing softly in my ear until I fell asleep. I would hold on to him for dear life. Feeling him, hearing him, made me feel as though I was still alive. The poisons had seemingly separated me from my body, to where I thought of my body as a separate entity from my soul. Holding Paul, having him hold me back, helped me feel as though my body was still mine, and that the universe was still whole, and that this too would pass.


	6. Chapter 6

John’s journal had become an obsession with him. He went nowhere without his pads of paper and pencils, and often was found scribbling away furiously, oblivious to the world around him. Since John was utterly miserable, Paul was grateful for the distraction. He was curious about what John was writing, but Paul was not a nosy person, and didn’t - as a matter of principle - pry into others’ lives or affairs. Paul had watched John’s devotion to his journal with a mixture of affection and perplexity. He, himself, would not want to write about such personal things in the first person, and especially not without camouflage. He wouldn’t want a written record of such painfully private thoughts. That would feel too invasive. Of course, he had done something similar about that time he was jailed in Japan, so perhaps he would feel differently if he were the one with cancer, but Paul thought not.

John, meanwhile, was pouring his thoughts and feelings into his journal.

 

*****

 

About two months into my treatment, I was getting downright pissy. I had reduced my private nurse to tears one too many times, and Paul was not amused. That is when he told me I was bored, and needed something to work on. That is also when he conjured up all my journals from 1955 on, and had them delivered to our bedroom. He had also hired me a few research assistants who were bright, cheerful, excited and eager to proceed. They set my teeth on edge, but they did force me to move forward when I wanted to just lie back and feel sorry for myself. I learned later that they used to go to Paul and say how mean and unenthusiastic I was, and he would reassure them that this was just my “surface” reaction, and they should just continue to do what they were doing, the way they were doing it, and all would be well. 

My original thought was that I would just put the journals in order, and then read through them. I didn’t think about a memoir, I was just inventorying my life. It is something people do when they are forced to think about dying. While by this time I knew intellectually I was not going to die - at least not from the cancer - I still had this need to touch base with all the people who had touched me in my life - the ones who had meant something to me - and how better to do this than to read my own journals? I could visit the people and places that had made up my life in my own words. Thus, my project of organizing my journals came to be. It was one way I dealt with the seemingly endless negative side effects of chemo.

Speaking of which, I did finally talk with Aunt Mimi about my cancer before I went in to the hospital for my first treatment. She has been very weak lately, not in the best of health, and I didn’t want to upset her. But once it was clear the chemo was going to happen, I was more and more afraid the press would get ahold of it, and I figured she deserved to hear it from me first. So I called her up and it was like a black comedy. She could barely hear me and kept shouting my name - ‘John! Are you there!’ ‘Yes, I’m here!’ ‘What?’ ‘I said yes, I’m here.’ “Where did you go?’ ‘I’ve been here all along Mimi.’ Trying to explain my diagnosis under these conditions was literally a comedy routine. ‘I’m fine Mimi, but I’ve got cancer.’ ‘That’s good.’ ‘Good? You think it’s good?’ ‘You said you were fine.’ ‘But you missed the end bit. I’ve also got cancer.’ Silence. ‘How can you be fine if you have cancer?’ ‘I meant, the cancer isn’t serious.’ ‘You’re either fine or you have cancer. You can’t be both.’ ‘Mimi, I do have cancer, but right now I’m fine.’ I got the sense she was pissed off that I’d bothered her when I was ‘fine’. 

Paul had been listening to my end of the conversation, and by the end of it he was literally rolling on the ground, holding his sides, laughing his ass off. I said to him, ‘You wouldn’t believe what she said!’ And in between great hiccoughs of laughs he managed to say, ‘I knew exactly what she was saying as if she were on a speaker phone.’ I was a bit put out. I said, ‘I’m glad you find this so amusing.’ Paul sobered up and then said, ‘you know, I just had a terrible thought.’ ‘Oh?’ I asked, stepping right into it. ‘What if you end up being just like her when you’re in your eighties? It’ll be me dealing with that crap!’ Ha ha. Very funny, Paul. 

So let’s talk turkey about being sick with cancer, and going through chemotherapy. I’ve already written about the hair loss and the vomiting. But there are so many other miserable aspects to it. My teeth started turning a yellowish brown, and so did my finger and toe nails. I obsessed over this, along with the loss of my eyelashes and eyebrows and pretty soon all of my hair. Paul covered up all the mirrors in our house with brown paper to protect me from looking at myself in this degrading condition. The other thing that worries me – it really does, and I might as well share it if I’m going to be completely honest in this account – is that I have gone months with no sex drive at all. 

My whole life, since I was a teenager, I have always had a terrific sex drive. I didn’t always have ways to adequately satisfy it adequately (I’m thinking of the late 70’s here), but I always had the desires and the urges. But for the several weeks I’ve been going through chemo, I have had no interest in sex at all. I don’t feel even a single impulse of sexuality. It’s as if I’m a neuter or something. Deep inside of me, I worry about Paul. Weeks on end with only Linda to have sex with, and then only when he can steal it from her when he manages to escape from under the scrutiny of my eagle-like eyes. I worry that he will lose interest in me; or, more bluntly, man-sex. He was meant to be straight, after all. He obviously isn’t going to say anything about it to me, but I’m concerned about what kind of temptations he will be subject to during the next few months. The only thing that makes it bearable is that he is almost never out of earshot from me, and when he’s not under my jurisdiction, he’s under Linda’s. But still…what’s going on in that beautiful head? It’s a fucking mystery to me.

Because it has been bothering me so much, I have been reading about this issue in articles about cancer survivors, and these survivors report that they lost total interest in sex during and for a while after chemotherapy, and many of them were unable to put their love relationships back together afterwards. Some “thing” – maybe it was the poison itself - came between them and their sex partners, and the sex between them, to the extent they didn’t break up, was never the same again. One woman wrote that her husband treated her like she was made out of fine china, and this negatively impacted their sexual relationship. One guy wrote that he had lost the impetus to be the aggressor in the sex act, and his wife ended up on top of him most of the time. 

 

*****

 

John had gone several weeks harboring these fears to himself, and had become quite obsessed and morbid about it. He had finally found the gumption to raise the issue with Paul.

“How are you satisfying yourself?” John asked him one evening, seemingly pulling the subject out of thin air.

“How’m I doing what?” Paul asked, torn away rudely from his business papers.

“Don’t you get horny for some man sex?”

Paul laughed, not quite believing John’s words. “‘Man sex?’ Really?” John continued to stare stubbornly at Paul until he responded. When it came, the response was pure McCartney. “John, let’s not go there.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not worried about me right now. I’m too busy worrying about you.” 

“Well, let me know if I can lend a hand.”

Paul laughed. “If I can stop worrying long enough to consider it, I’ll let you know.” 

The truth was, Paul’s sexual urges were pretty dead too. He was almost glad he wasn’t sleeping at Cavendish, because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to live up to Linda’s expectations if he had to spend more nights with her. As it was, Linda was practically doing stripteases to get him aroused on the few sneaky afternoons they’d spent alone together. Strange how sex had seemed like the most important thing in a love relationship when he was younger, but the older he got the more sex found itself falling lower on the priority chart. Somehow, with John so miserable and the fear of the cancer coming back, Paul’s mind was so constantly full of worry and anxiety, that his more atavistic urges, such as his sex drive, could not break through and take over. Everything was under the tight control of Paul’s super ego, and his id felt as though it was chained up in a dungeon.

John’s attempt to get Paul to discuss the subject had not been successful, and instead of getting angry about it, John decided to write about it.

I noted that Paul was very reluctant to discuss the issue, and changed the subject almost as soon as it came up. That was unusual for us, because we’ve always just told each other directly what was going on with us sexually, and didn’t pull any punches. Now it felt as though Paul was pulling punches on the subject. I didn’t know how to address this with him; it made me feel sicker to know that he couldn’t be open with me about this subject. In fact, he wasn’t being open about much of anything. Giving, yes; incredibly selfless and giving, yes; always strong and supportive, yes. But he isn’t opening up to me about what he is going through and it remains a mystery to me. Most of the time I don’t think about it because I’m wrapped up in my own misery. But every once in a while I catch a glimpse of him when he thinks I’m not looking, and what I see on his face in those moments almost breaks my heart.

 

*****

 

John felt more and more tired as the treatments progressed, and it was now thought that he should stay in the hospital for 24 hours each time he received a treatment. He actually needed to sleep long hours in between the treatments, and had gotten to the point where he didn’t want people around when he was resting. While this freed up Paul’s time, it didn’t free up his overactive anxiety. 

John’s chemotherapy sessions had become almost a routine. Most days Paul would take John to the hospital, and sit quietly next to him while going through his business papers as John received his chemo. John would listen to music with buds in his ears, or close his eyes and dose off. About once a week (there were three sessions a week) Julian would go with John, and the two would chat. Their relationship began to deepen and mature. 

“Dad, you look so tired,” Julian said one morning, as he watched his father’s face closely.

“Yeah, I feel pretty yuck,” John said dozily. 

“You’re almost done with these sessions,” Julian pointed out hopefully. “We’re only a few days away from the end.” 

John waited a moment before he found the energy to respond. “Yeah, and not a moment too soon. I’m so fucking miserable. You can have no idea.”

Julian felt his father’s misery, and wished he could take it away. Lately, he had felt his father’s dependence on him, and it was as close to ‘real love’ as he’d ever experienced from his father, at least as long as he could remember. It caused him to feel protective of his father, and he wished he could erase the misery of this horrible disease and it’s even more horrible treatment. But knowing he couldn’t do that, Julian grabbed his dad’s hand and squeezed it tightly. He was overwhelmed and a little bit afraid of these feelings of compassion he felt for his father, because on one level it felt a little like another opportunity for him to get his hopes up, only to have them dashed again once his dad was through with the treatments, and back to his old querulous self again.

One evening after Paul had taken Sean and James over to visit John in the hospital, Paul returned to Cavendish absolutely tapped out. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to make it up the stairs to the bedroom, so he made it to the sitting room and collapsed on the sofa, instead. At first he only sat there, and stared blankly at the television that James had turned on. But then Paul decided he’d just take a second - just a moment, really, not too long - to stretch out on the sofa. It took what seemed like a herculean effort to pull himself to his full length on the sofa, and to adjust the sofa pillow under his head just right. He was laying stomach down, and soon he was sound asleep. The television was blasting out exploding noises, and the phone was ringing incessantly, and people were running through the sitting room on their way in and out of the kitchen, the sound of pots and pans being clanged and dropped echoed through the house, and then the bell at the gate rang, setting the dogs off, and still Paul slept through it all. His family maneuvered around him for hours as if he were a piece of furniture. 

“What’s up with Dad, Mom?” James asked his mother after about 6 hours. 

“He’s exhausted, James. Leave him alone.”

“Are you sure he’s not dead?” James joked.

“Not funny. Do your homework.” 

“I didn’t know cancer was catching,” he commented with a wise guy smile, as he ducked his mother’s half-hearted swat and departed the kitchen. Just in case, though, he put his ear up to his dad’s mouth to make sure he could hear the breathing. Satisfied, he plopped down on the floor again and turned up the TV.

“I said homework, James!” Linda shouted from the kitchen. Grumbling, James shut off the TV, plopped down on his stomach, and half-heartedly stared at his workbook.

 

*****

 

Paul woke up on the sofa at 3 in the morning. There was a warm blanket around him, and a soft light was thoughtfully left on. Around him in the sitting room, James had left his usual detritus, including the controls to his video game sitting smack in the middle of the room, lurking there for the unsuspecting father to trip over in the dark. Paul groaned and slowly turned himself over on to his back, and stretched. He couldn’t believe it. He had been sleeping alone. Alone. No one was next to him, needing him, touching him, demanding or even expecting things of him. He hated to admit it, but it felt good. He stared at the ceiling and took stock. 

John was going to be okay. They never had found any new evidence of cancer, beyond that one cell, and the doctors had decided his chemo would end the next week, right on time. Paul looked back at the early days of John’s cancer, when it was first diagnosed, and Paul remembered the panic that filled his head. He could barely stay still long enough to think logically. He had built the cancer up like a bogeyman in his own mind, and now, as he lay there quietly in the dark, he worried that he had pushed John through a painful and unnecessary treatment just to make himself feel better. He sighed as he remembered what John had told him at the outset: they’d never know if things would have turned out differently had they made the other choice. So, Paul said to himself with unusual self-forgiveness, there was no point in beating himself up over it now.

Lord, I can sure whip myself up into a frenzy and drag people with me, Paul thought honestly. Not for him, falling into a decline on a chaise. No, he drove himself in ever-more frantic circles until he dropped! Paul grimaced at the exaggeration, but knew there was truth there along with the hyperbole. Groaning, Paul sat up. He wanted to make his way to the whiskey bottle for a jigger, but couldn’t face standing up yet, so he sat. Where did he belong? Linda was close by. He only had to walk upstairs and cuddle up with a warm, soft Linda. John was across town, and required a car ride, an underground parking garage, a traverse down a long cold corridor, only to try to sleep uncomfortably in a chair next to John’s bed. Isn’t that how it had always been for Paul though? Hadn’t it always been harder and more complicated to be John’s friend, than to be anyone else’s friend? So why on earth did he value it so? He must be a masochist. That had to be the answer. With a chuckle (he was reacting to his own melodrama) he forced himself up, and felt around for his shoes. 

Shuffling at first, and then working up a head of steam, he got in the car, heading purposely for the underground parking lot, and then trailed down the long cold corridor. To John. 

 

******

 

Finally, the chemotherapy came to an end. As he recuperated from the final session, John lay on his bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. He would be overcome by lethargy and nausea, but then he would have a burst of energy, and return to his journal:

Almost as soon as the chemotherapy stopped, I started feeling better. I could feel hairs growing all over my scalp – it itched! I began to feel as though I was coming back to life. I went to a dentist and had my teeth bleached, and then tore the brown paper off the mirror in the bathroom, so I could shave. I had to shave again, because hair was growing on my face! I was walking on air. My energy came back, such as it was, and I found myself to be interested and engaged in things outside myself again. I felt up to seeing my friends, and they would come over and we’d talk about everything under the sun except cancer. That was the one subject no one was allowed to bring up – cancer.

I remember the moment it happened. I was shaving one morning, and Paul breezed by me headed for the shower. He stripped off his towel, and stepped in, closing the door. Suddenly I realized I had a huge – I mean a HUGE – hard on! Thank heavens! I wasn’t going to be a eunuch forever! This was one of the better moments of my life, I must say. I finished shaving, stripped off my towel, and joined Paul in the shower. 

 

*****

 

Paul was concentrating on the water hitting his head, as he pushed his hair back out of his eyes with both hands when he suddenly felt a rush of cooler air, and then the sound of the shower door closing. Before he could react, he felt John’s hands running up the outside of his thighs, over his bum, until they came to rest, clasped, around his waist. John leaned up against him, and Paul felt the huge bulge pressing against his bum. 

Hello! Like a miracle Paul felt his loins coming to life. It felt inside like when he watched one of those sped-up films of a seed growing from nothing to a lovely plant. Paul turned in John’s arms, and they smiled at each other. This wasn’t going to be one of those crazy out-of-control sessions; they both knew that with the first shared glance. This was going to be one of those times that they periodically shared when it felt as though they were discovering each other’s bodies for the first time. 

 

*****

 

Although I was filled with hope and energy, especially after I rediscovered by mojo, I could tell that Paul was still worrying that something bad would happen, and we’d be back in the shit soup again. He acted as though he was always waiting for the second shoe to drop. So he stayed close to me for weeks, ignoring the business, his art, his music, our friends – everything - well, everything except Linda and the kids of course. Otherwise, it was all about me. I began to worry that I would be unable to accept it when he drifted away from me again after I got better.

By the end of January 1990, my hair had started growing back. My finger and toenails were no longer yellow; my teeth looked decent since my bleaching treatments. I was still painfully thin, but was slowly putting on a little weight. I went on a full vegan diet to detox, and Paul and Linda – in solidarity – did too. Paul, of course, ended up looking even more splendiferously beautiful than he usually did. This, in turn, worked wonders on my libido. 

During this whole process, Paul had transformed himself into somebody I hardly knew. He was not working. He was not on the telephone. He never left our house, and was rarely outside of shouting distance. If I wanted him to just sit with me, he would sit with me. If I wanted him to lay in the bed next to me, and talk about nonsense – whatever he could think of to say – he would do it. When people tried to draw him into business, he would tell them “I’m off the clock.” I heard him say it over and over in the next few months. I was his focal point most of the time. This had never happened before, I mean, 24/7 week after week after week. Paul does have that quality of making you feel like the center of his universe when he is with you, but then he tends to flit away to other tasks, leaving you suddenly bereft, like when the sun goes behind the clouds. He didn’t do the disappearing act even once the whole time I was going through chemo, or my recovery afterwards. 

 

*****

 

Six months had passed - six months of John’s misery, dealing with chemotherapy. And now it was January 1990, and with the New Year came new hope. Now John believed that anything was possible, and he feverishly wrote about it in his journal:

I started 1990 with hope in my heart that I could start my life over from where I left off a year earlier: “B.C.” Before Cancer I had been planning to write a new album with Paul. During my illness, Paul had been working on a classical composition in conjunction with Carl Davis, the impresario, and in honor of Liverpool’s 150th anniversary, and was working to complete it in time for a September 1991 debut in London. But he was game to start working on our next opus simultaneously, and I felt in my bones it was going to be great, if I could only think of something to actually write.

I was building my strength back slowly, and Paul nagged me endlessly to exercise. He would drag me out on walks. I don’t mind a walk when I’m going somewhere or doing something, but just for the sake of exercise – not so much. (Paul likes to tell people that my idea of exercise “is if he has to walk too far to the car; you have to pull it right up to the door…”) But I allowed myself to be dragged along the streets around Cavendish, because it was refreshing to be outdoors after all those months lying in bed and feeling punk. Of course, the paparazzi were often there, laying in wait. Paul and I would pretend not to notice them and keep walking and talking. By wearing a beret, I covered my head as my hair was slowly growing back, a bit wavier and greyer than it had been before. I actually began to feel almost human again. We would walk for 40 minutes, and then we’d go back to Cavendish and Linda would join us as we sat around the kitchen table, laughing and joking and just passing the time.

 

*****

 

Paul had driven John to his doctor appointment one early spring morning with no worries flitting in his brain. He sat patiently in the waiting room, as John had his examination by his doctor. It was a routine visit. However, he and John would leave that visit with heavy hearts. Weeks later, John would finally be able to write about it in his journal:

It was in April 1990 that I went for a regular checkup with my doctor. He found another melanoma tumor. This was devastating to me. I was in the doctor’s office, and broke down emotionally when he told me. Sid was not used to seeing me broken down like that. Paul was called from the waiting room, and he came racing in. We sat in Sid’s office while he conferenced in the surgeon and the other cancer specialists. A decision was made to send me directly over to the hospital and the cancer specialists would diagnose the tumor on the spot. It was very tiny, and it was located not far from the original tumor site. This was not a good sign, because it indicated there must still be floating cancer cells, despite the chemo and the radiation. But at least it hadn’t landed in an organ. Paul drove me to the hospital in his car, and I wept. He was a quiet and soothing presence. 

The specialists gathered around me as if they were a team of archeologists examining a newly discovered dinosaur bone. Paul sat quietly to the side, observing, and making notes. The surgeon decided to do the biopsy; he was leaning to the side of “in situ” rather than Stage I, which was better news than I had feared. He removed the tumor under a local, with me awake. At this point I was so accustomed to being pricked and prodded that I didn’t even wince. Paul and I sat glumly in the examining room while the doctors took the tumor down to the lab to be tested and examined. There really weren’t any words. At least I wasn’t weeping any more, but my head hung down off my neck. It was like I didn’t have enough energy to hold my head up. Paul got up, stood in front of me, and put his arms around me. We waited.

It was indeed a melanoma. The tumor was a Stage 0 but on the verge of becoming Stage I. We had caught it very early. The tumor itself was not a threat to me. It was the fact that I still had cancer cells roaming free through my lymph system or blood that was the cause for concern. Dr. Sid had joined us at the hospital, and we sat in the office of the Chief of surrounded by my team of doctors, and the Oncology Chief recommended another course of chemo. That was what I had been dreading. I know I cried out “No!” when the words came out of his mouth. I didn’t think I could bear to go through it again. I just kept shaking my head “No.” 

Paul asked if we could have a moment to ourselves, and suggested that rather than the seven doctors leave the room, the two of us be directed to a private room instead. We were escorted to an office, and we sat down. Paul turned his chair so it was facing mine. He grabbed both my wrists in his two hands and, since my head was hanging, he leaned his forehead against my forehead. He allowed at least a minute to go by before speaking.

“Well, mate, you know what I want you to do. I want you to come out fighting. Can you do that?”

I hadn’t looked at it that way before, strangely. I’ve heard others talk about their “fight” against cancer, but I hadn’t felt that I was a capable opponent to cancer, and had assumed it was “happening” to me, and it was the medicine that was “fighting” the cancer, not me. I raised my head, and our eyes met for a good 20 seconds or so. I saw in his eyes his confidence in me. He finally winked, which made me smile. He had his answer. We went back to the doctors and Paul told them I was willing to do the chemo again, but I wanted to do it entirely from home (he added that without asking me, but he was right, of course). Ultimately, a plan of attack was drawn up, and I walked out of there like James Bond’s martini: shaken but not stirred. 

I began chemo again a few days later. They were giving me a heavier dose of the poison this round. This time the nausea started right away. Again, my hair started to fall out in patches. Everything I had accomplished to recover my health was wasting away. I was fighting off an overwhelming depression. It felt like a dark sea was lapping up on the ever-shrinking shore of my spirits. Paul was working overtime to cheer me up. He implored me to “help” him write some songs. 

I was not a very pleasant companion during this period. I don’t know how Paul put up with me. But he literally dragged me kicking and screaming through an attempt to write a song. He would assign me projects. This would annoy me, and I would say, “I’m an equal partner, and you don’t give me assignments!” He’d say, “OK then, pick your own assignment! But you’re letting me down by doing nothing!” And I would say, “You’re putting too much pressure on me!” Oh, we went round and round. He started playing music he had composed for me, putting it on demos, and claiming he couldn’t think of any lyrics and needed me to do them. (Yeah, right, I believe that. “I have cancer, Paul, I haven’t suddenly gone stupid on you.” To which he responded bitterly, “I wish!”) In between arguments I would suddenly vomit. I think back on it now with a kind of amused nostalgia. There we were in the living room, arguing about me not writing anything, and I would vomit in the middle of the argument, and Paul would go into autopilot, cleaning up the mess while continuing the argument without missing a beat! It should have been funny to us, because it was funny, but our senses of humor had been pushed to the breaking point. 

At the time I thought he was being cruel and didn’t understand how sick I was. However, he was fighting for me, he was fighting my depression as if the depression – not the cancer, and not the chemo – was the enemy. In a way, it was. I was going to survive the chemo, and most likely I would survive the cancer, but the thing that could really get me in the end would be if I allowed depression to take me over. And Paul was having none of that. 

I couldn’t believe it when the doctors told me we were finished, because I had been so busy fighting all the skirmishes with my head down that I hadn’t realized we had come to the end of the war! But the chemo was over, and I had spent so much time arguing with Paul over not writing songs that I hadn’t focused on the chemo at all. Paul’s strategy had worked. I didn’t thank him for it. For weeks I grumbled and complained to him about how badly he had treated me while I had cancer and was going through chemo. He was in the doghouse for a good three or four months after that. Poor bloke couldn’t do anything right.

By August 1990 I had lost half my hair (not all of it this time), and I looked like Skeletor and felt horrible. Though the chemo had ended, the side effects had not yet gone completely away. I told Paul I was not willing to write songs yet. Taking his life into his hands, he argued with me. He said, “You love doing it, John, and when you’re sick like this you need to do as many things as possible that you love to do; it reminds you of what you’re fighting for.” His best efforts, however, could not move me from my stubborn position.

I also didn’t like to go outside, and possibly be confronted with paparazzi. I told him I couldn’t face people looking as bad as I did. So Linda arranged for a hair stylist to come, and the guy cut my hair so that it didn’t look so straggly. I just looked like a guy going bald. Then Paul handed me one of my berets without a word, but he had that “no nonsense” look on his face that I had learned decades earlier meant I could go 10 rounds with him, but he at least would still be standing at the end of it, so I might as well give up. So we started up our 40-minute neighborhood walks again, almost always accompanied (at a not-so-discreet-distance) by paparazzi.

Getting out of the house at that moment in time was the best thing I could have done. Almost as soon as the front door closed behind me, I would feel the fresh air (even if it was a bit warm) and it set my heart free. And when Paul invited our band members over for dinner at Cavendish one night (over my strenuous objections; I was embarrassed to be seen by them in my condition) I ended up having a fantastic time. Seeing our band members again reminded me of how wonderful the music business was, and that soon I would want to be getting back to it. Paul had been right in forcing these experiences on me, but I hated to admit it. 

So I didn’t admit it. I didn’t thank him for making me face the world outside again. Instead, I was bitching and nagging at him constantly. I insisted he spend most of his time with me at our home, rather than at Cavendish, and at the time he was working on a classical composition, too, and I interrupted him constantly while he was trying to work – I would be seated on the sofa, and I’d shout at him to bring me something that was closer to me than to him! I was cranky when he wasn’t right there right when I needed him, and grumbled about him working “on my time”. At one point, after a day where I had bitched and snapped at him endlessly, he turned to me and said, “I think I should go to Cavendish for a while. I think I’m just getting on your nerves, and we’ll both be better off if I just go.” 

Well! You’d have thought he said, “I’m going to abandon you, and you’ll never see me again.” I flew into a rage! 

“This is what you’ve been waiting for! You’ve been waiting for an excuse to leave me!” I screeched.

Paul wasn’t up to the drama. He was rolling his eyes. That pissed me off more.

“Am I boring you? Is this boring to you? You’re leaving me and you think it is boring?” I was shouting incoherently at this point. 

I had made such a commotion that the security guard who was hovering outside to protect us from the ever hovering, ever enterprising paparazzi that had discovered my house, came running into the room with his gun out of its holster! Paul turned his back on me to face him…

…As soon as he did this I screamed at Paul, “Don’t you turn your back on me! How dare you turn your back on me!”

…And he calmly told the guard that we weren’t in any danger from the outside, “Although there is a possibility that John will kill me”….

…”You think this is funny?” I screamed. “Everything is going to hell and you think this is funny!”…

Chuckling at Paul’s comment, but eyeing me with trepidation, the guard backed out of the house again.

Paul had hoped to wait out my hysteria, but I showed no sign of calming down, so he made an attempt to placate me: “I never said I was leaving you, John, don’t be daft. I suggested I should go back to Cavendish for the night…”

“Daft! You think I’m fucking daft! You hate me! It’s over – isn’t it? You’re leaving me! This is just the first step! It’s the first step!” Finally, I started to cry. Paul spent the next 10 minutes comforting me. Finally, the storm had passed. After a while, sitting silently side-by-side with Paul on the edge of the bed, my breathing went back to normal. About this time the rational voice inside of me was pointing out to my irrational side that I wasn’t really mad at Paul, I was mad at fate. But Paul was there and fate wasn’t, so he was getting the brunt of my anger, fear and frustration.

After these few moments of silence, Paul, with his impeccable timing, asked “You hungry? Wanna order a pizza?” His tone of voice was so matter-of-fact - as if I hadn’t just thrown a king-hell tantrum - that I had to laugh, and the fight was over. 

But I told him flat out he was NOT going to leave my side, “No matter how annoying I am. Do you understand?” He agreed. And it was a good thing, too, because the next day I was on his case about something else, and I didn’t let up for weeks. I honestly don’t know how he survived it. Or, perhaps what I still don’t understand (and maybe never will) is WHY he survived it. Why did he put up with me while I was being so unreasonable and he was getting nothing out of our relationship? 

As John reread what he wrote, he thought about the crucible Paul and he had survived. And here they were, still standing. Still friends, still lovers, still partners. John wanted to wrap it up, so that it all made sense. He began to write again: 

I include this episode not because I want to expose the fraying of my relationship with Paul during this period, but to point out how the stress and pressure of a long fight against cancer can damage even the strongest of relationships if you let them. I was lucky. My partner refused to be provoked, and understood that it was my fear talking, not me, so he overlooked and forgave my outrageous treatment of him. But not all partners or spouses are that mature and understanding. It is something doctors should warn a bloke about, and provide some training for, when a long course of chemo is recommended. Since they don’t do that, it is up to the cancer victim to educate himself on the subject, and see to it that his partner is also educated on it. Paul and I had our bad arguments over the 10 years since we reconciled our friendship, of course we did, but we hadn’t experienced one that had lingered and festered for months on end, but for a 6 month period in 1990, during and for a few months after my second course of chemo, we argued almost constantly – in each case, started or provoked by me. I could have done permanent damage to this, the most important relationship in my life, and I am grateful everyday that Paul was a grown up about it, since I wasn’t.

Despite the fireworks I sometimes resorted to, I have to confess that Paul was always a loving caretaker to me all throughout my cancer treatment. There were times when I was so sore, sick and tired that I could do nothing by curl up in a fetal position and moan. In such moments, Paul had a number of different strategies, each of them amazingly successful in its own way. He might hold me in his arms, and softly sing to me, or whisper sweet nothings, or tell jokes, or speak about lovely old memories that made me smile. He would give me full body massages, and I remember feeling as though I might just melt into the mattress when he was massaging me. Did I need a cool sip of water, or a hot water bottle? A fan blowing over ice cubes, or blankets warmed up in the microwave oven? Whatever I seemed to need at any moment, Paul would be there with what I needed within moments, usually without me having to ask. I was left wondering: would I have been as good a caretaker for Paul, as he was for me, if the situation was reversed?


	7. Chapter 7

John’s second course of chemo had ended. Paul had endured it by constantly reminding himself, John has cancer, John has cancer, like a mantra, but he had often felt as though John was squeezing every possible ounce of bathos out of his cancer. Sometimes, Paul had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Still, those moments would pass, and then he would be seeing John - his John, with his hair almost all grown back - sitting in front of him, and he would melt with affection and devotion again.

Tired of London, the dreariness of the weather, and the constant presence of the paparazzi, Linda suggested that they should plan a full family trip abroad again, now that John’s treatment had concluded, like they had done in the old days. So they all trekked to the Italian Mediterranean with Paul’s family, and - at John’s specific request - two friends. Gerry and Jason. Although the chemo had stopped, John’s journaling went on apace.

 

*****

 

My chemo over, Paul, Linda and I decided we would rent a villa somewhere sunny for mid-August through mid-October. We hadn’t gone anywhere the year before because of the chemo and radiation. I believe Paul felt like he needed to get out of the claustrophobic world created by my cancer, and I do think he was worried about our relationship because I was always sniping at him, and it was clear he felt that we needed a break from each other. Since he knew he couldn’t suggest a separation – however brief – without causing me to have a meltdown, he decided that surrounding me with people I love and plopping me down in an idyllic locale would give him a break from being my one full time caregiver. Of course, at the time I didn’t suss this out; this is something I’m realizing as I’m writing about it now. 

We all chose a villa in Italy, on the Mediterranean. Paul encouraged me to invite tons of people – to “fill up all eight bedrooms” for the whole period. So I did: Linda, the kids (sometimes Paul’s and sometimes mine), and in turns, George and Ruth Martin, Ritchie and Barbara, Julian and his girlfriend, and for the first two weeks Sean, were coming and going throughout our stay. As I mentioned before, Gerry and Jason were there for the duration. Soon after their arrival, they observed my treatment of Paul, and were shocked and horrified. 

Gerry: “Why do you talk to him like that? He’s only trying to help!”

Jason: “You’re lucky to have someone willing to do this for you – I have friends with AIDS, and their partners just can’t handle it!” 

I was chastened by their remarks. I finally raised the issue with Paul one night while we lay in bed, and I apologized to him for my behavior. He is so fucking pragmatic. He said,

“Are you sure you’re finished being fussed with me?”

“What?” I hadn’t expected this reaction to my extremely out-of-character apology.

“Well,” he said, “if I were you, I wouldn’t start apologizing until I was sure I wasn’t going to be snapping at me anymore. You’ll just end up having to apologize repeatedly, and I know how much you hate to apologize.”

“You’re a smart ass.” But I was smiling under my feigned irritation. He was so fucking cute.

“I’m just trying to be practical. If you really are sorry you’ve been a total monster for the last 4 months, then I will gladly accept your apology. But if you’re not through taking it out on me, I’d just as soon wait until you’ve finished, and then you can apologize to me all at once.”

“I’ve really been horrible, haven’t I?”

“John, I’ve gotta tell you, I found myself outside the house one time, watching the gardener, and eyeing the wood chipper machine with new respect.”

[Laughing] “You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I? Anyway, I think you’re cranky because you’re not having enough sex. You want some? It might do you a world of good.”

So that was the end of that argument. And, by the way, he was right about that too.

 

*****

 

From Paul’s perspective, the second round of chemo, and John’s long emotional recovery from it, had taken a huge toll on him. He had been endlessly patient with John’s antics, but had occasionally found himself snapping at Linda and the children. It hadn’t been fair at all that they had to bear the brunt of his frustration. Surrounding John with other friends for several weeks was a way of saving his marriage to Linda, and making it up to her and the kids. John didn’t notice his more frequent absences when he had Jason around to keep him company. Although Paul had gotten through the ordeal without a full-blown meltdown, he had learned a few things about himself from the experience. It wasn’t until after John started to loosen his tight grip on him, though, that Paul had the quiet time to himself to start to put the pieces together.

One thing Paul had learned about himself was that he found it next to impossible to sit quietly with thoughts that frightened him, and just endure them. He had tried to conquer John’s cancer the way he had conquered so many things in his life before, and it was a singularly ineffective methodology. How much better would it have been for all of them if he had remained calm, and had just quietly allowed the ebb and flow of the experience to move him around and then react only as necessary to events? What was this need to control everything? And what had it accomplished? As it turned out, insisting on the first round of chemo had been the right thing to do, so at least one good thing had come out of his anxiety-driven attempts to be in charge of John’s cancer.

Another thing Paul had learned about himself is that he allowed himself to be emotionally manipulated by John in a way that made him feel bad about himself afterwards, and that would - over time - truly injure his relationship with John if he allowed it to continue. Paul knew he would have to draw a line in the sand with John about how he needed to be treated going forward; the hard part was knowing when would be the right moment to draw that line. Paul suspected it would have to be soon, because there had been times when John was treating him with what appeared to be disdain that Paul had been embarrassed for himself because he didn’t fight back. Still, “fighting back” against a guy with cancer just seemed like the wrong thing to do at the time, so he had just endured it. Going forward, however, Paul was going to have to make it clear to John that he wasn’t a cat to be kicked whenever John felt out of sorts. Paul dreaded it, though, because he knew John could never take even the drawing of minimal, reasonable limits in their relationship as anything short of a full rejection. John had always demanded unconditional love from Paul, and the fact that it was unreasonable to expect that from another adult human being had apparently never occurred to John. So, when Paul finally did get around to raising the subject, he knew there was going to be hell to pay, and he worried that it would be a serious game-changer in their relationship. Still, the relationship was doomed anyway if Paul didn’t stick up for himself, because he knew he couldn’t take any more of that crap, so the same thing either way.

Sighing, Paul cast his eyes around the pool area. John was sitting between Jason and Gerry on lounging chairs across the pool from Paul, under an umbrella and smothered in sunblock, utterly enchanting both of them simultaneously with his dazzling bullshit. Paul found himself holding back a chuckle. Linda had been sitting next to Paul until she’d gone up to the house an hour earlier to start dinner. James and a few visiting Italian friends he had met down on the beach were still in the pool playing some vigorous game involving shouting, splashing, and frooze balls. There was almost more water outside of the pool than in it at this point as a result. Paul had no idea where the girls had gone. They were probably up in the house making plans to go out and hit the local town’s nightlife. Mary, 21, and Stella, 19, had turned into a couple of fierce fashionistas, complete with full face makeup and stiletto heels that could kill a man if aimed in the proper direction, and when they went out all gussied up, tube-topped, hair-sprayed to within an inch of their lives, arm in arm, and full of piss and vinegar, Paul actually found himself feeling sorry for the men they would encounter that night. Blokes wouldn’t even have a chance.

For the first time, Paul admitted to himself that he was starting to feel middle-aged. He was 48 years old, to John’s almost 50 (they would celebrate this event with black bunting and a skull-shaped cake a few weeks later), and his oldest daughter Heather had turned 27 months earlier. His hair had as much grey in it as black now, and it was styled in a hippie-like layered semi-mullet that somehow only Paul could make look good, and when he looked in the mirror, or reviewed the proofs for photographs, he was noticing a jowly-ness around his neck that he had never expected to see and certainly didn’t like. Linda told him he looked fine - that even his spreading waistline was fine - but there was still the chubby little 13 year-old inside of Paul worrying desperately that he looked fat, over the hill, and maybe even slightly ridiculous - like mutton dressed as lamb. Perhaps he would have felt more “with it” and desirable if he hadn’t just endured 18 months’ worth of John’s overwhelming moods, which had flashed by unpredictably and unrelentingly - one moment grasping neediness and the next, angry disdain. The cancer was to blame of course, but the pain and insecurity it had stirred up in Paul was real to him, just the same. 

And worse, there was no one to blame this on, since ‘cancer’ wasn’t a person. Paul just had to swallow the pain and try to move on. It was hard, especially since Paul found it impossible to share these thoughts and fears with anyone else, even Linda. For as long as Paul could remember, there had always been a moat around his innermost fears and insecurities, and he’d always been able to function despite this, but as he got older, and felt more vulnerable to life’s vicissitudes, it was getting harder and harder to live alone with these painful private thoughts. Paul was in a very vulnerable place, although no one around him seemed to be truly aware of the fact.

 

*****

 

Linda, too, had dealt with her share of pain and self-doubt during those 18 months. A year older than Paul, and looking every inch her age while her husband looked much younger, with her children growing up and leaving the nest, a husband who was also in love with a man, which man was - stripped of its mitigating factors - emotionally abusing her husband; well, it wasn’t exactly the future she had pictured for herself as a teenager growing up in Scarsdale, New York, or even as a young wife and mother in the rock ’n’ roll world of the ‘70s. She’d heard from older friends that the fifties were a difficult decade. You weren’t really middle aged unless you intended to live to be over 100, but “middle aged” is what they called it, and it came with a shitload of baggage. To make matters worse, she, Paul and John were stuck in the “rock ‘n roll” rubric, and thus their “middle age” was now a kind of public irony as well as a private drag. At least if you were an accountant, moving from being a 40 year-old accountant to a 50 year-old accountant wasn’t an irony or a public humiliation. It was just a drag.

Linda wasn’t one to dwell on such thoughts, although she didn’t delude herself by completely ignoring them either. She knew she was a bit overweight, and that her looks were starting to fail her. This didn’t send her into a depression, though. Nor did it send her into an anxious spiral of frantic dieting, exercising, and plastic surgery. She was determined to be herself with as much dignity as possible as she aged, and to help Paul do the same, although she suspected it would be much harder for him, because of his deep-seated insecurities. She had always said that external beauty didn’t matter to her. It was easier to say that when she had youth and beauty on her side than it was to say it when the youth was gone and the beauty was fading, but Linda was not a hypocrite and she was determined to live a life (as Aristotle once said) “in accordance with nature.”

Paul had drifted away from her. It had started with the concert tour, and then the whole cancer/chemo thing had deepened the divide. It wasn’t a rift. They never fought, and they still were good friends, and had sex, and laughed together. Nothing outward had changed. But Paul spent most of his free time off in his own head, now, whether it was while pounding away at a piano, or - Linda looked out of the kitchen window down to the pool area as she thought this - just sitting by himself, staring out into space as he was doing now. What’s going on in your head, lover? She asked him silently. She supposed she should feel better that Paul also appeared to have drifted away from John, but it worried her - Paul being adrift like this, disconnected at his deepest levels from the people he loved the most. He was completely unreachable, though. Any attempt to draw him out on the subject only managed to bring out jolly, protective Paul, full of what appeared to be genuine reassurances, and self-deprecating jokes. She could be angry with him for neglecting them all emotionally if she didn’t believe that underneath it all he was terribly sad and alone. 

 

*****

 

Had a great time around the pool with Jason and Gerry today. They are a shot in the arm. I am beginning to miss just living in a New York loft, and hanging out with grown-ups with similar interests, and going to the theatre. Being stuck year-round in London by Paul’s family commitments can be a bit of a drag. I really should get out of my rut every once in a while and spend some time in New York with my friends before I get too old to enjoy it. I’ll suggest it to Paul - that we should spend at least part of the year in our New York loft. Now that his kids are growing up, maybe he’ll be open to it. If not, maybe I should try it on my own every once in a while. That way, he could have some alone time with Linda, too. 

Our relationship is changing; I can feel that. But it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We’ve just spent 18 months locked together by my cancer, and it’s like we both need a little distance from each other. It’s not a bad thing. Anyway, unless something is going to get old and boring, it has to change. I don’t know how Paul will take it if I suggest my spending time without him, because he doesn’t like to be alone. That whole ‘I’m independent and self-sufficient’ act he does doesn’t fool me, and it doesn’t fool Linda. He gets anxious when we’re both not at his fingertips. But I think he’ll be a happier person if he learns to give us each a little space, and maybe even learns how to spend some time on his own in peace. 

John put his pencil down. He was feeling confident tonight, and reread what he had written. He was proud of the independence that exuded from the page, and at least in that moment fully believed what he had written. The fact that he was at least as insecure as Paul about being separated from his loved ones - and probably even more so - didn’t penetrate through this fog of overweening self-confidence. Instead, he leaned back against the pillow and started writing again.

Actually, I wonder what it would be like to have some time to myself, and maybe even have an affair. I think if I have another sexual interest in my life, it will be easier for me to share Paul with Linda. And, anyway, he shouldn’t feel that I’m not capable of being with someone else besides him. It will help him separate himself from me a little. And vice versa. Anyway, sex can get old if you only do it with the same person. Paul is still a great lover; I’m not saying otherwise. But maybe to keep it fresh, we need to stray a little. It might be worth just experimenting a little, to find out. Maybe I’ll invite myself to go home and stay with Jason and Gerry in New York for a few weeks after this vacation is over to see how it goes.

 

*****

 

About six weeks into the vacation, a hand-delivered note arrived via messenger, addressed to Jason. Moments later, Jason tracked Gerry down in the well-stocked library, where he was enjoying a quiet afternoon smoking a pipe and reading a tome about the Roman Empire. When in Italy… Gerry had thought as he selected the book.

“Gerry, I’ve had a note from Rob Sheridan. He’s staying a few miles from here in a small villa he’s rented. He wants to take us out to dinner.”

“Rob? What on earth is he doing here? And where’s Wes?”

Jason and Gerry had spent an evening in New York with Rob and Wes several weeks earlier, and Wes had confided in Jason that he and Rob were considering a trial separation. Rob was restless again, apparently, and rather than cheat on Wes behind his back, he had decided to move out and try life on his own again. Wes had been heartbroken but resigned. He had sworn Jason to secrecy, and in any case Jason hadn’t believed that Rob would really do it. Jason had assumed Rob was using emotional blackmail, so that Wes would “agree” to Rob cheating on him, if he would only not leave him. For this reason, Jason had not mentioned this to Gerry. Gerry always got defensive whenever Jason’s cynicism about Rob became apparent.

“Wes did mention to me that they might try a separation,” Jason said, trying not to sound too judgmental about Rob as he did so.

“Really!” Gerry cried, honestly surprised. “Why?”

“Who knows about other people’s relationships? You never can tell from the outside, can you?” Jason skirted the issue.

Gerry harrumphed and then said, “Odd that Rob should turn up on our doorstep like this, though. He never mentioned a trip to Italy when we told him we were going to be spending a few months here with John and Paul.”

Jason nodded. Of course, that dinner in New York was just before he and Gerry had left for Italy, and thus they had been full of their excitement over seeing John and Paul again, and visiting Europe. Perhaps their excitement had rubbed off on Rob? “So what should we do?” Jason asked.

“Well, we can meet him somewhere for dinner, or we can see if Linda wants to invite him here.” Gerry was at a loss, since he was not really the social planner in their relationship.

“Oh - not here,” Jason said quickly. “I think the two of us should go alone to see him somewhere. We’ll leave the others out of this. No doubt it will turn into a diatribe about what went wrong between Wes and him.”

“That sounds more like Wes than Rob to me,” Gerry said, defending his friend. “Rob may have some hard feelings about it, but he’s not the type to share it with us behind Wes’s back.”

Jason was not so sure, but didn’t argue with Gerry over something that was purely theoretical.

A few nights later they were driven to a restaurant located between the huge villa where the McLen crowd was staying, and the tiny little villa that Rob had rented. Jason had explained to John what had happened, and not hankering after an evening spent with Rob, John agreed that Jason and Gerry should go alone.

Gerry and Jason got there first, and found themselves at the table Rob had reserved for them, overlooking the Mediterranean. It was a seafood-and-pasta place, and the food smelled incredible. The maître d’ fussed over them and poured out some incredible red wine, a rich Amarone, that Rob had pre-ordered for them. (Apparently the restaurant had become a regular for Rob, and he’d obviously laid down some big bucks at the place because the wait staff was almost unbearably obsequious.) When Rob breezed in he looked vigorous, in charge, and impossibly handsome and tan in a white and blue striped Breton-style shirt and white slacks, with a light navy sweater tied carelessly around his neck. He gave Gerry and Jason each a warm hug, and then joined them at the table.

“It’s so great to see you two again,” Rob said. “Just seeing you both brings my spirits up. You two have that effect on people.” Rob’s comments sounded sincere and warm, and even Jason found them to be charming. While the waiters dressed the table with a squid, muscles and eggplant dish with big chunks of scallions that sounded horrible, looked a bit strange, but tasted out-of-this-world, the three men filled each other in with their vacation anecdotes.

“And how is John doing now that the chemo is done?” Rob finally asked.

“He’s much better. He has his color back, and his hair. He seems very high-spirited.” Jason answered the question.

Rob smiled and said, “I’ve had friends who had brushes with death before, and it did tend to give them a new lease on life. They said afterwards they never saw life the same again, and appreciated what they had even more.”

Jason thought about what Rob said. “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling that the other shoe hasn’t dropped for John yet. I feel as though John is on a false high right now, and he’s headed for a fall. I can’t quite put my finger on it.” 

Gerry made sounds in general agreement with Jason’s comment, and then, after a few moments of the three men exchanging other, less deep, comments, Rob asked, his voice sounding as disinterested as possible, “And how’s Paul?”

The question sounded so inconsequential, that Jason didn’t feel any compunction about responding to it honestly. “I’m a bit worried about him.”

Gerry looked up in surprise. Jason had not said this before to him, but Gerry, too, had been worried about Paul. He thought maybe he’d been imagining it, since he’d never spent time with Paul and John when Linda and the children were around. He’d thought that perhaps Paul behaved differently in that setting. Of course, having met Linda and the children he had begun to understand why the arrangement - against all odds - had worked. She was an extraordinary woman, and she and Paul had raised extraordinary children. But still, there was something about Paul’s affect this trip that bothered Gerry.

Rob allowed Jason’s comment to go unanswered. He waited patiently for Jason to enlarge on his comment. A few seconds later, he was rewarded.

“He seems very tired, and kind of lost. Out of sorts, somehow. Maybe it’s the way he always is when he’s with both Linda and John, I don’t know, but I think John’s illness took a lot out of Paul, and I’m not sure John knows or even appreciates how much.”

Rob was very interested to hear this. But he allowed his interest to remain on a very low simmer. He focused instead on his pasta, and then, after a respectable few moments, he said, “I’m sure it is hard to be the caretaker for someone going through chemo. It no doubt takes a lot out of a person. Paul seems like a strong person, and he will probably put this behind him soon.”

Jason was pleasantly surprised by Rob’s kind but objective tone. How strange that at one time they all had believed he had a “thing” for Paul!

As the dinner came to an end, and the last of the espresso was dregs in their cups, Rob said sincerely, “It was great to see you both. I’m a bit at a loose end without Wes. It’s harder to be on one’s own than you think it’s going to be.”

Jason and Gerry were both touched by Rob’s out-of-character emotional accessibility. They hadn’t expected it of him. Jason’s kind heart got the best of him, and he said, “You’ll have to come visit us at the villa; I’m sure John and Paul would love to see you. You could meet Linda. She’s an amazing woman. She’s what my father used to call a ‘broad’. Apparently that was intended as a top compliment by men of my father’s generation.”

Rob smiled and demurred. “I wouldn’t want to intrude en famille. Of course, maybe I can host you all for a dinner out sometime before we all leave?”

“I can’t speak for Linda, but knowing what I know of her, I’m sure she would much prefer to feed you herself. She loves a large ravenous crowd around a dining table more than any other woman I know,” Jason urged. “Let me talk with her about it, and we’ll see what can be arranged.”

“Please don’t have her go out of her way for me, it isn’t necessary,” Rob said softly, as he fought for and won the right to pay the bill. 

 

*****

 

Linda of course was delighted to have company, having no idea whatsoever of any background behind Rob Sheridan or any of the undercurrents that would be flowing around her table that night. John was on one of his manic highs, and felt super-confident in his position in Paul’s life at the moment; he felt that he was in the catbird seat in their relationship right then, with Paul the needier one, so he wasn’t at all worried about Rob coming for dinner, even though he was now apparently separated from Wes. Paul, meanwhile, still a bit awash in what he didn’t recognize at the time to be a depression, didn’t have strong feelings either way about Rob showing up in his life again. He was finding it harder and harder to keep his low spirits from showing in front of his family and his guests, so having a distraction for them all in the guise of a new guest seemed like a good thing to him.

Rob showed up wearing a pair of understated but very expensive dark brown Italian slacks, and a beige cashmere pullover sweater. He brought with him a bottle of very expensive red wine, and a bouquet of exquisite wild flowers for Linda. How did he know she would prefer wildflowers? Paul wondered, when he saw them. Showing his exquisite international manners, Rob greeted his hostess first, kissing her on both cheeks in the Continental way and offering to help her by putting the flowers in water, but Linda handed them over to Mary and welcomed him in to the kitchen in her openly casual American manner. 

Rob spent the beginning of the evening charming his hostess and Paul’s daughters. Women clearly loved him, and Paul saw a side of Rob he’d never seen before. It actually appeared as though Rob actually appreciated women, not as potential buddies, but as something exquisite on their own - their genuine femininity clearly appealed to him. This surprised Paul, because he had never before met a gay man who seemed to see women as if they were beautiful pieces of art. If Paul hadn’t known that Rob was gay, he might have been jealous of how frequently he made Linda giggle in that particularly appealing girlish way of hers. It had been a while since Paul had made Linda giggle that way, and this thought sent a dagger through his spirits, just when they had started to rise. Here it was again: yet another of his failures to live up to the true needs and desires of a loved one.

At the dinner table, Paul and Linda sat at either end, with Rob on one side of Linda, and John on the other. Paul sat with Jason and Gerry on either side of him. The girls had gone out to the nearest town. James had eaten earlier, and was off grumpily doing his home study work, however half-heartedly, which was the quid pro quo for his being allowed out of school for the better part of two months. 

“Am I allowed to mention the C-word?” Rob asked John, with a twinkle in his eye. “Or should I pretend I don’t know? What’s your preference?”

John responded well to the light jest. “I’ll allow it just this once,” he said, mimicking Michael Corleone to his wife Kay with a badly executed New York/Italian accent. “Just this once I will let you ask me about my cancer.”

Rob didn’t get the allusion to the movie, but he still thought it was funny, so he laughed freely. “And so? Don’t leave me hanging in suspense.” Rob’s eyebrow was suspended on his forehead and his eyes snapped with humor. Linda watched from a safe difference, wondering what was going to happen next.

“Well, I had two rounds of chemo, got sick, lost my hair twice, it was hell, and now I’m waiting six months to get tested again, hoping that’s the end of it. That pretty much sums it up.” John said this with a certain bravado that missed sounding touchingly courageous, and instead came off as flip.

Rob was polite enough not to notice. “It sounds hellish,” he said instead. “But good that it’s over.” Realizing the conversation was a non-starter with John, he turned to Linda and asked her how the experience had been for her.

“John and I spent some good time together,” she said softly, smiling at John. “We got to know each other a little better. But mainly, I tried to keep Paul’s spirits up.”

Rob’s ears perked at Paul’s name, but he tried not to react outwardly, although he involuntarily gazed down to the other end of the table to where Paul was seated. Paul was as darkly beautiful as ever, the silver in his hair somehow bringing out the contours of his face even more, and his features were in repose and politely unreadable as he listened intently to a conversation between Gerry and Jason. Rob turned his eyes back towards Linda. “It must have been difficult for you all,” he said, “and I hope this holiday is helping things to get back to normal.”

John soon lost interest in Rob, and turned towards Jason, who was on his other side. Rob turned fully to Linda, leaned in, and lowered his voice a bit. “How was it for Paul? It must have been very…bewildering…for him,” Rob said quietly, hoping Linda would open up to him.

“’Bewildering?’” Linda repeated. “Why do you use that word?”

“What little I know of your husband tells me that he very much needs to feel in control of his life. But nothing strips you of that illusion more effectively than a close friend’s devastating illness.” Rob’s eyes were warm and sympathetic, and Linda fell into them.

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Exactly. That’s exactly it. John is still, essentially, John. The cancer came, it did it’s worst, and it’s gone. I don’t think it will be coming back. John is bouncing back, more like himself than ever - almost with a vengeance. But Paul…Paul is changed, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever be the same again.” Linda’s eyes began to involuntarily fill with tears. “I don’t know what happened between them because of this illness, but Paul seems…” Linda searched for a word to describe it…

“…Lost?” Rob offered.

“Yes. Lost.” Linda nodded, grateful to Rob for his insight. She didn’t know that the insight had been borrowed from Jason.

“Surely, John is aware of this, and is helping him through, though,” Rob suggested, hoping this wasn’t true, and also hoping he wasn’t giving away his intense investment in Linda’s answer.

Linda thought about this. “John can be forgiven, I guess, for just reveling in feeling well again. Imagine eighteen months of feeling sick all the time, your hair falling out, nausea, worrying about your fate the whole time. It’s only been a few weeks now that he has been free from all that, and I think he is understandably self-absorbed. I don’t think he realizes yet what Paul went through, and what Paul is still going through.” Linda was fighting back tears now, and seeing this, Rob unobtrusively passed her a handkerchief under the table. She grasped it and smiled gratefully, and surreptitiously blotted her eyes.

Rob poured her some more wine, and leaned forward again, speaking even more softly, directly to Linda. “He is a strong man; that much I have recognized in him in the short time I’ve known him. He will get through this, and he is lucky to have you. I’m sure you will see him through this.” Linda reached across the table, her hand still grasping the handkerchief, and she squeezed Rob’s hand.

Across the table, Paul noticed this. He noticed that Rob was paying special attention to Linda, and that he was comforting her. He noticed that Linda had needed that comfort, and while grateful to Rob for providing it to her, Paul again felt a pang of disappointment that he was not the one to comfort Linda. Maybe tonight, when everyone was gone, he could pull himself out of this malaise, and make the night all about her. John didn’t seem to mind when Paul spent the night with Linda anymore. At least, he didn’t act out over it, and in fact he no longer even commented on it, either. This should have been a good thing to Paul, but for some reason it only made him feel less needed, and less loved. Paul managed to pull a chuckle out of himself: I’m turning into a real pity partier. This was not an attractive thought, so Paul made a determined effort to pull himself out of his mood, and suggested they all move to the living room.

It was on the cold and windy side out on the patio, so they only left one of the French doors open, and arrayed themselves around the sitting room with their various aperitifs. Linda left first after saying her goodbyes to the guest and urging him to stay as long as he liked. She also wanted to make sure James wasn’t sitting up late doing video games instead of sleeping. She secretly hoped that Paul would soon follow her.

The others got into a heated debate about a recent New Yorker article that Jason had edited, but Paul soon lost interest and drifted over to a piano, and began to play chords from the classical piece he was working on. As the debate got louder, Paul drifted further into himself. Seeing this, Rob - who had been listening to but not participating in the conversation since he knew nothing about it and was not the type to hold court or opine on subjects about which he was ignorant - quietly peeled himself away from the others and moved stealthily towards the piano, bringing a fresh drink for Paul with him.

It was finally time for him to make his move.


	8. Chapter 8

“Want a drink?” Rob placed the fresh glass of whiskey on the piano, in front of Paul. Paul, surprised by the quiet interruption, looked up and saw a warmly smiling Rob gazing down at him. “Mind if I sit down?” Rob gestured to the piano bench. Paul wordlessly moved over, so that Rob could share it with him.

“Thanks,” Paul said, referring to the whiskey.

“I was listening to what you were playing. I was enjoying it. You’re influenced somewhat by Chopin in this piece, aren’t you?”

Paul laughed deprecatingly. “Somewhat,” he said, jokingly. “That’s as close as I can hope to get.” Paul had started this piece months ago, meant to be a small movement of the Oratorio.

Rob gave Paul a slight frown and said in a firm voice, “Don’t put yourself down. You’re a far more successful composer in your day than Chopin was in his, and I suspect you will be far more successful over time than he was, too.”

Paul felt a little awkward. He wasn’t used to compliments issued so peremptorily, and wasn’t sure how to react to it. “Well, we’ll neither of us be alive to find out the truth of it,” Paul said cheerily, and then lifted his glass to clink it with Rob’s.

“What’s it called?” Rob asked, after swallowing his sip of whiskey. He had chosen Paul’s favorite brand on purpose, as he hoped Paul would notice that he remembered it after all this time.

“Hmm?”

“The piece. What is it called?”

“It hasn’t got a name; right now it is just a few strands of melody in search of a theme.”

“It feels a bit…poignant to me. Are you inspired by what’s going on in your life, or do these melodies just come to you?”

Paul said automatically, “They just come to me.” It had never occurred to him that the music might have been inspired by what was going on in his life. Instead, where the music came from had always been a kind of mystery to him that he was afraid to solve, for fear that once he knew where it came from, it wouldn’t come anymore.

“So the music doesn’t express how you feel tonight?” Rob asked, pressing beyond Paul’s comfort zone a tiny bit more.

Paul felt the pressure, but it didn’t scare him yet. “It’s just what I’m working on now, is why I’m playing it,” he said lamely. Even he didn’t sound too convinced by this explanation. He didn’t know why he was feeling so exposed.

“But it is possible that you are composing it now, and thinking to play it now, because it does express how you feel now.” Rob had leaned in a tiny bit, forcing Paul to meet his eyes. “Isn’t it?”

Paul’s eyes flickered at what he saw in Rob’s eyes - a kind of avuncular wisdom coupled with unsentimental empathy. For a moment he felt the urge to say, “yes” to Rob, but at the last moment he smiled instead.

“Like I said, I never know where the music comes from, or why. It’s just always there.”

Rob leaned back a little to give Paul more space. He had seen that for a brief moment there - barely a second - Paul had felt the pull of his magnetism. Rob had seen the glorious hazel eyes widen just the tiniest bit in recognition of it. That was a start, and he didn’t want to overplay his hand, especially so early in the game. There was no advantage in taking risks at this point, because it was completely unnecessary. 

About this time, John noticed that Rob and Paul were almost tete-a-tete on the piano bench. From John’s standpoint, they appeared a little too cozy. He stopped his argument abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and got up and walked over to the piano. When he got there, he saw that Paul was simply playing chords, and Rob was just listening. Rob looked up and smiled cheerfully at John. “Have you three finished fixing the world then?” Rob asked lightly, and then laughed.

“Were we boring you?” John asked in a jocular manner, but underneath he felt a bit anxious for some reason. By then Jason had joined them.

“Paul, play something for us,” Jason asked.

“Oh no, no, I’m not really a good pianist,” Paul said, starting to push away from the piano. “In fact, if you all don’t mind, I think I’ll go up to bed.”

Rob got up. “Of course. And it’s late. I should be on my way.” Despite half-hearted urges to the contrary from Gerry and Jason, Rob insisted upon leaving, and the five men all said goodnight in the large entry hallway.

Paul peeled off as soon as Rob was out the door, calling down the stairs, “See you all in the morning!”

That’s his way of telling me he’s sleeping with Linda tonight, John thought grumpily to himself. He had been feeling so sure of Paul lately, but in one short 10-minute period all that confidence had been sucked out of him. He turned to Jason, who hugged him goodnight, and then soon he was alone in the hallway, and eventually he wandered up to his bedroom. He remembered to leave the light on for the girls, who were still out on the town. They were certainly a gallivanting pair!

 

*****

 

I’m not sure I can trust that Rob guy. He’s hard to read. Every time I think I will catch him eyeing Paul, he’ll be doing nothing of the sort. He didn’t even go near Paul tonight, except at the very end, when he got bored with the argument. It is depressing how quickly I can revert to my insecure self. Nothing is different from last night, but tonight feels totally different. Last night Paul was with Linda, and I was writing about how I needed some time and space away from him. Tonight he is with Linda, and I am feeling lost and alone. What the fuck is going on with me? And why can’t I connect with Paul? Have we forgotten how to talk to each other, after such a long time walking on eggshells because of my cancer?

John threw the pencil down, and flopped backwards against the pillow. In that moment he dreadfully missed how it was before the cancer, when he and Paul were careless and at ease with one another. This was going to be a long, lonely night.

 

*****

 

It was not a long, lonely night for Linda. When Paul came to bed, he had gently awakened her, and taken her in his arms. He had come to make good on the silent promise he had made to himself at the dinner table. He whispered some soft words in her ear, and she felt his hands slowly tracing their way up her thighs, and butterflies started flapping around in her stomach. It was like making love with a Paul who was 100% with her again, and it had felt like years since Paul had made her feel this way.

Earlier, when Linda had come up to bed, she had begun to regret having spoken of Paul so openly with Rob, who was - in essence - a complete stranger. Linda never did that, because she feared her words would show up in the tabloids later. For whatever reason, she had completely trusted Rob. It was probably because he was friends with Jason and Gerry, and she knew from John and Paul and her own dealings with them, that they were absolute and total vaults when it came to their friendship with the two ex-Beatles. She tried to remember what she had said, and hoped it hadn’t been too intimate, and then promised herself she would be more careful in the future.

She was also upset with herself because she hadn’t shared her concerns with Paul directly. She didn’t know why she hadn’t yet, other than maybe it was because Paul seemed so detached and unwilling to participate in any serious, heart-to-heart conversations. He seemed to have a need to keep everything light and easy right now; it was probably a reaction to the heaviness of the previous 18-month struggle. Linda supposed she would have to play it by ear, and hope that she would see the opening with Paul when it finally appeared.

Consequently, when Paul came in the room an hour or so later, and immediately began some tender foreplay, she felt a tremendous release go through her body. Tonight, at least, she wouldn’t have to keep her feelings bottled up. She could express them physically, and he would know how much she still loved and needed him.

 

*****

 

It was a week or so later when Linda accepted Jason’s invitation to go meet Rob for lunch down in the nearby town of Portofino. John had cried off when he heard that Rob would be there, and Paul had said he’d stay to keep an eye on James and his friends. Gerry had preferred to sit on the patio in the sun and read some more about the Roman Empire. A ciascuno il suo. 

Sitting on a piazza under a tomato-red market umbrella in the warm sun was a tonic for Linda, as she enjoyed the parade of people around her and the view of the perfect little harbor. They drank limoncello with their plates of chilled, grilled vegetables mixed with a warm and lightly olive-oiled capellini, garnished with some garlic, parmesan, and fresh ground pepper. Rob had ordered for them, and since he had learned Linda was a vegetarian, he had conspired with the chef to produce something off-menu that would feel meatier than the usual light, primavera kind of vegetarian offering normally available in Italy.

Rob is a guy who is handy to have around, Linda thought, as she savored a perfectly cooked and seasoned artichoke. His Italian was fluent, and his knowledge of the food, the wine, and the Northern Italian coast was wide and deep. (Little did Linda know that Rob’s expertise in French and France, and Spanish and Spain, and Portugal and Portuguese was just as impressive as his knowledge of Italian and Italy.)

“You know, we should all take a wine tasting tour one of these days,” Rob posited. “There are some great vineyards only an hour or so drive east from here. The harvest period just finished, and they should be showcasing their latest vintages. In one of the vineyards, the owner’s son is a client of mine, and I’m sure he would lay on a spread for us if I asked.”

This sounded just perfect to Jason, Gerry and Linda, and they agreed to plan a day trip for the whole crew within the next week, and hire drivers to take them.

The food was inspiring, the conversation was sparkling, and the mood was uplifting, and Linda could not remember having such a wonderful day in a very long time. Paul had told her that Rob was gay, but Linda was having a hard time believing it. There was nothing effeminate about him, and nothing to demark him from all the other elegant straight males she had ever met. In fact, Linda feared she was developing a little bit of an unrequited crush on him.

Linda was also developing a great fondness for Jason. At first, she had found him a little…what was the phrase she was looking for? Ah, that was it - stereotypically gay, in a Manhattan social set kind of way. Linda had met many such men growing up in an upper class family in New York. But Jason’s charm - she had learned through close observation - was backed up by a really fine character, and Linda had begun to fall as much in love with him as John and Paul had done. 

Jason was the one who started the conversation about John and Paul. Until then, the conversation had flowed over and around them, but had avoided them entirely. Still, John and Paul were the center of the wheel, and the rest of them were just spokes, so it was inevitable that eventually they would arise as a topic.

“I hesitate to raise the subject, Linda, but have you noticed that something is off about John and Paul?” Jason asked.

By then, the limoncello had long since been smoothly replaced by Rob with a silky pinot grigio, and Linda’s wine glass had been refilled more than once by Rob’s quiet ministrations, so she completely forgot the promise she had made to herself to keep such thoughts to herself. “Yes, I have,” Linda said honestly. “But I’ve been assuming they kind of O.D.’ed on each other during the chemo. They were barely ever apart for 18 months under very trying circumstances, and it seems natural that they need a little breathing room from each other now that it’s over.”

Jason took this in and saw the logic in it. “I hope that’s it. When they are both in good spirits at the same time, they create a euphoria for the rest of us that is impossible to match.” Everyone took a sip of cool wine, and then Jason asked, “Are they working together?”

Linda said, “I don’t think so. During the chemo Paul tried to distract John by urging him to write songs, but John refused. Instead, he started writing in a journal.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” Jason interrupted. “I confess that I’m dying to read it. It is probably full of half truths and hyperboles, but I’m betting it is very entertaining.”

Linda laughed out loud. One of the reasons she had grown to admire Jason so much was that he was one of the few people who loved John but who could also see his glaring flaws, and not make excuses for them.

“My point was, though,” Linda continued, “is that when Paul isn’t working he tends to get moody and detached from everyone. Because he refuses to work with him, John has kind of left Paul hanging suspended in mid-air, although I am sure that John doesn’t mean it that way. I think John just wants to hang loose and have no responsibilities for a while, after all he has been through.”

Jason nodded, and eyed Linda with respect. She was really a most instinctive person. She didn’t pretend to read the New Yorker or know much about world politics or what was going on in upper class culture, and she didn’t apologize for it either, but she had an almost unerring ability to zero in on the most salient point in almost any conversation.

Rob heard Linda’s comment and took away the one most-important hidden pearl: Paul needed desperately to work in order to feel connected to life, and yet he was getting no support or help in this regard from John, who appeared to be oblivious to this fact. This insight alone was worth all of the time and effort he had put into planning the afternoon. The fact that he had thoroughly enjoyed himself with Linda and Jason was just icing on the cake, as far as Rob was concerned. He was researching this project as if it was a potential business investment, and thus far he felt he had made significant progress towards his goal.

 

*****

 

Back at the villa, John had sought out Paul. He knew that something was wrong there, and he wasn’t sure why or even what it was, but since Paul seemed to be slipping away to “Paul Land” more and more frequently, John supposed it was up to him to reach out and try to pull him back to earth. He also needed to break the news to Paul about his decision. He found Paul reading by the pool, while James and some friends splashed around. John took the chair next to Paul. At first, Paul didn’t seem to notice him.

“What’cha reading?” John asked after a moment, having not yet caught Paul’s attention. Paul seemed to snap out of a fugue state, and he looked a bit confused. He had to look down to the magazine he was holding as if to remind himself what he had been reading.

“It’s an article about wind farms,” Paul finally remembered. He had actually been totally lost in his thoughts again.

“Sounds fascinating,” John said with a smirk.

Paul shut the magazine and threw it aside. “What’s up?” he asked John, in his characteristic breezy manner, crossing his legs and turning a bit in his chair to give more of his attention to John.

“Just checking in with you, mate. You’ve been a bit distant lately.” John studied his fingernails as he said this.

“Have I?” Paul asked. He was a bit surprised. From his perspective, it had seemed as though John was the one who was distant. But of course he didn’t say so.

“Yeah. You’re off in Paul Land most of the time. What’s going on with you?”

“I guess I’m at a bit of a loose end. There was always an agenda, always something to do, when you were on that regime, but now I’ve got to remember what I used to do with myself before.” Paul made his voice sound neutral and in control.

“So, it’s my fault for getting better, is that it?” John responded, but with a smile on his face to show no hard feelings.

“Let’s blame it on the fuckin’ cancer, shall we?” Paul decided with equanimity.

John smiled his agreement, and then remembered that he had brought 2 beers down, and he handed one to Paul and took a huge sip out of the other. “So, where do we go from here, then?” He asked in as casual a voice as he could muster, his eyes looking straight ahead so as to try to leaven the atmosphere a bit.

Nevertheless, Paul was alarmed by the question. It hinted at a direction in the conversation that he might not want to go. But of course he didn’t say so. “Must we go somewhere?” he asked instead, with as light a tone as he could muster.

Paul wasn’t making this easy, John thought. He’s gonna make me spell it out. “I think we’re getting a bit on each other’s nerves, after so much time together, don’t you?”

Paul had noticed it, but of course he didn’t say so.

John waited for a comment, but receiving none, he continued. “Maybe we need a little time apart to get our heads back on straight?”

Paul had not expected that. He had hoped that John would be ready to go back to work. He longed to work with John again. It was like a physical ache. He also sincerely believed that some good, hard work would right what was wrong between them, and remind them of why they wanted to be together. Consequently, it was shocking to hear John say he wanted time apart. But of course he didn’t say so. “Oh,” he finally said. “So you’re not ready to get back to work yet?” That comment was as close as he could get to an expression of his own need and desire.

“No, not yet,” John said firmly. “I need to feel inspired, first. Lately, I’ve been writing in my journal, and that has been a godsend. I’m sure one day I will wake up and feel the urge to write songs again, but I’m not there yet. It’s all still too close to me, and I’d rather write about the experience a little less explicitly, and a little more subtly. I’ve already done the Cold Turkey thing. Don’t want to repeat myself.” 

Paul heard this statement as if it were one of those dreadful bass drum death knell sets in a funeral procession. His funeral. Paul actually considered, for less than a half-minute, to fight for what he wanted, by trying to persuade John to see it his way, like he did back in the ‘60s. But what he had learned from that experience was that he might be able to guilt and/or harry John back into the studio but it would be like pulling teeth out of John to get any meaningful participation. And afterwards, John would feel nothing but resentment about it. Paul felt impotent and next to useless, but he wasn’t going to fight it this time. It hurt to beg for creative intercourse - much more than it hurt to beg for sex.

“Ok, then,” Paul finally said. “What’s your plan?” Paul realized by then that John already had a plan. John had the plan already when he sat down next to him. In fact, Paul realized, the whole conversation was a pretext for telling Paul about the plan that John had already made.

“I thought when this holiday is over, I’ll go back and stay with Jason and Gerry for a couple of weeks or maybe a few more in New York. You can spend more time with Linda and your family that way. Just long enough for us to be refreshed, and to start missing each other again.” John’s voice was upbeat - forcibly so, to Paul’s ears.

He thinks I’m going to be upset by this, and he wants to avoid a scene. That’s why he is doing this to me in front of my son and his friends. This agonizing thought raced through Paul’s mind in a split second, but the pain it left behind would linger for weeks. “If you think that’s best,” is what Paul said, very subtly moving his body forward again, away from its more intimate connection with John’s body, and looking out to the horizon. Far in the distance, he could just make out the cliff line, and the sparkling Mediterranean below. Funny how it didn’t stir him like it normally did. He just felt dead inside.

John felt Paul’s withdrawal as if it were a cold draft. It pained him, it really did, but this urge to strike out on his own was - at least in this moment - too strong for him to ignore. “It’ll be good for both of us, Pud,” John said beseechingly to the perfectly emotionless profile in front of him. “We will see each other with new eyes when I get back, you’ll see.”

Paul nodded vaguely, and allowed a faint smile to pass across his lips, but John could tell that Paul had shut himself off again. John had known that this conversation was going to be hard, but he hadn’t expected it to be this painful. It would only be just a few weeks to a month apart, after all, and surely their relationship was strong enough to survive such a short separation? Partly because of his magical thinking, and partly because Paul did not share his true feelings with John, John felt sure that Paul would soon see reason, and come to terms with the idea. It would all work out in the end.

 

*****

 

It was a few days later that the wine tour was arranged, and two large cars had appeared to escort the large group to their destination. The crowd consisted of Paul, Linda, and their three younger children, along with John, Jason, Gerry and Rob. They were bringing the 13 year-old James along, and he was looking forward to tasting some wine. It wasn’t illegal in Italy for a boy to drink some vino in public when in the company of his parents, so this promised to be an extra-special treat for him. Paul and his family went in one car, and the four other men went in the other. Rob was not pleased with this arrangement, having failed to appreciate the fact that the three McCartney children would be coming as well. He had hoped to spend time in the car with Paul, perhaps with Linda along. Oh, well, there would be plenty of moments during the wine tasting and the dining for Rob to solidify his gains with Paul. He would just have to be creative about it.

After a pleasant hour plus drive into the Venuto Valley, and once at the vineyard, they were seated at a large table overlooking rolling hills lined with grapevines, and the owner’s son himself came out to orchestrate their tasting. A platter of savories were placed on the table, including green olives, shredded hard parmesan cheese, Venuto sopressata salami and of course prosciutto, provolone, and dried tomatos, with rosemary crackers and slices of Italian country bread. The group fell upon the food like ravenous wolves. All except Rob, who felt that food interfered with wine tasting, and Paul, whose appetite was not what it should be. Whenever Paul was depressed, he either ate like a pig or completely lost his appetite. This time, he was not eating.

Rob noticed that Paul was not eating and he misinterpreted this to mean that Paul had the same relationship with wine tasting as he did. He felt this was just another sign that his quest was meant to be successful. He managed to find a seat next to Paul, and while the others were busy oohing and ahhing over the food and the wines, Rob sat back in his chair and waited for an appropriate opening. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Paul quietly swirling the golden wine in his glass, and then slowly bringing the glass up to his nose for a deep inhale. He watched as Paul’s eyebrow went up as he analyzed the smell and then as he took the first taste of the wine, held it on his tongue, and, after the appropriate amount of time, spit it out in to a bucket. Rob smiled. Paul appeared to be the only one at the table, other than Gerry and himself, who really knew how to taste wine.

Paul’s studious approach to the tasting had more to do with the emotional hole he was in, than any real preferences on how to taste wine. He’d done his share of raucous tastings in the past, where he drank everything they gave him, and wound up drunk out of his fucking mind by 3 p.m., and with a massive hangover the next day. It was just that for the past few days - ever since John had dropped his bomb on him - Paul had found himself in quicksand: a slow-acting quicksand that seemed to savor making him suffer as much and as long as possible. His enjoyment in almost everything had been sucked dry, and he had even given up sitting at the piano, because his lack of enthusiasm for it was too painful to bear. Paul could hardly fail to notice that John, on the other hand, had appeared to be set free by having delivered himself of the announcement of his break from Paul, and was a regular bon vivant 24/7. Is that what I do to John - drag him down? This question had occurred to Paul more than once as he watched John become ever more cheerful and alive, the further he - Paul - drifted away. These thoughts were in the forefront of his mind as he sat, outwardly calm and impassive, amongst the ever more rowdy crowd of revelers around him. 

“Are you thinking deep thoughts, or are you just exhausted?”

Paul heard the voice as an echo first, and then slowly zeroed in on the here and now. It was Rob who asked the question. He turned politely in Rob’s direction to meet those strangely neutral but empathetic grey eyes and said with a mischievous grin, “I’m having thoughts, but I’m not so sure how deep they are.”

“Most people would pay a penny for them, but I’m willing to pay more if necessary,” Rob said, his voice was low, soothing, almost hypnotic. Rob’s eyes did not waver from Paul’s, not even to blink.

Paul thought to himself, that’s a clever turn of phrase. I have to remember that for a song lyric, and then he said with a self-deprecating laugh, “I doubt that they’re worth even a heypenny.”

Rob indulged himself by allowing his eyes to caress Paul’s face for a few seconds, and then he changed the subject. “So what did you think of this first wine?”

“It’s a bit too floral for my taste,” Paul said honestly. “I like whites to be more on either the crisp or the buttery side. I’m hoping the next one will be drier.”

“If you love buttery wines, you would really appreciate the middle-California coast chardonnays,” Rob said. “And if you love the crisp, citrusy whites, have you tried the new Argentinian Torrontes wines? They’re quite a revelation, full of grapefruit overtones.”

Paul’s face opened up in a reflection of his interest in Rob’s opinions, which managed to be knowledgeable without being patronizing. “You know a lot about it, I see,” Paul said. “I’m afraid I’m not very knowledgeable myself. I usually look around for the bloke in the restaurant who seems to know what he’s doing, and then I tell the sommelier to bring me what that bloke ordered.”

Rob laughed. He surprised himself. It was a genuine laugh. His attempts to flatter Paul by pointing out what Rob thought were Paul’s refined tastes always ended up with Paul voluntarily taking a cheerful pratfall off his pedestal facedown in to the mud. Rob had not expected this kind of humility from a man as successful, rich, beautiful and famous as Paul McCartney. It was a strange twang that Rob felt in what he supposed was the “heart” region of his brain. There was something very compelling and irresistible about this man, and while of course pursing Paul was a fun challenge, Rob wondered - perhaps seriously for the first time - whether he was getting in over his head. There was a depth to this man, not just the obvious creative genius he must possess, but also what Rob began to believe were hidden pools of exquisitely refined emotion never before seen by another human being, deep inside this man. Perhaps the man had not even seen them himself. Rob actually allowed himself to consider - for a moment - whether (a) he was worthy of such a man, and (b) would he end up the one squirming on the end of the hook, rather than Paul? Certainly, if he was not careful, Rob knew he could easily fall deeply in love this time. That would not be fun at all. Love always ended up being hurtful to at least one of the participants.

Paul didn’t divine all these things going through Rob’s mind. What he sensed was a deep simpatico with Rob, just as he’d felt when he’d first met him in - yes, it was in Argentina -not quite 2 years ago now! Rob was good company, had many similar interests to his, and there was nothing mundane or quotidian about Rob’s thought processes or conversation. He seemed to approach all subjects from a very interesting, if slightly erudite, direction. Yet he never made Paul feel inferior or stupid for not sharing that level of erudition. Paul told himself that he could use a good friend right now, and maybe that is why fate had thrown Rob back into his path. For that reason, he was quite content to spend most of his time with Rob that day, as they compared the various wines, and ate a languorous meal. Out of respect for Paul and Linda and their children, Rob ate the vegetarian offering, while John, Gerry and Jason dove into the meat with gusto. Paul noted this and was both pleased and flattered. It was a kind gesture, since vegetarianism was a moral choice for Paul and his family - not a dietary preference. If his taste buds’ preferences were to control, and the ethics of eating animals was not an issue, Paul would probably have chosen meat, as well. It was a sacrifice to live as he believed, and most of his friends tolerated it, but he could feel them raising their eyebrows and rolling their eyes and making little jokes about it when his back was turned. Rob, however, seemed to have a graceful respect for his choice, and didn’t seem to miss the meat at all.

As Rob sat in the car as they all headed back in the direction of Portofino, he was quiet. He stared out the window in a thoughtful haze. John and Jason, and to a much lesser extent Gerry, were full of chatter and nonsensical opinions about the wines they had tried. Rob was not interested in their prattle. His mind was entranced by the memory of a face that danced with expressions - never the same one for long - and a low, slow, sexy and musical voice. He knew he was in trouble now. He was in terrible trouble. In the previous interactions with Paul - two years ago - Paul had been happy, content in his relationship with Lennon, and this tantalizing unavailability paired with Paul’s irresistible sexuality had been a challenge to Rob. But today was different. Today, he could actually see what quality time spent with Paul alone would be like, and he had realized too late that he’d been hoist on his own petard.

 

*****

 

The holiday had come to an end, and the crazed process of packing a large and querulous family’s suitcases was in its death throes. Linda was grateful for this, because sometimes it felt like Paul and she were herding feral cats when it came time to getting the kids packed and out the door. The house party was heading in two different directions. The McCartneys were flying back to London, and John, Jason and Gerry were flying to New York. Paul had long since fortified his “brave face” and had conjured up a carefree insouciance for the last few minutes he’d spent with John, before they were parted in the airport VIP lounge at Rome. The New York flight left first, and Paul and John hugged awkwardly, before John progressed through hugging the rest of the McCartneys, and Paul progressed through hugging Jason and Gerry. And then they were gone.

Paul’s cheerful affect collapsed almost as soon as John disappeared, and Linda could not help but notice it. Paul had told her that he and John had decided to spend a few weeks apart, but he hadn’t told her how he felt about it. He was going to be a Stoic, Linda realized, and this made it all the more difficult for her to deal with it. Paul was now moving forward like an automaton as they prepared to board their flight, helping James with his carry-on gear, face forward, emotions withheld. She sat next to him in first class, and because she had always preferred the aisle due to a touch of claustrophobia, Paul had taken the window seat and spent much of the flight staring listlessly out of it. This was not good. At this point Linda had started to feel very angry with John. It was all well and good for John to stretch his wings after a painful bout with illness, but to do so with no regard whatsoever for the friend who had gotten John through it at great expense to himself was inexcusable! Now that John didn’t need him anymore, he was kicking him to the curb? What a tool! She wondered what she could do to reach Paul, and to pull him back towards the light. He needed to be involved in his family again, and his music - the things that had gotten him through his last split with John. But it appeared as though Paul was struggling to even show the tiniest speck of interest in those things. It was almost as if he had given up trying to reconnect with life.

The first few days back in London were heavy sledding for Linda, because Paul’s moodiness had turned dark on more than one occasion. It usually happened at night, after he’d stayed up late drinking too much whiskey. He was never abusive to her, but on such occasions he was completely uncommunicative and deeply depressed. Not this again, she said to herself over and over in those few days. It had become a kind of unwanted mantra. So it was with a huge breath of surprised relief that she greeted Rob Sheridan, who showed up on the Cavendish doorstep one late afternoon. He brought with him another armful of beautiful wildflowers, and a few bottles of chilled Argentinian white wine.

“I’m sorry to barge in unexpectedly,” Rob said, “but I’m here in London on business, and I thought I’d see if by any chance you were free. Jason gave me the address. I hope you don’t mind.”

Linda laughed. “Everyone in the bloody world knows this address! There’s a constant pilgrimage of fans passing by day in and day out!” She was delighted to see him. She hoped Rob might cheer up Paul a bit, who had confided in her after the wine trip that he had quite enjoyed Rob’s company that day. “Let me drag Paul down from his music room. Go make yourself at home in the kitchen - down this hall and to the left.”

Rob followed the directions, and found himself in a homely but warm kitchen, with a few dogs sniffing at his trouser cuffs. He searched for wine glasses and a wine opener in vain for a few minutes, until Paul and Linda joined him. Soon the wine was poured, and Linda got up to putter around, making something for them all to eat. She was pleased by the way in which Paul had perked up in Rob’s company. Rob was regaling them with his final days in Italy, his brief business trip to Brussels (“the ugliest town in Europe, with some of the nicest people”), and the business projects that would keep him in London for the next few weeks.

“You know, Paul, one of my clients who lives here in London owns one of the world’s best private modern art collections of original and early German Expressionism. I know that you are a lover of modern art from that school. I thought perhaps you’d enjoy accompanying me for a private viewing of his collection?”

Paul hadn’t been out of the house in days. Linda held her breath, pretending not to have heard the invitation. She was praying Paul would accept it.

“Sure,” Paul finally said, “that sounds very interesting.” He clinked his glass of Torrontes wine with Rob’s glass and took a taste. He considered the wine for a portentous moment. He then met Rob’s eyes, and allowed his interest in and affection for Rob to show in them. “You’re right about this wine, Rob,” Paul said playfully, followed by a wink. “It really is a revelation!”

Rob felt the butterflies let loose in his stomach when he saw that breathtaking intimate smile aimed at him. What’s more, Paul had remembered the exact word he had used to describe this wine: “revelation”! Two months ago, Rob would have considered this a strategic victory. But on this late October afternoon, all Rob felt was a melting sensation in his stomach and an urge to weep. Crap. It was love after all.


	9. Chapter 9

This past week in NYC has been a revelation, John wrote in his journal late one night. I had forgotten how fun it is to be right at the center of a city that is constantly pulsing with life. I’ve been to the theatre already, and I’ve met up with all my old friends from the Wednesday Evening Salons, and even attended one. The subject we talked about was very timely. ‘How do you reinvent an old relationship?’ I’m afraid I was overly talkative on the subject when my turn came up. But the whole discussion reinvigorated me, and reassured me that I am doing the right thing by creating a space between Paul and me for a while. We need to find ourselves again, and I think if we’re meant to be ‘forever’ then we will be, and if we’re not, we won’t. 

 

*****

 

In truth, the question time at the salon that Wednesday evening had left Jason feeling uneasy. John had clearly lost sight of what was truly important. Paul had literally carried him through that horrible cancer experience, only to be rewarded with this new attitude of John’s that a change in scenery would do them both good. Jason hoped that Paul was at least half as enthusiastic about this separation as John was. But for John’s sake, he hoped the separation wouldn’t end up shooting him in the foot. What if Paul decided that he was better off with just Linda and his family? That life was simpler and better that way? Jason thought that John was being dangerously cavalier about what was clearly a valuable relationship, and he hoped he would find the courage to sit John down some day soon and tell him some home truths.

 

*****

 

I intended to have a fling with a willing female while here in NY, but it seems that instead, I find myself perpetually surrounded by gay men. Surprise! This is what “they” - those invisible nameless people, whoever they are, who go around repeating clever cliches - would call “a fly in the ointment”. I’ve promised Paul I won’t cheat on him with men, but finding interested women in this milieu is highly unlikely. I’ve got other friends in NY - straight ones - and I’m gonna reach out to them, and see if I can get a hook up. I’m actually looking forward to some female sex; sex without commitment or emotional complexity. I need to just feel my body again, separate and apart from emotional entanglements. I have felt so estranged from my body for so long, it is as if I need to merge with it again somehow. It was occupied by an enemy and had become a kind of partisan with that enemy, and now my body and I need to have some kind of rapprochement. In any case, I think that having sex with a woman will be refreshing for a change. 

 

*****

 

John did follow up with some old rock world friends, and managed to hook up with a woman in her early 30s who looked younger than her age. John liked her because she was clearly not ambitious enough to think she could land an ex-Beatle, and was content to just have sex with him. And she gave good head. Unfortunately, the experience did not live up to the expectations.

 

After we did our thing, I slept for an hour or so, but then all I wanted to do was get the hell out of her flat. I felt almost as if I was suffocating, and so I called a cab, and straggled back to J&G’s at about 4 in the morning. I didn’t wake up until about 2 pm this afternoon, and now I’m feeling hung over, even though I didn’t drink that much, and I didn’t do too many drugs. I was disappointed in the sex, actually. The head was okay, but somehow I’d built having sex with a woman up into something it wasn’t. How could I have forgotten how empty the meaningless sex usually left me? Maybe I just had to get that out of my system.

 

*****

 

One night, early in John’s second week in New York, Jason informed John and Gerry that he had invited Wes Carter over for dinner. “I hope it won’t be too dreary,” he said, sighing heavily. “He sounded completely morose on the phone, but I’ve avoided dealing with him long enough.”

John was surprised by Jason’s relative lack of sympathy for Wes. It seemed out of character for Jason. “Sounds a bit cold, Jason,” he said bluntly.

Jason had the decency to look ashamed, and he sighed again and shook his head. “I know. But you forget that I went through this the last time Rob left him, and I warned him then not to go back to him. I told him it would happen again. Rob isn’t the monogamous type.”

Gerry stirred in his chair and said, “Or maybe Wes isn’t the one who can make Rob want to be monogamous. We don’t know the whole story, and we shouldn’t judge.” 

Jason grunted and said, “Either way, it’s such a downer to have to hear all about how miserable Wes is, when all he needs to do is go out and find a new man. He’s quite a handsome man with charm and a lot to offer.”

“Easier said than done,” John said blithely, as he took a huge bite out of a muffin. “Soul mates don’t grow on trees, you know.”

Jason gave John a pointed look. “No, John, they don’t.”

John missed Jason’s point entirely, and Jason shrugged and gave up. 

“Anyway, I can’t put it off any longer, so we’re having him for dinner tonight. We’ll have it here; it’s better than a noisy restaurant.” 

So, that night Wes arrived promptly at 7 p.m., and he brought along a bottle of wine. He looked good, at least, in a navy sports coat and an open-necked striped shirt. He was suspiciously orange in color though, and had probably been spending too much time in a tanning booth. Everyone pretended not to notice. 

It wasn’t long before Jason could avoid the subject no longer, and asked, “How are you doing, Wes?”

Wes’s face fell, and he said, “It’s been almost two months now. I can’t believe it.” 

Jason was obviously reluctant to push further, so John decided to wade right in. “Is it getting any easier as the time passes?” He asked. No one had to specify what “it” was. They all knew.

Wes said, “It would be easier if friends didn’t keep telling me gossip about him.” 

“Gossip?” Jason asked, his head suddenly popping up hopefully. And then he felt ashamed of himself, and erased the avid interest from his face. John noticed this and was laughing at Jason, and pointing. Jason hit John’s finger away with a sassy slap. 

“So Jason wants to know what gossip you’ve heard,” John said to Wes in his needling voice. Jason kicked John’s shin under the table.

“Well, the latest is he is staying in London, and he is seeing another man.” Wes looked utterly miserable.

“Who told you this, Wes? Are you sure it’s a credible source?” Jason asked.

“A mutual friend of ours in London - a client of Rob’s. The man has a fantastic art collection, and Rob has asked him if he can bring his ‘friend’ along to see it.”

“A ‘friend’ can just be a ‘friend’ you know,” Jason said in a school-marmish voice.

“Well,” Wes said, not rising to the bait, “this mutual friend of ours said that Rob was making a huge fuss about the plans, and kept saying what an extraordinary man this ‘friend’ of his is. He said he would call me back and let me know all about it once it’s over.” 

John had been listening with a kind of growing concern. He knew that he tended to be paranoid. But the words “London”, “art collection”, and “extraordinary” kept ringing in his ears. He’d never quite been able to rid himself of the belief that Rob had been keen on Paul. And Paul lived in London, was an avid art collector, and was certainly an extraordinary person. John shook his head and chuckled at himself. Paul would never go for that. He was being foolish.

The evening finally ended, and after the door closed behind Wes, Jason came into the sitting room and flopped backwards on to the sofa. “Thank heavens that is over! He is a sweet man, but he has a one-track mind. Rob-Rob-Rob-Rob-Rob!”

John laughed and said, “It was getting a little old there at the end. It was amazing that no matter what subject any of us came up with to divert him, he could always find a way to make it revert back to Rob.”

Gerry actually removed the pipe from his mouth and said, “It was tiresome; terribly tiresome. I’ve always thought that Wes was not a dynamic enough person to keep Rob’s interest. And tonight I think Wes has proven my point.” 

“Oh, cruel,” Jason responded, but he didn’t disagree. “Another way to put it is that Wes is too sweet a person to be happy with an over-bearing man like Rob.”

“Man, you guys don’t take prisoners, do you?” John laughed. “Anyway, I’ve made plans to go pubbing with an old friend tonight. I’m gonna get ready.” He shuffled off to the guest room.

Jason turned to Gerry. “It’s 11 o’clock at night. A bit late to be starting his evening out, don’t you think?”

Gerry was behind his newspaper again, but his voice echoed from behind it. “He’s not our kid, Jason. He’s a grown man.”

“Well,” Jason grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. “He may be a man, but I don’t know how ‘grown’ he is. He is liable to get in to all kinds of trouble, and end up on the front page of the tabloids. Paul will blame us for not keeping an eye on him.”

Gerry laughed. “Paul is not going to blame us. Paul knows full well how impossible John is to control. If John does something stupid and lands in the tabloids, Paul will find a way to mitigate the damage, and pull him out of the soup.”

Jason thought about Gerry had said. He was actually in perfect agreement with it. How stupid of John not to understand and appreciate what he had, and to take it for granted. He was risking his future happiness with this crazy adolescent behavior, but Jason knew that John was not open to a lecture on the subject so he would just have to keep his frustrating thoughts to himself for a change.

 

*****

 

Spent last night barhopping with an old friend from the ‘70s. We picked up a few girls, and went back to the friend’s house for a private party. These girls were younger and less inhibited than the woman I was with last week. They giggled a lot and most of the time I had no idea why. It made me laugh, but not in a good way. Sometimes when I would look at the girl I ended up with, I’d do a double take, because it would dawn on me that she could be Mary or Stella’s age! I wouldn’t want either of them to be doing drugs and having sex with some old man twice their age. It kind of spoiled the mood for me, although the blowjob was okay. It was just awkward. I’ve grown out of this stupidity, and I felt extremely disappointed in myself that I had engaged in that behavior. Not about the drugs, I mean, but about the girl - she was a young woman. Much too young. Won’t do that again. The most disturbing thing is that my friend really enjoyed it, and suggested we do it again. He no doubt finds it difficult to pick up pretty young chicks without a rock star in tow. I told him I was too busy, and hightailed it back to J&G’s place. This ‘break’ from Paul isn’t turning out to be quite like I expected it to. But that’s okay. Maybe that is what I came here to find out.

 

*****

 

Tony Carmichael lived in Belgravia in one of the massive stone mansions built in the Regency period. He was an extremely wealthy man with mining interests, and Rob Sheridan had done wonders with his financial portfolio over the last two decades. Rob had been the one to encourage him to invest in art. At one time, many years earlier, Tony had a crush on Rob, but Rob was a priest when it came to his clients. He never mixed business with romantic dalliances. Instead, Tony had grown to like Rob’s partner, Wes, who was (in Tony’s view) long-suffering but utterly charming. He felt bad for Wes that Rob had left him, but part of him believed it might be for the best in the long run. Still, there was a vein of sadism in Tony’s character, and for whatever reason he felt the need to report Rob’s activities to Wes, even though he should have known that it would cause Wes more pain than he otherwise would have to suffer.

This afternoon Tony was going to finally meet this mystery ‘friend’ that Rob was bringing round. Tony had never seen Rob light up so much when talking about someone. He suspected that Rob was on the verge of falling hard, if he didn’t watch himself. Tony was intensely curious to meet the man who apparently had Rob Sheridan - the great marble block who always had control of every situation - tied up in knots. 

 

*****

 

Paul drove as Rob filled him in a little on Carmichael’s art collection. “Tony actually at first was interested in surrealism, but by the time he started to invest in art - in the mid ‘70s - it had become prohibitively expensive, with little chance of enjoying much appreciation in value. You have a sizeable surrealist collection, don’t you? I think I remember you mentioning that to me when we were in South America.”

“Yeah. Back in the ‘60s I had a friend who was an art dealer, Bob Fraser, and he assisted me in getting in fairly early, first with Man Ray, and later I invested in Dada and Magritte, as well as some Breton and Max Ernst, and several other more minor surrealist artists. It is what inspired the ‘Apple’ name and label for the Beatles production company, by the way - a painting Bob found for me by Magritte called ‘The Listening Room’ which featured a huge green apple. And I agree, it’s true, you can’t really get a deal in this genre any more.” 

“Well,” Rob responded, “I suggested that Tony look at German Expressionism instead - you know, from before the First World War. There were a wealth of artists in that period, the work was old enough to have already stood the test of time, and the prices weren’t nearly as prohibitive. I felt sure they would appreciate well, and they have - marvelously so.”

“I love that period too,” Paul said enthusiastically. “I came to it backwards from surrealism. It was one of the movements that inspired surrealism, after all. I have a few works by Kandinsky and Chagall, although they are Russian, not German, and - let me see - oh, Franz Marc. His work so often seems like early symbolic imagery to me. And of course, the later American painter Willem de Koonig - he is a very dear friend of Linda’s and mine; he was one of Linda’s father’s clients. Her dad is a retired art and literary agent. I own a number of de Koonig’s paintings.”

Rob was frankly surprised at the level of Paul’s actual knowledge of art. Rob had wondered if Paul was just another one of those rich people who had a good art dealer, and who liked to own the art but really didn’t understand or fully appreciate it. Then Rob reconsidered his surprise, and realized it was just his own prejudice based on Paul’s rock star generated wealth. In truth, everything he had discovered about Paul in his research had told him that Paul was not a dilettante or a poser. If he was interested in something, he dug in and did the hard research and went after the knowledge like a terrier chasing a rat, and then he had the ability to remember what he learned, and the intuition and business sense to know how to apply that knowledge. Rob should not have been surprised at all. In fact, in this regard, Paul was exactly like him! Rob was the son of a blue-collar worker from the Pennsylvania steel belt, after all.

 

*****

 

The doorbell rang at just a few moments after 4:30 p.m., and Tony himself answered the door. He didn’t want to wait for the maid, who never seemed to be anywhere near the front door when the bell rang. 

He swung open the door, and did - in a peripheral sort of way - see Rob. But mainly what he saw was Paul McCartney standing before him in all his glory. The man looked splendiferous in a black t-neck sweater and blue jeans. Tony had always nurtured a crush on McCartney, ever since he was a teenager growing up in Leeds, trying desperately to hide his gayness from his schoolmates. Seeing McCartney standing there changed everything about Tony’s suppositions. Maybe McCartney really was just a friend of Rob’s; or perhaps Rob was attempting to garner a little business from McCartney? On the other hand, there had been a certain androgynous quality to McCartney, especially when he was younger, that had appealed to Tony in the first place. And then there were those rumors of a few years ago that he and John Lennon were more than friends and partners… So, who knew? Perhaps he was a bisexual, or a closet case.

Rob saved the moment by making an introduction, which pulled Tony out of his wandering thoughts. Tony snapped to, went into immediate host mode, and invited his visitors into his home.

Rob was talking again. “I’ve brought Paul over because he is a collector of modern art too, primarily surrealist, but he tells me he also collects Expressionist art. I know you have a fantastic collection of the original German Expressionists, so here we are!”

Tony found his voice. “Of course! I’m delighted not only to show you my collection, P..er..Mr. McCartney…”

“Paul,” McCartney said firmly, with a friendly smile.

“…Paul, but I am also delighted to meet you. I have been a fan of your music since I was a teenager!” 

Paul had heard similar sentiments thousands of times over the years, but he truly never got tired of them. Each time someone said something like this to him, it touched him. It mattered to him. It wasn’t so much as a ‘build up his ego’ sort of thing; it was more like an ‘I can’t believe my music has touched so many people’ kind of thing. Paul had come to view his music career as a kind of magic “open sesame!” phenomenon that opened doors for him wherever he went and with whomever he met. 

“I look forward to seeing your collection,” Paul said politely.

Tony first poured them an expensive Riesling, which wasn’t Paul’s favorite wine, but at least it was of a good quality, and it was certainly drinkable. Tony then led them up to the next level of the house, and into a suite of intersecting rooms in the shape of a U - (living, sitting, study, dining, picture gallery overlooking hallway) - that did double duty as entertainment space and art gallery. The decoration of the rooms was done completely around the artwork, so that art and furnishings and décor were as one. Paul admired this kind of meticulous attention to detail in home design as a visual treat, but he couldn’t imagine living in it. On which of these priceless tables could be put up his feet? And wouldn’t a half-drunk bottle of Guinness - sitting on an old sports magazine as a blotter - look ridiculous on that side table which was in the shape of the small letter ‘a’? And obviously his host did not have children, nor did he have dogs. 

Paul didn’t like to talk too much when he was studying artworks, just like he didn’t like to talk too much when tasting wines. Not for him the pretentious sotto voce descriptions of taste and sight that some so-called wine experts seemed incapable of keeping to themselves (“Charcoal! Bacon! Lovely finish!”). One of the reasons why he didn’t start jabbering about influences and how paintings made him ‘feel’ the second he saw a piece of art was that Paul’s appreciation of art was similar to his appreciation of music. Art was organic, and it hit him all at once, with all its textures and tones and layers looking like a unified whole at first. It took him time and thought to start identifying the different influences, stripping away the layers, to see how the whole was put together. He liked to do this methodically, and as he did so, he could usually put a name (in his own mind) to the various influences by the time he was done. When he couldn’t quite match it all up or came upon a hole in his knowledge that is when he spoke up, because he wanted to learn something new. For example, right then, as he gazed for a good three minutes at a nightclub scene in blues, reds and yellows by Kirschner - one of the founders of the German Expressionist movement. Because the work was done in 1904, right before Kirschner, along with a few other artists, created the Die Brucke movement, it was far more primitive than later examples of Expressionist art. 

“It reminds me more of Gauguin, but in a nightclub setting, not a South Pacific Island,” Paul said. “Or, maybe something by Edvard Munch, although Munch used darker hues and darker subjects. What were Kirschner’s earliest influences, do you know?” Paul turned to Tony, and the question was not a challenge, he saw. It was sincere curiosity that inspired the question. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t really know the answer, and neither did Rob.

“Well,” Tony temporized, “Munch is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the Expressionist movement, so I would not be surprised if that artist was one of his influences.” 

They moved on to another painting, this one by Franz Marc. Paul stood in front of it for a full three minutes, savoring its beauty. “Marc is one of my favorites,” he said quietly. “This painting is very different from the ones I have, and I think I like yours better.”

“Oh, how so?” Tony asked, now on his toes and extremely alert to every word Paul was saying. He was learning more about his paintings in these past few minutes than he had in years of owning them. 

“I have some of his paintings of animals; they’re very symbolic. But these are much more like Kandinsky. And so I see the beginnings of cubism in it, too, of course. Was Franz Marc an influence on Picasso, or vice versa?”

Again, neither Tony nor Rob had any idea of how or even if Picasso figured into works by Franz Marc. But he did know the age of the painting. “Well, this painting was done in 1914,” he said.

“Ah, yes, cubism was in full swing by then, and Picasso was a contemporary of Marc’s,” Paul said. “It is interesting how the art movements overlapped each other in the first few decades of the 1900’s. Sometimes it is hard for me to determine whether a work is Expressionist or Cubist or Surreal. It takes a better trained eye than mine to see the clear differences, certainly.”

Rob and Tony chuckled nervously in agreement, thinking if Paul’s eye needed better training, what did that say about theirs’? 

After another hour of Paul studying Tony’s paintings, they repaired back to the main sitting room, where a plate of hors d’oeuvres had been set out on the coffee table by the invisible maid. This time Tony poured out a full-bodied red from the Rhone Valley, which was was more to Paul’s taste. 

“You have a beautiful collection,” Paul said, “and it is marvelous how you have managed to actually live with it surrounding you, instead of having most of it in storage, or hanging in galleries.” 

“Where does your collection hang?” Tony asked. Rob was deeply curious about the answer, because he had been to Cavendish and he had seen a very comfortable but not-design oriented home, a bit messy and down at the heels, and he had only seen a few notable artworks, and then only in the oddest places. 

“Well, I don’t hang them in my house - not since I’ve had children, and dogs, and people running in and out. Linda and I have never cared much for material things - surrounding ourselves with them - although when I visit a home like yours I sometimes wonder at why we don’t try harder to live in an environment like this.” Paul took a sip of wine and considered it for a moment and then added, “The pieces I’ve hung in my homes and in my office are ones that have special significance to me, such that I can’t live without them always being there in my space. Like the first piece I ever bought - a Man Ray photograph - that hangs over my desk at my production company, or the Magritte piece that inspired the ‘Apple’ icon, which also hangs in my production office.”

“Where are the others?” Rob asked, his curiosity piqued.

“I keep them in specialized storage, and periodically museums or galleries ask to show them, and I agree. Although,” Paul laughed, “My writing partner, John, raided my warehouse in order to decorate his new townhouse. In fact, he chose some of the Franz Marc works because they meshed so well with the South American stuff he bought when we were there on tour, and the color scheme he came up with. There’s a lot of my art hanging there. His house is a lot like yours - the design and the artwork all go together, and it is spotless. He even has white rugs and white furniture. I’m afraid to even sit on the damn stuff.”

Tony was confused now. The ‘partner’ was obviously John Lennon, wasn’t it? How cozy a partnership was it that Lennon could just go raid McCartney’s art warehouse, and hang whatever priceless pictures he wanted to up on his own walls? He looked at Rob for a clue, and Rob gave him a clear “I’ll explain later” signal, so he figured he’d have to be patient before he would find out how any of this made sense. The other thing that confused Tony was that far from being the dominating presence in the room as he normally was, Rob had stepped back and allowed Paul to shine. Rob was actually playing the supporting, strong and silent type role - the setting, as it were, for the diamond that was Paul. Still, Tony hadn’t gotten any ‘love’ or even ‘sex’ vibe off of them. He doubted very much that they were ‘an item’, or at least not yet, although it was clear that Rob, at least, was wide open to the possibility. It was all more and more interesting, all of the time.

 

*****

 

The morning after John’s night out, a New York gossip columnist wrote in his newspaper column,

Last night ex-Beatle John Lennon was seen carousing at Sean O’Malley’s Pub with a few friends, including women who looked to be half his age. He was well lubricated. It appears the chemotherapy must be over! And his “creative partner” was nowhere in sight. Wonder if there is trouble in paradise?

 

*****

 

John wrote: There was this stupid item in the paper this morning that Jason and Gerry pointed out to me, about me in the pub with the young women. Seems as though I can’t catch a break. That whole sly ‘creative partner’ crap really pissed me off. At first, it was just annoying, because I didn’t think Paul would be upset if he heard about it. After all, we have that deal about women and me. 

But then I tried to call Paul this evening, and he wasn’t there. Linda said he was out with ‘a friend’. She didn’t say who this friend was, and I forgot to ask. It bothers me a bit, because if it were George Martin or someone like that, Linda would have said the name. It makes me feel that perhaps it is someone I’m not familiar with, and that makes me uncomfortable. Paul is so easily attracted to unusual people who do unusual things well, and he has a tendency to get pulled into their orbit. I’m a little irritated that Linda is so sanguine about it. It was 10 p.m. at night London time when I called, and he was still out. I wanted to call again, later, but I knew it would bother Linda to have the phone ringing so late at night, and I also remembered that they often took the phone off the hook when they went to bed so they wouldn’t be bothered during the night. It’s so irritating. I haven’t talked to Paul in almost 2 weeks, and the first time I really felt the need to hear his voice - he’s not there, and late in the bleeding night! 

 

*****

 

John was in an abominable mood, and he had been since the day before. Jason was ready to throttle the man. Gerry was smart, and just hid behind his newspaper and stayed out of the fray, which of course pissed off Jason. When John wasn’t pacing and mumbling about something under his breath, he was storming off to his room and slamming the door, or he would sit on the sofa scowling at the TV. At moments like those you were not allowed to talk to him, Jason had found out (the hard way.) Jason had not been able to get to the bottom of it. For the third time in an hour, John disappeared into Gerry’s study, which is where he went to make telephone calls. As soon as the study door closed (it was closer to a slam), Jason turned to Gerry and said,

“Gerry - stop hiding behind that damn paper! Do you have any idea what’s wrong with John? He’s impossible!”

Gerry sighed, and reluctantly brought down his newspaper, revealing a resigned expression. He knew he was going to have this conversation, but it seemed pointless and annoying to him. “No, Jay, I haven’t got the slightest idea. But we’ve never lived with John for any length of time before, and perhaps this is just one of his moods that we’ve never encountered before.” 

Jason was having none of that. “There’s something at the bottom of it, I’m sure. He was doing fine until yesterday morning, and ever since then he has been like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. It has something to do with the telephone.”

Gerry snickered. “I assume you mean that there is a person at the other end of that telephone who is causing this chaos? If so, I would nominate Paul as the most likely candidate. I can’t think of anyone else who could get John all worked up like this.” 

Jason’s face fell. “Ger, that’s just what I’ve been worrying about. Ever since John got here. I’ve been afraid that Paul would find a life without John liberating rather than depressing. What if Paul doesn’t want John back?”

This was bad news indeed to Gerry. The last thing he wanted to do was to go on living with an enraged and dumped John Lennon! 

Neither man had a chance to say more, because John erupted from the study, slammed the study door, marched down the hallway to his bedroom, and slammed that door too, for good measure. Jason and Gerry looked at each other in a kind of hopelessly tense way, and then Gerry’s newspaper went back up, and Jason got up and wandered into the kitchen to start dinner. 

 

*****

 

I’ve been trying to get hold of Paul for about 48 hours now. I don’t understand why I can’t get thru! I woke up very early yesterday morning in order to talk to him, but by the time I called, he’d already left for work. Linda told me to call him there. I called him there, and he was out to fucking lunch! I should have left a message telling him to call me back, but I was so angry that I just hung up. So I tried calling him around dinnertime, and Stella answered the phone. She said her parents were out to dinner with ‘a friend’. Who the fuck is this ‘friend’? She asked me if she should take a message, and I shouted ‘No!’ and hung up. I should have left a message, but I was so angry. So this morning I tried again - at work again! At that point I was angry, and thought that I wasn’t going to call him again - why give him the satisfaction? But this evening I couldn’t stand it any more, and I called, and no one answered the damn phone at Cavendish at all. Where is everyone? No matter what is going on, I should be able to get instantly in contact with Paul whenever I want to. It feels like he is avoiding me! I can’t believe he is being such a princess over that stupid gossip column! And what the fuck is he up to behind my back?

 

*****

 

As John finished underlining (twice, in bold) the penultimate sentence in the above entry, the phone rang, and John shot out of the bedroom as if he had been propelled by a trebuchet. He rushed to the study, but Jason had already answered the phone in the kitchen. 

“Wes! How great to hear from you!” Jason lied into the phone.

“Hello!” A stressed John Lennon had picked up the other line.

“It’s Wes, for me, John,” Jason said. What he heard next was a loud and angry slam of the receiver down into its cradle. Jason winced at the sound. “How are you doing, Wes?”

“I’m glad John’s off the line. He’ll be outraged. You’re not going to believe what I just found out from my friend in London about Rob,” Wes said breathlessly. He was clearly extremely upset and angry.

Oh no, here we go again, Jason thought to himself. “Oh?” is what he said out loud.

“It’s Paul McCartney!” Wes hissed into the phone.

Jason was stumped. “What - wha - what do you mean ‘it’s’ Paul?”

“Paul is Rob’s new lover!” Wes’s voice sounded accusatory, as if it were somehow Jason’s fault.


	10. Chapter 10

“Paul is Rob’s new lover!” Wes’s voice sounded accusatory, as if it were somehow Jason’s fault.

Jason laughed out loud. “No way! Wes, you’re off your rocker!”

“I’m not! Rob showed up with his ‘friend’ to see the art collection, and my friend said that Rob’s ‘friend’ turned out to be Paul McCartney!” Now Wes’s voice had a note of vindication - or was it triumph? - in it.

Jason tried to digest what he heard. “But Wes, Paul is a huge art lover. It is entirely understandable that he would be interested in seeing your friend’s collection.”

“Well, tell me this. Why is Rob in London? He doesn’t have to be there. He was there to hit on Paul, since John was out of the way. I know Rob! I knew he was infatuated, but he was able to hide it from me for a while. But it all got aroused again when he saw you all in Italy last month.”

Jason was quiet. He had not mentioned to Wes about meeting up with Rob in Italy. How had Wes figured it out? Good lord - this was a weird kind of Orwellian web he was caught up in. And, what’s more, he remembered giving Rob the McCartneys’ address in London, when Rob called to say he would be in London for work purposes. Jason cleared his throat.

“Look. Wes. I don’t know if Rob is interested in Paul that way, or not. It is just as likely that Rob just enjoys his company, or would perhaps like to do some business with him. Maybe get some hook-up commissions on some art sales. I just can’t see Paul being interested in Rob in that way. I think at the very most - assuming your friend is telling the truth - that they are two men who have a lot in common, and enjoy each other’s company.”

Wes was quiet for a moment. “My friend told me he wasn’t sure if they were lovers,” he admitted finally. He had calmed down somewhat after hearing Jason’s reasoned arguments. “But it does seem suspicious to me that just when John and Paul separate, Rob shows up in London and is squiring him around. And I read that piece in the New York Daily News. Seems like John has already struck out on his own!”

“John and Paul haven’t ‘separated’, Wes, John is just taking a short break in New York so Paul can have some private time with his wife and children. Paul doesn’t trifle over John’s female one-night stands, not that it is any business of yours. There’s no drama there, trust me.” Jason was speaking his hope, and not his fear.

“Well, maybe Paul is just playing around with Rob in John’s absence?” Wes suggested.

Jason heaved an irritated sigh. “Paul doesn’t ‘play around’, Wes, he is a seriously grounded person. He is incredibly dedicated to his wife and children, and also to John. I really think you’re getting all worked up over nothing.”

“It isn’t ‘nothing’ to me, because whatever is going on with Paul, Rob still isn’t with me,” Wes whined.

“Wes, as long as you act like a scorned lover, you will not be attractive to any other man, much less Rob. Even if you have to play a part, get up and go out, see your friends, meet new people. Maybe you’ll meet someone you like, and even if you don’t, hearing about you playing the field is more likely to get Rob’s attention than hearing you’re trolling your friends to get every drop of gossip about him that you can.” Jason hadn’t intended to be so blunt, but the whole ‘Paul is Rob’s lover’ thing had exhausted the last of Jason’s already shaky patience with Wes. But he felt bad after he finished his diatribe, especially because after the diatribe ended a long, awkward silence followed.

“I see,” Wes finally said, obviously offended. “Well, I won’t bother you any more.”

“No - Wes - wait…!” Jason cried. But it was too late. Wes had hung up. Jason banged the phone down and swore. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

Just then, John wandered in. “What’s wrong, Jason?” he asked. It was the first time he had spoken to Jason in a civil tone in almost two days.

Jason had no intention of telling John about Wes’s gossip. He could see nothing good coming out of it. Instead, he said, “Oh, it was Wes; I told him to get up off his ass and get on with his life instead of moping over Rob, and he got upset and hung up on me.”

“It’s sad, though, don’t you think? To love someone so much who can’t love you back in the same way?” John looked sad and morose.

“Yes, it’s sad.” Jason agreed, as he watched John’s face closely. “But it isn’t the end of the world. The world is full of people, and I never believed that there could be only one person who is a proper mate. It’s a matter of who you actually meet as you go thru life; the more people you meet, the more likely you are to find someone who suits you perfectly.”

“Well, I found my perfect mate,” John said softly. “But I’m not so sure that he feels the same. I’ve never really been sure, because why would he prefer me? He could have anyone!”

Jason sat down at the table with John, and grabbed John’s hand. “Go home, John. Go back to London, and forget all this foolishness about a world where the grass is much greener. I think you’re sending Paul a very mixed message, and it is confusing and hurtful to him, and the sooner you clear that up, the sooner you will both be happier.”

John studied Jason’s face, and decided he needed to confide in someone. “I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said softly. “I kind of pushed this separation on him, and then there’s the stupid gossip about me and the women…”

“What do you mean you’re ‘afraid it’s too late’?”

“I’ve been trying to get hold of him by phone for two days now, and he’s never available, and he never calls me back. And every time I call, I’m told he’s off somewhere with some ‘friend’, and I’m afraid he doesn’t want me back.” John’s voice had started to crack, and so had his veneer of anger. Jason could see straight through to the frightened little boy inside.

While Jason didn’t believe that Paul was upset about the gossip, he did feel unnerved by the ‘friend’ comment. Could that be a reference to Rob? Could there be truth to Wes’s fears? Oh god, he hoped not. He hoped not for John’s sake, and for Wes’s sake, and for Linda’s sake, but most of all for Paul’s sake. Rob was not a man who could be trusted to hold in his hands Paul’s beautiful heart and spirit. He feared Rob would crush Paul. He shook his head. No, Paul would never go there! Jason finally realized that John was looking at him, expecting a response to what he had said.

“I can only repeat - go home. Go back there, and see what is going on. I’m sure you will find that he is just wrapped up in work and family life, as he always is, and that you have been worrying for no good reason.” Jason squeezed John’s hand with both of his, and stared intently at John for several long moments, trying to impress upon him how serious he was about his advice.

John finally nodded. “You’re right. It’s been two weeks. I said I’d be gone two weeks. I’ll leave tomorrow, shall I?”

Jason smiled and patted John’s hand. “It’s not that I don’t love to have you here, but there’s no point to it, is there? Your life isn’t here anymore. Your life is in London, with Paul. You should go back to it, and get back to work, and put this cancer scare behind you. I understand why you had to do this, but the time has come for you to move on. You’re now risking what is most important to you.” 

 

*****

 

Paul hadn’t seen or heard about the New York Daily Mail gossip, and he hadn’t thought that John expected him to call back. Linda had mentioned he called, but had said he’d only wanted to ‘check in’, and apparently she had explained what he was up to so it wasn’t necessary to call back. He figured if John wanted to talk to him, he would leave a message and ask him to call back. No one at McLen had mentioned John’s angry phone call, for whatever reason, and Stella had forgotten to leave a message, and so Paul had quite innocently thought that he would continue to give John the space he had asked for - in fact, had insisted upon.

The separation from John had ultimately turned out not to be as horrible as Paul had thought it would be. This was largely due to Rob Sheridan’s popping up, and becoming such a good friend. Paul knew Rob was gay, but - just like he had felt about Robert Fraser so many years before - it didn’t stop him from admiring the man’s strengths, personality traits, and abilities. Why couldn’t a man who identified himself as straight be friends with a man who identified himself as gay? What universal law said that was not possible? It wasn’t as if Rob had ever made a pass at him, and he’d never given Paul a creepy feeling, like maybe Rob was on the make.

After the visit to Tony Carmichael’s home, Rob had invited Linda and Paul out to dinner at his favorite French restaurant in a suburb outside London - one that for whatever reason, Paul had never been to. They had a wonderful meal, and Rob lavished as much genuine attention and affection on Linda as he had on Paul. There was nothing there for Paul to take exception to, and Linda obviously enjoyed Rob’s company immensely, as she had Bob Fraser’s.

Now, this evening marked the 15th day of his separation from John, and Paul had been invited to dine at Rob’s London club. Paul had never done the ‘gentlemen’s club’ thing, believing it to be too transparent an attempt to leave his working class roots behind and instead appear to be in the ‘upper class’. But he had dined in many a gentlemen’s club in his day, since many of his friends and business associates had no such scruples. Paul didn’t give much thought to the fact that this was the third evening in four that he had spent with Rob, (although one of the three had also been with Linda). 

A few days earlier, after their tour of Carmichael’s art collection, Rob had suggested they go get some Indian food, and since Paul adored Indian food he’d agreed readily, and they’d spent a jolly evening amongst the naans and the daals and the vindaloos. They had gotten potty drunk on a series of ridiculous cocktails, and had to support each other as they staggered to the taxi they’d called, leaving Paul’s car behind to be picked up by a personal assistant the next day.

In any case, Paul was enjoying Rob’s friendship so much - it was like a sunny day after months and months of rain and pain. Rob didn’t insult him, make fun of him, make demands on him, cling to him and then suddenly push him away; he didn’t irrationally and out of nowhere suddenly accuse him of unnamed perfidies, nor did he expect anything from him except occasionally his company. Rob always had interesting ideas about things to do and interesting opinions to express, and he was as good a listener as he was a talker. What was not to like? Paul did realize that he had these little debates with himself because he knew, deep down, that John would not approve of this friendship. John was intensely jealous of anyone who would befriend Paul. Ever since Paul had met John, John had been chasing anyone away from their circle who was closer to Paul than to him. In fact, Paul was beginning to perceive that John had never been comfortable with Paul having friends or interests outside of their claustrophobic little world, and it was also true that Paul had frequently felt stifled by it. Still, the guilt of behaving in a manner that would upset John, if he knew, was still hovering in the background of Paul’s conscience at all times, and perhaps that was why he was so defensive about this new friendship of his.

Rob picked Paul up in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce for the evening. Paul took a look at the luxurious car and gave Rob a sardonic eyebrow lift, and Rob laughed. “Just in case we get blotto again, we won’t have to worry about your car overnight. I thought we might as well go in style.”

Paul laughed and settled back. “Drive, Jeeves,” he playfully instructed the driver with an overly fruity upper class accent, causing the driver (whose name was Eddy) to shake his head in amusement before proceeding to drive away. Rob heard himself giggle at Paul’s playfulness - oh god, oh no! -he thought - he had just emitted an actual giggle! Rob was not a giggling sort of person. But in the last week he had found himself behaving like a kind of goofy, giddy teenager. He was head over heels, and desperately looking forward to every moment he could spend with his secret love. It was a private agony to have such strong feelings and desires, and yet have to hold them in for fear of scaring off his beloved. Rob, in his most honest moments, was surprised and even embarrassed about the mushiness of his feelings. He had never thought he would ever meet someone who could make him feel this way! If it turned out to be completely unrequited, Rob thought, it would probably be his karma for all the men he’d felt little for who had loved him wholeheartedly. He thought of Wes. Is this how Wes felt about him? If so, he had a newfound sympathy for Wes’s feelings.

The driver deposited them on the front steps of Rob’s swanky club, and Paul took one look at the imposing edifice, gave Rob an ironic look, and said, “Ooh, I’m scared of you, mate.”

Rob laughed light-heartedly; he laughed like a sophomore at his first prom. They cheerfully ran up the stairs, and the doorman lifted his hat to Paul.

“Good evening, sir,” the doorman said to the famous man, with a brief head bow, done very seriously.

“Good evening to you, too, sir,” Paul responded, with a similar brief head bow, and then, with a wicked grin, he winked. The doorman chuckled, and Rob - in his addled, infatuated state, giggled again.

“Let’s have a drink in the bar, first,” Rob said, “As they prepare our table.”

“Sounds very civilized,” Paul agreed. He was checking out the place, not trying to hide his rubbernecking. Rob was realizing how unself-conscious Paul was about class and high society. It was pellucid that Paul liked “class” and fit into it with ease, but he just as clearly wasn’t intimidated by it, and never fell into the trap of trying to mimic it.

They sat at a table hidden away from the main view of the bar area. The chairs were sinfully comfortable, made out of leather that was about 50 years old, and the light was a slightly rosy golden glow that just barely illumined the faces scattered around the room.

“Let me order you your pre-dinner drink,” Rob said, leaning in close to Paul. “They make an especially ‘interesting’ one here.” Rob’s eyes were alive with mischief.

“It doesn’t include elixir of ipecac, does it?” Paul asked suspiciously, causing Rob to laugh.

“No, no…it has a name redolent of the past.”

“’Redolent’: A rather questionable word to connect to something you expect me to imbibe.”

Rob laughed again. Christ! This man was going to send him over the waterfall without a barrel! Rob’s eyes snapped, and his voice got huskier. “It was named at the end of the last century by some of the old veterans who had survived the Charge of the Light Brigade,” Rob said, his voice dropped even further into a low, conspiratorial whisper.

Paul’s eyes lit with humor. “This just gets better and better,” he said. “Do tell.”

“It’s called ‘Enfilading Fire’,” Rob whispered, his eyes lingering on Paul’s lips longer than was strictly necessary.

Paul couldn’t help it, the hilarity exploded out of his closed mouth because it was so cheesy. “Rob, you really know how to make a girl blush.”

Rob blushed himself as he giggled. He raised his hand for the waiter, and said, “It burns your throat going down,” he explained to Paul, “in a full frontal attack, with flanking maneuvers from the east and the west…”

Paul was laughing out loud now, “Oh, stop…”

The waiter brought the drinks, which were suffused in a glow of bright orange colors, rising dark to light from the bottom up, with a cherry on top. Really. Paul took one look at the drinks and started laughing again.

Rob pretended to be insulted. “You’re not taking this tradition seriously,” he said in an insufferable fake British accent, poorly executed.

Paul just kept laughing, but managed to choke out, “I can’t help it, it’s so unbelievably tacky…” It tasted tacky too.

Rob had insisted upon ordering their meal, and that is because he had come to terms with a (seriously miffed) chef earlier in the day via telephone. The club did not, per se, serve “vegetarian” fare, and in fact considered the whole idea of it to be scandalous. But the chef had eventually been persuaded to make a meat pie without the meat. Inside the house specialty crust, the chef had substituted mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, eggplant, potatoes, onions, peas and carrots, and with the usual compliment of savory herbs and spices, the meal was quite a success. Paul was blown away by it, and when Rob confessed that he had had to bribe the chef to alter his recipe, Paul felt a surprising and perplexing surge of pleasure. Very few of his friends had ever made such an effort to accommodate his preferences, or had done it in such a gracious way.

“Let’s go sit in the lounge area with some whiskey,” Rob suggested after the dinner dishes had been swept away. Paul noted that this was the third time Rob had taken him to dinner and had quietly, without fanfare, paid the bill himself. This almost never happened to Paul. People expected him to pay because of his wealth, and he generally did so because, in a real sense, they were right. Next time they dined, however, Paul told himself, he would have to insist on picking up the tab.

They moved to the lounge, and within minutes their scotch was in front of them. They sat quietly, sipping their whiskey, and enjoying the near absolute silence. Rob finally found the nerve to raise the subject that he had wanted to raise for several days.

“So, what’s going on with you and John?”

Paul was quiet for a moment, but then said, “I really don’t know.” He hadn’t intended to be so frank, but he had been wined and dined and now whiskeyed, and he was feeling very close to Rob. Rob was actually behaving like a better friend to him right now than was John.

“He’s staying in New York?” Rob asked.

“With Jason and Gerry.”

“A short break in the Big City, eh?” Rob said, smiling a bit to cover his anxiety over Paul’s answers.

“I don’t know what is going on with him,” Paul confessed sadly, staring into his whiskey glass and attempting to fight off tears that had suddenly threatened to fall. “After the chemo was over, it was like he changed. I guess it’s understandable. Or, at least I’m trying to understand. But I don’t really.”

Rob was quiet. He then said softly, “Linda tells me you waited on him hand and foot through the whole ordeal. Has he not expressed his gratitude?” Rob’s face was not judgmental, and so Paul didn’t take offense.

“Gratitude has nothing to do with it,” Paul said firmly. “When you love someone, you’re there for them when they need you, and being able to be there is it’s own reward.”

Rob actually felt himself tearing up a little. Paul was capable of such intense loyalty that it moved him (and shamed him a little). “Surely, though, if one is gifted with such love and loyalty from someone, it would be appropriate to acknowledge it, and be grateful for it. Don’t you agree?”

Paul looked up at Rob and then a certain shrewd expression passed briefly across his face. “None of us tells the people we love the whole of what they mean to us. It’s one of the worst things about human beings, I think. I’m quite bad at it myself, so I’m in no position to judge.” He waited a moment and then said, “Did you always remember to express your gratitude to Wes?”

Rob was taken aback, and felt the barb hit his conscience. “Well, you got me there,” he said quietly. He actually felt hurt by Paul’s jab.

Paul swore quietly under his breath. “I’m sorry Rob, I shouldn’t have said that. I get a bit testy when people seem to be criticizing John. He can be a right prick, it’s true, but he’s so much more than that.”

“Fair enough, and you made a good point. Judge not less thee be judged...,” Rob said, forcing himself to lighten up and smile. “But still, Paul, I can’t help but feel that he isn’t worthy of you.” There. He’d said it. He waited for the reaction.

Paul’s reaction was a reflexive joke. “You’re right, he’s not!” He raised his glass and made a funny face.

“I was dead serious, Paul,” Rob said, his face an intense globe in front of Paul’s slightly hammered eyes. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Paul was speechless. He wasn’t quite sure how the conversation had gotten this deep this quickly - not to mention the direction it had gone! Rob’s body language looked as though he was desperate to be understood, and it was a heavy minute or two before Paul could think of a response.

“I know you mean that as a compliment, and I appreciate it,” Paul said slowly, “but you don’t know John like I do, and if you did, you would think differently.”

It was as if the room had emptied, and had turned completely black, and the world itself had been distilled down to just Rob and Paul, facing each other in a pool of amber light, surrounded by darkness.

“I would never think differently,” Rob said, his soft voice throbbing with unexpressed passion, “because I don’t think anyone is good enough for you.”

Whoa, Paul thought. He saw it now. He saw the longing in Rob’s eyes, and a kind of hunger burned out of those eyes that made Paul’s toes curl. He wants me. Paul had not seen it coming, although almost any other man in his place would have seen it ions ago. He didn’t know what he felt about it. He knew he should recoil in horror or immediately begin to stammer out words that would be meant to gently discourage Rob, but instead he sat stock-still. His mouth was open just a tiny bit, and his eyes were round and staring intently into Rob’s. Rob was emboldened by this.

“Don’t you ever wish you had someone in your life who would take care of your needs for a change? Who would be a support to you so you could focus on your music?” Rob was putting to good use Linda’s comment about John not supporting Paul’s creative muse.

“Well, Linda does that for me…” Paul said weakly.

“The way it looks to me is that Linda gives, and John takes, and that still leaves you with zero. If you have two people who give, you will be miles ahead, won’t you?” Rob’s hand suddenly fell on Paul’s, which was resting on his left thigh.

Dumbly, Paul looked down at the hand on his, and felt the warmth of Rob’s thumb as it oh-so-faintly rubbed his thigh. He felt compromised. He couldn’t push the hand away. Rob was too good a friend to treat so rudely. And, truth told, it didn’t feel that bad to Paul. What Rob had said - about John being needy and unsupportive - those were the exact thoughts he had been struggling with during the holidays in Italy. It was as if Rob had read his mind. If Rob could read his mind, maybe they were meant to connect at a close level.

Rob watched Paul’s face and thought he could see confusion, dismay, and fear, but still Paul did not push him away, or seek to end the conversation or shut down further intimate contact. He was on the fence, teetering. Rob’s brain went into hyper-drive trying to come up with the right thing to say to push Paul off the fence and into his arms, but nothing clever occurred to him. Instead he said,

“I’ve been staying in this club since I arrived in London, so my suite’s right upstairs. Would you like to come up for some coffee? It’s more private there, so we can talk more freely.”

 

*****

 

This fucking plane ride is taking way too long. I should have taken the Concord, but I didn’t think of it. I’m scheduled to land at 5 p.m., and then there’s waiting for the luggage and customs, and then - of course - it’ll be rush hour as I try to get in to Central London. Probably won’t get there until half six or seven. It will be dinnertime at Cavendish. At least there will be a mobile phone in the limo once I get free of the airport, and I can call Paul and tell him I’m on my way in. 

Paul. The bloody man didn’t call me last night either, and it really worries me. What the hell is he up to? I can’t decide whether he is mad at me for leaving him alone for 2 weeks, or if he has enjoyed his time alone so much that he doesn’t miss me. And I don’t like that he seems to have connected so frequently with some friend or friends of his, who remain nameless. Is he trying to make me jealous? That’s a possibility, too: just to show that two can play at the ‘I need my space’ game. To quote Gerry, it’s “tiresome”. Anyway, not knowing what to expect when I get home is making my stomach churn, and it has turned the 7- hour flight to London into an endless ordeal. But it’s only been two weeks, after all, and I feel certain that however wide the river is that has come between us, there is still a ford where we can cross over to be with each other again. Two weeks. What could really happen in two measly weeks?

 

*****

 

Linda was the one who answered the telephone when John called from the limo.

“John! How are you?” she asked. She was in the kitchen, preparing dinner.

“I’m good. I’m in a car on the way home from the airport,” he said. His heart was thumping hard in anticipation of hearing Paul’s voice again.

“On your way here? That’s lovely! You’ll be in time for dinner!” 

“I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. Do you think I can talk to Paul for a moment?”

There was an awkward silence and then Linda said, “He’s not in, John. He is having dinner with a friend tonight, and when he goes out like this I don’t expect him home until 10 or 11 p.m.”

“Dinner out again?” John nearly shouted. He was outraged. “With yet another friend? Who is this friend he’s out with?”

Linda said, “Oh, you know him. It’s Rob Sheridan. He has been in London the last 2 weeks on business, and Paul and I have seen quite a lot of him.”

John’s heart sank straight into his stomach and he was struck dumb. “Rob? Rob is there?”

“Yes, and I’m so glad he’s been here, because before he showed up Paul was in a serious depression. You kind of left him hanging, John. I’m still a bit miffed at you about this whole ‘needing your space’ thing. But Rob has kept Paul entertained, and it has improved his mood substantially.” There was a part of Linda that took pleasure in dumping this information on John. She felt that John was taking Paul’s friendship for granted, and it was about time he learned that he was playing a dangerous game.

John was silent but his mind was racing with confusing thoughts. “It was just something I had to do, Lin,” he said weakly. “I know it was stupid, but at least I got it out of my system.”

Linda’s soft heard melted a little. “Well, hurry back, and come on over to Cavendish as soon as you’re able. I’ll feed you, and we can talk about your sabbatical in more detail while we wait for Paul to get home. How’s that?”

John hung up and his world suddenly felt darker and scarier. Rob Sheridan had come rushing in as soon as his back was turned, and god only knows how far he had managed to get his foot in the door with Paul. I’m a fool, John thought. It’s stupid to risk something so precious for no good reason.

 

*****

 

Within 40 minutes, John was greeting Linda in the kitchen at Cavendish. He gave her an extra long hug. Strange, but he felt safer and more at ease now that he was with Linda. She was like the warm center of the little life he and Paul had built together - a kind of mother/sister figure to John, and a mother/lover figure to Paul - and she somehow kept their eccentric little boat afloat because of the grace and balance with which she approached life. Nothing truly bad could happen if Linda was there, watching their backs.

“It’s quite a surprise your showing up all of a sudden,” Linda said, after she had poured John a glass of wine, and sat with him as the vegetable stew was simmering and the sourdough rolls were in the oven. She had already prepared the salad, which only needed tossing.

“I said I’d be gone for 2 weeks, and here I am back, now that the 2 weeks are over,” John said, his voice sounding a little defensive.

“That’s true, but you were a little vague about whether 2 weeks was the minimum, and perhaps you’d stay longer,” Linda pointed out. “It was the not knowing when the separation would end - and the fear that it might be forever - that really was getting to Paul.” Linda was staring frankly into John’s eyes.

“It wasn’t my intent to upset Paul,” John said, his ego flaring a little. “I’d just been through that horrible experience, and Paul was the one who insisted I do it, so maybe I just associated him with the chemo and felt like I needed a short break from him after it was over.”

Linda was not having any of this. “Paul and the doctors recommended you do it, and he only wanted you to do it because he loves you so much, and he didn’t want you to take any unnecessary chances with your health. What’s more, he was right. You did need the chemo after all, and it wasn’t his fault! It seems a bit small of you to hold that against him in any way.” Linda’s eyes were snapping with irritation as she spoke.

John bit his tongue. He felt he had done what he had to do at the time to maintain his mental health, and he didn’t appreciate anyone challenging him on it. He said, impatience lapping around the edges of his voice, “I don’t hold it against him, I just needed time and space to put the chemo behind me. I’ve done that. Now I’m back.”

“I see,” Linda said in a neutral tone, although it was clear to John that she did not “see” at all. But she had decided to drop it. It was John and Paul’s relationship, not hers, and she had said her piece on the subject. John could take it or leave it. Her primary loyalty was to Paul, of course.

Silence reined as the hard feelings stirred up by this conversation settled down sufficiently for the participants to try again, taking a new tack.

“So tell me about this whole Rob thing,” John said in a low voice.

“Not much to tell, really,” Linda said. “He showed up on our doorstep shortly after we got back from Italy, and I invited him for dinner. We had a lovely conversation, and then Rob suggested that Paul accompany him to see the art collection of a client of his. It is modern art, from the first half of the century, which is Paul’s favorite kind, so a few days later they went to see the collection and had dinner together. The next night Rob took Paul and me to dinner, and we had a lovely time. And then this evening, Rob invited Paul out to dinner at his gentlemen’s club. They have lots of interests in common, and I’ve been glad that Rob has been here to distract Paul, and encourage him to leave the house. He’d been in quite a down mood for weeks, as you know. He couldn’t even compose.” 

John nodded weakly, knowing that Linda was right. Paul had been down all through the Italy vacation, and still John had left him drifting to go off on his sordid adventure in New York. He suspected that it was because he had come to think of himself as the victim and the one in need, after 18 months of a cancer struggle, and he had lost sight of how Paul felt, or what he might need. Linda was right to be peeved with him, but he was not going to admit that to her. Well, he would fix it all up, as soon as he could get his hands on Paul again. He would do whatever he had to do to make it right. Apropos of that thought, John changed the subject again and said,

“I’ve been writing some lyrics. I’m looking forward to getting back to work again.”

Linda brightened up at this announcement and smiled. “I know that is just what the doctor ordered for Paul,” she said, and then jumped up to tend to the rolls and the stew.

It was only James eating dinner with them that evening. Mary and Stella shared a new flat between them, and were not dining with their mother that night. While they still dropped by Cavendish frequently, they had begun to flap their own wings. John chatted quietly with James, who was happy to see him and full of information about a video game which John pretended interest in. He knew Sean was addicted to them, too, and John sometimes worried that the video games took the place of imagination and avocations. For instance, John thought that if he had such games to play with as an early teen he probably would never have started a band, or developed music as an avocation. Oh, well, Aunt Mimi had thought that radio and TV were the end of civilization, and it hadn’t stopped him from being a musician, so perhaps he was just an old fuddy duddy on the subject. (Paul, of course, enjoyed the video games and often played them with Sean and with James, getting entirely into the swing of things and behaving like a kid himself. This thought made John smile wistfully.)

For the rest of the evening, John sat with Linda, engaging in lighter, less troublesome subjects, but his leg was constantly bouncing and his stomach was suffering more and more from nerves. As each minute ticked by - a minute that Paul wasn’t there - John’s leg bounced faster, and his nerves fluttered harder. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., the jarring ring of a telephone rudely interrupted John and Linda’s stilted conversation. John looked at Linda with a mixture of hope and panic in his eyes, causing Linda’s heart to melt for him a little. John was clearly stressed out just waiting for Paul’s return, and it was kind of sweet and sad. She answered the phone.

“Lin! It’s me. I’m sorry it’s late. I just wanted you to know I’ll be home a bit late tonight. Closer to half midnight, maybe a little after.”

Linda heard this, and turned her back to John and said very softly into the receiver. “John is here. He’s been waiting for over 3 hours for you to get home. Can you cut it short?”


	11. Chapter 11

There was a silence at the other end of the phone after Linda had disclosed that John had returned home from New York. Paul was obviously taken very much by surprise.

“Really! I wonder why he didn’t warn us?” Paul’s voice sounded very strained, and he appeared to be almost whispering into the receiver.

“He said it was his plan to return after 2 weeks, and so he is a bit surprised that we’re surprised,” Linda said softly, aping Paul’s quasi-whisper.

“I thought he said he would be gone at least two weeks, maybe longer,” Paul’s soft voice returned.

“That is what he said, but apparently he doesn’t remember that part now,” Linda responded. “So, can you cut the evening short and come home now? John looks like he is ready to have a heart attack.”

“Yes, of course. Let me make my excuses, and then I’ll have a car take me home. Say, 30 minutes max.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let John know. Bye, and my love to Rob.”

Paul hung up and turned to see Rob watching him from one of the easy chairs across the suite from him. Hot coffee was steaming on the side tables. It had just been served. Paul didn’t know why he had allowed himself to be led up to Rob’s rooms. He hadn’t said he would go, but he hadn’t said he wouldn’t, either, and Rob had just sort of taken things into his own hands and now here they were. Paul had felt as though he had been in some kind of trance, but that had now been well and truly broken by Linda’s surprising news. He knew Rob was going to be disappointed, but from Paul’s point of view it fell under the category of “saved by the bell”. Who knew what he would have allowed to happen if John hadn’t shown up that particular night?

Paul approached Rob, and perched on the stool in front of the easy chairs. He mustered a kind, apologetic voice. “Linda just told me that John has arrived home, and that he’s waiting for me. I have to go now.”

Rob could not believe his ears. He had gotten so close to his quarry! Snatched from the jaws of victory! “Home? Without letting you know?” Rob was searching for words, and fighting down a growing anger at the absent John Lennon. The man was a menace, constantly getting between him and the man of his dreams. Still, just because John was back didn’t mean everything was going to be hunky dory between John and Paul, Rob thought immediately. He would remain in London until he was sure his cause was lost.

Paul had gotten up and was pulling on his overcoat. “I really enjoyed the evening. Well, all except that orange drink!” Paul joked. “We’ll have you over to dinner soon, so I can start to repay all of your generous hospitality,” he added.

Rob heard the “we” and swallowed hard. He knew “we” meant Linda, but now he feared it included John as well. He stood up and smiled warmly, and moved in for a hug. The hug he bestowed on Paul was unduly intimate, and Paul could actually feel Rob’s arousal, right through his woolen coat. Rob’s hands were low on his back, too - an unusual place for a mere friend to place them. Along with the discomfort, Paul did feel a bit of a thrill at being felt up like that, especially now that he knew he was out of the danger of being swept up in it. He gradually and gently pulled himself away, and said,

“I’ll be on my way. Thanks for calling the car for me.” Paul made it clear he was going home alone, so Rob could do nothing but say goodbye to Paul at the door of his rooms. He watched while Paul sashayed down the hall towards the elevator. It turned Rob on, the way Paul walked, his ass subtly swaying from side to side. It wasn’t exactly feminine, but it wasn’t entirely masculine either. It was feline. His rear end moved the way a big cat’s did when it was walking slowly away from you.

In the Rolls Royce on his way back to Cavendish, Paul’s head was whirring. His evening with Rob was fading into the background of his mind, as the thought of John waiting for him at home rushed to the forefront. He wasn’t clear why John had returned so abruptly. Was he sick and tired of the separation? Or was he coming back to say he wanted a real separation? Had he found someone else in New York, the way Paul almost had done here in London? And would the space between them be awkward and cold, or would they come together again as if they had never been apart? None of these questions had immediate answers, and all Paul could do was wait until he got home to find out at least some of them.

 

*****

 

John was filled with relief when Linda told him that Paul would be back in 30 minutes. As he had waited there that night, part of him had feared that obstacles would continue to arise between them to keep them apart forever, but now he had a certain countdown to when he would have Paul in his arms again. The clock couldn’t have moved more slowly, and it was an agonizing wait, no matter how relatively short it was.

It was exactly 27 minutes on the dot when the Rolls pulled up in the Cavendish driveway, and John beat Linda to the front door as the car pulled in through the gates. His first instinct was to rush out and tackle Paul, but then he thought better of it when he saw that there was a chauffeur. Instead, he waited just on the threshold of the front door, as Paul took a seemingly unnecessary amount of time getting out of the car. In actuality, Paul had only been providing the driver with a tip, and directions on how to best get out of the driveway. But soon the door opened, and Paul popped out, turning to assist the driver with hand signals as he backed out of the driveway. As the gates closed behind the driver, Paul turned and headed towards the house, and that is when he saw John hovering just inside the door.

“John!” He greeted, and his face broke out in a delighted smile. John looked a bit anxious and insecure, and Paul’s natural tendency was to put John at ease as soon as possible. He walked quickly to John, and then engulfed John in a huge Macca hug, the way only he could hug. John felt as though the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders as he buried his nose in Paul’s neck and hair. Paul then withdrew, and held John out in front of him with his hands. During the hug, he had skillfully backed John into the house, and closed the door behind him with his foot. “You look tired, but I suppose you’ve been traveling all day,” Paul said, after scrutinizing John’s face closely.

“It wasn’t the travel that got me, so much as the anxiety,” John said, “How come you didn’t call me back? How come you wouldn’t talk to me?” John had meant to hold this back until later, but it just came bursting out.

Paul was clearly surprised. “I didn’t know you wanted me to call you, John,” he said reasonably. “You didn’t leave a message. You told me you needed your space.”

“Are you sure you’re not pissed off because of all that gossip about me with women?”

Paul’s face showed his confusion. “What gossip is this, then?”

Damn! I should have kept my big mouth shut, John thought to himself. “Oh, there was some stupid gossip in the papers in New York.”

Paul considered this for a moment. “Well, I didn’t hear about that, John. Is it something I should know about?”

John said, “I slept with a couple of women while I was there,” he confessed, “but that was our deal, remember? Only one time with each woman.”

Paul smiled, although there was a little pain in his eyes. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, John.”

“So that’s not why you wouldn’t return my calls?” John asked.

“Certainly not. I didn’t know you wanted me to call you. Honest truth.” Paul’s eyes were firm and unblinking.

John stared at Paul for a few moments as he digested Paul’s response. He did recall that he had been so upset about not catching Paul at home or at work each time that he had slammed down the phone pretty quickly without asking to leave a message. Somehow, he had never looked at it from Paul’s point of view until now. He wasn’t sure if Paul was telling the whole truth, but at least he now had a plausible explanation that didn’t involve Paul deliberately avoiding him.

Paul said, “Come in and sit down, John, and you can tell me about your trip.”

John really didn’t want to talk about the damn trip. He wanted to go immediately to their home and engage in all kinds of sexual activity with Paul. Now that he could touch and smell Paul again, he had found an almost insatiable desire to merge with him physically. But Paul seemed to want to move at a slower pace, and John reluctantly went along with it.

Paul went to find Linda, who had gone upstairs and was reading in bed. He spoke with her quietly for a few moments, kissed her goodnight, and then changed into more comfortable clothes. When he returned to the living room John was sitting there looking miserable. Paul smiled at him and poured them each a small measure of whiskey. He sat down next to John, and said, “Shoot!”

John laughed half-heartedly and said, “It was good for me to go, Paul,” he said seriously, “because it was boring as hell, and although of course I had a little fun, it just isn’t my ‘thing’ anymore. I’ve grown out of it.”

These words were music to Paul’s ears, but he tried not to show too much joy or enthusiasm at hearing them. You never knew how John would interpret that enthusiasm, and John was just ornery enough to back off the admission if he sensed Paul was rejoicing in it too much. So Paul maintained a pleased, but not excited expression. “So how are Jason and Gerry?” he asked instead.

“Happy to see me go, I think. I was getting on their nerves at the end, because I started cracking up when I couldn’t get you on the phone.” John made a face, and then reached for Paul’s hand, and squeezed it. “I really don’t want to talk anymore tonight. I want you to come home with me.”

Paul felt the worst of his nerves settle at that moment. So John wasn’t going to dump him, and didn’t find someone else to take his place. John just wanted to be with him. Paul put his half-filled glass down, and pulled John up by his hand. “Let’s go, then,” he said softly, and, holding hands, they headed across the garden, through the gate, and down the alley to their back door. 

 

*****

 

In his imagination, when John had pictured this moment, the sex was going to be slow and loaded with meaning and heart. He and Paul were going to show each other their intense closeness by long and languorous lovemaking. But once they’d made it to the bedroom, John lost all control of himself, and so did Paul. If a third party was watching from above, their love making would appear to be more like a wrestling match, with two men struggling for mastery, and sweaty male bodies rubbing together in intimate ways. In the end, they had agreed to satisfy each other in a mutually equal way, by rubbing and wanking each other’s cocks.

Not long afterwards, Paul rolled over on his side, facing the opposite wall from John, and John rolled over too, and encompassed Paul in a huge hug, inserting his uppermost thigh between Paul’s two thighs, which was one of his favorite things to do. John nuzzled Paul’s neck for a few moments, making little satisfied grunts, and Paul, completely sated and feeling whole again for the first time in months, smiled quietly to himself. Soon they fell asleep.

 

*****

 

The next morning, Paul woke up first (of course), and John appeared to be so zonked out that he decided to ease himself out of bed as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the sleeping beauty. He was also quiet while he made his ablutions in the bathroom and while dressing, and then he paused briefly before leaving the bedroom and heading downstairs. He was staring at John asleep. The sight of John asleep always caused his breath to catch and his heart to seize. Paul thought it was because when he was asleep John looked like the small innocent boy he once was before the adults in his life fucked him up, and this never failed to fill Paul’s heart with a protective empathy.

Down in the kitchen he moved around, making coffee and a shopping list. They were down to nothing in the fridge, because the house had not been used for over two months - ever since they had left for Italy. As he puttered, Paul did a little thinking. He was wondering about his near-sex experience with Rob the night before. What was that all about? Was he such a weak person that the moment he was left to his own devices, he had to grab on to someone else in order to keep his spirits up? Now that he was “safe”, Paul was honest with himself. He had called Linda to tell her about his later arrival time because he had already factored in how long it would take for him to have sex with Rob that night, and still get home at a decent time. It had been done on a pretty subliminal level, but in his more lucid moments Paul was capable of acknowledging his sub-conscious desires. This whole 10-year adventure with John (yes! It had been almost exactly 10 years since they renewed their relationship!) had apparently turned him into a full-blown bisexual. He really couldn’t lie to himself about it any more, and although on one level Paul was a bit disgusted with the notion, on another level he was surprisingly not troubled by it. It is what it is, he said to himself, and as long as he had John around he would never have to prove this thesis conclusively by seeking out other men. The only difference now was that if John were to leave him, Paul suspected he would soon find a need to engage in what John ridiculously called “man-love.” Accepting this truth about himself was a major turning point for Paul, although he did not realize it at the time.

A few hours later, John came trudging down the stairs in a bit of a panic, afraid that Paul had gone over to Cavendish. He was feeling selfish and clingy again about Paul’s company; it was as if he had never had those crazy ‘give me space’ feelings. Consequently, he was relieved to find Paul quietly ensconced in his study, in one of the leather chairs he loved so much, reading the paper and sipping some morning coffee. Paul had never quite gotten comfortable with the ultra-styled whiteness of the receiving rooms, and preferred the dark warmth of his study. John had begun to wonder if he had made a mistake there; Paul usually spoke of the house as “John’s”, and that might be to make Linda feel better, but it might also be because he didn’t feel really at home in the high concept design John had chosen.

“Hey, babe, how are you this morning?” He asked Paul, who let the newspaper drop on to his lap, and whose face lit up in the way only his face could light up (or so John believed).

“I’m good, and you?”

“I finally feel like I’m where I belong again,” John said succinctly, and plopped down in the other easy chair. He smiled at Paul intimately, and allowed his eyebrows to wiggle, which never failed to make Paul giggle.

“Well, you did do a great job on this house,” Paul said, thinking John was referring to being back in his home.

“It’s not the house I’m taking about, Pud. It’s you. You are where I belong.” John was looking straight at Paul, and there was no sarcasm or mischief in his face at all.

Paul swallowed hard at that admission. He didn’t want to start crying. It was better to try to keep it light. He said softly, “I feel exactly the same way.”

“So, now that we’ve got that sorted, tell me about Rob. What the hell have you been up to with him?” John had a no-nonsense look on his face.

Paul hoped that he wasn’t blushing. He felt the heat in the skin of his face, and was pretty sure he was blushing. He’d just have to stone-face his way through it, because there was no positive angle in telling John what had happened the night before. “Oh,” Paul said weakly, “he’s been a good friend. We’ve been out a bit. His friend had a great art collection.”

“Ah, yes, the ‘art collection’,” John said archly. “It wasn’t friezes of a bunch of Roman men giving each other fellatio and sodomizing each other, was it?”

Paul’s laugh sounded a little guilty to John, and so did his jolly voice when he came up with an answer: “No, none of that, I’m sorry to say. Just German Expressionist works. Lots of animals, people in nightclubs, a bit of cubism, and a few fractured landscapes thrown in for good measure.”

John watched Paul’s face and noted the rosiness of his cheeks. Paul was such a terrible liar. Maybe the art was as innocent as he said, but something had happened between Paul and Rob that John would not approve of, and he had every intention of getting to the bottom of it, so he could stop it in its tracks. What’s done was done, but John needed to stick a fork in it, whatever it was.

“So was I right about Rob all along?” John asked bluntly.

“Pardon?” Paul was vamping now, his face a study in innocence.

John felt he now had the upper hand and was determined to use it ruthlessly until he squeezed all the info out of Paul, no matter how unseemly it might be. “I said,” John reiterated, leaning on the word ‘said’, “Was. I. Right. About. Rob. All. Along?”

Paul continued to sit there blamelessly, blinking his eyes in fraudulent ignorance, until John signed in exasperation.

“He’s after you, isn’t he? Has he made his move yet?” John was staring at Paul with that level of intensity he was so good at summoning in moments such as these.

Paul was at a crossroads. He could tell John the truth, or he could varnish the truth so as to avoid a scene. Here he was, teetering anxiously on a fence again in front of another aggressively possessive male. What was it about him that attracted such aggressively possessive men?

“Oh come on, Paul, cough it up. I already know. There was no other reason for him to suddenly show up on your doorstep in London as soon as I was out of the way, was there?” John was bearing in, not giving Paul an inch.

“Well, that might have been his motive from the start, I suppose…” Paul said weakly, not realizing how much he had revealed with this response.

“’From the start’? What does that mean? I suspect that it means that he eventually did get to the point!” John’s voice was tough and unyielding.

Damn it! I’m a sieve! Why can’t I come up with clever phrases-on-demand which are not exactly lies but not exactly truths, either? Paul’s mind was buzzing with anxiety. He really didn’t want to have a showdown with John about Rob. It was all still too close to him, and he had too many remaining ambivalent feelings about Rob right at that moment. He had a kind of weird, lingering loyalty to Rob, who had been there for him when John had not, after all.

“John, can we talk about this some other time?” Paul decided to try his old tactic of hiding behind the barricades.

“No! We’re going to talk about it now. We’re going to say everything there is to say about it, and get it out of our systems, and then we’re going to put a period at the end of it.” John was unusually confident and demanding, and Paul was quite surprised by this. Usually his diversionary tactics worked on John, who also tended towards avoiding uncomfortable exchanges, but it was clearly not working today.

Still, Paul couldn’t quite trust what John said. He had never seen any evidence that John could handle information that indicated that Paul had feelings for someone other than him. It was all well and good for John to say they would put it behind them, but all of Paul’s past experience of John’s reactions to such news left him with serious doubt that sharing his feelings for Rob would lead to anything other than a terrible tussle and a lasting wound. But John was still glaring at him relentlessly, and it was clear he wasn’t going to be diverted, so Paul tried to think of a tactful way to explain what he had been going through when he was hanging out with Rob.

“I didn’t realize until last night that perhaps Rob had feelings for me that went beyond friendship,” Paul finally said honestly, in as judicious a voice as he could muster.

“’Perhaps’? ‘Perhaps’? Didn’t I tell you after that first time we met him that he had the hots for you! Didn’t I?” John was outraged at the nerve of that fucking Rob, to move in on his Paul the moment his back was turned. And after he was finished being mad about that, he was pissed at Paul for being so clueless.

“To be fair, John, I don’t think he had those kind of feelings until after we’d spent some time alone together,” Paul said defensively.

“’Fair’? Why do I need to be ‘fair’ to that asshole? He is deliberately trying to poach my territory!” John’s temper had gotten the best of him, and he had inadvertently exposed his most atavistic feelings about Paul to Paul.

“’Territory?’” Paul’s voice sounded not only surprised, but also hurt. “Is that what this is to you? A matter of trespass?”

John regrouped as quickly as he could. “It’s just a manner of speech. You belong to me. Rob knows that. And he has decided in his infinite wisdom to get between you and me. He made a conscious decision to move in on you, and that is an insult to me!”

Paul was looking at John, his head at a cockeyed angle. He liked it better when he thought John was just jealous over the potential loss of his affections. All this talk about territory, and him being a possession of John’s was unnerving him. By contrast, he honestly didn’t think Rob thought of him as a plot of land or the deed to a platinum mine, or something of material value like that. He cleared this throat.

“There’s another way to look at this,” Paul said, his pride injured a bit by what seemed to him to be John’s non--sentimental possessiveness, which did not - at the moment - seem to be touched by love or affection.

“Oh? Pray tell.” John was looking at him with a sarcastic expression on his face.

“Maybe Rob sees me as someone he likes. Someone whose company he enjoys. Maybe he genuinely likes me, and it has nothing to do with horning in on what you consider to be your ‘territory’.” Paul’s voice rung with a kind of aggrieved indignation which surprised John, who hadn’t for a moment understood how patronizing his owns words had been.

“Paul, dear boy, let me assure you. What Rob wants from you is hidden by your pants!” John did not like seeing Paul defending Rob like this, and it caused him to strike out.

Paul was furious now. John might as well have told him that no one would be interested in his company except as a precursor to fucking him. If Paul didn’t already have a deeply buried sneaking suspicion that no one really liked him for his true self, John’s words would not have hurt him so much. He threw the newspaper on to the floor and stood up. “I don’t need to sit here and be insulted like this,” he said petulantly. “I’m going back to Cavendish!”

John really didn’t understand how all of this had slipped out of his control, but he tried to reel it in now. “Paul, come on, sit down. Don’t go. We’re having a frank discussion, and at some point we have to be able to actually finish one, without one of us throwing a fit and walking out.” John’s voice had returned to a gentler, more respectful tone. Paul halted at the door to the study and looked back at John. He really didn’t want to stomp off in a funk. It would just ruin his whole entire day, and he’d then have to come crawling back later and pretend he hadn’t been hurt by it. For once, John was meeting him halfway, so he should just do what John asked him to do. He headed back to his chair, plopped down, crossed his arms protectively, and stared at John with suspicion and distrust.

John began again. “I said things wrong. I always do when I get upset,” he admitted. He allowed his eyes to warm up as he smiled at Paul. He watched Paul’s suspicious eyes reduce from suspicion to doubt. “Look, of course Rob enjoys your company. A person would have to be deaf, dumb and blind, not to mention a complete idiot, if he didn’t enjoy your company, Paul.” John stopped to see if his honeyed words had calmed the man down. Honestly, sometimes Paul was like a high-strung racehorse. You had to be careful about the energy you exhibited around him. When he saw that the doubt had now been reduced to indecision in Paul’s eyes, John continued. “I meant it as a given that of course he was attracted to you, Paul; why else would be pursue you across several continents over a couple of years? I was just trying to explain how it felt to me, like he was disrespecting me and the relationship that we have shared for - what is it now? Almost 35 years?” John smiled comfortingly after this comment and watched as the indecision in Paul’s eyes melted into a fragile trust. “I was trying to let you know how it made me feel.”

Paul heard this, and although of course he still would have preferred it if John’s feelings had leant more in the direction of love and affection, at least they didn’t seem to be as purely territorial as they had sounded at first. Paul finally bestirred himself, having thought of something he could say to cover the breach. “Just because Rob is attracted to me - I don’t see how this impacts how you and I feel about each other.”

“So long as that’s true - so long as it doesn’t impact how you feel about me - then maybe that’s true,” John said, but he looked very unconvinced. Paul was still unusually protective of Rob, and it was beginning to cause John serious spasms of fear and insecurity.

Paul could now see John’s insecurity, and it caused him to relax. It was time to let a little of his true feelings go. “Johnny, if I got close to Rob lately, it was only because I felt so lost and alone without you. I wasn’t sure if you would ever come back.”

John saw that Paul was fighting off tears, and this made him tear up. “I could never be away from you for long, Pud,” John said softly. “I just was going through a weird reaction to the chemo. But it didn’t take me long - after I was on my own - to realize how little my life made sense if you weren’t part of it.” Paul nodded in response to these words, and it was clear he nodded because he could not speak. He was fighting off tears big time now. Still, John couldn’t let it go. He had to know.

“Did you sleep with him, Paul?” The words echoed around the room, and John looked as if the Sword of Damocles was hanging over his head.

Paul got up, moved towards John, and, leaning over him, grasped John’s face in his two hands. “No, John, I didn’t,” he said. This was true, at least, and there was no reason to say that he had come damn close to it. What mattered was that Rob was in his rearview mirror now that John wanted him back. So, he leaned down further and gave John a kiss smack on the lips.

 

*****

 

Linda was cheered to hear John and Paul approaching the kitchen in the midst of a razzing repartee. Things getting back to normal, she thought to herself, and smiled. Earlier that day Rob had called to see if Paul was in, and she had told him he was off “somewhere” with John. Without thinking she had suggested that Rob come over for dinner that night. She felt that Rob had been a godsend for the past 10 days, and without him Paul would have been utterly miserable which would have made her utterly miserable, and she didn’t feel like just cutting Rob off now that John was back. He was now her friend, too. John would just have to suck it up, and he was free to bow out of the meal if he wanted to.

“Hey, Lin!” Paul greeted her, his voice full of good cheer and enthusiasm. The tone of voice was a load off Linda’s shoulders. This was the Paul she loved the most, and this time she knew it held no false notes. He really was full of good cheer and enthusiasm. The three of them sat around the kitchen table chatting and joking, for the first time in a long time with no cancer hanging over their heads. It was a tremendous relief to them all. James was at school, so the house was otherwise empty. Linda eventually got up and made them all cheese and pickle sandwiches. As they finished eating Linda said,

“Oh, I almost forgot. Dinner’s at 7 p.m. tonight. I’ve invited Rob over to thank him for his many kindnesses to us.” While Linda was looking at Paul as she said this, the last phrase was for John’s ears.

Paul looked over at John in distress and saw a storm rising there. He rushed in first. “Lin, I wish you would have consulted me first…”

“He’s my friend, too,” Linda said staunchly, “and he has done so much for us. I didn’t think you would object.”

John was upset by this and said, his voice ringing with suppressed anger, “He isn’t as much a friend to you as you think he is.”

Paul cried, “John - please!” 

Linda said, “What did you mean by that?” She was glaring at John.

John had seen Paul’s frantic and anxious expression and pulled back from the brink. “I’m just suspicious of his motives,” he told Linda in a sulky way. “Ever since I met him he’s given me a bad feeling, like he has some kind of ulterior agenda going on. I don’t trust him.”

Linda believed this explanation completely, because it was just the sort of thing John would do - take an immediate dislike to someone who was not a sycophant. As long as she’d known him, John had liked his friends (other than Paul, and of course Yoko) to be tame and controllable, and Rob was neither of those. “I’m sorry you don’t like him, John, but I do, and so does Paul. He has been very generous to us, and we owe him a nice dinner. You can cry off if you want, although I’m sure that Paul and I would much prefer you to be here, too.” Linda’s tone of voice let it be known that the subject was non-negotiable.

John glared at Paul, who was studiously avoiding his eyes while playing aimlessly with a stray piece of lettuce on his plate. He would drag Paul home and then have it out with him, and insist that Paul dissuade Linda from this disastrous ‘friendship’. If Paul refused to do it, then John would tell her about Rob’s actual agenda. 

Paul knew he was going to get it. He tried to stay at Cavendish as long as possible, and even suggested that he should head to McLen to get a little work done, but John would have none of it. “We’ve been apart for two weeks, Paul. We need to spend some time alone together.” So, reluctantly, and before James was home from school, Paul allowed himself to be dragged back down the alley. Once they had settled in the sitting room, John started right in.

“You have to tell Linda about Rob, Paul.” His voice was an order, not a suggestion.

“I don’t either. That’s between me and Rob, and Linda doesn’t need to know.” Paul was getting his stubborn muscles in shape for what he knew was going to be a war of wills.

“’You and Rob?’ You make it sound like you’re quite the cozy little duo!” John shouted.

“Not again, John, you said we’d put a period to it! Somehow I knew you would never let me off the hook if I confided in you!”

“You didn’t confide in me Paul,” John shouted quickly. “You opened up just a little bit, and from that I’ve had to surmise what happened. So you didn’t fuck him, and he didn’t fuck you, right?” John was now breathing fire.

“I told you we didn’t have sex, and that’s the truth,” Paul said in his far calmer, but now kind of snotty and cold voice.

“How about blowjobs? Did you give each other blowjobs?”

Paul let loose a loud and exaggerated sigh. “No. Nothing. And before you ask, we didn’t wank each other either. We didn’t do anything even remotely sexual with each other.” 

John relaxed again. “But you admit he wanted to do it with you, right? How did he put it?” John’s curiosity was at its highest peak now and he was bearing down.

“He never actually propositioned me, John, it never got that far. It was just that I got a vibe off him last night that he wanted to go there. That’s all.” Paul knew he had to say these things explicitly, he had no choice, because despite John’s earlier promise that they would talk about it once and get it over with, Paul now knew that his original skepticism was justified. No doubt he’d be dealing with John’s possessive prying and accusations about Rob for months if not years. All the more reason why he felt it was best if Rob was not in his family’s social circle any more. But Paul knew Linda, and how fiercely loyal she was to her friends, and he also knew that he was going to have to find a way to discourage the friendship without offending her sensibilities. This was going to require time and patience, and so tonight’s dinner would have to go forward.

John, on the other hand, didn’t want Rob near “his” family any longer, and that included Linda right along with Paul. “Paul, if you don’t tell Linda that Rob was trying to seduce you with all those ‘kindnesses’, and that he in fact was working to steal you out from under her nose, then I will.”

“Rob was not trying to steal me out from under Linda,” Paul said bluntly. “He knows Linda is important to me, and that under no circumstances will I leave her. None. Whatever he had in mind, it didn’t include excluding Linda. And even if it did, I would never have gone there.” Paul had allowed his mixed loyalties to Linda and even to Rob to get ahead of himself. Within seconds, he would regret he said this.

“So it was only me who was going to be excluded! He was going to slip into my place, and share you with Linda! That was his plan!” John had stood up as he shouted, because he was so angry he wanted to throw or hit something, but everywhere he looked were priceless art objects, so he sat back down again abruptly. “And it sounds like you were contemplating this as a possibility?” John’s heart was beating very hard now, as all of his worst insecurities started coming to the fore.

“John, like I said, we never spoke of anything like this. I’m just telling you that Rob really likes and respects Linda, and I am sure he would never have asked me to exclude her from my life.”

This only made John feel worse, of course. “Maybe you would prefer to be with Rob and Linda, and not me,” he said in a pouty, hangdog voice.

Paul slapped his cheeks with both of his hands in frustration, and then rubbed his face tiredly. “No. I want to be with you and Linda. Like I told you, while you were gone, I thought you wouldn’t be coming back, and so I had to give some thought to what my life would be like if that should happen. I was…vulnerable…”

John could see that they’d come full circle, and he’d squeezed out of Paul everything there was to squeeze. He made a great effort to regain control of his emotions, and took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Ok, alright. But I don’t want to see this man ever again, and I don’t want you to see him ever again. If Linda wants to socialize with him, that’s up to her. But I forbid you to do so.”

Paul heard the word ‘forbid’ and everything went black.


	12. Chapter 12

Paul heard the word “forbid” come out of John’s mouth, and he stood up abruptly. No one could tell him what he could or could not do! No one ever had, and no one ever would. He had managed to glide through life by charming, bedazzling, or logically arguing his way through obstructive authority figures, and if that hadn’t worked, by putting his head down and just bulldozing through. Yeah, he’d made some stupid choices, and sometimes all those naysayers had actually been right. But a good 85% of the time Paul’s results from sticking to his own instincts - no matter how many respected and knowledgeable people registered objections - had been overwhelmingly positive. Those were some pretty good odds. Even John - with a few very specific exceptions - was not allowed to order him around. Paul had always naturally wanted to make John happy, so generally if he was “asked” or “persuaded” by John to do or not do something, he would agree. No problem. And in certain very limited areas (such as how to dress, or how to write lyrics) Paul would accept John’s dictates. But this word “forbid”. It was a whole other thing.

“If Linda wants me there tonight, then I will be there tonight. There’s no question about that.” Paul’s voice had that ‘you’ve insulted me down to my toes’ ring to it that John had heard many times - although most of the other times the tone had been aimed at some other poor sucker who had dared to tell Paul McCartney what to do or how to do it. John wanted to bite his tongue and take his words back. His pride had been injured by Paul’s seeming loyalty to Rob, and so he had overreacted with a ridiculous bid to tell Paul what he was going to do. That was a rookie mistake for a Macca friend, and John couldn’t believe he had succumbed to it.

John jumped up quickly to face Paul directly, and put his hands on Paul’s shoulders to stop him from leaving the room. “Calm down, babe, I don’t want you storming off in a huff again. I really need you not to do that anymore. If I act like an ass, like I did a minute ago, I need you to just tell me to stop acting like an ass. You tend to just get all worked up and stomp off because it’s like you can’t find the words to tell me how you feel. So, sit down, take your time, and just tell me how you feel.”

Paul’s indignation had already backed off quite a bit. His reaction to John’s order had been automatic. There had been no thinking involved. It was Paul’s go-to reaction any and every time someone tried to tell him what to do. He’d been like that even as a baby, or so his aunties had said. Paul took a deep breath, and sat down again.

“So, tell me,” John prompted him after a few tense moments. “Words won’t kill me, you know. And even if they hurt, I will recover.”

Paul nodded in an absent-minded way. He finally said, “I’m going to dinner tonight because Linda wants me to. I wouldn’t let her block me from doing something you wanted me to do, and it goes both ways. It isn’t because I want to have dinner with Rob. In fact, I think it will be quite awkward after what passed between us last night. But me not going - that isn’t even on the table, John. You don’t have to go, but I do.”

John heard what Paul had to say, and he really had no solid grounds for objecting. He wanted Paul never to see Rob again as long as he lived, but just because he wanted it didn’t make it a rational request. Understanding that Paul’s insistence on going was based on his respect for Linda, and not anything to do with seeing Rob again, did calm John down substantially. “Ok, then. I’ll go too, because I have no intention of ever allowing Rob to be alone with you again.” John had been shaken by what seemed to him to be a true connection between Paul and Rob. Although Paul had not said so, and never would, John worried that when he’d been left alone and to his own devices, Paul had seriously considered Rob’s unspoken invitation to be his lover.

 

*****

 

The previous night, and then today, had been uncharacteristically difficult for Rob Sheridan. He was not accustomed to being thwarted when pursuing an important goal, and especially not after he had put two years’ worth of research and effort into it. And to have the whole thing yanked away when Paul had been literally inches from his bed was about as agonizing a disappointment as Rob could even imagine. He had felt it in his bones - Paul had been just moments away from falling into his arms. He had been on the very verge of allowing Rob to finally touch him in ways that Rob had longed to do for 2 years now. To make matters worse, in the past week he had spent many hours alone in Paul’s company, and he had been entertained, intrigued, fascinated, impressed, and delighted in turns without ever being bored - not even for one fraction of a minute. He had laughed more with Paul than he had laughed with anyone ever, in his whole life; and a goodly number of those laughs would be more accurately described as ‘giggles’, although this acknowledgement embarrassed Rob somewhat. Paul was the perfect man for him; Rob was now positive of it. But had Paul been sent by a vengeful God to punish Rob for never having really been in love before, despite having so many high quality opportunities with other men? In short: was this the universe balancing the scales, and putting him in his place?

Rob was not one to give up on a goal, especially one that had become so deeply important and personal to him, even if the odds looked poor. There had been a rift between John and Paul. He had seen it with his own eyes, and he had heard about it from Jason, Gerry and Linda. Even Paul had reluctantly (and perhaps inadvertently?) confessed to him that he feared that John had lost interest in him. Rob could hardly believe that a man could be so stupid as to “lose interest” in Paul McCartney. How lucky was John to have him, and how stupid of him to risk losing him? Surely, a germ of doubt and distrust must remain in Paul’s mind. If John had been capable of running off for a few weeks with almost no prior notice, then what was keeping him from doing it again? Wasn’t it possible that these doubts would start to work on Paul so that a permanent scar could be left on the relationship? Rob felt it was a genuine possibility, and so he wasn’t going to run away with his tail between his legs. He would prove to Paul that he was a loyal friend who had graciously stepped back when it became clear that John was what Paul wanted. And he would be there, waiting and willing to step in, if and when the rift in the John/Paul relationship widened again.

 

*****

 

Linda had knocked herself out by making a fantastic meal for Rob. She knew his preference for Mediterranean vegetables, and had grilled and sautéed several kinds of them, and intended to lay them out over a mushroom/parmesan risotto spiced up with saffron and sea salt. The setting of the dining table was perfect - seven settings. She was delighted that Mary and Stella were coming as soon as they got off work. As she worked, Linda was nursing a feeling. It was a feeling that an objective person might say was an irrational sense of loyalty to Rob. She knew that now that John was back, he would be monopolizing Paul’s time - not just from her, but most definitely from anyone else, and especially Rob, who John admitted he didn’t like or trust. Linda felt that John’s conduct after the chemo ended had shown an unpleasant side of him that she really hadn’t expected to see. He had literally abandoned Paul in the midst of a serious depression after Paul had literally carried John through 18 months of hell. To Linda, this was an inexplicable and unforgiveable act of disloyalty by John, and she felt all the more protective of Paul as a result. Yes, John was back, and he had proven to be an almost immediate tonic for Paul, who was acting like his old annoyingly cheerful and hyper self again after less than 24 hours in John’s company. (Linda smiled to herself with fondness as she had this thought.) But she couldn’t get out of her mind’s eye seeing how Paul’s spirits had collapsed when John had gone cheerfully off to his airport gate in Rome; how the lights in Paul’s eyes had died, and how he had been paralyzed with doubt and loss for days afterwards: until Rob showed up.

Linda was not stupid. She knew that Rob was gay, and she knew that Rob knew about John and Paul’s sexual relationship, and she figured that armed with this knowledge, Rob was probably physically interested in Paul. Of course she knew this. She also had wondered if Paul was attracted to Rob a little. There was a lot about Rob to admire, and Paul had always been attracted to successful, get-things-done-and-do-them-well-while-you’re-at-it people. Rob was one of those to the nth degree. Despite this concern - it was a bit of a concern to Linda, of course - Linda was in favor of Paul maintaining a friendship with Rob. She knew Rob would never replace John in Paul’s eyes, so beyond perhaps a curiosity about what it would be like to have sex with a different man, Paul was not going to engage in a sexual relationship with Rob. But he needed a friend outside of the claustrophobic world John had created for Paul. He needed someone who was of the world, who had big ideas grounded in reality and enjoyed debating them with Paul, and who understood and enjoyed the adult joys of life, and how to maximize them. In the long run, Linda thought, if John could get over his dogged territorialism, he might find that he could enjoy Rob’s company, too. That might be a bit far-fetched, but you never know about people, Linda told herself. They sometimes surprise the hell out of you.

 

*****

 

Rob allowed himself to be an impeccable 10 minutes late. Any earlier than that would have caught them putting out the finishing touches, and anything later than that would be just plain rude and discourteous. He carried with him his now accustomed Linda hostess gift: an armful of beautiful wildflowers. As if he were prescient, he had brought wildflowers from the Mediterranean. He was just doing so to remind Linda of their fun time together in Italy, which was exactly what Linda was doing in choosing for their meal eggplant, tomatoes, big beefy mushrooms, asparagus, artichokes, and broccolini, as well as garlic, onions, Italian parsley and oregano to spoon over the smooth, moist and perfectly cooked risotto. Paul had gone to the wine store and purchased some Santa Margherita pinot grigio, and a few bottles of primo Chianti, and then he had stopped at an Italian bakery and picked up a few types of Italian bread, the names of which Linda had written down on a list: Pane con le Olive, and Filone di Renella. Once Linda had dressed the center of the table with Rob’s wildflowers and two large antipasti platters with baskets of bread, bottles of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and ramekins of fresh butter, the table looked like a photograph from a Tuscany tourist advertisement, minus the meat.

When Rob had first arrived, John was seated in the living room sipping the first of many glasses of wine that he thought would somehow see him through this agony of a night. As Rob entered the room, John met Rob’s eyes with an expression that said, I know what you’re up to, and don’t even try to deny it. Rob, as scrupulous a guest as ever, pretended not to notice John’s less than gracious greeting, and instead he rewarded John with a warm smile, and an extended hand. Feeling out-maneuvered, John grudgingly shook Rob’s hand, but he didn’t squeeze very hard. Rob didn’t bother to make any insincere comments about how good it was to see John again. He was certain John was as happy to see him, as he was to see John. A smile and a friendly handshake was the limit of his ability to reach out to John, and apparently John felt even less about him.

Mary and Stella, and even James, were far more boisterous in their greeting of Rob, the girls flitting around him and giggling at his urbane, lazy flirting. John watched this and had to stop himself from grinding his teeth. John had known he was going to be compared to Rob - at least on some level - by their mutual object of desire (Paul), so while Paul had gone to the shops, John had spent a good long time washing and styling his hair, and shaving as closely as possible. He had worn a pair of white jeans on his impossibly slender frame (he still hadn’t gained much of the weight back after the chemo), and paired it with a charcoal grey cashmere pullover polo-necked sweater. He wore a pair of blindingly white Converse sneakers he had just bought in New York, without socks. Out of his jewelry box he liberated his favorite silver bracelet - the one Paul had purchased for him in Peru with the pre-Incan gods dancing around the band - and also slipped one of the rings Paul had given him on his left ‘ring’ finger. (John knew that Americans wore wedding rings on their left hands, and since Rob was American John was, in this way, making something of a statement about his position vis a vis Paul.) He thought he looked devastatingly sexy, and so he felt ready to face Le Continental himself, the hopelessly over-groomed and phony (in John’s eyes) Rob Sheridan.

The problem was that Rob looked outrageously striking while still understated as he came in the room, the wings of his close-cropped hair brushed back over his ear, the silver showing through in all the right places. His grey eyes and pure white smile were superbly emphasized by the tan that he still managed to hold on to even three weeks after leaving Italy, and he wore a pure while collared shirt - as crisp as it could be - which peaked out from under a luxurious camel hair sports coat. He wore dark stained blue jeans, and a pair of expensive Italian loafers in a tawny color. He wore no jewelry at all except a very manly watch, and his tight but muscular stomach showed ever so subtly to advantage under the white shirt. He was perfect. John immediately felt like chopped liver by comparison.

Paul and Linda were Paul and Linda. Neither of them had gone to extreme lengths with their appearance, as usual. Linda wore barely any makeup, but she had put her pretty blond tresses up in a barrette, and had added a few of the wildflowers from Rob’s bouquet to the mix. She wore a pretty dress, in a bright floral motif, with a bright red cardigan over it, and a pair of ballet slippers. Paul never had to do much to look glorious. He could wear a fucking barley sack and still be the best-looking person in the room. He had first dressed from his Cavendish closet, and had come down wearing some outdated ‘dad’ jeans and a black top. John had taken one look, and sent him over to the other house to get the trendy jeans (that John had bought for him) so he wouldn’t look ridiculous. He had also laid out a Persian blue pullover sweater on the bed, and told Paul to wear that instead of the old, much-used, black T-neck. Paul had been quite obedient. He never fussed too much about being told what to wear. When it came to telling Paul what to wear, John knew that Paul’s mother had no doubt done it, his father had done it, Jane Asher had done it, Linda had done it, and he knew that he himself had been doing it since Paul was 15 years old. (“You’re wearing that????” Paul must have heard that phrase out of the mouths of everyone who loved him for lo these almost 50 years.) So of course in his slim fit jeans and his rich blue sweater, Paul looked like a million bucks. As he thought of this, John wanted to smack himself in the head. He should have let Paul dress like somebody’s dad - it would have been far less attractive to the obviously overly clothes-conscious Rob. I just keep shooting myself in the foot, John growled at himself.

They were finally arranging themselves around the dinner table, and Linda put Rob on one side of her, with Mary on the other. Relieved, John sat on Paul’s right, having moved the name card over from the middle. So now James sat between John and Mary on one side, and Stella and Rob sat next to each other on the other side. Linda had seen John change the seating cards and had had to smother a laugh. She’d known he would do so, and had never really expected him to sit in the middle while James sat on the end, but she was taking some pleasure in poking at John in little, subtle ways, as a kind of private personal revenge for how he had treated Paul.

Paul, of course, was completely oblivious to all the undercurrents except one. It was his goal that night to keep John as far away from Rob as he could manage, and to interact pleasantly and politely with Rob without making John jealous. It was going to be a bumpy ride, and Paul knew it. So he decided he was not going to drink very much, in order to keep his wits about him.

Unfortunately, John had made no such promise to himself, and before he had eaten a thing he had already downed two full glasses of pinot grigio. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and because he was painfully thin, the wine hit him inordinately hard. And then, the first thing he did when he sat down at the dinner table was to pour himself a huge glass of Chianti and start chugging. Linda had given him a generous glass of water, but John ignored it. He needed to get a bit drunk so he could tolerate being in the presence of Rob, who had started to look like a big fat spider to John, a spider who was sitting in the middle of an invisible web, waiting for poor defenseless Paul to get stuck, so he could swallow him whole. The more he drank, the more fanciful John’s similes became. He didn’t realize that he was basically glaring at Rob through much of the dinner.

Linda was getting irritated, and she kept giving Paul the eye. Do something about him! was the message she was desperately trying to convey, while all the time maintaining a pleased hostess expression on her face. The problem was, Paul didn’t notice Linda’s attempts to get his attention. He was still busy trying to keep both John and Rob happy. Rob was easy. He acted as though he didn’t notice John staring daggers at him, even when John would slam his fork or glass down loudly whenever Rob said anything even remotely flattering to either Paul or Linda. But still, Rob (who was having fun now) didn’t stop engaging Paul, no matter how desperately Paul tried to pass the conversation over to someone else - anyone else! Was Rob doing this on purpose to agitate John? Paul worried. He gave Rob a long, shrewd look, but Rob just met his eyes and smiled slightly in response. He looked pretty innocent…

Paul turned to John in a determined attempt to grab John’s attention so that he would no longer be glaring at Rob. Thankfully, John turned to look at Paul, and Paul said, under his voice, “You look very nice tonight, John,” thinking a little bit of flirting might set John’s nerves at ease. John looked reflexively down at himself and then up again to meet Paul’s eyes.

“Rob looks better,” he grunted, looking downcast.

“Not to me, he doesn’t,” Paul said softly. He moved his foot until it was behind John’s ankle, and rubbed John’s shin ever so suggestively with his foot for a few seconds while smiling at John knowingly.

John, already drunk, was easily enticed by this flirting, and began to calm down. He figured that sitting here sharing goo-goo eyes with Paul was a far more effective up yours! to Rob, than him just sitting there, in frustration, glaring at him.

And indeed it was. Now Rob began to feel his temperature rise. He struggled to maintain a pleasant demeanor as Linda, Stella and Mary all engaged him in a conversation simultaneously. He really did enjoy the women in Paul’s life as people, and they were marvelous company and deliciously feminine in a daring kind of way. But he had a hard time focusing on them while down at the other end of the table Paul and John’s heads were close together and there was obviously some intimacy passing between them. Rob felt full-on jealousy. It was a strong, painful jolt. He had thought he’d felt jealousy before, but now he was discovering that he had never really felt it before; this, the thing he was feeling right now, was jealousy! He wanted to pick up a piece of bread and throw it at Lennon’s smug face. But he didn’t. He sat back in his chair, nursed his glass of wine, and smiled with equal pleasure at Stella, Linda and Mary until the conversation puttered out.

Linda looked up and said, “Why don’t the men go to the sitting room. The girls and I are going to finish up the Zabaglione and I’ll bring it to you in there.”

Oh, great, Paul thought. Thanks, Linda. No thanks to her, Paul had thus far managed to keep the hostility between John and Rob to a simmer, but now the stakes were rising considerably. Paul grabbed James by a shoulder, and marched him into the sitting room in front of him, sitting James down on one end of the sofa, as he took the other end. On either side of the sofa were wing chairs. Paul had orchestrated it so no one could sit directly next to him, since James was there. Poor James, Paul thought. He has no idea he is a pawn in this high stakes chess game. There was a not-so-subtle rush to get the wing chair closest to Paul. John literally cut Rob off at the pass, and dropped into the chair with a victorious look on his face. Rob had the good grace to pretend not to have noticed, and also not to care, and sat down and sprawled languidly in the other chair.

Everyone settled, Paul felt comfortable about getting up, so he poured whiskeys all around for the men, and a ginger ale for James. James liked the way the drink looked, and the clinking ice cubes. It felt grown up, and he held the glass the way he’d seen grown ups holding their glasses of alcohol, and sat back while trying to look cool and able to participate in the conversation. 

Rob noticed James’s little machinations as he tried to school his face like an adult. Rob smiled warmly and affectionately at the boy. He was a very shy boy, very sensitive. He didn’t have any of his father’s glowing good looks and positive personality traits. Sadly, neither did he have his mother’s social adeptness - that uncanny ability to talk to anyone about anything at any time. But he seemed very sweet to Rob, with a willing and open heart. He feared life would be hard on the boy, and hoped that Paul and Linda were aware of their son’s needs.

Of everything Rob did that night, nothing touched Paul more than when he saw the quiet, veiled look of warmth that Rob briefly had on his face while he contemplated James, unaware that anyone was watching. There seemed to be a genuine affection there that Paul hadn’t noticed any of his friends showing to his son before, not even John. James was not an outgoing child, and he often preferred to hang back and listen rather than to participate. As a 13 year-old he had gained weight - just as Paul had done - and Paul felt anxious about his son’s emotional welfare, remembering how hard it was to be plump at that age. How much worse to be plump when your dad was Paul McCartney, and there were paparazzi always around? So when Rob next met Paul’s eyes, Paul gave him a warm smile that signified his gratitude. Rob was surprised by it, not knowing what he had done to deserve it, but of course it fed his hope that all was not lost in his quest for Paul’s love. He reminded himself to play the long game, and just to let events happen without trying to rush or micromanage them. John was doing plenty of micromanaging and rushing for the both of them combined!

It was true that John was feeling very antsy. Although Rob was across the room from Paul, his quiet, manly energy was a living presence in the room, and it unnerved John. He also had drunk quite a bit. It had taken every ounce of his self-discipline not to act out tonight, and he gave some thought to quitting while he was ahead. He should excuse himself and go home. He could say loudly to Paul in front of Rob (as he went), ‘come to bed soon, Paul’, and then walk out. But the very idea of leaving Paul alone in Rob’s clutches was a non-starter for John. He was going to have to wait Rob out. But he didn’t have to make the atmosphere pleasant for Rob, did he? Maybe if things were becoming unpleasant, Rob would realize it was time to leave. He turned to Rob.

“So, I was very surprised to find out that you showed up on our doorstep a few days after Italy,” John said. (John was careful to imply that Cavendish was ‘his’ home as well.) 

Paul felt something drop in his stomach.

“Business brought me here, and then of course I had enjoyed the time I spent with the McCartneys in Italy so much, I hoped they wouldn’t mind me showing up,” Rob said easily, refusing to rise to the bait.

“Of course, it was handy that I wasn’t in town at the time,” John added sarcastically.

Paul said desperately, “Can I refill anyone’s glass?”

“Mine!” James declared, holding up his empty glass of ice cubes. Both John and Rob demurred, and their eyes were locked in a kind of staring contest. Rob’s eyes looked amused and relaxed, and John’s looked angry and frustrated. After refilling James’s glass, and pouring himself more whiskey (boy did he need it!) Paul sat down again, knowing that he had to change the subject.

“So, John, you said you went to the theatre a few times while you were in New York. I don’t think we talked about which plays. What did you see?” Paul’s eyes were boring into John’s, telling him to drop the bone of contention with Rob, and cooperate.

“I saw The Miser shortly after I got there, and Six Degrees of Separation a few days before I left,” John responded. “Six Degrees was a premier - we had pretty good tickets. Gerry has a client who is a ticket agent.” John’s voice sounded flat and miserable.

“I’ve heard good things about Six Degrees,” Rob said politely.

“Have you? I suppose now you’re going to tell Paul what it was all about, even though I am the one who actually saw it.” John’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Paul interrupted. “John, we both want to hear about it from you.”

“Yes, please,” Rob added politely, trying to show Paul - in his refusal to be provoked - his superior maturity to John’s.

“I really didn’t like it very much,” John said and then sat back with a mulish look around his mouth, and in that moment Paul felt certain that he was growing an ulcer. This night would be the death of him.

Fortunately, Mary and Stella suddenly sailed in with trays of dessert dishes piled high with warm, soft egg custard (with a twist of Madeira) topped by genuine whipped cream and a handful of blueberries and raspberries. Linda followed behind with a few more dishes, and soon everyone was happily eating. Paul had shoved over so that Linda could sit next to him on one side, and Stella replaced James, who sat immediately on the floor to better get at his dessert. Mary started to pull a hassock over, but Rob got there first, and insisted she take the wing chair, while he took the hassock. Linda smiled brightly at Rob, while John muttered darkly into his Zabaglione.

Once the women arrived, the conversation became happy and sparkling again, and Rob was in his element. He made the women and James laugh by inserting clever little bon mots in between their anecdotes and stories. John became ever more glum as the night progressed. He began to think it was safe for him to go home now, since what could Rob accomplish while Linda and the kids were all there? He really didn’t think he could stand another minute in Rob’s company. So he stood up, cleared his throat, and announced,

“I tire easily, ever since the chemo,” (he stressed the word ‘chemo’ for the full sympathy effect), “and so I’m going home to bed. Paul - when can I expect you to join me?”

The room went dead silent. Neither Linda nor the children had been used to hearing John being so blatantly obvious about the intimate part of his relationship with Paul. Normally, John was more discreet than that in their presence. Consequently, John’s bald statement was embarrassing to all of them, especially Paul, who really didn’t like his children to be reminded too much of what went on when he went “home” with John.

Rob looked down at his hands and tried not to smile. John was so obvious it was painful to watch. He was huffing and puffing and pissing all over his territory, but each time he did so he only made himself look more crass in front of Paul. Rob only had to sit there and look civilized, and he would look better to Paul than John did!

Paul cleared his throat, and got up. “Excuse me,” he said quietly to his family and guest, and headed towards the French door that led to the garden. He stepped outside, John on his heels, and shut the door behind them. “John, that was very embarrassing to me and my family.”

“Embarrassing - why? They all know about us, Paul. We told them ourselves, remember?”

“Well, for one thing, it is rude to say that in front of Linda in her own home, and in front of her own children and her dinner guest. It was a really tacky thing to do.” Paul’s voice was stern, but he was still keeping it at a low pitch.

“I’m sorry to be an embarrassment to you, Paul, but I’ve had enough of that smug asshole. You’ve all pushed me as far as I can go tonight, and if I’m a little bitter, so be it. I’m the one who has been in your family’s life for 10 years. None of you really even know Rob.” John’s voice was throbbing with the withheld injured pride.

Paul heard it and softened. “Johnny, you know I love you, and you know when this night is over I will be with you. My family is just enjoying a guest, and treating him with respect. That’s all that happened tonight.” Paul had a hand on each of John’s shoulders, and he finally managed to capture John’s eyes with his own. “So go home, get ready for bed, and I’ll be along as soon as I can politely get away. Okay?”

John nodded morosely, and started to walk down the garden. He stopped after a few feet and turned around, “I’m sorry for being an ass tonight, Pud. It just hurts me to see him around you.”

Paul followed him down the garden, and took John in his arms and whispered in his ear. “You have nothing to worry about, John. As long as you want me around, I’ll be around.” He kissed John on his cheek, and patted him on his behind. “Now go home and get comfy in bed.” John smiled and turned to walk away. “And remember our rule - no pajamas!” Paul said after him, making John chuckle as he disappeared into the darkness of the back garden. Paul shook his head, laughing to himself, and then went back to the sitting room.

As he approached the sofa, Rob’s eyes met his across the room. He was asking the question everything all right? And Paul nodded in the affirmative. When the evening finally came to an end, Linda whispered to him, “Show Rob to the door. I’m sure he wants to talk to you without an audience.” Paul wanted to object, but Linda had already said her goodbyes and was heading for the kitchen and cleanup duty. Sighing, Paul followed Rob to the front door. They stepped into the vestibule together, and Rob said,

“I’m sorry to have caused so much turmoil this evening. I wondered if I should have excused myself earlier, but didn’t know how to do it without seeming rude to Linda.”

Paul shook his head and said, “No, no, you handled it very well. John is a bit insecure. He thinks you’re ‘after’ me, and that maybe I am tempted.” Paul was looking at his foot, scuffing his toe.

Rob smiled at the top of Paul’s head, which is all that he could see other than the apples of Paul’s cheeks, which were a bright pink. The man was so adorable, blushing as he explained the situation. Rob felt very protective of him as he laughed and said, “Well, he’s right - on both counts - isn’t he?” Rob’s voice was deep, soft and seductive. When Paul didn’t look up (he had heard Rob’s comment as if it were an axe falling), Rob put his finger under Paul’s chin and lifted Paul’s head up until their eyes met.

“I can’t…I can’t go there,” Paul said softly, his face very vulnerable. “I’m married, and Linda doesn’t deserve it…”

“You married extremely well,” Rob said smoothly. “She is perfect for you, and nothing should ever come between you. Nothing.” Rob’s voice emphasized the last word to make it patently clear that he had no desire to disrupt Paul’s happy marriage and family.

“And there’s John of course…” Paul added.

“Yes. John. I can see how much you love him, and how loyal you are to him. And I can see that he is very possessive of you, and I also have no doubt that he needs you very much. I sometimes wonder, though, if he is there for you when you need him. Is he?” Rob thought he knew the answer to the question, but he was prepared to hear a lie from Paul, and he got it.

“John is there for me when I need him,” Paul said loyally. But he didn’t sound very convincing. “Anyway,” Paul added, as if he realized that particular statement didn’t hold very much water, “he gives me things no one else on earth can ever give me; things that I need.” Paul stepped backwards a bit to put space between Rob and himself, and Rob’s finger dropped away. “I’m sorry if I’ve led you to believe otherwise,” Paul said, “but I was never in doubt about my life with John. He went through a period of doubt, but I didn’t. I guess you could say I was hedging my bets, and I’m ashamed of it now. He’s back, and we belong together.”

Rob’s searching eyes didn’t leave Paul’s face for a full 30 seconds. Then he said, “So be it. But I want you to know that I feel about you the way you seem to feel about John. And if you need anything from me, or if you change your mind, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He held out his hand, and then when Paul took his hand, Rob enclosed it with both of his hands. “It’s weird for me, Paul. I’ve never been in love before. Strange that it happened to be you.”

Paul heard Rob’s words and he was filled with remorse. He really didn’t want to hurt anyone - especially someone who had been there for him during a very difficult time. But nothing and no one could make him cheat on John, so long as John wanted him. If John walks away again, if he treats me as if I am expendable again, and if Linda is okay with it, of course then things might be different…Paul shook that thought out of his head, gently withdrew his hand from Rob’s, and pulled the door open in a silent plea for Rob to leave.

“Remember what I said,” Rob whispered as he left.

“I will,” Paul said firmly, and presented Rob with a warm smile. “I’m sure we’ll meet again - if for no other reason that Linda adores you, and so do my daughters.”

Rob threw his head back and laughed. “They are a heady cocktail, those three!” he said genuinely, and then turned and walked across the driveway, waving his hand in the air briefly without looking back. When the gate popped open, he disappeared in its open maw, and then he was gone.

 

*****

 

John had gone home, and he had stripped off his clothes and taken a long shower. He was having a hard time stopping himself from weeping. Life had been so fucking confusing for what felt like forever. From the high of the concert tour, when he’d felt on top of the world upon their triumphant return, to the horrible lows he endured during his 18 months’ treatment for cancer. He had felt so vulnerable, and he had been frustrated and angry at fate for singling him out. (Of course, at the moment he didn’t remember that fate had also singled him out for fantastic fame and wealth - but he could be forgiven for that. No one feels that it is fair when he gets a cancer diagnosis.) All the nausea, the hair loss, the weakness and the pain…it had seemed to go on forever. He had actually felt suicidal impulses when they had told him he had to have a second course of chemo. John knew that Paul had lifted him above the degradations of cancer innumerable times during that 18-month period. He remembered Paul rescuing him from the toilet when he was sick, and then cleaning up after him. That was a pretty awesome act of love.

So why had he done that self-destructive thing of running off to New York to “find himself”? He had left his flank wide open, and Rob had stepped right in without having to fire a shot. And despite the comforting words that Paul had showered on him out in the garden, John knew in his bones - from watching Rob interact with Paul’s family and the graceful way in which he carried himself - that Paul was intrigued by Rob, and if John had stayed away even a day or two longer, Paul could have ended up in Rob’s bed.

John pulled the comforter over him, and picked up a book. He read a few words, and then found his mind wandering off to his fear of losing Paul again. As he did so, it suddenly occurred to him - his blood ran cold - what if Paul was with him out of pure loyalty? What if Paul stayed with him, but only out of pity? What if Paul would fantasize that it was Rob who was touching him, kissing him, fucking him, when John was making love to him? Knowing Paul the way he did, John knew that if this were the case, he would never know for sure, because Paul would never admit it. John's heart was beating fast, and he felt cold and frightened.

The bedroom door opened, and Paul was in the aperture. He saw John in the bed, and he saw the fear and misery in John’s eyes, and he was immediately on alert.

“John! What’s wrong?”


	13. Chapter 13

Paul felt guilty when he saw the state that John was in. It was all well and good for him to have his head turned by someone who wanted him, and was willing to show his love in an unselfish way, but the good feeling it gave him came at John’s expense, and he decided he’d have to give Rob a wide berth in the future. Something about Rob drew Paul to him, and since John was his true soul mate, when it came to Rob in the future he’d have to fill his ears with wax, like Odysseus’s shipmates did when sailing past the sirens. 

Paul climbed up on to the bed, and gathered John in his arms. John allowed himself to fall apart, and the sobbing went on for several minutes, with Paul gently rubbing his back and making soothing sounds. 

“When it was over,” John sobbed, “I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

Paul knew what “it” was, and he just held John tighter to let him know he understood. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I really didn’t…” John’s sobs were starting to slow down now, as he gradually caught his breath. “I haven’t lost you to Rob, have I?” His voice sounded small and pitiful.

“No, no, of course not,” Paul whispered, again tightening his grip on John. 

“Please tell me the truth. Don’t lie to me to make me feel better,” John said, able to say this only because his face was buried in Paul’s chest. 

“It is the truth, John. You were only gone two weeks. I should have been more understanding of what you were going through,” Paul said soothingly. 

“You were more understanding of me, than I was of you,” John said, his voice sounding almost normal now. John felt Paul’s chest stuttering as he chuckled at what John had said.

“Well, mate,” Paul said, with a cheerful voice. “I’ve had more practice having to understand you, than you’ve had trying to understand me.” 

“Oh, no, you didn’t say that,” John laughed, pushing himself away from Paul and facing him. “I’m not more of a handful than you are, trust me. I could clone myself two more times and still not be able to keep full tabs on you!”

“Now you’re giving me nightmares, John. Three of you!” An expressive hand waved helplessly in the air to accent Paul’s feigned despair at the idea, making John laugh some more. He lay down on his side, and then patted the mattress beside him, encouraging Paul to do likewise. 

“Don’t you want me to get undressed first?” Paul asked teasingly.

“I’ll take care of that myself in a bit, don’t you worry,” John said, again patting the mattress beside him, only this time more emphatically. So Paul shrugged and lay down facing John. Their eyes mingled seriously until a glint of amusement appeared in Paul’s eyes. 

“What’s so funny?” John asked gently, his hand pushing hair behind Paul’s ear, and his eyes literally caressing Paul’s face.

“You. When you were glaring at Rob all thru dinner, and then nearly tripped him in order to get to that chair nearest me…” Paul started giggling uncontrollably. “At the time it was horrible, but looking back on it, I can see the humor in it.”

John wasn’t having any of Paul’s nonsense, so he pushed him back against the mattress and suddenly straddled him around his middle. A moment later he had pulled the blue sweater off Paul, and then his undershirt, and had started on his jeans when he was finally able to respond in a very dirty tone of voice. “You wouldn’t have found it so funny if I had suddenly thrown you face down across the table, yanked your trousers down, and fucked you up your ass right there in front of everyone.” 

Paul was still laughing. He couldn’t take this seriously. “Yeah, like Linda would let you. She’d come after you with the salad tongs…” 

John then cut off Paul’s words with a hard, sloppy open-mouthed kiss that went on for a few seconds. As soon as he was allowed up for air, Paul continued…

“…James would have doused you with his ginger ale, and the girls would have wielded their stiletto heels…” 

John again dove in to master Paul’s mouth, this time for much longer, and soon Paul was fighting for air and struggling against John’s punishing grip a bit. When John let him up for air again, John taunted, “And what would Rob have done?” 

Paul stopped laughing and allowed John’s hungry eyes to swallow his for a breathless moment. “You know, I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he finally said, softly, dreamily. “But I know what I would have done,” he added, mischief back in his eyes.

“Oh?” John asked playfully. “What would you have done, my dear?”

“I would have relaxed and enjoyed it.”

Both men were reduced to laughter at that, and John removed the last of Paul’s clothing, and then, dragging his tongue all the way down Paul’s chest following his erotic hair trail, John headed for Paul’s member. This infuriating man deserved one hell of a blowjob, and John was just the man to give it to him!

 

*****

 

Happily ever after never happened. Not in real life, and not even in fairy tales. The authors of fairy tales knew this. That’s why they wrote nothing more after writing “They lived happily ever after.” They knew if they went on to describe “happily ever after” they would run into all sorts of obstacles that they could not avoid. Stress, no matter the cause, is a staple in everyone’s diet. And once stress has been applied to a weak or sore spot, especially, a couple actually has to work to save their bond. 

This much John and Paul already understood, having experienced more than their share of stessors in the almost 34 years they had known each other. They had become masters in the art of patching up their wounds, and starting over. But the cancer - that had been an invidious catalyst, awakening all of their best and their worst individual tendencies. It had thrown both men for a loop. It had sucked every inch of empathy and patience out of Paul, and it had drained every ounce of life and reason out of John. Neither of them knew how to fully process the whole experience once it was over. 

These thoughts were foremost in their minds as they left the Royal Marsden hospital with the test results that showed there was no cancer in John’s body. It had been six months since the chemo had ended, and he had been through a thorough MRI and blood testing, and the doctors had given him a clean bill of health, telling him he should come back in 6 more months for another round of tests “just to be sure.” 

It was the spring of 1991, and John and Paul were about to go back in to the studio; their songwriting process had advanced significantly in the last four months. This time around Paul had encouraged John to take the laboring oar with the lyrics, and he had focused most of his energy on bringing John’s lyrics to life with the perfect music. They had never really worked this way together - dividing up the writing and composing elements - but it was kind of an interesting diversion from their regular process. Paul was quietly excited about the songs. John’s lyrics were searing to the ear, as usual, but they were also tempered by a humility that John had heretofore not been able to express so well in his songs. Paul had always known the humility was there in John; it was just that John had to present a tough, uncaring front to the world - like a suit of armor - in order to protect his ego. It was a measure of how much John had grown that he allowed these humble feelings to leak into his lyrics. Paul doubted that John was doing it purposefully. It was far more likely that it was inadvertent. John himself hadn’t realized how far he had come in dealing with his emotions in a more positive way. 

John had leaned heavily on his journal for inspiration, because almost as soon as the chemo had stopped, he had begun to forget how truly horrible it had been. He suspected that one’s mind did this - made it impossible for you to remember exactly how pain had felt - so that you could heal and move on, and leave it well behind you. He remembered the joke Linda had told him when he was moaning in pain one day. You should be glad you’re not a child-bearer. Men could never tolerate it. If the woman had to have the first baby, and the man had to have the second, then the woman would have the third - there would never be a fourth! John chuckled, acknowledging the truth in that thought. He had probably overreacted to the misery he was in. He’d seen people - mostly women - in the chemo rooms who were handling it so much better than he did. Oh, well. He supposed the idea was to get through the damn thing, and how well you behaved while you got through it didn’t matter all that much. 

John had also long since come to terms with Paul’s dalliance with Rob. Maybe that whole thing had been Paul’s awkward, not-so-pretty way of getting through the chemo’s aftermath, so John had finally decided to call them even. He still sometimes wondered how far Paul had really gone with Rob, and if Paul still thought about Rob or missed his company. John hoped not, but he couldn’t control that. What he could control was Paul’s whereabouts, and he always knew, down to the minute, exactly where Paul was during the infrequent times Paul wasn’t with him. He had actually given some (amused) thought to purchasing a chastity belt for Paul when he was loose on his own. Because of his intense vigilance, he knew that Paul had not seen Rob even once since that stressful dinner at Cavendish five months earlier. He couldn’t be 100% sure that Rob hadn’t contacted Paul by phone or in writing at the McLen offices, and he had no control over whether Linda was communicating with Rob, and allowing him access to Cavendish, although John had never caught wind of it. John considered the whole Rob affair to have been a disaster averted at the last possible moment, and had for the most part come to terms with how close a call it had been, and - this was the hardest part - he also accepted that it had been entirely his own fault because of his inane disappearing act at a moment in time when Paul needed him desperately.

 

*****

 

Paul hadn’t thought much about Rob, truthfully, because once John started working with him again his world lit up like a Christmas tree, and he had almost no space in his brain to think of anything else. One thing he had done, shortly after the disastrous dinner at Cavendish, was to sit down with Linda and explain the facts of life to her. This delicate task was complicated by the fact that Paul was deeply embarrassed about his attraction to another man - or at least he was embarrassed to tell Linda about it. He worried that it would shame him in her eyes. She believed he was straight “but for” John, and Paul feared that she would leave him for sure if she found out that he had been close to succumbing to Rob’s advances. Paul simply couldn’t face losing Linda - especially over something he didn’t actually do - but he also knew that he had to impress on her why she had to exclude Rob from their social circle. He didn’t feel that he was a strong enough person to risk losing Linda, or - perhaps even worse - keeping her, but losing her respect. So he was going to use John as an excuse to persuade her to drop Rob from their circle of friends. Paul was not proud of this self-preservation motivation, but he didn’t feel capable of approaching the problem any other way at the moment. 

He had tracked Linda down one morning after James had gone off to school, and sat with her quietly at the kitchen table while sipping coffee.

“Lin, about Rob…”

Linda had looked up at him with an expression that showed that she was ready to do battle. Paul grinned at her. 

“I know how much you like him, and I like him too,” Paul assured her, and her body relaxed a bit. “But there’s something you don’t know - a reason why John hates to have him around.”

Linda was trying to hide her astonishment from Paul; she wasn’t used to him opening up directly to her about an issue like this. “So what’s this reason, then?” she asked bluntly.

Paul sighed, and focused on his hands. He was too embarrassed to look Linda in the eye. “Rob was interested…he wanted…he was kind of…attracted to me.” Paul’s words stumbled out and his face (he could feel) was blushing.

Linda smiled easily. “Well, d’uh, Paul. Of course he’s attracted to you. That’s obvious.” 

Paul had looked up at her in alarm. “How obvious?” he asked, unnerved.

“Well, it was obvious to me, and I’m certain it was to John, because we have this kind of possessory interest in you, so our radar is always up.” Linda chuckled.

“It didn’t bother you?” Paul asked his wife, dumbfounded. “It didn’t bother you so much that you could invite him over, and urge me to spend time alone with him?” 

“Well, I knew you weren’t going to reciprocate, Paul. He was such good company, and you were so low. He brought you out of your shell, and that made all of our lives easier. So of course I encouraged you to spend time with him.”

Paul had heard “you weren’t going to reciprocate”, and he ducked his head again. Maybe he could get through this without having to tell Linda all. “Well, if you knew this, I’m surprised you didn’t have more sympathy for John, then,” he said gruffly.

“John clings too much. Sometimes I think he almost suffocates you. I didn’t think it was such a bad thing for you to have a friend of your own. He needs to learn to let his grip loose a little.” Linda was delighted to be able to finally say these things to Paul - things that had been haunting her for so long. “He should know that you weren’t going to have an affair with the man, for heaven’s sake. He has nothing real to worry about, so I didn’t see why we had to end a friendship just to cater to his irrational insecurities.”

Paul took in what Linda said, and then shook his head slightly. “I would consider it a great favor if you didn’t invite Rob over any more. If you want to communicate with him on your own, I have no objection. But it’s best that I not see or talk to him anymore.” Paul’s voice was firm.

Linda was watching him with a critical expression on her face. “Why do you let John do this to you - isolate you, trap you in a corner? You are entirely at his mercy, and if he suddenly gets it into his head to up and run away again, you’ll be plunged back into another terrible depression! You need to learn to spread your risk…”

Paul grinned at her. “Now you sound like your father.”

Linda giggled but said, “I’m serious, Paul. You two are far too entangled in each other’s lives. I don’t think it is very healthy for either of you. What’s so wrong with having a friend of your own?” 

Paul could see no way out of it now. “Lin,” he said, again looking down at his hands while they fidgeted, “I could have a friend, I guess, but not Rob.”

“Why not Rob? You get along like a house on fire!”

“That’s why, Lin. We get along too well. That night that John came home - remember?”

Linda nodded. 

“I called to say I’d be two more hours, remember?”

Linda nodded.

“Well, I was in Rob’s rooms at his club, and I had just been considering…well…to go to bed with him.”

The kitchen was dead silent for a long, painful, 30 seconds. Finally, Linda let out a huge sigh. 

“Ohhhh,” she said. “Oh, Paul! I had no idea!” Indeed, she was shocked to the core. 

“How could you know? It’s okay. No, it’s not okay. I’m humiliated having to tell you. But it’s why I can’t see him anymore. If I see him, I can’t be 100% accountable for my actions, and I know for a fact I’ll not be in total control of my feelings.” 

Linda was stunned. The “wife” part of her felt as though she should feel angry or cheated in some way, but the “mother” part of her could only see how much pain Paul was in. Linda knew she would have to spend a whole lot of time digesting this information, but for now she could only feel for Paul. She moved over to the end of the table, and enveloped her husband in a hug. “You don’t have to be humiliated in front of me, Paul. We’re best friends. You could never tell me anything that would make me think less of you.” She hugged him fiercely, and then let go. She went about refilling their coffee cups. “So of course I will honor your request,” she said firmly. 

It was only later, while Paul was playing video games with James, that Linda had a moment to think about what Paul had told her. The news had been shocking to her, truly, but she had begun to ask herself why. If Paul was attracted to one man sexually, why was it such a stretch for her to believe that there could be another man out there that he could be attracted to? In essence, it had been ignorance on her part to think that her husband’s sexual preferences were that person-centric. Paul himself had told her he wasn’t attracted to men - except John - and because of his appetite for sex with women, Linda had not doubted him. No doubt Paul believed it when he told her that; imagine how surprised he must have felt when he realized he had those feelings for Rob! This must be a very confusing and stressful time for Paul, having just recognized this truth about himself. The longer she thought about it the more sense it made to her: Nature could not have created such a beautiful and special human being, and not made him available to all comers, male and female. Linda chuckled a little as this naughty thought went through her mind.

Did it bother her? Not the fact of it. Not that her husband was more of a bisexual than a heterosexual. She would kill him if he had thought about cheating on her with a woman, but wasn’t Rob John’s problem, not hers? 

It only took a couple of days before Linda found herself at ease with the whole Rob situation. It was kind of sexy to think of Paul and Rob together. In truth, Rob was a far better match for Paul than John was, if rationality had anything to do with falling in love. Still, John had become Paul’s Holy Grail, so it didn’t really matter if John was ‘right’ for Paul or not. In Paul’s mind no one but John would do. Yes, Linda decided, Rob was John’s problem, not hers. And since nothing actually happened between Paul and Rob, there were no worries except one. So she had tracked Paul down in his music room, and raised that one issue with him directly.

“Paul, this thing with Rob,” she said matter-of-factly. Paul’s expression was one of unpleasant surprise at having the subject raised, and shame as he recalled the whole sordid mess. Linda ignored it and said what she had come to say. “I don’t have a problem with you and another man, if that is where you want to go. I just have one stipulation for the future.”

“Future?” Paul said dumbly. He was surprised he had to talk about this subject again.

“If you ever want to have an affair with another man, I insist that condoms be used.” Linda managed to say this in such a bland voice, that it almost didn’t sound embarrassing. Still, Paul was embarrassed. Horribly embarrassed.

“Linda!” Paul protested. “That’s not necessary! Nothing happened; nothing ever will happen!” Paul’s face was bright red.

“Okay, but just so you know - that’s what I expect. And men only - this doesn’t give you carte blanche with women.”

“Linda!” 

 

*****

 

John stood still in the middle of the recording studio at EMI. As he did a 360-degree slow turn around the room, it was as if he saw ghosts in every corner. It was only, at most, a minute before people bustled in behind him, but in that minute John thought he could hear the echoes of young Paul, George and Ringo, and the still youthful but stentorian omniscient voice of George Martin booming down from the sound booth. Where had the time gone? John had never felt he really lived those crazy Beatlemania years. Instead, it was as if the years had lived him. He’d never really come to grips with the insanity of it, and then there were all the drugs that ultimately led to paranoia. But those first few heady years, ’62, ’63, first part of ’64 - those were choice. They all four of them had been pretty innocent in the grand scheme of things. Oh, not nearly as innocent as Brian Epstein made them out to be, but still - they’d never done pot, their most dangerous drug had been preludin, they only drank rum mixed with coca cola, and still didn’t realize how much money they had, (but it didn’t matter because they certainly didn’t have the time to spend it). Years later, in an interview he had given with Yoko for Double Fantasy, he would call that time “the honeymoon phase” in his partnership with Paul. In truth, it was. They had been so madly, crazily in love with not only each other, but also with the idea of them together. The whole world, in fact, had fallen in love with the idea of them together, and hadn’t really ever fallen out of love with that idea, either.

Well, neither have I, John chuckled to himself. 

“John, which guitar do you want to use?” Paul was there, all business, messing with his favorite bass of the moment. This snapped John out of his reverie, but he turned to give Paul a full, honest look. What he saw was a man who was still sinfully beautiful, although closing in on 50. He wasn’t the colt-like, giggly-one-moment, martinet-the-next young diva he had been at age 20, he had matured substantially and had learned how to control his Irish temper and moodiness, but he still had the dark good looks melded with a kind of morph-like repertoire of expressions that kept him (and had always kept him) from being just another pretty face. There was a real person living a real life under that exquisite veneer, and that was one of the most attractive things about Paul - at least for John it was. He needed to write a song about this, he told himself, as he chose an acoustic guitar to start with. He already knew how to start it.

“Paul, let’s just do acoustic demos for a few of the songs, run through a few, to see what we’ve got, and get comfortable with them. We can worry about decorating them later.” John’s voice was now businesslike, and he had shaken off the nostalgic mood. 

Paul obediently exchanged his bass for an acoustic guitar, and then settled on a stool in front of two mics, facing John. They chose to start with the song John wrote about how it felt to be diagnosed with cancer, although you couldn’t really tell its actual meaning from listening to the lyrics; they were not that specific. Instead, the song was basically about waking up from a nightmare to discover that it wasn’t a nightmare, it was true. The songs they’d written for this new album were out of step with the late ‘80s, and weren’t influenced by the popular trends of the early ‘90s. Instead, they had stepped backward in time, and off to the side a bit. The sound was very folksy, and Paul pointed out as they had finished writing,

“It’s like a modern version of ‘Rubber Soul’.” John liked that phrase, and he played with it in his head. He hoped he could come up with an album title that would do justice to Paul’s pithy description. 

Although John had resisted writing lyrics about his illness for a year and a half, when he finally did start to do so, it was as if the floodgates opened. He had so many ideas and so many approaches he quickly had amassed sufficient lyrics to fill up an entire album. It dawned on him finally that he had left Paul out of the limelight on this one. As the two men found their chords in the studio that day, working their way through that first song, John said, during one brief break in the proceedings, “Paul, you are going to have to sing some of these songs. I’m not going to sing them all.”

“Why ever not?” Paul asked, looking up from his frets with that Macca-surprised look that John adored - mouth a bit open, eyes wide open, eyebrows arched. 

“I’m not leaving you off the album, and I’ll be self-conscious about singing all of them. And haven’t you got any lyrics of your own? You had an experience, too, you know.” John’s voice was businesslike, as was Paul’s. They left their drama queen conversational gambits at the studio door, and for the most part (let’s don’t think about Let It Be) had always done so. They were professionals, after all.

“I’ve written some lyrics, John, a few songs, but they pale in comparison to yours. I’d be embarrassed to play them here.” 

“Oh, please, Paul. Spare me!” John was dead serious, and was looking at Paul sternly, with a touch of impatience. “Practice them tonight, and tomorrow we’re going to play them here in the studio. Right?” This was John Lennon talking - king of the studio - and no one (other than Paul) had ever dared to challenge him when he was in this mode. 

“Well, I’ll play them for you tonight, but if I don’t like ‘em, I’m not playing them here.” Paul was firm in his response, and John shrugged and dropped the subject. He’d work on Paul all night long, and he’d persuade Paul to step forward out of the shadows. He suspected the songs Paul wrote were too revealing, and that is why he was embarrassed. After all, he hadn’t been too embarrassed to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb. And he had thrown himself with gusto into songs that John thought were embarrassing. So, for Paul to find them unworthy, they must be too revealing. John would make short shrift of Paul’s protestations if that were the case. 

 

*****

 

The sessions ended at about 7 p.m., and John and Paul headed over to Ringo and Barbara’s house for dinner. Ringo had organized a Beatles reunion dinner, and George and Olivia would be there, too. What’s more, Linda was invited, and she would join them there. (Paul had insisted that Linda be invited, and John - who had finally come to terms with her importance in Paul’s life - agreed.) John was actually not very enthusiastic about the evening. He tended to be a bit anti-social and he much preferred to be alone with Paul. He and Paul had a kind of magic together that he didn’t like to share with others, but it so happened that others desperately wanted John and Paul to share their magic with them, too. Paul, on the other hand, was buzzing with excitement. He hadn’t really spent much time with both Ringo and George in the past several years, and, though Ringo frequently visited with them, George liked to be buried in his home in much the same way John did. Getting the two curmudgeons to both show up was a major effort. Without actually comparing notes, Paul and Ringo knew that Ringo was responsible for getting George to come along, and Paul’s job was to drag John. Once they all got together they would always have a great time, but it was like pulling teeth to get John and George to cooperate.

Their car pulled up to Ringo’s townhouse, and they piled out and ran up the stairs in Beatles fashion (heads down, hands in pockets, hunkered down, rushing the whole way), and soon each were being hugged fiercely by Ringo. They then kissed Barbara’s cheeks, and headed for the living room, where they soon were reunited with George. To John’s eyes, George was sitting like a king on Ringo’s sectional sofa, right in the middle, bookended on one end by his wife, Olivia, and on the other end, by Barbara’s sister, Marjorie. He looked like a pig in slop. Immediately, John’s hackles went up. John felt as though he was the numero uno in the Beatles gestalt. George’s attempts to usurp his throne always hit John’s angry button - especially since he still unrealistically thought of George as the kid who he’d very generously (albeit reluctantly) allowed into his band back in 1958. 

Paul, on the other hand, didn’t notice anything unusual. To him, George was just sitting on a sofa between his wife and another woman. He quickly moved in George’s direction in search of a hug, which he definitely received from an indulgent, smiling George. “Hare Krishna, Paul,” George said with a twinkle in his eye after the hug had ended. “Are you holding up okay?” His eyes were genuinely empathetic, and Paul was touched by George’s interest. 

“It is so much better now that we know that the cancer is gone,” was Paul’s response. 

George was glad to hear this; he had wondered about the state of John’s treatment, and now he knew that John was cancer-free. He and John had not been close for many, many years, but he had no desire to see John saddled with a devastating terminal illness. 

A moment later Linda arrived, bearing a warm dish that was her contribution to the evening’s dinner. As is wont to happen when couples entertain, it wasn’t long before the women peeled off to chat about children, exchange information about friends, and get the dinner on the table. All of these women had come of age surrounded by the women’s lib movement and had integrated many of its tenets into their own beliefs and lifestyles, but all of them had also learned by then that genetic encoding beats social engineering 9 out of 10 times. So here they were enjoying their sisterhood, happily leaving their husbands to entertain themselves.

“So what are you two up to these days?” Ringo asked cheerfully, looking to John and Paul. He and George had already discussed their recent activities before John and Paul’s arrival. 

“We’re in the studio - today was literally our first day,” Paul said. 

“Oh, that’s great,” Ringo said, pleasantly surprised. He never knew from one visit to the other whether the John/Paul relationship was going to implode. It seemed so unlikely that two such egocentric and charismatic men could actually maintain such an intensely close friendship for so many years. 

“What’s it going to sound like?” George asked idly. He had finished his Traveling Wilburys affiliation a year or so earlier, having refused to tour (he had promised himself never to tour again after that disastrous ‘70s experience), and was not presently songwriting. 

“Paul says it is like a modern version of Rubber Soul,” John said languidly. “Right now it is very acoustic, but I think once we lay down the basic track, we will probably experiment a bit; see where it takes us.” 

“It’s kind of different for us,” Paul said, “because the lyrics are almost all his, and the music is almost all mine. We’ve never actually worked that way before.” 

This information pretty much exhausted George’s interest, so the subject was changed. Ringo felt he should move the conversation in the direction of his reason for hosting his former band mates that night. “We were talking at the last Apple meeting about the four of us getting together to do a comprehensive documentary about the Beatles,” Ringo said. “I know some of us were positive about the idea, and some of us were ambivalent.” 

What had happened at the last meeting was that George said he thought it was a vain, unnecessary project. Once George had said that, it had caused John (who never wanted to be outdone in the cynicism department) to declare that he thought it would just devolve into each of them trying to defend their view of how everything went down, and it would lead to discord, and anyway there were literally dozens of books and movies about the Beatles already. The idea had been proposed by the President of Apple, Neil Aspinall, as a money making project that would also serve to protect the Beatles’ legacy. Ringo had immediately glommed on to the “money making” part, since he had the fewest royalties of all of them (because he had written hardly any songs), and he hadn’t invested wisely in the ‘70s after the settlement. Paul had immediately glommed on to the “Beatles legacy” part of Neil’s speech, because he loved the band and everything about it (except the sad ending), and also felt that he had been wrongly dubbed the ‘bad guy’ and hoped that the documentary would give him an opportunity to tell his own side of the break up. Naturally, George and John had no objection to the money, but neither of them particularly wanted light shone on their behavior at the end of the Beatles. From their points of view, although they had lost all of the legal and financial battles and it had been amply proved that Paul had been right and they had been wrong, at least in the eyes of the public they were still seen as the wronged parties. How awful would it be to have lost all the legal wars and also lost the public relations war? Of course neither of them used this reason for not wanting to work on the project. Rather, they rationalized it as being an unnecessary glorification of the band.

Still, Ringo hoped they had moved beyond those first, negative feelings, and so he had brought the subject up this night. It so happened that he desperately needed more money right then, and he felt that this project was an honorable way to refresh his coffers with absolutely no risk because it was a sure thing.

“So, George, have you given the project any further thought?” Ringo asked hopefully.

George was scowling. “No.” He said. And that’s all he said. Ringo turned desperately to Paul, who shrugged his shoulders hopelessly in return. Ringo then turned to John.

“How about you, John?”

“It hardly matters what I think,” John said snidely, studying his glass of wine. “I’m not doing another Beatles project unless all four of us agree, because that whole cram down thing we did to Paul was a mistake. Don’t want to repeat that mistake. George isn’t interested, and so it doesn’t matter what I want.” John knew as he said this that he was putting George in the soup, and that no matter what George did in response he was going to look either spiteful or childish. 

George chose spiteful. “That’s very generous of you, John,” George drawled. “I know you always have my best interests at heart.” 

There was an awkward silence, during which Ringo realized that his hopes about getting buy-in from his brethren on the documentary had been extinguished. It was clear that Paul wasn’t about to importune George (since George could be rude to Paul, and it hurt Paul’s feelings), and good old John had just pushed George further into a corner. Oh, well, maybe after more time George would be persuaded to change his mind. He’d have to table the discussion for now. 

Paul had watched Ringo during this awkward interplay, and he realized (whereas neither John nor George did) that Ringo had a motive for bringing the subject up, and that it was no doubt a financial issue. Paul had thought for sometime that what Ringo needed was a first class financial advisor who he could trust, because with the amount he received in Beatles royalties, he should be able to accumulate a more-than-satisfactory fortune and never need for anything. Instead, every few years Ringo seemed to be desperate for money. Paul would have to give some thought to that. There must be some income-generating Apple projects they could do that George would agree to, to bring in more revenue. He made a mental note to discuss it with Neil.

This was the first time that George and Olivia had spent time with John, Paul and Linda all together at once. Ringo and Barbara had done so, but not George and Olivia. So for them, the interaction between the three of them was interesting. Or, at least it was to Olivia. George actually had a very open approach to sexual alliances, and he never let even unusual pairings (such as cheating on his first wife with Ringo’s first wife) bother him. Olivia, however, was curious about the triangle. She didn’t know Linda that well, although Linda seemed lovely, warm, and kind. She just couldn’t understand how Linda could put up with the situation. Of course, Olivia knew that George cheated on her. He wasn’t even very discreet about it, although he thought he was being discreet. But it was one thing for your husband to have one night stands with a series of different women, or even an affair with a given woman for awhile, while you remained the wife, chatelaine of the mansion, and acknowledged mate of your husband. It was another thing to have another person sharing that role with you, right in front of you! Olivia doubted she could do it, and wondered if Linda was suffering from it, but didn’t know her well enough to ever broach the subject. So she quietly watched the interactions around the dinner table.

Ringo and Barbara were at either end of the table, and John and Paul on opposite ends of one side, with Olivia sitting between them, whereas, on the other side, George sat in the middle between Linda and Marjorie, Barbara’s sister. This placed Linda across the table from John on the other side of Ringo. What surprised Olivia was how nonchalant and close John and Linda seemed. It was as if they were brother and sister, the way they teased each other, and shared anecdotes. Paul, meanwhile, sat next to Barbara on one side, and across from Marjorie. He was completely sucked up by the beautiful Bach sisters. They seemed very pleased to be monopolizing his company, so Olivia focused more on the John/Linda interactions.

“Lin and I spent hours together during my chemo,” John was explaining to Ringo. George was listening intently from his seat across the table and next to Linda. “I don’t think either Paul or I would have made it through without her.” 

Linda laughed in response and said, “So what else is new? Neither of you could make it through anything without me!” She turned to Ringo and said, “Honestly, they’re a couple of 8 year-olds really.” Everyone on that end of the table laughed raucously at Linda’s pronouncement, and Olivia was suddenly flooded with admiration for Linda. She had taken some really sour lemons and had clearly made refreshing lemonade. Good for her! 

Later, as the evening wound down, and they were finishing their after dinner drinks in the comfortable sitting room, Olivia noted that Linda was curled up against Paul, who had his arm around her. John sat in a nearby chair, engaged in a conversation with Barbara and appeared to be completely unfazed by the sight. Olivia wondered to herself, Can it really be that idyllic?


	14. Chapter 14

Recording with John was not the only obligation that Paul had on his plate that late spring/early summer of 1991. He was simultaneously doing the finishing touches on his Liverpool Oratorio, and so split his time between working with John and working with Carl Davis. He was thoroughly absorbed in his work, and this made him buzz with happiness and contentment - like a humming bird at nesting time on a sunny afternoon. 

John was happy that Paul had this other project to work on. Unlike when Paul collaborated with George Martin in 1966, John felt sanguine about the Davis partnership. John had no desire to write an oratorio, and he knew deep in his bones that he didn’t have the compositional skills to approach a piece of classical music. Paul at least had the attributes of a natural compositional genius (dreaming whole new haunting melodies in his sleep, and then not being sure if he wrote them) if not the technical skills. In addition, John had never - at any time in their long life together - wanted to work as hard as Paul did. It had been a constant tension in their partnership, because Paul loved working and in fact didn’t think of work as “work”, and his workaholic tendencies had at times driven John nearly batty. Anyway, a fully engaged Paul was a happy Paul, and John had always been a softy for a happy Paul. Nothing else ever made John feel so giddy inside as a busy, bustling, bubbling Paul. 

Paul’s constant busyness left John more time on his own, and he had decided that he was going to take himself up on that idea of trying to get out of his rut. This time, John chuckled to himself, he was going to do it without putting everything he loved and needed most at risk. He would move out into the world in smaller, more rational ways. His first step in this direction was to reconnect with his therapist, Fiona. He had stopped calling Fiona not long after the start of the concert tour a few years earlier, and then had not wanted to go see her - oddly enough - during his treatment for cancer. John didn’t understand why he hadn’t wanted to go through emotional therapy while he was going through cancer therapy, but he suspected it had something to do with not wanting to increase even further his feeling of vulnerability. But John had since admitted to himself that he had made some outrageous choices and decisions when he wasn’t in therapy, and one of them had nearly cost him the only person who could make him truly happy. He knew he owed it not only to himself but also to Paul to get back on the therapy treadmill. 

John’s first trip back to Fiona was a lesson in humility. Over the phone Fiona had agreed to meet with him, but she had said she wasn’t sure she was the right therapist for him anymore. He was clearly going to have to win his way back into Fiona’s good graces. And she was not making it easy. He was left sitting in the waiting room a few minutes more than usual (Fiona had always been very prompt in the past), so clearly, as a patient, John was in the doghouse and he had some pretty fancy talking to do to get out of it. He had brought his journal with him as a bribe. He thought that maybe Fiona would go easier on him if she knew he had at least been journaling during his chemotherapy.

When she finally greeted him, it was with pleasant but detached warmth. As John settled himself in his familiar chair, he looked shyly at Fiona. 

“So how have you been?” He asked her, his shyness reflected in his guarded eyes and tentative voice.

Fiona said, “I’ve been fine. And you?” Her tone was a bit pointed. She was letting him know that she shouldn’t have to ask how he was doing. She should know how he was doing. Of course, the only way she would know how he was doing was if he had been going to his therapy sessions regularly. 

“Fiona, I’m sorry,” John said with an uncharacteristically sweet voice. “I don’t know why I stopped calling you. I stopped calling when Paul and I were in South America on our tour, and everything was perfect. Ideal. Paul and I had never been that close and happy together at the same time. I never wanted to leave. I guess I didn’t think I needed therapy then. After that, I just got out of the habit of doing it. I knew once I started again, I’d have to stick with it, so I kind of just kept putting it off.” 

Fiona listened closely to John’s excuses. Instead of commenting on them, she asked, “What is the status of your cancer treatment? I read about it in the paper.” There was no reproach in the tone of her voice, but there didn’t need to be. The reproach came through loud and clear.

John brought out a falsely cheerful voice and visage. “The treatment is over, and right now I’m clear. I was tested last month, and was clean. I will get retested in about 5 months, but my doctor is pretty optimistic that we’ve beaten it. Of course, there’ll be no more sunbathing for me. I was in Italy a few months ago, and I spent the whole time slathered in sunblock, or fully clothed, and hiding under umbrellas.”

“That’s smart, John,” Fiona said. “And I’m really glad to hear that you are through it. But why didn’t you seek counseling while you were going through it?”

This was the question John had been dreading. He didn’t know the answer, other than (1) he didn’t want to leave the house except for his chemo treatments, (2) he didn’t want to have more treatments or scrutiny of any kind, and (3) he had been feeling vulnerable enough without plowing through painful hidden emotions on top of it. John didn’t think any of these excuses would satisfy Fiona, so he dreaded explaining himself to her. But he had to say something. He cleared his throat.

“I really don’t know why,” he said, half-truthfully. “I just wanted to stay in my little cocoon and not come out until it was over. Does that make any sense?”

Fiona thought about it, and wasn’t going to judge John’s response. It sounded like as accurate an explanation as any she’d ever heard from a patient about his avoidance of therapy.   
“Do you remember where we left off, the last time we spoke?”

John drew a blank. “I was in Europe on tour, and I’d call you from my hotel room a few times a week.”

“But do you remember where we were in your therapy?” 

John didn’t know what answer Fiona wanted. He searched for something to say. “You calmed me down a lot when I went nuts in Rome, I remember. About my fight with Paul.” 

Fiona sighed inwardly, although she was careful not to show John her impatience. He had slipped as far back as she had predicted he would, and was talking about conduct and reactions instead of the fears that motivated the conduct and reactions. She realized that if she took him back on as a client, she would have to start over almost from scratch. She scrutinized John’s guilty face, and allowed her own expression to soften. The important thing, she told herself, is that he came back to therapy on his own. Apparently, no person or particular event had driven him to her. He just wanted to get back to work. Maybe that meant it wasn’t going to be as long a process as she feared before they got back to where they had been when he had dropped out of sight. 

“Okay, John,” she said. “But I need to see you regularly, twice a week, no excuses, no tardiness. Is that acceptable to you?”

John grinned back at her with relief. “Yes, it is. I can do that.” 

 

*****

 

“So, John,” Fiona said, greeting John two days later after having already fully read the copy of his chemo journal that John had left with her at the end of the last session. “This is quite an interesting read.” Fiona’s eyes were alive with mischief. She hadn’t expected such X-rated entries, but had found them (secretly, ever so secretly) fascinating anyway. They had little bearing on John’s treatment, but had driven Fiona’s heart rate up substantially as she had shamelessly read and reread them intently. She had rationalized that it was necessary to her understanding of the dynamic between John and his life mate, but when she was honest with herself she knew it was a deliciously prurient desire that had driven her deep interest in those passages.

John was blissfully ignorant of Fiona’s reaction to those of his entries that bordered on pornography. He thought, for some odd reason, that since she was a professional, she would only focus on the emotional journey described therein. “I tried not to censor myself,” John said uncertainly.

Fiona had to hold back a laugh as she said, “I can see that.” 

“Is it crap?” John asked, his insecurity plainly showing on his face. John hadn’t allowed anyone else to see any part of the journal, and wondered if it sucked. 

“John, it is very interesting, and I read it in one sitting. It reads as if it were a conversation with you - very informal. It is going to be very helpful to us in your therapy. I have a whole lot of questions to ask you, but I thought we would focus on only one question a session. I think some of these questions need to be addressed in depth.” 

John felt relief, and smiled slightly in encouragement. “What kind of questions?” he asked.

“Well, maybe today we can talk about why you refused to answer your doctor’s calls when he was so desperately trying to get hold of you.”

“It was Paul’s birthday, and I had plans,” John said defensively.

“So you wrote. But think about it now - it’s been almost 2 years since then. Do you still think that is why you avoided talking to your doctor?”

John was silent for a while. He was surprised. He hadn’t expected to be challenged on what he thought were his honest thoughts about his experience. “Well, I knew it was not good news. No one calls you constantly for hours on end to tell you good news. And I didn’t want the bad news to spoil my plans for Paul’s birthday.”

“Is that the only reason why you didn’t want to hear the bad news?” Fiona’s voice was soft and non-judgmental.

John knew where this was leading. He could continue to argue the point, but there really wasn’t a reason to do that. “Well, I didn’t want to hear the bad news, period. I suppose if it hadn’t been Paul’s birthday it would have been something else.” John’s voice sounded begrudging as he made this admission.

“Why do you think you needed to have a ‘reason’ not to want to hear bad news?” Fiona asked, genuinely curious. 

“What do you mean?” John asked, confused.

“I wouldn’t think a person needs a reason not to want to hear bad news. It’s a reason in itself. The question isn’t so much not wanting to hear the news, which is absolutely understandable and normal. My question is more about why you tried so desperately to avoid hearing about the inevitable? Did you think the news might go away if you never heard about it?”

John was watching her silently, his face blank, and his eyes blinking. This reminded him of something Paul had said at the time. “Paul asked me if I thought it would go away if I ignored it,” John revealed. “I guess it is embarrassing to admit that maybe I did think that, a little bit. I mean, it’s foolish, that belief. I’m an adult. I knew it wasn’t true, but maybe I hoped…” 

Fiona was nodding encouragingly as John spoke, and waited a moment after John’s voice petered out. He didn’t finish the thought, so she said, “You hoped that not hearing it would mean that it wasn’t true.” 

John made a face, and joked, “I’m an existentialist.” He laughed, and so did Fiona. No one ever said that John was not a very clever man. 

“I can understand why you felt that way. Cancer is a difficult diagnosis to hear. But what is of interest to me is, do you think you did the same sort of thing with other news you didn’t want to hear?” Fiona was watching John quietly.

John couldn’t think of anything else he’d done like that, at least not lately.

Fiona gave him a hint. “How about when you told Paul that you didn’t want to do the chemo? Were you denying the truth about the risk when you did that?”

John remembered the fights he’d had with Paul over the first round of chemo, and his own pathetic belief that the MRI would show him if there were cancer cells in his body, even after Paul told him that wasn’t true. It had taken the doctors all confirming this together to disabuse John of this fanciful notion. “Yeah, I see your point. That is the same kind of thing, isn’t it? Not as obvious, but still, it’s an ostrich-like reaction.” 

“’Ostrich-like’,” Fiona repeated. “That’s a very good way to put it. Can you think of other examples from your journal of this type of behavior?” 

John was stumped. He thought hard and long, but could not think of a single thing. He looked to Fiona for help. 

“When you were on your holiday in Italy, you wrote about how you needed your freedom from the life you led with Paul, and you wrote about how Paul would be happy to have time alone with his wife. Did you really think that Paul would be happier if you abandoned him at that particular time?”

John was staring at Fiona in earnest now. His mouth formed a silent “O”, and his mind was bristling with painful memories. John’s voice was full of soft remorse as he said, “I didn’t really think about Paul at all.” 

“Why was that, do you think?” Fiona asked.

“I don’t know. It was as if I just wanted to be separated from the nightmare I’d been through.”

“In your mind was Paul part of the nightmare? Or was he someone who helped you through it?” Fiona’s voice had become flat and almost hypnotic now, as she approached the most painful possibility of all. 

John couldn’t speak. In truth, he couldn’t think. When he spoke, he surprised himself. “Maybe, both?”

“Explain. What part of the nightmare was Paul?” Fiona was relentless.

John didn’t know, so he remained speechless. 

“Do you think it has anything to do with your tendency to want to hide from unpleasant truths, and pretend they’re not there?” Fiona asked.

“What unpleasant truth?” John asked. He desperately wanted to know, and hoped that Fiona had the answer.

“You need to tell me,” Fiona said, “because it is not my truth.”

“I just thought he reminded me of the whole chemo thing.”

“Was he not there for you?”

“Of course he was.”

“Did he not support you in every way throughout it?”

“Yes, he did. I said so! I gave him credit for that in my journal!”

“So, if that is all true, what did he do that made you equate him with the pain of chemo and cancer? What about what he did made you angry at him enough to want to be separated from him?”

“Just that he was there when it was going on, and I needed a break.”

Fiona sighed. John was being very obtuse, but it was a very painful truth, and he was - of course - avoiding it. Ostrich-like. “Who else was always there during the chemo and the cancer, John. I mean always. Other than Paul.”

John shook his head. “No one.” 

“No one?” Fiona asked. “What about you?” She was going to have to spoon feed the man.

“Well, obviously I was there.” John was getting irritated now at what he thought was Fiona’s unnecessary word game.

“Do you think it is possible that the truth you were avoiding is how you treated Paul while you were going through the ordeal? Is it possible that you felt terrible guilt about it later, and that is what you were running from? Paul reminding you of your guilt?” Honestly. For a man who was pretty intelligent, it seemed frustrating that she had to stick his nose in it.

John looked at her blankly. He said nothing - for a long time.

“Well, that’s the end of our session,” Fiona said firmly. “But why don’t you give some thought to this idea, and we can talk about it next time.”

 

*****

 

It was an unusually sultry day in June, just days before Paul’s 49th birthday, and Paul and Linda were going out to dinner with some of their friends. John was at a loose end, so when Mick Jagger called and asked if he wanted to hang out, John readily agreed. Time to get out of the house, and out on the town again, old boy. He met Mick at a favorite pub, and they ordered their first pints. 

“How are you doing, John? The rumor is that the cancer is gone. Is that true?” Mick was genuinely concerned. He had always liked John Lennon, although he also knew that John was touchy and unpredictable. 

“So far, so good,” John said, and they clinked glasses. “I’ve actually been clear for 8 months now.”

“Is it too much of a bummer to talk about it?”

“No, not a bummer. It’s more of a bore. I lived with it so long - it’s been 2 years almost to the day since my diagnosis - and I think I’ve just worn out all my interest in the subject.”

“I’m very glad to hear that you’re well, John. We were all worried about you.” Mick’s expression was kind and his voice surprisingly sincere. It was a gentle side of Mick that John had never seen before, and he was touched by it.

“Thanks, Mick, I really appreciate it. So! That’s over with. Let’s change the subject. What insanity have you gotten into lately?” John had made it clear to Jagger that the cancer subject was now closed. 

“Well, Jerry forced me through a bogus marriage ceremony in Indonesia last year,” Mick chuckled. John knew he was talking about his long-term girlfriend, Jerry Hall.

“Bogus?” John asked, his face alight with amused interest. “I read about the marriage, but I didn’t realize it was bogus.” 

“She was on me endlessly about getting married, and I was never going to get married again after Bianca, so we exchanged some voodoo vows in a beach hut, and now she is telling everyone we are actually married.”

“But you’re not?” John asked, confused.

“Maybe in Indonesia we’re married, but nowhere else. My lawyers assured me it is not legally binding in England or America. Anyway, it stopped her constant nagging on the subject, so it has bought me some peace.”

John laughed light-heartedly. It was good to get out and talk to new people and hear new stories and new opinions. 

“Are you and Paul working on anything?” Mick asked.

John nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, we’re deep into the recording stage right now. Paul is also finishing up his Oratorio, so he’s a bit side-lined by that.”

Mick had heard about Paul’s diversion into classical music, and had wondered if it meant that the John/Paul partnership was on the rocks again. In fact, his ulterior motive had been to see if John wanted to work with him on the solo album he was working on. But apparently that dream was going to remain a fantasy, if John and Paul were still working together. Well, no point in not asking.

“Do you have any extra time, then, while Paul is busy?” He asked. He hoped his voice didn’t sound as tremulous as he felt.

“Time to do what?” John asked pleasantly, thinking that Mick was talking about hanging out. 

“I’m working on a solo album right now…”

“Really? After the success of Steel Wheels? I thought you and Keith had ended your feud…”

“Oh, the Stones are still there, but I’m going to continue to do solo work on the side. I was just thinking if maybe you wanted to collaborate with me a little?” Mick had brazened his way through the request, and from the outside he didn’t look discomfited at all.

John was stunned. He wasn’t quite sure he had heard it correctly. It didn’t take long for him to react, though. “Sorry, Mick, but I only work with Paul.” The statement was flat and there was no wiggle room, so Mick accepted it gracefully.

Instead, Mick allowed his face to dance with mischief. “The last time we talked was at the Rolling Stone event in New York - that was over 3 years ago, right?”

“Ah yes, I remember that night. You propositioned me.” John wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Mick laughed flirtatiously. “You want me to proposition you again?”

John made a comical face and said, mimicking his own voice from only moments before, “Sorry, Mick, but I only sleep with Paul.” Both men laughed.

“That last time we saw each other, you denied that you and Paul were lovers, remember?” Mick’s voice had dropped, and his eyes glittered with curiosity.

John sighed. “You’re a terrible gossip, Mick. Everyone in the business knows it. And I never admitted that Paul and I were lovers, I just made a joke.”

Mick was surprised to be called a gossip. “I don’t gossip,” Mick denied. But John only gave him a disbelieving look. “Anyway, it is so fuckin’ obvious that you’re together, I don’t know why you go around denying it to your friends. I get being coy with the press and the public, but there’s no need to hide from your friends, is there?” Mick was ragging John now.

John was about to say the cutting thing that he would have said without a thought only five years ago. You’re right, Mick, no need to keep it from our friends…but are you our friend? The New John remembered how sweet Mick had been to him just moments earlier when he had expressed his concern so sincerely for John’s health, so he decided not to be mean. 

“Mick, Paul and I don’t really talk about our private life with anyone. I can honestly say we only share private things with only a small handful of people. You know how it is yourself - trying to maintain even shreds of privacy in our position is almost impossible. There’s no need for you to be offended by it.”

Mick accepted this answer gracefully, realizing it was as close to an admission he was likely to get from Lennon on the subject. At least this time it wasn’t an outright lie.

 

*****

 

“I saw an old friend the other night,” John said to Fiona at the beginning of the session. “Do you mind if we talk about that a little bit?”

Fiona nodded warmly, glad that John had gotten into the swing of things again, and was now bringing issues to the sessions. 

“So this guy is bisexual, and he has made a few passes at me over the years,” John disclosed. “But half-hearted ones. I think he would actually have a stroke if I said yes.” John twinkled and Fiona giggled. She couldn’t help herself. “Anyway, he was asking questions, poking around about my thing with Paul. He said it was ‘fuckin’ obvious’ and he wanted to know why I was hiding it from my friends.”

Fiona was curious to know where this was headed. She had noticed that John usually referred to his relationship with Paul as “my thing with Paul”, which was an extremely unusual way to describe such a close association. Fiona made a note to herself to ask about that some day. 

“So what did you say to him?” Fiona asked.

“I basically told him to mind his own business, but in a nice way.” 

Fiona’s expression reflected her doubt that John’s response was “nice”.

“I was nice! Really! I was going to say something snarky, but I decided to be nice instead. But it got me thinking…”

“Yes?” Fiona prompted.

“We can’t hide it forever. I’m actually shocked it has remained quiet for this long. What my friend said has shown me that they’re no doubt all talking about us behind our backs within the music industry, but aside from a few questions raised in the tabloids, the press has pretty much left us alone. I don’t see how this can go on much longer, though. It’s a worry.” 

“Well, the press published the rumors when your album came out - when was that?”

“Three years ago,” John answered promptly.

“And you managed to get through that onslaught without an out-and-out lie. You both handled it very well, I thought.” 

“Yeah, me and Paul know how to handle the press, that’s true. When they get us apart, we each can screw up and say the wrong things, but somehow when we’re together we manage to keep them under control; or maybe we keep each other under control. Not sure which.” John was thinking out loud now. “But, what I’m concerned about is our new album. We’ll be releasing it in - oh, say 9 months from now or so - and it is about mortality really, facing death, illness, and loss. But I reread some of my lyrics last night, and they’re very revealing. And Paul has written some songs that are excruciatingly revealing. He doesn’t like them for that reason, but they are heartbreaking and I cannot allow him to bury them. I’ve told him he has to record them, although right now we’re at an impasse. He says he’s ‘not ready’. Still, if we release this album the way it’s shaping up, I don’t see how we can avoid facing very direct questions from the press that will be impossible to skirt around.”

Fiona could see John’s dilemma now. He believed that he could maintain his highly valued privacy, but only at the expense of the integrity of his art. For a creative person, that was a hell of a problem. She decided to approach the problem from another direction. 

“Let’s say you don’t release the album, or you change the album to make it less revealing,” Fiona suggested. “It doesn’t change the fact that the two of you live right next door to each other, or that the two of you are almost always together. Isn’t it likely that the gossip and the direct questions will eventually happen anyway?” 

John was watching Fiona’s face while she spoke. He was silent for a few moments. “Yes. Eventually it will happen, if not this year, then the next. I don’t think it can be avoided. And I’m honestly more worried about Paul, than I am about myself. And our kids of course. And Linda. It’s a bloody mess.”

“You’ve known that all along, though,” Fiona said, leaving the end of the question hanging in hopes that John would finish the thought.

“We’ve been able to delude ourselves sometimes, but, yeah, we’ve known it all along.” John was silent for at least two minutes, and when he spoke again, his voice was like that of a sad, confused, child. “All we ever wanted was to be together. Why is that such a terrible crime?”

“Times are changing, John, and people aren’t as close-minded about things as they were before. Maybe you and Paul are worrying over something that will only be a momentary difficulty.”

John’s eyes were hopeful for a moment. But then his natural cynicism took over again. “No, no. You don’t understand. We’re not just anybody. We’re Beatles. Anything we do gets attached to that. It will turn the lives of a lot of fans upside down, and the rock world is very macho. There’ll be hell to pay.”

Fiona asked another question designed to help John break free of the logjam in his thinking on the subject. “Well, if the information is going to come out on its own anyway, would you find it easier if it is released in your own time and under your own control?” 

“You’re basically asking me what do I prefer: voluntarily stepping out of the closet to be smacked left and right by rotten tomatoes, or getting dragged out of the closet to be smacked left and right by rotten tomatoes. Neither option appeals to me, I’m afraid.” John managed a sickly smile, but he really didn’t think it was funny at all.

“Well, think about that option, and we can discuss it next time,” Fiona suggested.

 

*****

 

It was Paul’s birthday, and since the previous year John had Paul to himself on the actual day, this year’s celebration on the 18th was for Linda and the family. John had attended, but then had gone home leaving Paul and Linda alone. So John was going to have his celebration with Paul on the 19th. That morning, they had a leisurely time, and John had made Paul his favorite breakfast. They’d gone on a long walk - to Regent’s Park, and all around it, and then the long way home. They were pretty sure that they were not photographed by anyone, which was a nice extra surprise for Paul’s birthday. John had ordered a luncheon to be delivered from Paul’s favorite restaurant, and at that meal John intended to present Paul with his birthday present. It had to be a good one this year, because it was Paul’s last birthday before he turned the big 5-0.

Getting presents for Paul had always been a problem for John, for a number of related reasons. One, after Paul‘s first brush with wealth (when he had surrounded himself with expensive toys), Paul had discovered that he was not very materialistic, so he didn’t covet many of the things that you’re supposed to give men on their birthdays. Two, Paul was very particular about those few things he did own - he preferred to pick things out for himself. Three, while clothes were the safe bet, it wasn’t very special because John generally picked out Paul’s clothes anyway - at least the ones that hung in their closet. (Paul did have a Cavendish wardrobe which John had nothing to do with, and John was generally horrified whenever Paul wore those outfits.) And four, Paul already had all the things he really wanted and loved. The man was impossible to buy for. Linda had staked out the “unusual instrument” territory, buying him rare instruments for presents. And the kids generally made their dad’s presents, and most often they were gag gifts. John had thought about writing Paul a song, but then thought to himself - I’ve written literally dozens of songs for and about Paul, and all he does is get all excited about recording them. More work. 

But after several days of angst, John had finally stumbled on a present that he could surprise Paul with, and had gone about making all the plans. He was extremely excited, and he knew Paul would be surprised. Of course, there was a chance that he would not be pleased - at least at first - but he would definitely be surprised.

Paul, meanwhile, was having a great week. His work - on both fronts - was coming along great, and then he’d had a happy family party, followed by an intimate celebration with Linda, and now he was having a great day alone with John. Was he a lucky bloke, or what? John had planned an elegant late luncheon/early dinner at home, and it was catered by Paul’s favorite London vegetarian restaurant. The wine was one of his favorites, from appellation Chateauneuf du Pape. John was at his most beguiling and engaging, and Paul was looking forward to a very exciting night. He wasn’t thinking of actual presents at all; he assumed John’s “present” would be delivered to him upstairs in their bed, and that was fine with him. 

John felt the moment was right, so he leaned in, grasping both of Paul’s hands across the table, and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you, Pud.” 

Paul was thinking - oh good! I don’t have to wait until nighttime! It’s gonna start right now! But John was still talking…

“There’s a car outside, and our suitcases are in the boot, and we’re heading for the airport.”

Paul was looking at John in confusion. “When?” he managed to ask.

“Right now. Don’t worry about the mess, I’ve asked the maid to come tonight and clear it away.” 

“I can’t go away right now; I have an appointment with Carl tomorrow…”

“I’ve called Carl, and he says the appointment can wait until you get back.”

Paul was nonplussed, and his control freak tendencies were beginning to percolate. He wasn’t sure he liked this idea, and was quite bewildered. He didn’t like feeling bewildered.

“But where are we going?” Paul finally stuttered.

“That, my friend, is the surprise!”


	15. Chapter 15

Paul had hoped to learn where they were going when they got to the airport, but the car had delivered them to a small runway for private jets on the Gatwick Airport campus. The private jet stood waiting for them, and they boarded - Paul none the wiser. He had tried to wheedle it out of the stewardess, but she only smiled at him and shook her head ‘no’. John paid them well, Paul grumbled to himself.

“You might as well sit down and relax, Paul,” John said, chuckling, as he watched Paul in full-stress mode. Paul really hated not knowing what was going on. “We’re not leaving until you buckle up.”

Reluctantly, Paul took his seat, but he was glaring at John. He had quizzed John in the car on the way to the airport, but it had gotten him exactly nowhere:

“How long will we be away?”

“That’s a surprise.”

"I've got a concert premiering in 9 days!"

"Carl told me it's all just window dressing now. He assured me it was okay for you to duck out for awhile."

“But what about Linda and the kids…”

“Linda knows. She’s cool with it.”

“How much is this costing?”

“We can afford it.”

“How long is the flight?”

“Long enough.”

Oh, it was frustrating for Paul, all right, who was feeling quite irritable and anxious at the moment. John just smiled smoothly at him, and leaned over to buckle Paul’s seatbelt for him.

“I can do it myself!” Paul grumbled.

“But, since you hadn’t done it yet, I did it for you.” John’s face was pleasant and agreeable. 

It pissed Paul off. He crossed his arms in front of him and leaned pointedly towards the window and watched the takeoff. John just chuckled to himself and opened his book. He was reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade, which - come to think of it - was kind of appropriate under the circumstances. 

The flight was very short - under an hour. Soon, they were landing in a small private airport in a suburban area. Paul calculated that in such a short flight time they were either somewhere in England or Wales, or they could be in France. He figured it would be France, because it was by far the most romantic destination within that flight time radius. If it weren’t dark outside he would have been able to tell by the landscape. He turned to John and John was smiling at him with a very gentle expression on his face. 

“I thought we would celebrate our 30th anniversary a few months early, for your birthday instead of in October.”

Paul was confused for a moment. Anniversary? 30th anniversary? Of what? In his head, Paul counted backwards to …1961. October. Paris. Ohhhhhh. 

John saw the penny drop and laughed. “You’re a bit slow on the draw, pardner,” he said in a bad Texan accent.

Paul’s face cleared and then erupted in to a cheeky smile. “So - what now? Montmartre? Or the 2nd Arrondissement?”

“Oh, I think it has to be Montmartre, don’t you?” John asked silkily. After all, that was where “it” first happened. 

Soon they were in a car driving into the city of Paris. It was their city. Of course, they had been here briefly during their tour over two years ago, and John had been here with Yoko, and Paul had been here with Linda, and each of them had been here with other friends over the years, but whenever John and Paul had gone to Paris, no matter who they were with, they had really been “with” each other. Each time each man would be privately thinking to himself, “there is the café where we had dinner that night,” “here’s the market where we bought those stupid trousers,” “that’s the street where Jurgen was staying, when he butchered our hair.” And each of them had found time over the years to find innocent reasons to drive down a certain road in Montmartre past a frankly dilapidated building, thinking only to himself, “that’s where we stayed the first time we made love…”

On this night the car drove to a road in Montmartre that had been smartened up substantially in the intervening 30 years. The top floor of the 4-storey building was a large, elegantly-appointed flat, which John had rented for four days - this time their stay in Paris would be a lot more gentile than the first time. But still, they would be alone. The maid would only come in during the day if they were not in the apartment, so they would definitely not be interrupted. They wouldn’t have to share the bathtub with other tenants, and observe the disapproving faces as they scampered naked, clad only in damp towels, to their room, giggling the whole way.

When the car rolled to a stop, they were out and carrying their own luggage to the elaborate wrought-iron-cage- surrounded elevator. It was slow - like an iceberg - as it moved up to the fourth floor, and delivered them finally to their private entrance. It was the dinner hour - 8 p.m. - and after they unpacked a few things, John suggested they go out and find a bistro for dinner.

“You have something in mind?” Paul asked, who had surprisingly slipped quite easily into a scenario where John called all the shots. Since everything thus far had been immaculately planned, Paul assumed everything else had been too.

“From now on, it’s entirely random,” John announced. Just like it had been on their first trip, when they didn’t have the luxury of planning nice restaurant visits or pleasant outings. They had just gone out and started walking, and found whatever happened to be in their path. John wanted to recreate that freedom: the awkward lapses of boredom had resulted in brilliant ideas like racing each other up and down the Eiffel Tower and venturing into a soppy old-style “gay” club not once, but twice. Without boredom, there was no time for ideas.

Paul felt excitement pulsing in his veins. No plans? No obligations? No idea what you’re going to do next? When was the last time that he had really felt that free? Swept up in his enthusiasm, he said, “John, let’s make a promise to each other to do something random like this every few years. So it never gets old.” 

Laughing his agreement, John threw his arm around Paul’s shoulders, and they left the apartment. They took the stairs (it was quicker) and soon were out on the streets of Paris, each wearing a light anonymous looking jacket, and each with a baseball cap (which John had packed in their cases) pulled down over his face. Paul had a sensation that felt very close to a thrill as he walked shoulder to shoulder with John, his hands in jacket pockets. No one turned to look at them. Here they were - two men in their late forties/early fifties in one of the less wealthy areas of the city of Paris, where no one expected to see celebrities. They may as well have been invisible! Paul thought that this was a much better idea than staying in a 5-star hotel where they would have been dogged every step by the paparazzi, who were even more fervid in France than they were in England. 

They walked several blocks before they found a bistro that didn’t look infected, and so they ducked in, and found a comfy corner and settled in. They ordered some vin ordinaire, choosing not to stick out by purchasing anything dear. The crusty bread and salty fresh butter were a wonder. Everything in the décor was just slightly on the wrong side of tacky, right down to the bad posters of can-can dancers on the walls. But John and Paul didn’t care. It was a trip down memory lane for them.

“Remember, babe? We were sitting in a bistro like this one, when I popped the question,” John said, raising a raunchy eyebrow. 

“In the most roundabout way imaginable,” Paul said, deflating John’s remark, and sipping his wine with an insouciant tilt to his eyes, which peered at John over the rim. “It took me ten minutes to figure out what you were on about.”

“Whatever,” John growled, but he wasn’t really angry. He was in a very flirtatious mood. “You were clueless, and I was scared to fucking death.” 

“Scared?” Paul asked, surprised. He was like his 19 year-old self again, unable to believe that his hero had any clay in his feet. “What were you scared of?”

John thought a moment before he decided to let the thought go - as if he were letting loose the string to a balloon that he had husbanded carefully in his hand for years. “I was scared of rejection, of course.”

Paul was quiet for a moment. He tried to remember what it was like to be 19 years old, and away from home in a foreign country for the first time (Hamburg didn’t count; it was too like Liverpool and most everyone spoke English there). He had been so excited. Everything was new and different. Tonight, as he reminisced, he actually felt - dare he say it? - young again. He did not realize it, but his 49 year-old face suddenly looked young and innocent again - and to John it was very like the face that had stared across a table 30 years earlier as he had sputtered out his pathetic proposition. John felt a strong pull of love and affection for the man sitting across from him. How could one person be so important to him? How could he never really tire of this person? 

It was difficult for a vegetarian to find anything substantial to eat in a real down-to-earth neighborhood bistro, but while John compromised and had a perfectly baked halibut filet, Paul was able to persuade the chef to saute a bunch of vegetables for him, and pour them over some wild rice. The meal took a leisurely two and a half hours for the two of them to consume because they lingered over every bite and every sip and every word. But at just before 11:00 p.m. they reluctantly left the warmth of the bistro and braved a walk home in the cool night. As they walked, John slipped his arm through Paul’s. They walked companionably and their hearts were in perfect harmony. No one looked at them, because French men often walked arm in arm. It was one of the reasons why John loved France so much. Men also held hands - and it wasn’t considered odd - not to mention the kisses they gave to each other on both cheeks as a greeting. And couples, both straight and queer, had kissed with wild passion under the trees on the promenade along the Seine - day or night, rain or shine.

Paul had thought (it was one of his more mischievous thoughts) to stop at a shop on the way to dinner to purchase a bottle of whiskey, a cheap brand, much like the whiskey he had purchased that first night in Paris almost 30 years ago. That first night, he had needed to be drunk. As they had walked back to their pensione in 1961, Paul had been thinking of various ways to escape his fate. He had agreed, reluctantly, to John’s request to experiment sexually because he had felt cornered, but as they walked he had begun to think that it was weird, wrong, and - worse - he felt it would end up hurting them badly in the end. The last escape route left to him that night as they approached their pensione had been hard liquor. And a lot of it. Somehow, drunkenness had made what followed possible for him, despite his mother’s Catholic mores, and his father’s prosaic proverbs, and his whole family’s deep working class roots. What was it about John that made him forget all and sundry that had come before, and venture out into the unknown? Paul still didn’t know the answer to that question, but he no longer argued with himself over it. He had accepted it as a given; it was his fate to squire this man through life. Nothing else had ever made this much sense to him, and nothing else ever would.

The apartment was flooded with rosy lights from dim pink light bulbs, as John quietly made his way to the bathroom while Paul poured out some tumblers of whiskey for them. John came out of the bathroom wearing one of his (Paul could think of no other word) feminizing Japanese silk dressing gowns. But to Paul the gown was only evidence (gleaned from years of experience) that underneath, John was naked. And that suited Paul down to the ground. He handed John his tumbler and they clinked glasses.

“To us!” Paul said, and John echoed him. But then, a few moments later John suddenly said in a teasing voice,

“You said we’d never last if we fucked, you know.”

“I never!” Paul cried.

“You did! That night, in the café. You said it wasn’t a good idea, because it would end badly.”

“It did end badly!” Paul protested, thinking of the horrors of 1968 - 1980.

“No - that was only the middle! That was the second act! We’re living the third act now, and it isn’t a bad ending, is it?”

Paul smiled. “No, it’s not a bad ending. You were right, and I was wrong.” 

John pretended shock at this rare admission of Paul’s. “Let me find a tape recorder. Will you say that again, into a mic?”

Paul’s response was an indulgent smile. He moved closer, and, pulling John closer to him by the arms, soon had John right before him, nose-to-nose. “I will say anything you like into a mic,” Paul said with a raw, sexy voice as his forehead leaned against John’s.

“Was this a happy birthday?” John asked timidly.

“Very happy birthday, and if I’m not much mistaken, it is about to get much happier…” Paul was maneuvering John in the direction of the bed. It was a relatively modest size - a cross between a queen and a double bed - and it appeared to be a bit lumpy. But none of that mattered to Paul at that moment. John, of course, was oblivious. He was lost in the dark green haze of Paul’s eyes. 

Paul was in charge, and John wouldn’t have it any other way. Paul had been the one in charge on that first night, too, because it was hard enough for Paul to think about having sex with a man, but impossible to consider himself on the bottom! Not that it had mattered on that first awkward night. Neither one of them had any idea of what to do, even after perusing the gay porn magazines they had purchased. In the end they had did little more than furtively pump each other’s members under the covers after feeling each other up. They had fallen asleep side-by-side, and had been too embarrassed to meet each other’s eyes in the morning. Instead, they had done a lot of modest covering with sheets and unnecessary clearing of throats. 

 

Tonight, Paul wanted to express his love for John physically, because in truth he was deeply touched and grateful for John’s birthday “gift.” They’d been through some rough times over the last few years, and this trip was John’s way of affirming to him that they had made it through to the other side. Many other couples had failed to survive such challenges, but here they were, still obnoxiously enthralled with each other, and raring to show it. 

Paul gently pressed John down by his shoulders until he was seated on the side of the bed. Then he pulled off his own cashmere pullover followed by his undershirt. He frowned a bit at the slight bulge of fat around his middle, but figured John couldn’t see it in the dim light. So he stripped off his socks, trousers and underpants, but before he could do more, John pulled Paul’s hips toward his face. He was clearly going to pay some attention to Paul’s cock. 

John gave excellent head. Way better head than any woman ever had given him. Paul figured that only a man could really understand how to give good head. A cock was a pretty ugly, obnoxious thing - more obnoxious than ugly when aroused, and more ugly than obnoxious when flaccid. And most women thought of a cock as something it was better to feel but not see. Tonight Paul’s cock was very aroused as John’s clever mouth played with the skin over, around, and below it. Then John’s gentle hands were cradling Paul’s balls, and soon John was softly licking and sucking them, one at a time. Paul heard himself groaning, and his knees went weak. He grasped John’s shoulders so he wouldn’t sink to the floor. John briefly stopped his ministrations in order to chuckle. He pulled Paul down on to the mattress with him.

Paul fell a bit on top of John and a bit to the side, and he let out a guffaw. But soon they were facing each other - John on his side with his face resting on his palm, propped up by his elbow, and Paul laying face up on the mattress. Their legs were tangled, and dangling over the side of the bed, but at the moment they didn’t seem to mind. John traced a finger down the ridge of Paul’s nose, and shook his head ever so slightly. It was such a beautiful face. The long eyelashes cloaked the eyes a bit, but John could still see into their depths. He was feeling weak inside, like he always did, when he was touching Paul. 

“I love you,” John whispered. It was heartfelt and it hit home. John watched as the beautiful eyes filled with tears. 

Paul tried to speak, but the first sound out of his throat sounded more like an attack of catarrh. Paul snickered at his own gauche sound, and then said, “I spoiled it. I was going to say, ‘I love you too’ but then this horrible sound came out…” 

John was still feeling mushy inside. He stroked hair off of Paul’s forehead and said, “Don’t worry, you didn’t need to use words, babe, I saw it in your eyes.” 

Paul pulled himself up on to his forearms and said, “Let’s get comfortable on the bed.” He was thinking to himself that the days of doing it on the floor, on the furniture and in weird positions were probably, for the most part, behind them. More’s the pity. But rather than dangling half on and half off the bed, both men opted to get comfortable under the covers, and then Paul reached over and pulled the chain to shut off the lamp. 

Paul rolled over and climbed on top of John, and John brought his legs up, his thighs squeezing Paul’s hips firmly. John felt the tiny little kisses feathering up his neck, and soon they were on his jaw, and now he felt little harmless bites on his lips, which tickled and made John squirm. He could feel his own member swelling, and he had the urge to pump up against Paul’s pelvis a little. This earned him a sweet chuckle from Paul, who whispered,

“So impatient…”

Soon the pace and force of Paul’s kisses increased until John was literally writhing under his lover, silently begging for the hard core stuff to start. But still Paul teased him. He began kissing down John’s neck again, and now down his chest in the direction of John’s…

“Arhhh!” John’s inarticulate shout came without warning as Paul’s tongue played with the tip of his penis. Now John was thrusting and pumping in a kind of ecstasy that he knew would soon result in an eruption, if Paul didn’t stop soon. John wanted to come, yes, but not so soon! He didn’t want to…nooo!  
Paul’s mouth left his cock and soon Paul was poised above him in the dark. 

John felt bereft for a moment, until he understood what was going to happen next. It was the sound of Paul rustling for the lube on the side table that gave it away, and John’s body felt like it couldn’t wait another minute. He grabbed Paul on either side of his hips and pulled him down towards him, and locked his legs around the small of Paul’s back. Paul accepted the smothering kisses and the rubbing and pumping in good grace, but it was a bit frustrating. He couldn’t very well lube up his cock and put it where it belonged if John was going to cling to him like this! 

John was chanting in a throaty voice now, very low and soft, “Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!”

Paul laughed and said, “I will! Let me go, and I will!” 

Finally, Paul was free, and he took John’s hand and squirted some lube into it, and then brought John’s hand to his cock. John quickly got the idea, and began to slather it around, which only served to arouse it more. Meanwhile, Paul’s lubed fingers made their way to John’s opening, and he began to insert one and then two fingers in the hole, surrounding the whole area with lubricant. John grabbed his bent knees and pulled his legs back as far as they could go, and soon he felt Paul’s hand guiding his cock to the entrance. The cock poked around a little, like a curious woodpecker, and then found the opening, and Paul began to push. 

Their sweating bodies felt erotic to each other, and the groans, and cries, and throaty swear words accompanied the sound of skin slapping skin, while the bedsprings filled out the rhythm section. Paul came first, quickly pulling out just in time. It was a bit hard sometimes for a guy to come when he’s the one being fucked, but John was still greatly aroused, and Paul had been there, done that, and understood what he needed to do. Again, he brought his mouth down to John’s cock and proceeding to give aggressive head, the sound of slurping just adding to the eroticism. John soon came, and Paul manfully took the gism to the back of his throat, and swallowed. He then crawled up the bed, and plopped down in an exhausted heap next to John. They lay there in the dark holding hands as their breathing went back to normal. Soon the breathing became very shallow, and first one, and then the other, dropped off to sleep.

 

*****

 

Was it a dream or was it a memory?

John’s superego appeared to be asking the question in the voice of a narrator over the flashing images in his mind. 

A memory, John decided. He realized he was in that half-awake place in the dark of the early morning when his subconscious felt as real and alive to him as his conscious mind. John had always had the ability to peer right into his subconscious, and be at one with it, while his conscious mind acted as a kind of translator. He heard the steady breathing from Paul in the bed next to him, and this comforted him. He was safe, and could sink back into that memory at his leisure.

It had been an awkward morning, that morning after. They hadn’t looked at each other. Paul had a terrible hangover, because he had made himself drunk with that cheap whiskey. John had not drunk nearly as much, because he had wanted to be compos mentis when “It” finally happened: when Paul would touch him, and he would touch Paul, in all the forbidden places. John did remember every bit of it. John watched as Paul covered himself up with a sheet as he searched for his clothing, which was strewn all over the floor. The clothes were strewn because he was still a teenager, and that is what teenagers do - throw their clothes all over the bleeding place. John, at 21, had grown out of this, and had neatly folded and stacked his clothes on top of his suitcase. John had watched Paul perform this routine from his place laying in bed, feeling sad, hurt, confused, nervous, worried, awkward, and even afraid. Still afraid of rejection. The funny part was, Paul was struggling with the sheet to cover his front bits, but his beautiful ass was hanging out the other side, and there it was right in front of John’s wondering eyes. 

Of course they had seen each other naked before. They had seen each other pissing, pooping, throwing up, bleeding from the nose from fights, fucking women, and so drunk they couldn’t walk or talk. They had slept in so many little beds together while wearing their underwear only, and had changed clothes openly in front of each other in dozens of tiny rooms over the 4 years they had known each other, while in clubs, cheap rooms for rent, and hitchhiking. But never before had they done so after a night spent pleasuring each other sexually. This was what hung over the room - the throbbing knowledge of that strange departure from their usual practice of pretending they were just pals. John had felt his eyes fill with tears, and he turned over to face the wall to hide those tears from Paul, on the odd chance that Paul would actually look at him again. The tears came because for John, pretending to be Paul’s “pal” had been painful, and it had been a constant thread of buried pain in almost all of their interactions for years, but John knew that Paul really did believe they were just “pals”, and so he’d never suffered the way John had. 

Paul had made an excuse to leave the room as soon as he was dressed, ostensibly so that John could get out of bed and dress in private. But in truth, Paul was running away from what had happened between them, and was hoping that enough distance between them would ease the awkwardness. For John, of course, this only made it much worse. That whole day, in fact, they had hung out with Jurgen, and behaved as though nothing unusual had happened between them the night before. John wondered how Paul did it. How did he compartmentalize such things, so they could literally be locked away and ignored? John’s feelings flooded in and out of each other without discipline or warning. And on that particular day John’s emotions were like a rogue giant wave out in the middle of the ocean at midnight. No other human saw it or experienced it, but it was ferocious in its wildness and strength.

The day had to end, of course. And at some point they would have to face what had happened between them. Jurgen had been only too happy to usurp all their time, and Paul at least seemed to cling to Jurgen as he provided a convenient excuse not to have to deal with his own confused feelings. Paul’s feelings. John’s thought process came to a quick stop. Funny how he hadn’t really given much thought to Paul’s feelings about the whole thing before, other than to resent the boy’s ability to compartmentalize them. Paul had been 19 years old, and still very much his parents’ child. It had to have confused him a lot, so no wonder he avoided the inevitable. But they call it “inevitable” because eventually it had to happen.

There was still half a bottle of bad whiskey left when they returned from Jurgen’s place, and Paul was eyeing it as they returned to their pensione room at around midnight. John saw Paul’s thought process as if it were written in a bubble over his head, and finally found the courage to say something.

“Don’t, Paul.” 

Paul looked over at John, his eyebrow arched. That was his way of asking John to explain.

“You don’t have to get drunk. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.” John was hunched on the side of the bed, looking down at the floor between his feet. A long silence followed, and John was fighting off those humiliating tears again. Then he felt the bedsprings move as Paul sat next to him. Paul was quiet, and seemed at a loss for words. John swallowed the saliva that had gathered in the back of his throat and added, “I’m sorry I made you do that. It hasn’t ruined our friendship, has it?”

Paul still had no words, but he did put his arm around John’s shoulders, and gave and held a strong side hug. “I’m sorry I’ve been so weird about it, John. It’s like I don’t know where to look.” 

John chuckled, though his eyes remained glued to the ground. “You could look at me, for a start,” he finally said, lifting his head and facing Paul.

Paul’s eyes did meet John’s, and this time they didn’t shy away. They held for a long moment until John spoke again. 

“It isn’t wrong, you know. It’s what they all tell us, but they tell us all sorts of stupid stuff that isn’t true. It isn’t wrong to touch people. Touching is good.” 

Paul was listening to John with open ears. 

“You’re not going to go to hell because of it, Paul. There isn’t a hell. There’s only just this life, this one little life. All that religious crap is just to make people feel better about their little lives.” 

Paul’s response was reflexive. “I don’t believe in religion, either.” It wasn’t really true - at least not at this point in his life - although it would be true for him later. Paul had just recently adopted this cool atheist position after meeting John, in order to impress him. 

“Was it so awful that you can’t even talk about it?” John asked, his fear peeking through this time.

Paul shook his head. “No! No, of course not!” 

But what else could he say? John smiled at him and saw that Paul was eager to make amends. It was clear in Paul’s eyes. It took every ounce of John’s courage to reach his hand up, and gently caress Paul’s cheek. “You want to try again?” he asked softly. “Maybe it will be easier the second time.”

Paul had blushed. His face was a burning shade of red. John knew that Paul never acted this way around women, when they asked him for sex. But, John remembered, I’m his mate; it’s hard for him.

John lay back on the bed, and gave Paul’s arm a gentle jostle. His body language and expression said it all: come join me down here. It was up to Paul. Paul had turned to look at John as he lay there, and it took as long as 30 seconds before Paul gave in. He lowered his upper body down until his back was on the mattress. He studied the ceiling, and was still speechless. John turned over on his side, and propped up on his elbow, cradled the side of his head in his hand. He looked down at Paul, who was apparently afraid to meet John’s eyes.   
John’s other hand slowly lowered itself on to Paul’s chest, and he could feel the heart beating wildly underneath. This gave him confidence. The hand began to slowly travel down Paul’s chest, in the direction of his crotch. They were both fully clothed, but still John felt the electricity in his hand as he moved in the forbidden direction. Paul did nothing to stop him, but nothing to help either. His mind seemed to be in suspended animation, but his body was betraying him. When John got to Paul’s zipper, he played for a moment with the button at the top, and allowed his hand to brush over the crotch area below. He immediately felt that Paul had a generous-sized boner already. John felt a rush of euphoria because he knew that whatever fears and hang ups Paul had, he was just as aroused by the touching as John. So he sat up and, serious now, both hands at work, pulled Paul’s zipper down. He then grasped the waistbands of Paul’s trousers and underpants, and pulled them down far enough to expose the erect penis. To John’s eyes it was the second most beautiful thing he’d ever seen - after Paul’s ass. The lamp was on this night, whereas the previous night Paul had made sure to turn off all the lights. So John was able to see everything and it was making him crazy. 

John had never given a blowjob, but he had seen loads of pictures of men doing it in his stash of gay porn, and had fantasized about doing it - to Paul - for years. Here was his opportunity to put what he’d learned to good practice. He dropped down to the floor on his knees, and with both hands spread Paul’s slender thighs apart (they were impossibly slender - almost like a girl’s!), and then fit his head in between the two thighs. He began to lick Paul’s balls, and as soon as he started Paul jerked up from his place on the bed with an “oh!” sound, but John didn’t stop, and soon Paul had relaxed back on the mattress again, soft moans escaping from his throat. 

When the time was right, John moved his mouth upwards from the testicles to the thick lower part of Paul’s penis, and licked his way up and around the cylinder of muscle and mass which grew bigger almost with every stroke of the tongue. Teasingly, he lingered just below and around the tip of the penis, waiting for Paul to urge for more. He did not have to wait long. Soon an impatient hand was pressing down on the top of John’s head. It was the crass international male signal to “suck my cock now!” that heretofore John had only done to women, and had not had done to him. But he was happy to receive this signal, and after a few more seconds of teasing, he went in for the kill. He pulled the tip of the cock into his mouth and was immediately surprised at how strong the muscles were that contracted and expanded as the blood pulsed through. He also was surprised at how quickly his mouth got tired, holding that hard, pulsing thing inside it. It required strong lower facial muscles, and John hadn’t really had occasion to develop them there yet. But, he was eager to learn. 

John’s head started to bob up and down as he figured out the rhyme and rhythm to it all, and the sounds escaping from Paul were deliriously encouraging. John wasn’t too sure about having someone “cum” in his mouth, and his mouth (truth be told) was really getting tired, so he slowly withdrew Paul’s cock from his mouth, and then he stood up and pulled Paul’s trousers off completely, and removed his own. He then climbed on top of Paul. His hands cradled Paul’s face, his fingers mingling with the greasy black locks. He began to move his pelvic region slowly against Paul’s, while capturing Paul’s eyes with his own. What he saw in Paul’s eyes was blind passion. He couldn’t read anything else there, but it turned John on, and the gentle rubbing soon became a kind of rutting. Their legs were dangling over the edge of the bed, fully entwined now. John had stopped thinking then, and had gone into that animal place one visited just before an orgasm. He vaguely had heard the sounds of Paul coming, seconds before he did, and soon he felt their combined juices slithering around between them in their pelvic regions, and John decided he’d never had a more erotic moment than this one. 

He had dropped to the side, and they’d lain there, and John had grabbed Paul’s hand and squeezed. They must have looked ridiculous; John’s mind had nagged him with the thought. They both still had their shirts on, and they were half on and half off the bed, naked from the waist down. He really ought to do something about that, but what? Any solution would require him to move. Paul had finally solved the problem by sitting up with a huge groan, and pulling off his shirt. He had then stood up and lent John his hand, pulling him to his feet. After turning off the bedside lamp, he’d yanked back the covers and slipped in against the wall, as John pulled his own shirt off and joined him. John had moved in so close to Paul (who had moved to the very edge of the bed), and surrounded him with his arm, and a thigh between Paul’s two thighs. Paul didn’t push him off or object, so John sighed and nestled his head at the top of Paul’s back. The hand that clutched Paul’s front chest could feel the heart beating underneath, and this ever-slowing pulse gently drummed John to sleep.

 

*****

 

The next morning, Paul woke up to find John nestled against his back. His muscles were sore from being in the same position all night. God, it sucks getting old, Paul thought to himself as he tried to stretch a little without disturbing John. Slowly he turned over on to his back, gently persuading John to move a little to accommodate him. With both hands behind his head, elbows akimbo, Paul watched the morning Parisian light dance on the ceiling. The sun through the lace curtains created quite the shadow show. Paul was amazed that John had planned this incredible surprise for him right under his nose. And he could feel himself growing whole again, as if his emotional health was like his physical body, with the sinews and tissues mending themselves slowly until the injury disappeared. The whole cancer episode had been a nightmare, from beginning to end, and he silently prayed to the god he didn’t believe in to never make him go through something like that again. He didn’t think he could take it if he had to. 

John was stirring now, and then his fuzzy head arose, his face grizzled with morning whiskers. He saw Paul propped up on his pillows smiling back at him. John groaned and said, “This fucking bed has lumps in it.” 

Paul laughed and nodded. "Yeah, my muscles woke up complaining, too. By all means, let’s blame it on the bed, and not our age.”


	16. Chapter 16

This time in Paris, unlike their first visit, John and Paul had more than one friend who lived there. But they had wordlessly decided to spend the time alone. John had some things he wanted to talk to Paul about, and Paul had some things he wanted to talk to John about, and they both assured themselves (privately) that this trip would be a good time and place to have those conversations. John, of course, was more eager to get to the point, whereas Paul was dreading the time when he would have to say what was on his mind.

It was their second day in Paris, and after canoodling together in the bed for 45 minutes, they got up and bathed. They then took a short walk to a sidewalk café, grabbing English language newspapers along the way, and settled in the morning sun savoring their coffee, a few fresh croissants, and an orange or two, and quietly read their papers, periodically reading something out to the other, and discussing its import. Eventually, they lost interest in the papers, and on their second cup of coffee, they watched the sparrows dancing on the wrought iron railings waiting for crumbs. It was at this moment that John took the opportunity to bring up what he knew was going to be a thorny subject.

“You know, a few weeks ago I had dinner with Mick Jagger,” John said.

“Yes, you said,” Paul responded, blowing the heat off the top of his second cup of coffee.

“He said something to me that has been bothering me ever since,” he added.

“Oh?” Paul was not really surprised. Mick had more than once - in Paul’s experience - hidden a nasty barb inside of an otherwise innocuous sentence.

“He was poking around about you and me, you know, the same old thing. But this time he said it was ‘obvious’ we were together, and why did we bother hiding it?”

This did get Paul’s more serious attention. “’Obvious’? He used that word?”

“Yes. It is clear to me that they’re all talking about us behind our backs - all the London music establishment.”

“That’s a bit of a leap, don’t you think?” Paul asked, not wanting to believe “they” were “all” talking about him behind his back.

“It’s not much of a leap, Paul. Mick is a horrible gossip, and if he has decided he knows the truth, you can be assured he has spread it to others. And he must have heard it from somewhere, because we don’t see him very often. And don’t forget that stupid item in the New York Daily News about my ‘creative partner.’ That, I’m sure, is the first of many.”

Paul winced at the mention of the gossip item, but overall accepted John’s analysis without further debate. “Well, it’s just them gossiping. Rock stars are terrible gossips, we’ve always known that. And tabloids don’t have that much credibility.”

“True. But here’s the part that has been bothering me,” John said. “There are enough people who know about us now. I mean, we’ve been basically living together for 10 years, and along the way a number of people have seen or heard things that gave us away.”

Paul thought back to the young assistant their tour manager had sent home from Europe on their concert tour, for spreading rumors about them. He’d occasionally wondered what had happened to that guy, as well as their tour manager’s other assistants. Their tour manager knew; no doubt he had told at least his wife. And there was Nigel, if he hadn’t died of AIDS yet. And of course there were Gerry, Jason, Rob, Wes, and that group of their friends in the ‘Salon’ crowd. And George and Ringo, of course, and their wives knew, as well as George Martin, and his wife. Some of the nurses at the hospital during John’s chemo had given them some knowing looks, and the doctors too…

“We can do nothing about that, John,” Paul said reasonably. “We have to live after all, and we don’t live on a desert island.”

“I’m not saying we have to be more careful, Paul, I’m just saying that it is only a matter of time before the tabloids decide to write more openly about it and won’t be stopped by our half-assed denials.”

Paul met John’s eyes with concern now. He could tell that John was trying to convey something unpleasant to him, but he didn’t know precisely what it was yet.

“Really, we’re lucky to have gotten away with it for so long,” John added.

“Where are you going with this, John?” Paul finally asked, tired of trying to figure it out. 

“I think at some point we are going to have to admit the truth, and just face the music.” 

Paul felt the word ‘NO!’ rushing through his body as if it had taken over his blood system. He just managed to avoid shouting it out, and instead quickly uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. John knew that was one of Paul’s tells. Paul always moved his legs around when he was trying to push away a question or comment he didn’t want to deal with, almost as if by that method he was running away from it. Paul cleared his throat, and coached himself to speak calmly.

“John, I can’t do that, you know that. Linda and my kids…I can’t put them through it. If it was just me…”

“What I’m trying to say, Paul, is that I don’t think we have a choice. Do you want to have the press start announcing it and us have no control over it, or do you want to control the message?” John had purposely used the word “control”, knowing that this would connect in Paul’s mind with his constant need to retain control. “It’s not like I want to reveal it or talk about it either,” John continued. “There will be hell to pay. Can you imagine? I just worry that letting other people control the message will be worse than if we controlled it ourselves.”

Paul’s heart was beating fast. He didn’t want to have this conversation, because deep in his mind he understood only too well what John was saying. But he did have a quibble. “What makes you think that just because we tell on ourselves, we will be able to ‘control the message’? I doubt that very much. That news will have a life of its own, and no matter how it gets out, it will be hell for us to pay. I’d rather it be later than sooner.”

There. He’d said it. He’d agreed that it was inevitable that they would be exposed. And he’d accepted that no matter what, it was going to be a very painful experience. Consequently, he wanted to keep it quiet as long as possible.

John considered what Paul said, and acknowledged that Paul had a good point. “Still,” he said, “we really ought to prepare Linda and our kids. They have gotten comfortable with the situation just because it has gone on so long without public repercussions, and they have probably no clear idea of how bad it will be for them once the press starts writing about it.” 

Paul grimaced involuntarily. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was have another family meeting where the subject was his sexual relationship with John. Going through it the one time had been humiliating and painful enough. He sighed heavily. John was watching Paul’s face and pretty accurately read what was going on in his head. Paul finally met John’s eyes and said, “Well, let me discuss it with Linda, and get her input. She’s got the best instincts on these things.”

John didn’t disagree at all, and his smile reflected this. Tremendously relieved to have gotten this out of his system, John said cheerfully, “Let’s revisit the Eiffel Tower, shall we?” John was looking forward to stretching out on the grass in its shadow. 

 

*****

 

The late afternoon October air had a chill in it, but nothing to compete with the coldness that could hold a Northern English river town in its complete and utter thrall. John and Paul had found their way, on foot, to the Eiffel Tower. They’d referred constantly to their tourist map to accomplish this feat, and were quite proud as they approached. Paul dropped back and fiddled with his camera.

“John!” Paul barked, and John half turned around to stare at Paul. The Eiffel Tower was in the background, as Paul released the shutter. Paul laughed at John’s expression, and John shook his head in amusement, and continued on toward the iron lattice tower which - compared to the greyish sky - looked like black lace against silver satin. They purchased their entrance tickets and confronted the stairwell leading up to the observation decks.

“Let’s race to the top one!” Paul had cried impulsively, and got to the stairs first, John right at his heels. The ridiculous competition resulted in a favorable win for John, who had cheated by tripping Paul, and then jumping over his prone body to get ahead of him. Once they were on the highest observation deck, they leant over the bannisters and, walking around its circumference, saw the city of Paris laid out before them in it’s 360 degree glory. John wanted so much to grab Paul and hold him in his arms. He wanted to engage in a long, breathless kiss. But of course neither of those things was possible. Even as they had pleasured each other the previous two nights in the privacy of their little room, they had never gotten close to doing anything sentimental, like kissing or face-to-face embracing. Though John longed for it, he doubted that Paul could handle it. So he stood as close to Paul as he could, their shoulders overlapping, and they leant in toward each other as they studied the Paris skyline. 

“Can you believe it’s you and me, from Liddypool, looking down on Paris?” Paul asked John, his voice throbbing with excitement. 

“We’re on the top of the world here, aren’t we?” John laughed. “I told you we’d go to the toppermost of the poppermost!”

Paul laughed, too, and then they wordlessly decided to race each other back down. This time John let Paul go first, and again tripped him about halfway down, jumping over his body and finishing first again. 

“You’re a bleedin’ cheat!” Paul shouted as he chased John around the base of the Tower for a few moments, making tourists jump out of the way, some of them smiling at the silly boys, and some glaring at them. They collapsed on the grass verge near the base of the Tower and stared up through the wrought iron lace into the sky. Surreptitiously, John snaked his hand over to Paul’s, and he squeezed Paul’s hand. After a painful, breathtaking 20 seconds of doubt, Paul squeezed back. 

 

*****

 

“I remember when this view felt like the top of the world,” Paul mused, as he and John stood in almost the exact same spot they’d occupied 30 years earlier while gazing at the awe-inspiring view. 

“I know, we didn’t think it would get better than that, did we?” John asked, leaning his shoulder in against Paul’s, and killing the urge to put his arm around Paul’s shoulder and pull him close. The problem was, he couldn’t possibly know who was watching, or with what kind of camera. They would have to err on the side of discretion, as they always had to do in public, and even in front of most of their friends. It was a drag, but it was their truth. A truth John was finally beginning to struggle against. He had opened the conversation, and he knew that, with Paul, it would be baby steps until Paul felt comfortable with being open. He was always two years behind me on these things, John smiled to himself. So maybe in two years Paul would be ready to confront their reality. The one imponderable was Linda. How she reacted to the subject was critical, because John knew that however much Paul loved him, he trusted Linda more. John resented it, but he accepted it. Paul and Linda hadn’t been through a bruising separation, so they’d never been presented with the kind of opportunities to betray each other, as he and Paul had. It was yet another one of the realities in his life that John endured, more than accepted. Maybe some day Paul would trust him again - the way he seemed to do when they were young - but not as long as Linda held pride of place in Paul’s Trust Parade.

 

*****

 

It was after 9 p.m., and John and Paul had found a 5 star restaurant in an obscure suburb of Paris where only Parisians went. They dressed in black suits and black polo tops, and slicked their hair back, and hid in a dark corner. No one had appeared to recognize them. As they drank a wonderful bottle of Paul’s favorite Chateauneuf du Pape, and lingered over a shared dessert of pears sautéed in butter, a tiny amount of sugar, and Sauterne, Paul decided he should raise the subject he’d been planning to bring up for weeks.

John was mellow from the meal and wine, and his eyes glimmered like coals in the candlelight. He was thinking of what his mouth was going to do to Paul’s ivory skin once they were naked in the privacy of their own little flat.

“John, I’ve been meaning to talk with you about something for a long time,” Paul said, his businesslike tone belied his nerves.

John was surprised to hear these words out of Paul’s lips, partly because they came so soon after John’s own similar announcement at breakfast, but mainly because Paul didn’t usually bring up subjects that he’d thought about “for a long time.” John shifted in his seat, but decided not to react or make a funny joke, for fear he’d discourage Paul from being open.

“It’s about us,” Paul said, and his fingers were fiddling with the bottom stem of his wine glass, his eyes not quite meeting John’s.

“Yes?” John encouraged. Us, he thought. Hmm. 

“What happened to us during the chemo thing and just after,” Paul said awkwardly. He was having a hard time finding the freeway onramp to this discussion.

John was silent, and getting very serious now. This was apparently not going to be a pleasant conversation.

“There were times…well, there were lots of times, when…” Paul was struggling mightily to find words, but knowing all the while that no matter how tactful the words, John’s reception of same would not be tactful.

“Yes?” John’s voice was urgent now, and a little irritated. He didn’t like to be left hanging on tenterhooks. 

“Sometimes, when you speak to me, I don’t think you realize how…” Paul searched desperately for an objective word that would wound less, and enlighten more. “…How it sounds,” he finished lamely.

John was fully on alert now. “How what sounds, babe?” He asked in a silky low voice that Paul didn’t trust one tiny bit.

Paul shrugged, sighed, and then said, “You sound sometimes, when you speak to me, as if you don’t even like me, much less respect me.” The words came out in a rush, followed by a panicked expression on Paul’s face that also vanished quickly, like the echoes of his words.

John was stumped. What on earth was Paul talking about? Of course he liked and respected Paul! Why else would he choose to spend his life and share his work with him? What a ludicrous statement! Look at this incredible romantic vacation he had planned! Would he have done this for someone he didn’t like and respect? John’s face reflected his utter confusion.

Paul saw this, and felt guilty for causing it. He should have just kept his mouth shut. He was spoiling this romantic vacation. And what good would come of it now? The bad times were over. 

Until they come again. That second voice came from somewhere deep inside Paul’s mind, and he was silenced by it. His throat was suddenly dry, and he struggled to swallow so he could begin again. “I don’t think you realize it - I don’t even think you mean it, really…”

“What are you on about Paul?” John demanded, his face starting to look stormy. 

“You tried to apologize to me for it once, when we were in Italy, and I kind of brushed it off with a joke,” Paul said, finding a way, finally.

“I remember.” John was studying him closely now, as if storing ammunition for his own defense.

“I shouldn’t have brushed it off,” Paul said. “I should have told you how I really felt.” Paul was studying his hands now, and they were busily brushing breadcrumbs off the side of the table.

“And how did you really feel…Paul,” John’s voice was dangerously low and even a little sarcastic now. No more endearments.

Paul saw there was no hope for avoiding a confrontation. He should have brought it up when they were alone, but somehow in those moments he never found the courage. 

“I felt really beaten down by it all. Even, sometimes… humiliated.”

“Humiliated!” John parroted, his voice raising a little, and causing others to look over to their table for a few moments before losing interest and looking away. Paul waited for that to happen before saying anything else.

“The way you speak to me sometimes, with people around, even my wife, my kids…”

“If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you say anything?” John demanded angrily.

Paul’s eyes seemed to beg for understanding. “You had cancer, John. I was blaming it all on the cancer.”

John relaxed a little. Here was an honorable way out. “Yes, I did have cancer. I guess I can be forgiven for being a bit rude and thoughtless, don’t you?” His voice had softened a bit, seeking to bring Paul back to the confident, sure, laid back person he depended on. But it clearly wasn’t working. Paul’s face looked agonized.

“I told myself that, too, but the truth is, it only got worse when you had cancer. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve treated me like that whenever you’re having a bad day. Sometimes I wonder if you think of me as your punching bag.” Paul closed his eyes and waited for the expected reaction, but after a while he had to open his eyes to see what was happening. For a moment there he even thought that John had left the table. But John was still sitting there, staring at Paul as if he had never seen him before.

“That’s how you think I feel?” He asked, dumbfounded. He was truly shocked at what Paul had said.

“I don’t know how you feel, John, I only know how it feels to me. And as long as I’ve known you, you’ve felt free to put me down in front of other people, and you say mean things to me when you’re mad, even when nothing is my fault. I’ve pretended it doesn’t bother me, and for a long time I could make myself believe it didn’t bother me. And the few times it did bother me, I told myself it was all worth it in order to have your friendship, and I thought it was the price I had to pay.”

John was shaken to his inner core by this rushed and breathy confession. Was this Paul telling him that his friendship wasn’t worth the price he had to pay any longer? Was this the rejection he had known was coming - that had to be coming - from the moment he had laid eyes on that angelic face? Why would someone like Paul settle for someone like him? It was the age-old question. He felt emotions stirring up within him, and he couldn’t deal with them. He pushed his chair back, and placed his napkin on the table. “I’ve got to go for a walk. I’ll meet you back at the flat later,” he said, and then quickly left the restaurant. His eyes were filling with tears and he didn’t want Paul to see them, and he truly didn’t want to make a hysterical scene in a public place.

Paul, meanwhile, was incredibly distressed, and was calling himself all kinds of a heel for bringing the subject up at all. Why hadn’t he just let it be, and kept taking it on the chin? It was a small price to pay, really, to have a love like John’s. He was stuck with the bill, and waited in frustration as the waiter took his time finishing the transaction, and then, moving as nonchalantly as he could while presenting a neutral smile to the waiter, Paul finally was able to leave the restaurant. By that time, of course, he could not see John on the street in either direction. John had vanished in the night.

 

*****

 

They were next to each other in bed. John had given Paul another blowjob, and Paul had just reciprocated with another hand job. John was holding Paul’s hand up towards the ceiling, and was feeling it with his own hands from every aspect, getting to know how it felt to hold that hand after so long a time of wondering. John wanted more from Paul. Of course he did. He almost didn’t know how much more he wanted, or what it was that he wanted, but whatever it was, he wanted more of it. He wanted to be able to snuggle, and kiss and hold him, like women would let him do to them. He was even willing to be the passive one in the scenario, if Paul would only reciprocate. He also wanted to pour his heart out, and tell Paul how much he was loved, but those words were banned from his speech. Paul would feel embarrassed and pressured by them, and John would be far too humiliated in the aftermath. Just then, as they lay there, John realized that he’d pushed the boy as far as the boy would be pushed, at least for now, and he was struggling to be satisfied with it.

Suddenly, Paul’s legs rustled amongst the tangled sheets, and he squeezed John’s hand back. He spoke. “Do you reckon this will change things, I mean with the band?” he asked. 

The fucking band - Paul had ‘band on the brain’. Again. “It’s bound to bring us closer, Paul, and that is good for the band.”

“But when we get back, what will we do about this?” Paul’s voice sounded small and insecure in the darkness, and John squeezed Paul’s hand tightly.

“No one needs to ever know,” he said softly. “It will be our secret.” 

Paul was quiet for a bit longer. “And what if it goes wrong between us because of this, then what?”

“Nothing will go wrong between us, Puddin’. We’re unstoppable; unbeatable.” John only hoped that was true. He was actually terrified that once they were back in Liverpool - once the boy’s father, and his family, jobs, band mates, and friends got to him - Paul would change, and would pull away from him. Why would someone like Paul settle for someone like him? Paul could have anyone. On the one hand this hurt John, and made him sad and insecure. But on the other hand, it made him bitter. He didn’t like that Paul had the upper hand in the relationship, even though anyone else looking at them from the outside would think the opposite. John knew the truth - and John’s deep insecurities were harboring a grudge. It was a grudge that only grew stronger, as it burrowed deeper, in the ensuing years.

 

*****

 

Paul half hoped, as he unlocked the apartment door, that John would be waiting for him. An angry John, for sure, hurling epithets and threats, but that John, Paul knew how to handle. The one that was so upset that he stormed off in the night without a word - this was not a John that Paul understood or even recognized. Paul was extremely upset and worried. As he entered the flat, he did a quick search, and found it devoid of John. A hand went up to his forehead in distress, and he flopped down in a chair, his overcoat still on. They’d been having such a lovely time, and he had ruined it. Why why why had he felt compelled to do it? 

There were good reasons why Paul had tried so hard to keep his feelings to himself. Horrible things like this always happened when he opened his big fucking mouth. He’d made fun of his mother’s pretentious attempts at the Queen’s English, and soon after that she had died on him. He’d pointed out after his mother died that the loss of her money was going to be a problem, but it was a truth too far, and his family had been shocked and horrified by his behavior. He had developed a jealousy of Stu Sutcliffe so bad that he had provoked a fight, and then not long after the asshole died on him. He’d told Brian Epstein that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to sign with him, and as a result Epstein never really trusted him again. He’d told Jane to take it or leave it, and she had left it. He’d written a song to convey to John, however obliquely, that he had been hurt, and John retaliated with a song that tore the legs out from underneath him and left his entrails on the ground. Virtually every time he had actually spoken his feelings out loud, something horrible had happened. It would have been better to keep those thoughts to himself. And so here he was, still trying so hard to keep difficult feelings to himself. In truth, he had turned keeping his feelings about John’s treatment of him quiet into a virtue, even as it tore at his self-esteem, and belittled him in the eyes of others, including his own wife and children. But now he had spoken a tiny, watered down version of the truth, and John was through with him. He’d probably gotten on a plane and flown back to England by now, leaving Paul sitting here in this empty flat, waiting for Godot.

After an hour, Paul pulled himself out of the chair, and managed to strip off his overcoat. He threw it on the sofa arm, and then headed for the bathroom. Afterwards, he removed his shoes and socks, but not his other clothes. He wandered around the flat with a glass of whiskey, picking things up, and putting them down. He turned on CNN, and watched things blowing up in Iraq. It perfectly reflected what Paul was feeling at the moment. And still the clock kept ticking.

 

*****

 

On the second to their last day in Paris, John and Paul woke up late - it was after 2 p.m. They had stayed late at a gay bar the night before, and had actually danced closely, cheek to cheek. Paul’s stiffness in John’s arms had slowly dissolved as they danced, and soon he had allowed John to wrap himself around him, (although Paul’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment), as their eyes met and held. Now they were in bed in the early afternoon light, unwinding themselves from each other’s limbs, and making those grunting sounds people make when they’re waking up with mild hangovers. Paul had taken one look at John and laughed.

“You look like a drunken sailor,” he said, and smacked John on his chest.

“You look like the bearded lady in the circus,” John retorted, slapping Paul on his ass. It always tickled John that such a cute face sported such a masculine beard.

They had flopped back on their pillows, and decided not to move for a while. They remained there for at least 3 more hours, every once in a while running their hands over intimate parts of the other’s body. Finally Paul said, “I’m starving.”

“Me too.” 

“Let’s take a bath, and go get something to eat.” Paul was already sitting up, and urging John to move, as John blocked his exit from the bed. Reluctantly, John moved, and soon they were doing their morning ablutions, and dressed up in the cleanest of their dirty nice clothes, and headed out the door to find a café. It was a bit early for dinner in Paris, and too late for lunch, but they hoped something might be open, at least for a snack. At 6 p.m. some of the cafes showed signs of life. They actually finally found a place that was open, and had a light meal (because that was all they could afford). 

“It’s our last night in Paris,” Paul said sadly. “What do you want to do?” 

“I want to go back to bed,” John said firmly and without hesitation. He felt the hours and the minutes racing away, and he wanted as much from Paul as he could get in case Paul slipped away from him again upon their return home. 

So that is what they did. They went back to their little room in the pensione, stripped naked, and got into bed. John then took his life in his hands, and straddled Paul. Miraculously, Paul did not push him away. John desperately wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t have the nerve. Instead he just hugged Paul as hard as he could, and hoped his unspoken feelings would penetrate Paul’s thick head. He doubted they would, but without hope there’s no life. 

What John didn’t know was Paul’s experience. Paul was walking on a kind of cloud. He didn’t trust his footing, but he knew what he was experiencing was life-changing and exhilarating. He knew that what John wanted from him flew in the face of everything he had heard and learned growing up in a working class family in Liverpool, and he himself had heretofore certainly bought into his family’s ethics. Two men making love was a sin. It was evil, and you’d go to hell. Paul knew this. But he also knew that John wasn’t just any man. He was John. And the rules that applied to everyone else just didn’t apply to John.

Consequently, Paul felt he had found a loophole. As long as he didn’t let other men touch him this way, as long as it was just John, he was still “okay”. Of course, it had taken him 10 days in Paris to get to this place of sanguinity, but it was no longer awkward to strip naked and climb into bed with John, while John watched his nakedness with avid eyes. It was no longer scary when John’s hand, and then his mouth, found their way to his crotch. It was no longer strange when he climbed on top of John, and probed John’s body with his own. It all made a kind of sense to the 19 year-old Paul, who had already mastered the art of persuading himself that rules didn’t really apply to him, any more than they did to John; at least not the ones that were a bother to him. 

Consequently, it was true that kissing and words of love would have been too far a breach for him to cover at the tender age of 19, but Paul had at least decided that physical closeness with John was something he needed and wanted, and he didn’t want to examine it any more than that. It would be their secret, just as John had said. And no one else ever needed to know. That such a secret could be a poison pill in a long-term relationship did not occur to the boy. 

John, of course, even at age 21, already knew this.

 

*****

 

In spite of his anxiety, or maybe because of it, Paul had finally fallen asleep. He was sleeping sitting up on a chair with the TV on (sound down), when the apartment door opened, and John came in. He’d spent the last two hours sitting in an English-style pub that he’d read about in his guidebook that was frequented by British ex-patriots, commiserating about love with another patron and the bartending pub owner. The two men were talking about the women in their lives, and thought John had been doing so too. Part of the discussion went like this:

“Got problems with a woman?” The man next to him asked John after they’d sat silently next to each other for over 30 minutes. He asked because he saw John wiping away tears surreptitiously from time to time as he stared into his pint. 

John just smiled in response.

“Me too,” the man announced.

John smiled encouragingly.

“She thinks I’m thoughtless,” he said, “but she’s a bloomin’ mystery to me. I never have any idea what’s in her mind.” There were the remnants of a Cockney accent playing around the edges of the man’s voice.

John snickered and lifted his drink in agreement. “I know what you mean, mate,” he said. 

“They’re so fuckin’ sensitive,” the man said plaintively. “Half the time I have no idea what I even said to piss her off.”

John added, “They take things too literally. They don’t understand it isn’t them you’re mad at, it’s the world.”

The pub owner, who was from Bletchley, chuckled at John’s remark, knowing exactly what he meant, but also - having just celebrated his 30th wedding anniversary - knew a little bit more about women apparently than these two jokers did. “Maybe women think they shouldn’t be blamed for what the world’s done,” he suggested, as he poured another pint for John. “If so, I kind of see their point.”

John looked up at the man and saw the mischief dancing in his eyes. “You’re right, of course. It isn’t fair they have to bear the brunt of everything.” 

“Well, finish your pint, and go home and make it up. The main thing is to always admit fault. Just say you’re sorry, and you won’t do it again.” 

John laughed. “But what if I do it again? Won’t that piss her off?”

The pub owner chuckled and said, “It will, yes, so you’d better not do it again. Aye?” 

John had thought furiously about that as he found his way back in the foggy night to the Montmartre flat. He had left the restaurant because he didn’t want to break down and start pleading for mercy in front of god and everyone, and he didn’t even want to do that in front of Paul until he understood himself why he was doing it. 

Now, as the door closed behind him, he saw Paul jerk awake suddenly and instinctively say his name - “John!”

“Hey, mate, yeah, it’s me,” John said softly, moving into the sitting room, and turning off the TV. He pulled Paul up by his arm, and said, “Bed time for you.”

“John, I didn’t mean it…I didn’t want to spoil everything…” Paul started to protest.

“You did mean it, and you didn’t spoil anything, but let’s don’t talk about it tonight. Let’s go to bed, and talk about it in the morning.”

Paul was incredibly relieved that John had returned, and better yet - he didn’t even appear to be upset! Consequently, Paul allowed himself to be pulled into the bedroom, and undressed, and he sighed as he felt John fall in bed beside him, and immediately move to hold him in his arms. “I love you, Paul,” he whispered. “I’m an ass, I know it, but never doubt that I love you.” 

 

*****

 

It was past midnight, and Paul was restless and awake. Too much sleep that day. He had gotten up, climbing carefully over John’s recumbent body, and sat on the one chair in the room, studying John from six feet away. The next morning they’d be heading back to Liverpool, and Paul felt a little like Cinderella did when her coach was about to turn back into a pumpkin. John was sound asleep, his head on the pillow, peeking out from under a blanket. He looked like a perfect angel in that moment, and there was only a little light in the room from the lamppost directly outside their window. Paul pushed the curtain aside to get better light, and then holding the camera as still as he could manage, he took a photo. It was an innocent photo, a little blurry, to serve as a reminder of a not-so-innocent experience. Paul would cherish that photograph forever, not only for what it showed, but also for what it didn’t show, except in his mind’s eye.


	17. Chapter 17

The next morning, John actually woke up before Paul did. It was very early - only about 6 a.m. John propped himself up on one elbow and watched Paul sleeping. The feeling of love welled up inside of him, and his vision got blurry as his eyes filled with tears. Why did this marvelous person love him? Why was he the lucky one? The thoughts raced through John’s mind. He knew he had to engage Paul in a serious discussion about their relationship, but he was afraid that Paul would demand things from him that he, John, was incapable of giving. It was so incredibly unusual for Paul to bring up an issue like this one - his usual modus operando was to keep his feelings to himself. This made John understand the relative importance of the issue. He had to pay attention to it. And, in truth, it didn’t surprise him. He had always hurt the ones he loved the most. He had discussed this with Fiona, and had been working on that problem. It was only fair that Paul should hear his point of view on the subject, since Paul was the one who suffered most from it. 

Once Paul awakened, and they snuggled a bit without mention of the previous night’s disruption, they cleaned up and headed out for breakfast. Paul had decided not to broach the subject again. All of his worst fears about what would happen if he opened up to John had come true, and he had no desire to revisit it. They ate their croissants and drank their coffee and sucked on their oranges, and then ordered their second coffees. John waited a few moments as the coffee cooled. He then said,

“Paul, we need to talk about last night.”

Paul looked at John with a panicked expression. “John, I’m sorry I…”

“Don’t apologize, Paul. You’re entitled to your feelings.” John worked hard at showing Paul a very calm, non-emotional expression. Paul was so easily spooked, and could so easily retreat back into his shell. 

Paul sighed, and looked down into his coffee cup. “I’m not sure if my feelings are warranted or not,” he admitted. “They just sometimes overwhelm me and I can’t help but feel them.”

John heard this and was humbled. Here was a person who didn’t believe he was entitled to his own feelings, and felt that maybe they were unjustified. Meanwhile, he, himself, believed every flicker of an emotion he had should be writ in stone and immortalized for all time. “Babe,” he finally said, “you said that I treated you in front of others as if I didn’t like or respect you, is that right?”

Paul looked uneasy, as if he were being asked a trick question. John saw this and continued,

“I have talked - with my therapist - about this tendency of mine to blame others for my own failings,” John said, determined to draw Paul out of his shell again. “I know that you have borne the brunt of that tendency of mine.”

Paul still looked insecure and worried. John continued,

“It’s okay, babe, you can tell me what you feel. I promise not to get upset. Last night - I just didn’t want to break down in front of a lot of people I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry for that John,” Paul said softly. “I couldn’t find the courage to bring it up when we were alone. It was wrong of me.”

“I don’t see it that way,” John said honestly. “You’ve got the right to say what you feel when and where you can. Of course, 10 years ago if you had said those things to me at a restaurant the whole world would have heard my response. But we’ve come a long way in the last 10 years, haven’t we?”

“Sometimes I think so,” Paul said honestly. “Like, before the cancer. We were so in unison together; so strong.”

“I didn’t handle the cancer very well. I reverted to my worst habits.” John’s voice was calm and objective and this surprised Paul very much. He had rarely seen the John that Fiona often saw. 

“How does a person handle cancer ‘well’?” Paul said, in strong defense of his friend, John. “You survived it, and that’s what matters.”

John remembered writing something very similar to this comment in his journal several months earlier. John smiled to himself. He and Paul were often so alike, even though they were also often exact opposites.

“One of the things you did when I was sick that I appreciated so much,” John said, slightly shifting the tone of the conversation from negative to positive, “was that you always referred to the cancer as ‘our’ cancer. If that is true, Paul, then it is more accurate to say that ‘we’ survived the cancer. And if you went through it too, then I should have been at least half as supportive of you, as you were of me.”

Paul heard John’s words, but didn’t feel entitled to an equal amount of sympathy. “No, you were the one going through abject misery, although we were both going through hell. I discovered my own limitations when it was all over. It was disorienting, like my inner compass stopped working for a while.”

“I know what you mean. I had exactly the same experience.” John didn’t want to split hairs with Paul. He also knew the real meat of the conversation had not even been served yet. He sighed. He would wait forever if he waited for Paul to bring it to the table, so he knew the burden was on him to dish it out. “But last night you mentioned that I was just ‘worse’ when I had cancer. You said that as long as you’d known me I treated you like - I think you compared it to being a punching bag.”

Paul flinched. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he responded reflexively.

“Why? Why shouldn’t you have said it?” John asked. “Did you mean it? I’m sure you meant it. I saw your face, I heard your voice…”

“It’s not productive to nit pick the ones you love,” Paul said. “Least said, soonest mended.”

“Oh, lord. Is that another Auntie Gin bit of wisdom? Or is it Jim McCartney?” John actually grinned.

“What’s wrong with that kind of wisdom?” Paul asked, a bit put out.

“Nothing, except it sounds absurd coming out of your mouth in this day and age,” John chuckled. Then he became more serious. “Times have changed, and people actually are entitled to have feelings now. People of our parents’ generation believed feelings were somehow shameful. It was a twisted way of thinking.” 

Paul sat quietly for a moment. He felt John’s eyes on him, urging him to expound on the punching bag comment. Paul still didn’t trust that John wouldn’t explode on him, but so far John was being very rational, and maybe it was safe to explain a little bit. Not the whole truth, of course not, but maybe enough of it to get his point across.

“I think we got into the habit when we were kids,” Paul said finally. “You were older than me, and you were the leader, and you bossed us all around, and kept us in line by making fun of us in front of the others. You did it to all of us, and - truthfully - it’s part of why we all loved you so much.” 

John was looking back at his teenaged self, and knew that he was hearing the truth from Paul. He had kept his friends in line by using the sharp edge of his wit. 

“Anyway,” Paul continued, “I’m the only one left in your life - your everyday life - from that period, and I think it’s just a habit. You don’t even think about it. And you probably think I feel the same way about it now that I did when I was 15 or 16.” Paul was gaining confidence now in how he was expressing himself. John did not look anxious or angry. He was quietly listening.

“And you don’t feel the same way about it any more?” John asked the question gently, prodding Paul to continue.

Paul sighed heavily. “In truth, I never liked being the brunt of the joke,” he admitted. “But when everyone else was being treated the same way, for some reason it didn’t bother me as much. But now it’s only me. I’m the only one you treat like that, and it begins to feel sometimes that you can’t possibly respect me if you can say demeaning things to me, especially if we’re in front of other people.” 

“It’s funny, that. I talked about this with my therapist. We think it’s because I know you will still love me even though I’m an ass, and that’s why I’ve felt so comfortable being such an ass to you. The thing is that I don’t believe anyone else would ever forgive me. It’s fucked up, for sure. But in a weird backhanded way it’s a compliment.”

Paul smiled at John and he had an ironic glint in his eye. “I’d much prefer it if you refrained from such ‘compliments’ in the future.” 

“I had that advice from a pub owner last night. He told me to go apologize to you and promise never to do it again.”

Paul looked amazed. “You talked to a bartender about us?”

“Well, I knew we were talking about us, but he didn’t. He thought I was talking about a woman.”

Paul laughed. This was going so much better than he had ever thought possible. “Well, I think a promise that you’ll never do it again is a bit ambitious,” he said honestly. “But I think it’s fair for me to ask you to try to think about what you’re saying to me, and how it might feel to me, before you say it instead of after.”

“Do I get kicked to the curb if I fuck up?” John asked, his eyes warm with affection.

“Well, that depends,” Paul said, his face looking surprisingly serious. 

John was worried there for a moment. “What does it depend on then?” He asked cautiously.

“When and how you apologize,” Paul said, smiling to show it was a joke, but only sort of. There was a very naughty expression on Paul’s face that spoke volumes. John relaxed and felt warmed from the inside out.

“Ok, so I promise to try to think before I speak, but you have to make a promise too.” John’s finger was pointed directly at Paul across the table.

“Oh?” Paul asked. “What’s that?”

“While I’m thinking before I’m speaking, you need to stop thinking so much before you speak. Things are so much easier if you are honest with me, and just tell me if I’m being a jerk. Sometimes I just don’t even realize it.”

Paul relaxed and said, “Sounds fair enough, although I’m not sure if the habits of a lifetime will drop away all of a sudden.”

“That’s equally true for both of us, but if we don’t start somewhere we’ll just go on inadvertently hurting each other for no good reason.” 

Paul laughed. “I agree. We really should have a ‘good reason’ before we go around hurting each other!”

 

*****

 

In an office complex that John and Paul did not even know existed, there were people making decisions that would eventually profoundly affect their lives. They were the editors of a certain British tabloid.

“We’ve laid off the subject long enough,” the assistant editor said, his voice and body language the very definition of cantankerous.

“We can’t go around publishing gossip - from people who refuse to be quoted, and will deny it if questioned - as if it were the truth,” said the chief editor in response.

“We know how to write it so that we are clearly repeating gossip, and then point out that there is no corroboration for it.” The assistant editor was tired of sitting on the story. He was actually actively worried that some other tabloid would push the story first. “This is a big story!” He exhorted. “We are editors first, and music fans second!”

The chief editor smiled patronizingly at the young assistant editor. He remembered what it was like to be that young and ambitious and without any inkling of potential consequences. As chief editor, he had to worry about such things. “We may be editors, but being editors doesn’t give us the right to put the paper’s future at stake.”

“What are you saying? This story will make a mint!” The young man argued.

“And when the Chairman of the company gets a call from the lawyers for John Lennon and Paul McCartney demanding a retraction or huge payout, where will we be then?” The chief editor had been there, done that, and had no intention of ever being there again.

The young editor was momentarily silent. He was convinced that he knew the truth, but he did understand that many people would not want to believe the truth, and would in fact perhaps retaliate for having the truth stuck in front of their faces. Still, the young editor was close enough in time to his graduation from his college of journalism to still believe that his job required him to put the truth out there, even if no one wanted to hear it. It was hard for him to understand the reality of the fact that newspapers survived based on the funds from their advertisers, and that the more people who read the newspapers, the more advertisers would want to pay them. It was an unholy circle jerk that he had yet to become at one with.

“Someone else will publish it first, if we don’t,” he finally said, in a smaller, more chastened voice.

“In this business,” the chief editor said - not unkindly - “sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. Let some other poor schmuck take all the pressure. Then we can report on what this other tabloid said, and do it neutrally, and we’re far better off. You have to remember that John and Paul are royalty in England. In some ways, they are more royal than the royals.”

“Then the Americans will get the story first,” gloomed one of the other assistant editors in the room.

“Ah - that’s even better!” Opined the chief editor. “Whenever we get to report on what other papers are reporting, and the further away that paper’s connections are from us, the more we come off smelling like a rose!”

The meeting broke up, with the younger, hungrier assistant editors leaving with a frustrated sense of being cut off at the knees. They didn’t understand the “Teflon” nature of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, because they were not of the same generation as the Beatles. They didn’t understand why everyone in the press was treating them with kid gloves. No other artists seemed to get this kind of institutional protection. This rubbed up against their young hides like an extremely unpleasant and rough irritant. But they didn’t own the paper, and didn’t have the power to influence the people who did, so they were stymied. 

For now.

 

*****

 

Linda had not been having the best time over the last few years. She had gone from Paul’s Number One to his Number Two, and it had happened so subtly she couldn’t even put her finger on it. The tour. That was it. The “world tour.” The disastrous Roman vacation where Paul was freaking out over John’s disappearing routine. And then after that, John and Paul had gone to South America and something happened there between them. It was as if they had disappeared into a mysterious continent of their own, and she suddenly was talking on the phone to an artificially cheerful Paul, who acted as though nothing had changed when it clearly had changed. Then, after that, John and Paul had come back from the tour and they were like a united front, and had seemed almost indivisible to Linda. Then, the cancer happened. She could hardly make a stink over Paul spending almost all of his time with John while the poor man was sick, could she? Even the bridge she and John had constructed between them during the chemo treatments seemed to have collapsed once the treatments were over. At least, she thought as the chemo ended, things would be getting back to normal. But instead, John up and did a disappearing act again, plunging Paul into a depression, which made Paul go off his rocker and consider having an affair with another man! Yet, as soon as that little drama had concluded, Paul had disappeared into the studio with John, and now they were as tight as thieves again. 

Linda sighed. She was riding her horse on the Sussex farm in the early afternoon, trying to calm herself down. She was extremely upset. She felt betrayed and bereft at the same time. Now John had dragged Paul off for four whole days to some exotic location (Linda did not know where) leaving her in England to - again - deal with the mundane details of their daily lives. Perhaps the worst thing was, Linda knew that had she tried to get Paul to go off on a romantic whirlwind weekend trip 10 days before his Oratorio was to debut, he would not have gone. Linda was sure of that. Yet Paul had gone off with John like a tame puppy. None of this made sense to Linda, who had struggled on her own throughout these torrid events just to keep her head above the rising waters. It was perhaps getting to the point where she wondered why she was still there. What bound her to this life anymore? Certainly her children did; they adored their father and wanted him near them. But all of them except James (and in other ways, Heather) were on their own now. James. Linda supposed James was why she was sticking it out. He was not even 14 years old yet, so vulnerable, and he needed his father. Linda turned her horse back in the direction of the barn. Paul used to ride with her every afternoon, back in the days when they’d lived together on the farm in Scotland. After John Lennon I, and before John Lennon II. It had been one of the great pleasures of their life together. Where had that time gone? 

Later that evening, after making James something to eat, she took a bath. She stared at herself in the mirror and was critical of what she saw. Perhaps she just wasn’t that attractive to Paul anymore? Perhaps if she were younger, fitter, thinner, he would appreciate her more? But deep down Linda knew that wasn’t the case. Paul wouldn’t cheat on her with another woman. She did believe that now. It was just that there was no competing with John Lennon, period. No one could compete with John. It wasn’t just her. In fact, she had done better than anyone else had done in that regard. So, she could sit around mooning about it, or she could get on with her life the best way she could. She didn’t see herself leaving Paul outright, but perhaps they would spend more time apart. In any case, she couldn’t see making any great changes in their living arrangements as long as James was still at home.

After she had gotten into bed, and propped herself up with her pillows, the phone rang. It was her sister-in-law Jody, calling with some unwelcome news about her father.

 

*****

 

The last whispers of the audience died away as the lights grew dim in the Liverpool Cathedral. The nervous anticipation was palpable; it was like a ghostly apparition, sailing around the room. Paul was seated on the aisle, next to Linda. On the other side of Linda was Carl Davis’s wife, and on the other side of her was John. Paul’s children were all there too, along with both Julian and Sean. John looked down the row of seats in the darkened room to see how Paul was doing. He looked thoroughly sick to his stomach. John could see the whites of Paul’s knuckles as his hand grasped Linda’s. 

The last two nights had been difficult. One night Linda had dealt with Paul’s anxiety-attacks, and the next night - last night - John had taken over. He and Linda had compared notes about it that morning, and decided that they’d each been equally unable to calm the poor man down.

John had always known that Paul was capable of deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, although he’d never understood it. Why would a man so beautiful, so charming, so talented, so smart, so successful, and so loved by his family, friends and fans, ever have to feel inadequate or insecure? It made no sense to John, and it never had. Still, this orchestra piece was a huge step for Paul. He had strayed very far from his comfort zone, and even in his comfort zone Paul became neurotic when his work was about to be released. The Liverpool Oratorio was like an album release on steroids for Paul. John leaned back but a second later, as the audience stood to applaud Carl Davis, who was taking the stage in order to direct the orchestra, John was leaning forward again, anxiously trying to catch Paul’s eye. He was finally successful. Paul noticed him and then John smiled and winked. He gave Paul the famous thumbs up gesture that, briefly, caused a smile to flit across Paul’s face. Mission accomplished.

Truth be told, both Linda and John were more scared about this than Paul. They both loved Paul so much and neither of them wanted to see him fail so publicly at something that he’d poured his heart and soul into. They knew how ruthless the critics and die-hard classical music fans could be. Paul was a precious creative spirit. Yes, he had a strong backbone and an equally strong will, but any creative spirit can be crushed. What drove Paul to take such breathtaking risks? And where did he find the courage to persevere even though it clearly frightened the hell out of him? John had wondered about it many times - back in the clubs, during the Beatles, certainly after Paul went solo, and then with Wings... The best answer he’d ever been able to come up with was that Paul was compelled to push himself into dangerous territory. He was like the creative version of an extreme athlete or adventurer. Yes, there was fear, but the addictive feeling of risk and then the possibility of conquering that risk were, in the end, much greater than the fear.

When asked about the Oratorio later that night, John said some very favorable, encouraging words to the reporter who had thrust the microphone in his face. But throughout the whole performance, he had been biting his fingernails, and had been too stressed to enjoy the piece. He had spent much of the evening leaning forward to see Paul’s face, which was always veiled in his ‘bland’ look. That was not good. Paul only got that ‘bland’ look when he was hiding negative emotions. Christ, John had said to himself, I’m not going to survive this night; how on earth can Paul survive it, if I can’t? But he had survived it, and Paul had taken the stage afterwards to a huge roaring ovation, and the relief on Paul’s face and in his body language finally sent a wave of relaxation through John’s body. It was a physical rush - like a demerol push. He was on a cloud, and all the muscles that had been so taut and strained were now so loose John was having a hard time keeping his balance. 

John was standing in the back of the lobby while the partying went on around him. Julian and Sean were hovering beside him loyally. From this vantage point, John could see Paul and Linda with Carl Davis and his wife at the center of all of the attention, being photographed and feted by all and sundry. This was how it would always be when it came to the public view of Paul’s love life: Linda in the spotlight, and him in the shadows. He had just been through a few sleepless days and a very stressful few hours, and the last nerve had been wrung out of his system, so he wasn’t terribly surprised to realize that tears were lining up to attack his eyes. John did not want to cry in public. He didn’t want his sons to see him cry. He didn’t want to spoil Paul’s victorious night. So he did the only thing he could think to do. 

“Hey, what’s say we go and get a pub meal?” He was talking to his sons. They readily agreed. They quietly left the event, John waving to photographers and signing autographs as they left. John and his sons had stayed at a hotel, while Paul, Linda and the children had stayed with Mike McCartney and his family. It was far less awkward that way, and in any case, Mike’s house could barely contain his brood and Paul’s as it was. After the pub dinner, John and his sons returned to the hotel suite, and ordered up a movie. John was emotionally exhausted, and soon fell asleep on the sofa while the movie went on without him. An hour or so later, when a huge explosion happened on the screen, he awoke with a start and then dragged himself up and off to bed. It was midnight when the telephone rang, and Julian answered it because Sean had fallen asleep by then, too.

It was Paul. “Jules, is your dad there?” Paul’s voice sounded worried.

“Yeah, he’s sound asleep.”

“Oh, good. I was wondering where he got off to.”

“Me and Sean and him went to a pub to eat, and then we came back here.”

“Is he okay?” Paul’s voice still sounded worried.

“Yeah, but why shouldn’t he be?” Julian was perplexed.

“I was hoping he wasn’t upset about tonight,” Paul said.

“Upset about what?” Julian was clearly confused by the line of questioning.

Paul gave up. “Oh, nothing. I was very distracted, and the whole thing is a blur to me now. When he wakes up tell him how much I appreciate him being there for me.”

“I’m sure you’ll see him awake before I do,” Julian quipped. “I never get up before 2 p.m. It is a point of pride with me.”

Paul laughed on the other end. It was the laugh of a man who had felt the hounds of hell on his heels, but who had escaped them at the last moment. “Well, don’t want to keep you from that commitment,” he joked before hanging up.

 

*****

 

Paul was unable to sleep. The nervous energy that had filled him with abject fear only a few hours before had now left him tingling with excited thoughts. Linda had fallen asleep as soon as they had finished making love, but Paul had lain awake staring at the ceiling for he didn’t know how long. He eventually gave up, and went downstairs to his brother’s kitchen, where he made himself a cup of tea. Odd time to drink tea, of course, but he’d been trained since early childhood to turn to tea when he was aflutter. He knew the sitting room was off limits, because there were a few teenagers/young adults sacked out on the sofas and in sleeping bags on the floor. Mike’s older girls had given up their rooms for their relatives, and were sharing the sitting room with Heather, Mary and Stella. So Paul stayed in the kitchen, hunkered over his steaming cup of tea.

Of course it was a tremendous relief to have the premiere over, and it helped that the critics had been at least lukewarm about it (as opposed to openly scoffing) while the audience had loved it. But Paul had felt something very important was missing from the night, and it had taken him until midnight to figure out what it was: John. John was missing. He really couldn’t enjoy a creative success without sharing it with John. It took a lot of the fun out of it. But what could they do about it? It would have certainly been very strange if he had dragged John next to him and Linda in all those photos, or if he had clung to John’s arm instead of Linda’s as he was deluged with well-wishers. But the fact that it couldn’t happen didn’t stop Paul from wanting him there, and missing him because he wasn’t there. It pained Paul to think of John leaving quietly by himself, alone. He hadn’t wanted that to happen, but then he had never taken the time to think exactly how John would be made to feel by the arrangements which lifted up Linda while pulling him down. He was thinking about it now, and he wanted the morning to come so he could find John and let him know how much he had been missed.

 

*****

 

“Well, I’m certainly glad we didn’t do that expose that you suggested,” the chief editor said in a superior teasing voice to the young desk editor in front of the whole room of editors and assistant editors. “We would have looked like clueless fools. I think it is as clear as can be that Paul McCartney is a happily married man, and that John Lennon is his friend and creative partner and nothing more.” 

The desk editor was glowering. He had his own doubts about the rumors now, having seen the film and photos of McCartney with his wife and all those children; in fact, the whole huge extended family, including Paul’s brother and nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Lennon had been there with his two sons, but he was clearly not part of the family party. On the other hand, why would he be if they were trying to hide the truth? Still, he doubted that Paul could fake the kind of love and comfort he obviously had in the bosom of his family. Maybe the chief had been right all along. The chief certainly thought he had been right all along, and no doubt was going to make the desk editor pay for it. The younger man sighed, and wondered if it was time to put his C.V. out on the street - perhaps to a tabloid not so beholden to the British power structure. 

 

*****

 

Paul got up early and drove over to John’s hotel. He had the extra key, and the special pass to the private elevator. He let himself into the suite, and saw both Julian and Sean passed out on the sofa, dead to the world. He laughed. Same view he had just taken in back at Mike’s sitting room. He headed for John’s room, and was glad the door wasn’t locked. He let himself in, and locked the door behind him. John was sound asleep - just a big lump in the bed and under the covers - and Paul sat on the side of the bed and began stroking what he thought was John’s back. 

John awoke immediately. “What?!” he grunted.

“It’s just me,” Paul said cheerfully. 

John turned over until he could see Paul’s face. Paul was seated on the edge of the bed and had a mischievous grin on his face. “Hello, you,” John responded, allowing his own eyes to dance with mischief. “You had quite the evening last night!”

Paul thought about temporizing, or even engaging in some more flirty repartee, but he didn’t have the heart for it. He allowed his face to go serious and he said softly but sincerely, “I missed you. I wanted to share it with you.” 

John was deeply touched by Paul’s admission, and engaged him in a long, meaningful stare. Then he reached over and grabbed Paul’s hand, “I wanted that, too, but we can share it now, can’t we?” John’s voice had dipped into naughty innuendo, and he was pulling Paul to him by his arm. “Come on, Pud, climb in with me.”

“Ok, babe, but just so you know. I’m liable to fall asleep on you. I’ve been up all night.” Paul said this as he allowed himself to be pulled down next to John on the bed. John was naked, but Paul was fully clothed. This did not bother John, who sat up and went about the serious business of undoing Paul’s shirt buttons. As he did so, Paul repeated, “I mean, I’m really tired, I’m not up to anything too…athletic…” John was working on Paul’s zipper now, and then he was pulling down Paul’s trousers… “I’m serious, John. I mean it. I’m beat.” Soon Paul had found himself completely undressed, and John was addressing himself to Paul’s naked chest, working his way down lick by lick to the pelvic region… “Don’t be upset if I just drop off…ohhh…” This last was a groan. It was the good kind of groan. “John, no, not now, really…ahhh, yes!” Paul found himself sinking backwards into what felt like a cloud, and when John introduced his tongue to Paul’s erection he suddenly felt a shot of adrenalin. “Okay…that does it!” Paul declared, and he suddenly pushed John backwards, and soon had replaced John in the “dom” position. 

Paul briefly thought to himself that it was surprising how much energy a person had left if properly motivated.

 

*****

 

“I’m writing another song,” John mentioned to Paul as they were being driven to EMI studios for another recording session. It was pouring rain on this September day, and Paul didn’t want to walk for a change. 

“Another one? We already have more than the album can handle,” Paul said.

“But this one is special. It’s going to be really good. I don’t think it will be for this album, though. Maybe the next one. Not sure.” John was thinking about the song he was writing about Paul. He had found a motif and a hook, and now he was working out the bread and butter. It was turning into a cross between a character study and a love song. He knew he had to mention it to Paul, because that was part of their deal. When one of them believed he had a good song in the works, he always told the other one. 

“What’s it about?” Paul asked, his interest aroused.

“You.” John said the word succinctly, and then turned to look out the car window. He was already thinking about the problems in the song, and how he could fix them.

Paul heard the word “you” and was taken aback. He didn’t quite know what to say. Of course, John had written songs to and about him many times before, but it was kind of abrupt the way John said “you”. Oh, well. He would just have to wait until John was ready to share it to find out what was so special about this particular song. One thing Paul did know was that when John said a song was ‘special’, the song was special. Paul had never known it to be any other way.

They rode in silence the rest of the way, each man lost in his own thoughts. John was musing about “The Song”, as he had begun to call it, and Paul was worrying about the sessions. They really did need to make some decisions soon about which songs would be on the album, and which would be cut. If it were up to him, Paul would cut his own songs - there were only 4 of them - because he was uneasy about the subject matter. Calico Skies was okay, he guessed, and if John insisted upon him keeping one of his songs on the album, that would be the one he would use. It was very oblique, and intellectual. It didn’t dip too far into Paul’s painful memories. The ‘calico skies’, of course, referred to the way the skies looked over Liverpool after the bombs were dropped. There were puffs of grey and white and yellow, contrasted against a dark or light sky. Both of them had been born during short, tense breaks in between the dropping of Nazi bombs, and so it was unsurprising that they had both spent their music careers writing about love and peace in all of their guises. Why fill the world with more hate? There was certainly plenty of it to go around without us contributing more, Paul thought. And the start of the song…It was written that I would love you/from the moment I opened my eyes…that wasn’t too telling, because it could easily be about Linda. She was born during wartime, too, although not in between bombing raids. 

Soon they were there, and they went about circling the studio, getting comfortable with it, the way cats do when softening up a cushion to sleep on. Old Studio 2 was almost like their mother’s womb. It had given birth to these talented twins, and going back to that place was comforting to them. It didn’t matter that it was a bit shabby around the edges, and much of the old equipment was being deep-sixed and replaced with newer stuff. In fact, Paul had bought some of that old equipment off EMI, and then stuck it in his windmill studio down in Sussex, since he had nowhere else to put it. He couldn’t bear to think of the stuff going to some rubbish dump.

The two of them had been producing their own album thus far, but they had begun to chase their own tails. It was obvious to the sound engineers that they needed a producer, but none of them had the nerve to say anything. But there was a growing worry in the business office that the project was going a bit astray, and needed to be wrangled before it was totally out of control. For this reason, one of the executives had called George Martin to get his advice on how to handle this delicate problem. John and Paul didn’t listen to too many people, but George Martin they often begrudgingly allowed to advise them. The executive knew that George Martin was no longer producing, but he hoped the man would at least come in and talk turkey to John and Paul, to see if there could be an end to these sessions that seemed to wander off into nowhere. Every time they came in to the studio, it seemed they had changed their minds about which of the 20 songs to focus on and which to leave aside. As he thought of this, the executive snickered. Here I am worrying about an act so talented they have 6 songs to spare! This is a problem others would love to have!

His phone rang, and it was George Martin calling him back. “George! So good to hear your voice! Listen, I need your help…”


	18. Chapter 18

It was July 1991, and a sultry, lackluster summer was upon them. The McCartneys had chosen not to travel to an exotic location this month, even though they usually did. The reason was that Linda’s father, Leopold “Lee” Eastman, was failing in health. Linda had a number of complicated feelings about that. She had never been particularly close to her father, and her mother had died when she was in her late teens, so she had felt a bit untethered from her parents. She was close to her brother and sisters, but the “dad” thing was hard for her.

But because Lee was in faltering health, Paul decided the best thing was to bring the family to the Hamptons for the summer, and let Linda and their children hang with their father/ grandfather in his last weeks. He decided to do this before consulting with John, because it was what Linda needed, and Paul was determined that she would get whatever she needed as she went through this difficult time. But he certainly wanted John to know that he was more than welcome to come, unless he’d rather stay with Jason and Gerry on their Long Island retreat. So one early July evening, Paul approached John with his thoughts on the subject.

They were relaxing after dinner in the kitchen of John’s place. Paul was picking at his salad as he decided how best to discuss the issue with John. “Linda’s father is faltering in health,” Paul finally said softly, as his fork half-heartedly chased what was left of a cabbage leaf around his plate.

“Oh? Good ole Lee Eastman,” John said in a phony hearty voice. “But really, I’m sorry, how is Linda holding up?”

“Linda appears to be holding up, but she’s not really,” Paul said firmly. “It doesn’t matter who you are, or who your father is, it is hard to lose your father.”

John nodded his head in agreement. His own father had died 15 years earlier, and John had never been able to accomplish any kind of real rapport with the man before he died. As a result, he had spent years spinning his wheels while living out the inarticulate rage. “What’s the diagnosis?” John asked quietly.

“Congestive heart disease. At any moment he could stroke out.” Paul looked serious and - to John’s eyes - like a true grown up. Paul was gauging John’s reactions by reading his face and body language. By now he was definitely the world’s expert in doing so. “Anyway,” Paul said, treading softly, “I think we need to go to Long Island to be near to Lee, because otherwise Linda will always regret it.”

John heard the word “we”, and wondered if that included him. He really didn’t want anything to do with Lee Eastman, given their history, but he didn’t like being left alone in London when the whole family went to Long Island. “So, do you mean to include me?” John asked shyly.

“John! Of course I do!” Paul expressed his strong distress that John should think otherwise. “But I don’t want you to feel you have to come. I know that you and Lee never had the best relationship.”

“I want to go where you go,” John said honestly. “If you want me to stay elsewhere, maybe Jason and Gerry will put me up.”

“I think I’ll rent a home near Lee, and there will be enough room for you, John, if you’d like to stay with us. Of course, if you’d prefer to stay with Gerry and Jason…” Paul petered out, waiting for John’s reaction. He felt he would be able to tell John’s real feelings by watching his face and body language. What he saw melted his heart.

“I’d rather be with you,” John said softly. “You’re gonna need someone to hold down the fort while it’s all going on.”

“John, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that,” Paul said sincerely. “And Linda is going to be very relieved. Maybe you can hang out with James and his younger cousins while Linda and her brother and sisters are tending to their dad.”

John nodded willingly, and Paul reflected how badly he had underestimated John. John really had grown a lot, and had started to take on responsibility for things he used to avoid at all costs. Over nine months had gone by since Paul had last seen Rob, and Paul had begun to understand what had driven him to believe - for a short time - that Rob might be the answer to his prayers if John should leave him. Rob had seemed strong and willing to be the grown up when necessary. But what Paul was realizing was that it was his own need to be loved and appreciated without conditions that had attracted him to Rob. But in truth, if Paul ever had actually hooked up with Rob, the man would eventually have conditions, too. Rob was a grown adult, and of course he would have conditions! Paul had recently decided that what really mattered was how a relationship weathered life, and Paul had to admit that he had no idea if Rob could or would accept and overcome the obstacles that constantly threw themselves in front of a couple trying to make “it” work. Rob had never been there for Wes, after all, so what made Paul believe that Rob would be there for him? At least Paul knew that John was there - bloodied but unbowed - and that John would love him no matter what. Of course, John’s love was sometimes the kind of love that broke Paul’s heart, but no other kind of love could send him into the stratosphere, either.

And then there was Linda. Linda had changed, Paul thought to himself guiltily. She was - this was so hard for him to accept, but it was true - bitter. She had begun to resent John in little and big ways. Paul had been trying to ignore it, avoid it, maneuver around it, and/or pretend he didn’t notice it. In truth, he couldn’t blame her for her simmering resentment. Paul knew that he was far more invested in his relationship with John, than in his relationship with Linda. It was the creative partnership that turned the tide. Whenever John worked with him, Paul would become entirely wrapped up in their life together. To Paul, his music was his life, and only John Lennon could actually share Paul’s inner life of music. Linda really didn’t stand a chance in that contest.

It hadn’t helped that Paul had returned from Paris looking like the most satisfied person on the planet, or that he had taken her aside one day to talk about what would happen when the press started openly questioning the John/Paul relationship. It had been a morning after Paul had made love to her, and he had clearly been trying to be present in the moment with her. The sad part was, he had to try to be in the moment with her, whereas in the past he just was in the moment with her.

She had been sitting at the kitchen table drinking her coffee and thinking about this sad reality when Paul had joined her, with his usual bustling energy and cheeky grin. Her heart was swayed by it; he was irresistible in this mood. But there was a lingering melancholy clinging all around her - what the French called tristesse. In her present mood, she didn’t try to change her affect for Paul. If she had to feel miserable, why shouldn’t he?

If Paul noticed it, he didn’t say anything about it. But he probably didn’t notice it, because he was focused on his obligation to discuss “going public” - or John’s idea that they should do so - with Linda. “Lin, there’s a tricky subject I need to discuss with you.”

“Oh?” Linda asked. She managed to hide the resentful tone she feared would sneak into her voice.

“John and I are starting to get feelers from our friends, and there have been a few items about us in the tabloids…”

“So what else is new?” Linda said flatly.

Paul did notice her tone this time. His hurt expression lingered for several moments as he studied her face. Did she hate him now? He wouldn’t blame her. He started again, only this time with far less confidence. “What’s new is that it is getting more and more pointed,” Paul said.

“I haven’t heard anything about it,” Linda said smoothly, sipping her coffee and secretly enjoying Paul’s discomfort. If he was worried about the press finding out about John and him - wasn’t that his own choice? He had made that choice years ago.

Paul was stumped for a moment, but persevered. “It’s in the form of rumors now, in the music industry, or so John believes.”

“Ahhhh,” Linda said with studied indifference, “John says so, does he?”

“Yes, but it is because of stuff that Mick Jagger said to him.”

“Mick Jagger is an asshole,” Linda said succinctly. “He’s always got something bitchy to say to everyone. You can’t base the whole world on stuff that Mick Jagger says.” Linda remembered only too well the mean things Jagger had said about her when she was recording and performing with Paul in the early ‘70s. Although he could be charming when he wanted to be, Jagger had never been someone Linda had trusted.

“That may be true,” Paul said in a conciliatory tone, “but that’s just the point. He is a gossip, and if he is saying it to John’s face, just imagine what he is saying behind our backs. One thing for sure, he hasn’t kept his opinions to himself.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Linda responded, irritation slipping into her voice. “It isn’t as if you and John didn’t know this would happen some day.”

“I just wanted to get your take on it, Lin,” Paul said, his face falling into a pout, and his hurt feelings leaking out around the edges. “If it does blow up, you and the kids will bear the brunt of it…”

“Yes, we will,” Linda said flatly. “But you knew that when you started up with John, didn’t you? How I felt about it at the time, or what the kids felt, wasn’t as important then as it appears to be now. What’s changed?”

Paul felt Linda’s venom hitting him full on in the solar plexus. He suddenly felt as though he couldn’t breathe. She obviously had been harboring these angry, resentful feelings for years, and it had been invisible to him. Reflexively his hand flew to his chest, as if he could make himself breathe again by thumping his chest.

Linda watched Paul’s reaction and regretted her outburst. This was a bad time for Paul to raise this particular subject, but she should have held her fire. “Paul, I’m sorry if I was blunt,” Linda said, her voice softening. “But really, this is a fait accomplis, isn’t it? Whatever happens will happen, and none of us can stop it or control it.”

Paul felt as though the ground had fallen out from below his feet. How could he have forgotten how much this woman meant to him, and to his sense of security? He was now riddled with anxiety. “Linda - do you…do you hate me?” Paul’s voice was so low and deep Linda almost didn’t hear it.

Linda softened and said, “No, Paul, I don’t hate you. I’m just not happy with what has happened to our relationship. I feel as though you don’t open up to me, or talk to me, until you are in despair or in some dilemma. I don’t get a voice in the decisions you make, but you expect me to be there to help you pick up the pieces when the consequences come rolling in.”

Paul heard what she said and was struck by an insight so powerful in its thrust that he knew it was the strongest truth he’d ever experienced. What Linda had just said about how I treat her - that is exactly how I often feel about how John treats me! Was this some weird kind of whack-a-mole game? “Baby, you’re right. I’ve been a bad husband to you,” Paul managed to say.

“No, you haven’t been a bad husband. You were such a wonderful husband, that when I lost you to John I felt your absence all the more. If you’d been a bad husband, I wouldn’t have missed you so much.” Linda’s eyes had - without warning - watered up.

“You haven’t lost me to John, Lin,” Paul said, his voice laden with entreaty, even if it also seemed less than sure of itself. “John can never give me what you give me.”

“And what do I give you Paul?” Linda’s voice was raw, and her face looked ravaged.

Paul was silent for a long time as he watched the beloved face, and saw the damage there that he had wrought. “I never would have survived the craziness of those years without you, Lin,” he whispered.

“You mean, the years without John.” Linda’s voice was actually gentle and understanding now. “It isn’t your fault. You tried very hard to put all that behind you. But he came back, and you chose him.”

Paul sat quietly for a moment hearing the indictment, and only just began to feel a few fugitive twinges of anger. “You make it sound as if this was all easy for me,” Paul finally said, his voice stiff with emotion. “But it was hell. It would have been far easier for me if what you say is true - I could have waltzed off into the sunset with John, and left you and our family behind. John would have been quite happy if I’d done that. In fact, he’d be a whole lot happier if I didn’t love you and our children so much.” Paul had to stop to catch his breath. The words were coming out too fast now, and he was afraid they would get away from him. “I chose both of you, Lin, and for better or worse I have tried to hold on to both of you. I’ve done the best I could…There was no choice that I could make that would make us all happy!”

Linda heard the justice in Paul’s words, and she dialed back her own resentment a few ticks. “You did a very good job for a very long time, balancing it all,” she finally said softly. “But in the last few years it feels as though your real life, your inner life, is with John, and not me. I can’t help it - I miss you, Paul. I’m lonely, and I miss you. I was riding my horse a few weeks ago, while you were off with John, and I was remembering how we used to ride together…” Her words tapered off, and suddenly she started to sob. Her hands came up to cover her face, and her sobs were deep, as if dredged up from the bottom of her soul.

Paul got up quickly and rushed over to Linda’s side of the table. He tried to pull her into his arms, but she was trying in vain to push him away. She finally gave up and allowed herself to be surrounded by Paul’s arms, and comforted by his soothing words of love. “I’ve been swept up in my work, baby,” Paul crooned in her ear. “That’s all that has happened. You know how I do that. But I can do better. I can be a better man, I swear.”

Linda heard his words and knew that Paul believed them all to be true. Even Paul didn’t know how deep was his bond with John. It was doubtful that anyone knew how strong that bond was, so she decided that Paul could be forgiven for not understanding it fully. She allowed herself to be comforted, and soon he was rocking her in his arms.

“I love you, Lin, I love you…” Paul was repeating the words softly in her ear, over and over. After several long moments, they slowly broke apart, and Paul sat down in the chair next to her, keeping ahold of both of her hands. He had already gently wiped the tears off her face, and his eyes were so earnest and accessible, that Linda started to feel strength ebbing back into her spirit again.

Linda sighed deeply and then giggled a little. “I was a little overwrought,” she said shyly.

“You’re entitled,” Paul said, his eyes alight with mischief, and they both collapsed into relieved laughter.

Linda was finally able to say, between giggles, “Hey - that’s my line!”

 

*****

 

“Hey John! Watch this!”

John looked up from his newspaper as he sat under the covered patio, and saw and heard a gigantic cannonball splash. He smiled and shook his head. Sometimes, but rarely, James reminded John of Paul. This was one of those rare times. Just then, James upper torso suddenly burst out from the waves of water and John stood up and gave the boy a standing ovation, complete with approving whistles, which amused James no end.

“Watch out!” A young man suddenly dashed out of the house, sprinted past John, and cannonballed straight into the pool. Water flew all over the place, and some of it even made it to John’s newspaper.

“Lee!” James yelled, as the young man grabbed James’s legs and tried to pull him under the water. “Stop!”

John chuckled, and then sighed as he tried to separate the wet pages of his newspaper. Lee was the 21 year-old son of John and Jody Eastman, and he was having a grand old time annoying his young cousin. Who knew I’d end up here, on Long Island, babysitting a bunch of young people? Linda and her brother John and their two younger sisters were hovering around their father in a house about a mile away, and Paul was with Linda, holding her hand and getting her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. John knew that Paul had done that for him during the chemo, and Linda had generously shared her husband with him, but John couldn’t help but feel abandoned as he spent yet another day surrounded by other people’s children. John and Jody’s three kids were in their late teens/early twenties, and spent most of their time with Stella and Mary, as they were all of an age. James was just a bit too young for that company, and so John ended up trying to keep him company, along with a few of the children of Linda’s sisters, Laura and Louise. How odd, John thought, that all those grown ups actually trusted him to keep an eye on all these children! The world never stopped surprising him. It suddenly occurred to him he should be worrying about dinner for the kids. It was about that time. He wandered into the house. Paul had rented the beach house, and it was quite large. There were seven bedrooms and five bathrooms. In the sitting room, Stella and some of her cousins were sitting around listening to music and talking loudly. John continued on through into the kitchen where he found Mary, busily putting a vegetarian dinner together.

“Need help?” John asked her cheerfully.

Mary smiled and pointed with her knife to an onion. “You can chop,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

“You always give me the dirty jobs,” John complained, but he wasn’t really upset. Mary was so beautiful. She was so like her father - around the chin, eyes, nose and the forehead, anyway. Of the two sisters, Stella had more of Paul’s expressions, including the “stink face” that amused John so deeply, but Mary had inherited the soulful side of Paul’s beauty, along with her mother’s peaceful, nurturing spirit. She was a perfect woman. John was able to be objective about it, although he had no forbidden thoughts about her. He just thoroughly enjoyed her company, and they playfully flirted with each other, harmlessly. John began chopping onions, periodically wiping the tears from his eyes with a napkin, much to Mary’s gentle amusement.

“Have you seen your grandfather yet?” John asked politely, thinking he ought to mention the reason why they were all there.

“Yes, Stell and I sat with him for a few hours this morning,” Mary said calmly. “He seems out of it, but very peaceful.”

“If you gotta go, that’s the way to do it, I guess,” John said, unable to think of anything more profound to say.

“I suppose,” Mary responded, although she didn’t seem too sure. “But I’d rather go out with a roar.”

John looked up in surprise and then laughed out loud. “On first look you seem like such a placid little thing,” he said appreciatively, “but if you look again you can see the flames licking out from under the door!”

Together, Mary and John made some meatless lasagna and a salad (Mary had done almost all of the work, John had done a lot of chopping), and soon the various McCartney and Eastman kids were flopped around the sitting room, eating off paper plates and engaging in a great deal of razzing and gossiping. John actually enjoyed being surrounded by the young people, and lived up to his reputation as the most unpredictable and naughtiest grown up the kids had ever met. They all adored him, and thought he was the coolest person ever, and this, of course, fed John’s hungry ego. He’d already consumed a few beers, so he was in a great mood as the night progressed. It was fairly late at night when one of the Eastman kids asked an impertinent question.

“Hey, John,” teenaged Jay Eastman asked, “Why do you live with my cousins?” Jay had had quite a few beers, and he was too young to have done so, and wasn’t handling it well. The other Eastman kids were equally curious.

“Yeah, why?” One of them asked, leaning forward, hoping to hear an interesting story. Obviously their parents had not told them the truth about his relationship with Paul and Linda.

Mary, Stella and James had fallen into a dead silence, and James had the look of an abandoned fawn as he turned to John. John wanted more than anything to erase that look from James’s face. It was the fear of exposure that John saw on the boy’s face, and he was suddenly filled with regret and empathy. Regret because he was the cause of that fear, and empathy because he knew so precisely how it felt. He had the need to protect the boy, and of course, the boy’s sisters, too.

“I don’t actually live with the McCartneys,” John said smoothly. “I live next door. It’s easier for Paul and me, when we’re working, to be close to each other. But I guess I’m kind of like an uncle to your cousins now, after all these years.” John’s voice was calm and reassuring, and he was relieved to see James’s face relax before it worked its way into a smile.

This answer seemed to satisfy the multitudes, but John was left feeling empty. He was like Saint Peter, denying Jesus three times before the cock crowed. Each time he lied about his love for Paul, a little piece of him squirmed in agony and died. It was the right thing to do, for James and his sisters, and for Paul and Linda, but denying his relationship with Paul to all and sundry was a weighty burden he carried with him always. Would he ever be able to shout it from the rooftops? John pulled himself back from his histrionic thoughts, and answered his question. No. He would never be able to acknowledge his love for Paul, any more than Peter could acknowledge his belief in Jesus, for so long as the witch-hunt was on. John was well and truly stuck in this alternative universe that he and Paul had created for themselves.

Later that night, he climbed into his bed, and settled in with a book. But he was diverted by his thoughts. Before they had left for New York, Paul had told John that his conversation with Linda on the subject of going public with their relationship did not go well. John’s mind melted into his memories.

“We can’t go public, John,” Paul had told him over dinner one night.

 

“What?” John had to be reoriented to the subject matter.

“I spoke with Linda - or I tried to - about the possibility of us going public with our relationship, and it’s a non-starter.”

John’s heart had stopped momentarily with that news. “Why is it a non-starter?” he asked, not wanting to know but wanting to know at the same time.

Paul sighed. He was trying to find a way to tell John about it without upsetting him. It was so difficult to be poised between two jealous lovers. Minefields in every fucking direction, he grumbled to himself. (Paul sometimes allowed himself to realize that he was a crazy man to have chosen this life.) “Linda feels - and I understand why - that you and I have made our bed, and it isn’t fair that she and our kids are the ones who have to lay in it.” It came out blunter than he had intended, but it certainly made the issue clear for John.

“Ouch,” he said. “She really said that? That’s harsh.”

“She was very angry and upset with me. I’ve been neglecting her, and I have to make it up to her. But no way in hell am I going to put her through a voluntary disclosure about us, John. I’m sorry. She’s right. This was our choice, and we have to live with it. It’s our burden to carry.”

John had been surprised by this information. He had always thought of Linda as being above all the childish emotions of mere humans, so he hadn’t expected this kind of push back. It had kept him from commenting at the time, and so he had quietly accepted Paul’s dictates on the subject. When and if his relationship with Paul was finally exposed, John now knew it wouldn’t be because he and Paul had announced it themselves. John’s morale was a bit low for a few days afterward, but he eventually got over it. After all, he really had doubts about exposing himself too, and so there was even a modicum of relief that Linda had pulled the plug on that idea.

 

*****

 

On the morning of July 30th, Linda spent an hour with her stepmother, Monique. She had never really gotten close to her, because she was already grown and married to Melvin See when Monique had married her father a few years after her mother’s death. And she knew even less about Monique’s three sons from her first marriage. But all of the players in this drama circled each other with a stiff kind of respect, as they each awaited the final moment of the patriarch’s life. He’d had a stroke and now it was just a matter of time before he expended his last breath.

“Are you happy in your marriage?” Monique asked Linda sweetly, as they sat a discreet distance from Lee Eastman’s bed.

“Of course,” Linda responded, perhaps a little defensively. “Why do you ask?”

“Because being happy in your marriage is the most important thing. I have been very happy in my marriage to your father.” Monique’s expression was innocent. Linda realized immediately that Monique had meant nothing by it. She was of another generation, for who suspicions about the goings on in the Lennon/McCartney ménage would never have arisen, even as a possibility.

Linda smiled and squeezed Monique’s hand. “I’m glad he had you, after mom died.” She hadn’t really given much thought to what her father had gone through after her mother had died, because she had been so concerned with its impact on her. Then, she had run off with Melvin See, and moved to Arizona, and had Heather…

Linda turned to search the room for Heather, and saw her sitting quietly next to her sister Laura. Linda could not get out of the habit of looking around desperately, whenever she thought of her daughter, Heather. Heather had been lost in the wilderness of her mind on and off for several years. The older she got, the worse her anxieties and neuroses became. There had been therapists, and drugs, and hospitalizations, and horrible break ups with boyfriends, and suicide threats, and a disappearance into Mexico, and in each situation Linda had been awakened in the middle of the night to hear a frightened and shaken Heather on the other end of the telephone line needing the kind of help and support that only a mother could provide. Much of this had happened while John was going through chemo, which meant that much of the stress and worry over Heather had fallen on her alone, since Paul was so distracted. It had been a major reason why she had begun to resent Paul’s relationship with John. She had been there for Paul when he needed her, so where the hell was Paul when she needed him? Well, at least for the last several months Heather had stabilized somewhat. She had moved back into Cavendish, and lived in one of the bedrooms with an en suite. Linda had been slowly nursing her eldest daughter back to mental health, with the assistance of Heather’s almost daily sessions with her therapist, and a few prescribed drugs. The drugs took the edge off her daughter’s tautly drawn moods, and this certainly made life easier for Heather. But Linda worried about the effect of these drugs on Heather’s emotional and creative lives. Heather had always been a child who lived in a kind of fantasy world, and the realities of life had been either too frightening or too boring for Heather. Maybe both? In any case, the drugs had a way of killing off that fairy-like aspect of Heather’s personality, and Linda thought it was akin to a kind of amputation: As if Heather had lost an arm or a leg.

Just then, Paul came in to the room, and Linda met his eyes and he saw the worry there. He moved next to her and whispered the question, “What?”

“Heather,” she whispered back, with nothing more. But Paul understood. He immediately moved over to where Heather was sitting, and plopped down next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders, and pulling her close to him. He leaned in to chat with Linda’s sister Laura, who was sitting on Heather’s other side, while maintaining a strong hold on Heather’s shoulder. Linda saw this and her heart melted. She loved her husband very much, and knew that whatever failings he had, and lord knows he had his fair share, they were dwarfed by the awesomeness of his love for her and for their children. She figured she should stop pouting about John. It was a useless waste of her time, and why should she resent the person who was capable of bringing the man she loved so much happiness? No, she wanted to believe that she was a more generous person than that, and so she vowed to herself that she would bury her resentment and move on. It would just be more abandoned baggage on the side of life’s road.

 

*****

 

“He’s gone.”

The doctor’s voice was like an aural myth. Those gathered around the bed hardly heard it, and those who did hear it found it impossible to believe. But, a few moments later, women began to weep and the men in their lives strove to comfort them. To one side, John Eastman stood - frozen - like a mannequin, in the same position he was in at the time he heard the doctor’s verdict. He was bereft. His father had been a bit hard-edged. He had made as many enemies as friends. But to John, his father was a larger-than-life hero who had taught him how to be a man, how to be a businessman, how to be a father, how to be a philanthropist, how to be an agent for creative people, and how to be a good and faithful friend. He couldn’t believe the lion that was Leopold Vail Eastman (ne Epstein) was gone from the earth, no longer prowling his territory.

“John?” John Eastman was brought back to the earth by the soft, sweet voice of his wife, Jody. Without thinking, he stepped forward to view his father’s face. He looked around the room and he saw Linda and Paul, Louise and her husband, Laura and her husband, several of the grandchildren, and of course, Monique and her sons. Slowly, as if he were an automaton, he reached over and with the fingers of one hand, closed his father’s eyes. Tears were coursing down his cheeks now, and he was afraid that he would fall apart right there in front of his entire family. But then Paul stepped up until he was beside John, and put his arm around his brother-in-law. Paul said nothing, but he was a strong arm and shoulder to lean on, and John was grateful for it. He allowed himself to lean a bit into Paul’s chest for the simple reason that Paul was the brother that nature had denied him. It was comforting to think that he wasn’t in this alone, with all these women and children looking to him to take care of it all. It was an alarming thought: I’m the new Lee Eastman! It’s all on me, like it was on him.

Linda witnessed Paul’s action, and her eyes filled with tears. They were tears of love and gratitude. She had been one of the few women who had not been weeping over her father’s death. She knew she would feel something strong about it later, but right at the moment she found that she felt nothing. Her father was dead. He was dead. And this didn’t seem to impact her at all. But what did move her was the sight of her brother’s grief, and also her husband’s sweet act of comforting her brother. She was proud of both of them.

 

*****

 

John didn’t go to the funeral. He stayed at the rented house in East Hampton, and was entirely on his own. All of the children and their parents went to the funeral, and then to the reception afterwards at John and Jody’s home. John was at a loose end, and found himself noodling around on the piano. He began to play chords randomly, and then remembered - with a jolt of excitement - that he had meant to write a song about Paul - a song that would finally reveal the levels that John knew were there. He grabbed the first piece of paper he could find - it turned out to be the reverse side of an advertisement that he rescued from the trash can. He began scribbling, scratching out, and re-scribbling. The heel of his left hand held his forehead, and the hand itself was grasping the hair on his head. He was thoroughly sucked in to his task.

How could he distill Paul down into an essence that could be expressed in a song lyric? It was an interesting puzzle, and John was energized by it. Paul had always been the lyricist with the deft rapier-like descriptions of characters that captured their essences so perfectly but in completely unexpected ways:

On the corner is a banker with a motor car/ the little children laughed at him behind his back/and the banker never wore a mack/ in the pouring rain/very strange.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been / Lives in a dream / Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door / Who is it for?

Now the doctor came in / Stinking of gin / And proceeded to lay on the table / He said ‘Rocky you met your match’ / And Rocky said, ‘Doc, it’s only a scratch / And I’ll be better doc as soon as I’m able’

Here, changing my life with the wave of her hand /…There, running my hands through her hair / …I want her everywhere/ Each one believing that love never dies / Watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there/…Here, there, and everywhere

And, John thought, if I’m being honest I have to include the lyrics to Too Many People, as well. So many piercing details said in such cleverly camouflaged ways to describe the final breakdown of their relationship in 1970.

Too many people going underground / Too many people reaching for a piece of cake/…Too many people sharing party lines /… Too many hungry people losing weight/…Too many people preaching practices / Don’t let ‘em tell you what you wanna be/ Too many people holding back / This is crazy, and baby / It’s not like me…

John admired the skill it took to weave those painful truths together while also surrounding them with filler language, so as to make it all far more mysterious than it needed to be. And of course, there was the last piece de resistance, which had gone straight to John’s underbelly:

That was your last mistake / I find my love awake, and waiting to be/ Now what can be done for you? / She’s waiting for me

John winced again just at the thought of that thrust. Paul had hit it on the nail with that line.

The problem was, John thought, that he didn’t write lyrics like Paul did. John had to double-pack his words and surround them with a surrealistic frame; he was almost driven - compelled - to do it. It was true that he had written some simple, straightforward lyrics, but they were perhaps too simple, and too straightforward. Obvious, even. In fact, most of the love songs he had written were disappointingly simple, John thought. Paul was the one who seemed to be able to mix quick snapshots of truth with seemingly unrelated (but actually related) mundane images, and come out with something surreal and real at the same time. John felt he could not really do justice to lyrics expressing the essence of Paul without mastering at least some of Paul’s writing techniques. This was a challenge that John wasn’t sure he could meet. But, for the moment at least, he was enjoying the attempt.


	19. Chapter 19

After the funeral, Linda wanted to get away from Long Island and back to her home in England, where she hoped she would feel more like herself again. Her father’s death had thrown up a lot of messy feelings. She remembered when she was young how her dad had doted on her, but as she grew older and turned out not to be a star student, and not the least bit interested in living a typical upper class New York housewife’s existence, he had become increasingly critical of her and her choices. Linda had never confronted her father about this. She had always meant to. But whenever she was around him she had felt herself turning into the helpless bullied teenager again, and she couldn’t do it. Paul had spoken up for her on those occasions when her dad had made slighting remarks; for example, when he made references to Linda’s “zealotry” for animal rights. Linda had always been grateful to Paul for doing so. 

The funny thing was, Lee Eastman had admired Paul tremendously. Lee had been a man who sincerely appreciated   
fine art, literature, music, and the special human beings who created those works. It had been his life’s work to protect these artists’ creative and financial rights from those who would have exploited them. And in his son-in-law he had found a tremendously gifted artist combined with a great business brain. Nirvana! Thinking about it now, Linda realized that her father would probably have respected her more if she had found the courage to stand up to him directly like Paul did, but something inside of her had always shrunk at the mere thought of it. 

And now it was too late.

 

*****

 

The thought of England turned out to be more comfortable than actually being there. It was August, and the temperature was hot, and the humidity was muggy. This was why the McCartneys liked to go elsewhere in August. Linda had kind of forgotten this in her hurry to get back to “normal life” in the wake of her father’s death. Still, she didn’t have the energy or desire to pack up her family and go away for a few weeks. And, anyway, Paul was deep in work mode, recording with John several days per week, and also spending a lot of time in the business offices doing production work. He would’ve worked on the weekends, too, but both Linda and John had put their feet down.

It had been a few days after their return from New York when John had sought out Linda at Cavendish. She was, of course, in the kitchen, surrounded by pamphlets about endangered animals and vegetarian recipes. She was doing some kind of reorganizing of her kitchen desk on this quiet summer morning. John had gone specifically to find her (it was one of Paul’s days at the McLen offices) in order to see if he could mend what was torn between them. He didn’t really know what he had done that had made her so angry, but Fiona had suggested that he would never know the answer if he never asked the question. 

“Do you mind if I keep you company for a while?” John asked with a winning smile. 

Linda looked up from her piles of paper and was won over by that smile. How could a person resist? “Of course!” Linda responded brightly. “It’s a great excuse to put off going through all this crap. Can I pour you some coffee?” 

“Yes, with milk please,” John said absent-mindedly as he got comfortable around the kitchen table. 

Linda laughed. “I know how you take your coffee, John,” she teased. “And two sugars, right?” The question was rhetorical, because she had already dropped in the two lumps of raw brown sugar. She passed John his cup, and then refreshed her own. 

After she had settled again, John asked, “How’re you holding up?” 

Linda knew he was referring to her father’s death. “I’m, strangely, a bit disoriented,” she admitted.

“Oh? How?” John was sincerely interested. He spent most of his time with an infuriatingly secretive person, who had to be chased around the room for hours before he would say even one revealing thing. As a result, John had almost forgotten that other - more normal - people actually shared their feelings openly with others.

“I didn’t realize until after he died all the things I wanted to say to him.” 

John nodded. “I know what you mean. I felt the exact same way when my father died. In fact, I still kind of feel that way. The I should’ve saids…”

“Somewhere along the way I lost his admiration. I wasn’t the person he wanted me to be, and nothing I ever did was good enough.”

John heard this quietly but then said, “Oh, I think he was very proud of you, Linda.”

Linda looked up in surprise. “Why do you think that?” She was nonplussed.

“You brought him more success than any of your siblings. You brought him Paul. And Paul gave his son a lifetime career. I’m thinking he had to know that someone like Paul would not have married you and been so happy with you if there wasn’t something extremely special about you.” John had often thought (bitterly) that Eastman must have felt like a Sundays-only fisherman who had gone out and caught the 1000 pound blue marlin on his first ocean troll. That was the negative way to look at it of course, but then John had felt extremely negative about the meddling Eastmans back in 1970…

Linda smiled and said, “Yes, I see your point. But it still meant that he couldn’t admire me with his own eyes. He could only appreciate me through Paul’s eyes.”

That silenced John, because it was indisputably true. “I’m sorry, Lin. But at least he was there for you. He didn’t abandon you, or sell your story to the papers, or get drunk and pass out on your sofa in front of your child. He could have been worse. He could’ve been Freddy Lennon!” John ended this declaration with a silly grin, and Linda giggled in response. John noticed the softening of Linda’s mouth and decided to take his chances…

“What went wrong between us, Linda?” He asked in a heartbreakingly vulnerable voice.

Linda didn’t pretend not to understand. “None of us lives in a vacuum, you know. It isn’t all about you. I was going through some really bad times of my own while you were sick, and I had to go through them pretty much without my husband. I built up a whole backlog of resentment over it.” 

John was uncharacteristically quiet as he digested this remark. He waited for Linda to explain. And Linda was weighing whether she should share her daughter’s problems with John. She had sworn Paul to secrecy, and Paul could be trusted with a secret, so she knew that John would be clueless about it. It felt wrong to Linda to betray her daughter’s confidences with anyone outside of her nuclear family. 

“It’s deeply personal, John, but I can say that one of my children has been going through a very bad stretch for years, and there were days I just sat and cried. There is so little you can do, really, to help another adult, even if that adult is your child. But as a parent you feel as though you should be able to just wave a magic wand and make it all better.”

John was deeply shocked to hear this. In his mind, the McCartneys always seemed like the perfect family, with perfect children, and perfect everything. Adult, he thought. That left out James, who John privately thought was the McCartney child who would have the hardest time during adolescence. And it couldn’t be Mary or Stella, because they were so…together, and pragmatic. Heather. Of course it would be Heather. John remembered her as a little girl during the Abbey Road sessions, and he had thought she was a bit different, even then. And she was always running off in floods of tears, it seemed, whenever she was caught in a stressful family interaction. These thoughts had run through John’s mind in less than 10 seconds. He kept a neutral expression on his face, though, so as not to intrude too much into Linda’s pain. Instead, he said,

“Does Paul know about this?” John couldn’t fathom Paul knowing about this and not mentioning it to him.

“Of course he knew. But you were going through chemo, and we both thought we shouldn’t burden you with our problems just at that moment.” Linda thought for a few seconds and then added, “And he was there for me as much as he could be under the circumstances. It’s just - there’s nothing you can do but wait for the next phone call. And then when the phone call came, you’re plunged into a sea of fear and confusion instantly and unexpectedly. I went through a lot of that on my own, because we couldn’t predict when the next call would come. It wasn’t something we could plan around, like your chemo sessions. And a lot of it happened when you two were on tour.”

John nodded wordlessly. Paul had kept this from him. He had a secret with Linda. Did he have other secrets with Linda? John felt the stirring of his green-eyed monster, and prayed to himself to let it go. This was a delicate moment he was sharing with Linda, and he didn’t want to give in to his basest instinct to make everything all about him.

“Anyway,” Linda continued, “I was just managing to keep it all together without holding it against you, and then you walked out on Paul when he needed you! You just disappeared on him!” A bit of Linda’s anger was manifesting itself in the shakiness of her voice.

John gulped. This was the ugly issue that Fiona had raised with him, and which he had yet to address. Fiona had continued to press him on the subject, but John had avoided it. At the time he hadn’t seen his behavior as a betrayal, but clearly Linda at least perceived it that way, and Paul had done so too, although he had expressed it far less sharply than Linda had just done.

“I didn’t think about how it would be perceived by others,” John assayed. “I was sort of wrapped up in my own misery, and looking for an escape.” 

“Paul was not your ‘misery’, so there was no need to ‘escape’ from him!” Linda declared angrily. “You didn’t see how he looked after you left us at the airport gate that day in Rome at the end of our vacation last year. It was as if all the life had been sucked out of him.” Linda’s voice was ringing now. All the hard truths she hadn’t told her father seemed to have morphed into different hard truths that she was now dumping on John. 

John sat back, surprised at what he had unleashed. In his mind’s eye, when he had thought about approaching Linda to find out what was bothering her, he had seen himself as a kind of avuncular soothsayer, leading Linda gently through the maze of her “issues” until she gratefully hugged him for being so brave. Never had he seen himself as the villain of the piece. Well, since she was the one who went there, John felt he was now justified in going there too. 

“You didn’t waste any time throwing Rob at him when my back was turned, though, did you?” John asked nastily, his upper lip curled. 

“First, your back wasn’t ‘turned’. You had walked away. And second, Rob was a good friend to Paul when he needed one.” Linda had a stubborn look on her face. Paul had told him that Linda was like an angry mother tigress when anyone tried to mess with her family. This was the first time John had gotten a glimpse of this Linda, and it scared the shit out of him.

“But when I got back, you continued to throw Rob at Paul!” John shouted angrily.

Linda was the first one to pull back from the brink. She caught herself before she said anything more, and forced herself to calm down. The truth was, she had thrown Rob at Paul, but she didn’t know that Paul might be sexually attracted to the guy when she did so. Had she known that, she probably would have acted differently for her own reasons, not to mention John’s. She sighed deeply.

“John, I don’t want to fight with you anymore. Obviously, we all hurt each other. You hurt Paul, and that hurt me, and so I hurt you, and then Paul hurt you, and then he hurt me, and then I hurt Paul… It was all so stupid.”

John felt his blood pressure going back to normal, and took a deep breath. He tried to channel Fiona’s voice through his head in a bid to regain his composure. It worked. “Yeah, it was stupid.” John finally said, pondering whether he should share some of what Fiona had suggested to him with Linda. Why not preview it with her before discussing it with Fiona? “I’m working on this with my therapist now,” John told Linda. “I have this tendency to treat the people I love worse than the people I don’t care about. After I do it, I feel guilty about it, but instead of saying ‘I’m sorry’, I find ways to excuse my behavior. I can only say it isn’t intentional. It is something I didn’t even realize I was doing until I went into therapy, and even knowing that I do it doesn’t seem to stop me from repeating the behavior whenever the rubber hits the road.”

Linda’s heart was in her eyes as she gazed at John. In that moment Linda understood - again - what it was that Paul saw in John that no one else saw. She smiled and reached her hand out to squeeze John’s. “Well, knowing that about yourself is already half the battle.”

“I’d like us to be friends again, although I’m afraid that I will probably let you down again. I won’t want to let you down, but I probably will. I’m hopeless.” John’s smile was rueful. 

Linda suspected he meant every word down to the very echo of his soul, despite the self-deprecating smile.

 

*****

 

“You wanted to talk about my tendency to take out my fear and frustration on Paul.” John was facing Fiona. He had decided that he could no longer avoid the painful subject. 

“Yes,” Fiona agreed. And then she sat pleasantly, waiting for John to put it in his own words.

“We grew up together,” John started. “I used to treat all my friends like that - you know, sometimes being kind, and other times being cruel. Paul and I talked a little about this when we were in Paris a few months ago. He was the one who brought it up. He said that sometimes I treated him as though I didn’t respect or even like him. He said sometimes he felt as though he was my punching bag. I was amazed he said that, because it was right after you and I had talked about this same issue.”

Fiona let that go. She and John had not talked about it. She had told John about it, and then John had clammed up - for months. But at least he was talking now. 

“How did you respond?” Fiona asked.

“Well, we decided that I was going to try to think before I spoke to him in anger, and he was going to try not to think so much before he spoke to me!”

“So, how’s that coming?” Fiona asked. She had her doubts.

“So far we haven’t got mad at each other, so it hasn’t been tested yet. The next time we do get mad, we’ll find out, I guess.” 

John had a sheepish grin on his face, and Fiona was proud of him. This was a very mature realization, and she was glad she didn’t have to be the one to point it out to him.

“Oh - and another thing!” John blurted out excitedly. He was clearly very proud of himself today. “Linda and I talked about our issues, like you suggested we should. We really had it out. I was worried there, for a while, that it was all going south.”

“So what happened?”

John had to think about that. What did happen? “Hmmm,” John said, a confused look on his face. “I think she and I came to the same conclusion that Paul and I came to. We’d both try to do better, going forward.”

After all, John thought, what else could a person realistically do?

 

*****

 

John was seated at his desk, which he had placed near the kitchen in his London home. He was catching up with his correspondence. He had a list of people he wrote to semi-regularly, and every week or so he sat down and wrote a half dozen letters, and then the week after that he wrote the other half dozen. One of these correspondents was his aged aunt, Mimi Smith. 

Dear Mimi:

I hope you have gotten used to your new home. I know this is not what you want - if, that is, life was perfect and you hadn’t become bedridden. But at least now all your needs are well taken care of and I at least will not live transfixed by guilt. After all, as I have told you many times, it is all about me! 

Speaking of me, I’m going to come and visit you for the day a week from this Saturday. I’ll take you out to dinner in your wheelchair and give you quite a spin in it if you like. We’ll shock all the waiters with our risqué wit, and have a good giggle about it later. I’m in the studio during the weekdays now, and it is hard to get away, but I will have some free time that weekend. 

I’m not going to ask you if you have made any friends yet. Only a fool would ask such a stupid question, and you didn’t raise no fool. I know, I know. I should have said, ‘you didn’t raise a fool’, but you have to allow for poetic license when you read my nonsense. Anyway, I’m sure all the old biddies and the frail old men are scared to death of you, and so they should be. Try not to fix them with your beady eye too often, because it is most definitely lethal and could lead to some unfortunate results. I know whereof I speak.

I’m also not going to bore you with the struggle Paul and I are facing in the studio just now. Believe it or not, it isn’t that we haven’t got enough material accumulated; rather, it is that we are suffering from an embarrassment of riches. We don’t know which songs to keep and which ones to jettison. I actually raised the subject of a double album with the Powers That Be, and they had heart palpitations. And the worst of it is, I’m still writing songs. They won’t stop! I know, I know, I’m leaning too hard on the exclamation mark. I know how you hate that, not only in writing but also in speaking. But you were saddled with an extremely emotional and dramatic nephew, and you’ll just have to deal with it! 

I’m doing well, and I look forward to our day together.

Much love, 

John Winston Lennon. 

P.S. See? I took the ‘Ono’ out. I know how you disliked that! “Why change a name when it has worked so well for you?” I can hear that ringing in my ears even now…I know, I know... you hate the ellipses… 

 

*****

 

Less than a week later, John received a letter from his Aunt Mimi, written in what was probably a caretaker’s handwriting upon dictation:

John:

I don’t know why you persist in painting me to be such an unreasonable creature. ‘Beady eyes’ indeed! I have no idea what you’re writing about, as usual. I never did understand how anyone could refer to you as a genius with words. If that were true, I would not have to scramble my brain to work out all of your louche double entendres. Do you really think you are that much more clever than the rest of us? 

To answer your unasked question, no, I do not like my present abode, and do not understand why it was necessary to remove me from my home and my home help Rosemary. We were getting along just fine before you barged in and interfered. I know full well that Jacqui and Julia put you up to it, but that only makes it worse. I hate to think I raised such a lily-livered man, who evidently finds it impossible to stand up to women. Of course, I am referring to your ex-wife at this moment. But let’s not speak of the devil. At least I don’t have to take Julian’s pictures off the walls any more, when you come to visit. She was a viper who sucked the life out of you. 

Why do you persist in imagining that I’m the least bit interested in what you call ‘your recording career’? I have to accept that it has been most lucrative, but it has always seemed to me to be a most undignified profession. The less you tell me about it, the better for both of us.

And what are you doing for yourself? I hear no rumour of a woman in your life. It has been over 7 years since the divorce, hasn’t it? Why haven’t you remarried by now? You’re hopeless on your own, and you rely too much on that Paul McCartney. I would think his wife must be thoroughly tired of you by now. I’ll never understand your attachment to that man as long as I live.

I suppose I will be pleased to see you next week. It has been a disgracefully long time since you last visited. If you think writing me such impudent letters every two weeks is a substitute for your presence, then let me immediately disabuse you of that notion. Is Paul coming with you? I don’t understand why he never calls me any more. It is most hurtful.

I remain,

Your Aunt Mimi

 

*****

 

John snickered as he read the salutation. You sure do remain you, Mimi, in every sense of the word. He resisted the urge to return fire. In the end, Mimi would have the last word. She always had done, and John saw no reason why anything would be different just because now she was in an assisted living situation. John knew that bringing Paul would result in Mimi holding one up against the other. He wasn’t up to the mind fuck.

Paul came in the house as John was folding up the letter. He had been dining with Linda and some of his children that night, and John had begged off in order to spend some time at home and tend to his correspondence. He had already written to Jason, and now had reread Mimi’s letter for the third time.

“Mimi sent me a letter,” John said, an amused look on his face. “Wanna read?”

Paul shrugged and held out his hand. John obviously wanted him to read it, so he might as well. His eyes quickly trailed over the words, and every once in a while a throat chuckle escaped his closed lips. He got to the part where…

“That Paul McCartney!” Paul erupted. John started laughing. “How soon she forgets that I’m the one who saved her from Yoko’s clutches.”

“With Mimi it is most definitely what have you done for me lately,” John laughed.

Paul continued to read until…

“She doesn’t understand your attraction to that man?” Paul squeaked. “I have a name, and she knows it.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t say ‘that mick RC from the council estate’,” John joked as he was reduced to more laughter.

Paul pretended to be insulted. “It’s bad enough I have to put up with your insults, John,” he said, his voice artificially stiff. “But then I have to put up with your crazy auntie too. It’s too much!” John was still laughing, and Paul eventually gave in and started laughing too. “She’s quite the character, John,” he added affectionately. “One thing’s for sure, the Rockies may crumble, and Gibralter may tumble, but Aunt Mimi’s attitude is here to stay! Wait a minute, she wants me to call?”

 

*****

 

Seven levels. That’s what it was about. It was a clever hook, but it wasn’t cooperating with him. He had no intention of writing seven verses - the bloody song would be 10 minutes long! There had to be a solution, but he couldn’t see it yet. It was very frustrating. The most frustrating thing of all is, no matter what he finally came up with, it would fall short of his goal - to describe Paul. How could one mere man describe Paul - and with mere words? Paul was indescribable, and just when you thought you had your finger on him, he disappeared! And wasn’t that the thing he was trying to capture in words: the quicksilver nature of the moods, expressions and feelings of the infuriating man he loved so much? Somehow just saying, ‘his moods are like quicksilver’ didn’t cut it. It had to be more surreal than that…but what? John crumbled up another piece of paper and sent it sailing across the room. Maybe it would come to him when he least expected it, and perhaps he shouldn’t try so hard.

 

*****

 

George Martin had invited them to his home for a ‘quasi-business’ dinner. George wasn’t a sandbagger, and decided he would have to be upfront with John and Paul if he was to retain their respect, and any hope that they would listen to his advice and perhaps even follow it was based solely on their respect for his opinion. Friendship didn’t come into it. He had been surprised to hear from EMI. They had not been on the best of terms with him lately. But George’s sense of love and loyalty to John and Paul knew no bounds, so he was only too willing to do what he could to help. Still, he doubted the odds were very good. Either one of them alone might be mold-able, but both together were…George sighed...difficult. That was the only polite word that came to George’s mind.

When the two men showed up, however, they were cheerful and charming. George’s wife Judy felt motherly towards them, or at least big-sisterly. She enjoyed receiving warm hugs from John and Paul, because they were both such irresistible sexual beings, each in his own way. The hugs gave her naughty thrills down her spine. After greeting her guests, Judy disappeared into the kitchen to finish the dinner preparations. George, meanwhile, led his two friends into the sitting room, where a warm fire was snapping and crackling. He poured each of them a short pre-dinner drink, and then plopped down in his easy chair. John and Paul were on either side of the facing sofa, and George had to remind himself again that they were lovers. As they sat there they looked like pals, just as they had always looked to George back in the day.

“So what’s the business we need to discuss, then?” John asked with an irreverent grin, after downing a sip of his Perfect Manhattan.

“I can always count on you to break the ice, John,” George smiled smoothly. His eyes were warm, and no offense was meant.

“So, don’t keep us hangin’, man, what’s up?” John responded cheerfully.

“I had a call from EMI,” George said slowly, swirling the gin in his glass. “They think you’re both running amok.”

“Me?” Paul was outraged. Everyone knew that John ran amok. But him?

George laughed at Paul’s reaction, while John said, “What do you mean ‘me’, Paul? Are you implying that I am capable of running amok?”

This question was met by a polite silence from both Paul and George Martin, who were looking at their hands. John sat back, realizing he would be pushing his luck if he insisted upon an answer.

Paul regained his composure first. “We have been flailing about a lot,” he admitted calmly. “But it is only because we have so many options. We’re trying to make the right choices.”

“Had you thought of engaging a producer?” George asked quietly. “Not me! I am not volunteering myself! But, there are so many talented producers out there you could work with. Do you think a third opinion would help you make some of these difficult decisions?”

“This is a very personal piece of work,” John said. “I don’t think some third person could really help us make these choices.”

“You should keep an open mind,” George suggested gently. “It wouldn’t hurt to interview a few people, and have them listen to a few of the tapes, and then have them tell you what their ideas are. You may find that it is helpful, even if you choose not to hire one of them.”

“It’s not a bad idea, John,” Paul commented. “We’ve been going ‘round in circles. Even if it isn’t helpful, we’ll be no worse off than we are now.”

“What exactly is your problem?” George asked, openly curious now.

“Too much to choose from,” Paul chuckled. “And mission creep. It was going to be a quiet folksy album with John’s lyrics based on his cancer scare, and my music. But then John wanted me to include a few of my songs on the subject, and suddenly we had too many songs.”

“I wanted a double album, but the suits all had heart attacks at the very thought,” John grumbled.

George Martin laughed. “Double albums are never a good idea,” he said. John and Paul knew he believed that. He had been thoroughly horrified by their one double album, the one everyone called “The White Album.”

“Yeah, so you said. Repeatedly.” John’s voice was sarcastic, but he had a promising twinkle in his eye.

“Well, do you have a few songs that you feel are marginal? There are usually a few of those.” George’s voice was carefully colorless.

John and Paul exchanged a knowing look. Paul spoke. “He thinks some are marginal, and I think some are marginal, but we don’t agree on which ones they are.”

“Really?” George Martin had remembered when Paul advocated for his songs, and John had advocated for his own. They had stubbornly refused to acknowledge when their own song was marginal. Things apparently hadn’t changed much. “So, if you include all the songs you both think are marginal, how many songs would that be?”

“I think there are three, maybe four,” Paul said. “They’re my songs. I don’t think they belong on this album. It should be about John’s experience, not mine.”

“I think we should use Paul’s songs. They’re great. He just doesn’t want to expose himself; the songs are very revealing.” John’s voice was gruff.

Well, wonders never cease, George thought to himself. Here they were advocating for each other’s songs at the expense of their own! These two would always keep a person guessing.

“I was intrigued to hear that you wrote the lyrics, and Paul wrote the music,” George commented. “You two never wrote that way before, did you?”

“Only occasionally, and then usually only for a part of a song,” John answered. 

“Well, it might be interesting to have an album like that, don’t you think? Was that your original idea?” George felt as though he should be given a mediation medal for his efforts that night.

“It feels weird with me doing all the singing,” John said. “I’d feel better if Paul did his four songs, and I did only 10. That’s still far more than him. It just doesn’t seem right to me.”

George turned to Paul. “That makes a certain amount of sense, Paul,” he said, “you are Lennon & McCartney after all.”

“You could help us by listening to Paul’s songs,” John said, suddenly energized. “He thinks they’re not good, but they are good. They’re just very open, and I think he is self conscious about it.” John was leaning forward in his seat, now. He was getting into the spirit of this “intervention.”

“I would be honored to listen to the tapes, Paul, if you feel comfortable with that. I will be honest with my opinion.” George was looking at Paul with empathy. The songs must be very revealing for Paul not to advocate for them.

Paul agreed that George could hear the tapes, and promised to have them delivered to his house the next day. No decision was made about a producer for the album, but at least John and Paul felt that the logjam had been disrupted somewhat, so that maybe, with George’s help, they would soon be able to settle on the final 14 tracks.

 

*****

 

“I’m going to see my Aunt this weekend,” John told Fiona, “and it is throwing up a lot of shit in my head.”

“How long has it been since you last saw her?”

“About three months,” John said, his face a study in guilt.

“I know it was difficult for you to move her to an assisted living situation,” Fiona said kindly. “But ultimately it is the best thing for her.”

“She’s going to give me hell,” John said flatly. “She has never been satisfied with anything I’ve done - at least not that she would tell me. She would brag about me behind my back, but never to my face.”

“She is fond of you, in her own way,” Fiona commented. “That’s clear to me at least, based on what you have told me about her.”

“Yeah, but sometimes ‘her own way’ is a drag for me,” John said. “Sometimes I wonder if she is certifiable.”

“Is Paul going with you?” Fiona asked.

John was silent for a few moments. “No,” he said judiciously. “She doesn’t know about me and Paul, and it would seem strange if we arrived together, no matter what she says. She would have a stroke if she knew about us, so I have kept it from her. She’s giving me all sorts of grief since I haven’t found a new woman since my divorce as it is. Can you imagine how she’d react if she knew the truth?”

“Are you sure she doesn’t know?” Fiona was a little skeptical. Mimi Smith sounded like a pretty smart cookie.

“She’s from another generation,” John said in explanation. “It would be the last thing she would think of. I’m convinced her husband, my Uncle George, was a closet case. She was oblivious to that, too.”

This was news to Fiona. “She doesn’t seem like a stupid woman,” Fiona posited. “It seems unlikely that she wouldn’t notice if her husband was homosexual.”

“Well, if she did know, she was cruel to him about it,” John opined. “She never did treat him with much respect.” John thought about it a bit longer and said sadly, “She would lose all respect for me if she knew the truth about Paul and me. I cannot tell her. It would kill her, and that would kill me.”

“Well, you need to listen to your inner voice in situations like these. You’re obviously not ready to discuss this with your Aunt, and you know her better than I do, and if you think she is not ready for it, then you should follow your instincts. She is not a well woman, and you don’t want to needlessly upset her.”

John listened to Fiona’s comments and felt relief wash over him. The last thing on earth he wanted to see was the look of disgust and disappointment in Mimi’s eyes, directed at him. He’d had enough of those during his teenage years alone to last a lifetime. One way or the other he would protect Mimi from his secret. Or was it himself he was protecting? John pushed the errant question away.


	20. Chapter 20

The attractive apartment block lounged across an entire leafy and secluded block in Bournemouth. The building was made of white limestone, with strong pillars delineating the front doors. This was Mimi’s new home. She had an apartment on the top floor, with lovely views of the ocean. It was a charming bright apartment, decorated and appointed to her own taste and with her own furniture, but to her it might as well have been a prison cell.

“Well! You finally show your face!” Mimi said in greeting to her erstwhile nephew, who met her in her sitting room. In truth, John had been avoiding this meeting, knowing that he was going to catch hell for engineering her move into this apartment. 

“Great to see you too, Mimi,” John smiled, deliberately ignoring the provocation of her greeting. 

“You might as well sit down and have some tea. Doris!” Mimi raised her voice as loud as she could to call her assistant, (who was also paid for by John). “Where is that woman? Rosemary never left me waiting like this.” 

John ignored this. When he had visited Mimi in her bungalow in Poole, he had withstood endless complaints about the limitations of Rosemary, and her lack of consideration for Mimi’s needs. In fact, the endless complaints were the reason why John had engaged a new personal assistant for Mimi. He had made the mistake of taking her complaints seriously. ‘What have you done for me lately?’ is what John felt he should put on Mimi’s headstone when she died. Assuming she died first. Mimi had it in her to outlast them all.

“You’re too thin,” Mimi complained. “Are you sure you haven’t still got that cancer?”

“Yes, Mimi, I’m sure. They tested me again just last month, and all is well.”

“Hmmph,” was Mimi’s response. “I don’t understand why you starve yourself. Your nose takes over your entire face - you look as though you’ve spent time in a Nazi POW camp.” Mimi was in a very grumpy mood indeed if she was bringing up Nazis. “You’re much more handsome when you have some meat on your bones.”

“You can’t blame me for my nose, Mimi. I was born with it.”

“It came from those Lennons,” Mimi hissed. Her contempt for the very existence of “Lennons” was reflected on her face. 

John decided to try to change the subject. “Your grandnephews are doing well,” he said, adopting a voice so cheerful it even sounded phony to him.

“Then why aren’t they here? I haven’t seen either of them since Christmas.”

Well, bringing up the boys was a stupid mistake, John thought to himself. “Julian is in Italy, working on an album, and Sean is in New York, working on an album.”

“Both of them? They’ve both got it?” John knew that “it” was the music business bug, and he understood that Mimi viewed it as a kind of infection or disease.

“I wish they would have tried something else as well,” John confessed. “But these young whippersnappers have minds of their own.” 

“Hmmph,” Mimi responded again. “So, is there a woman I don’t know about?” She asked aggressively. 

“Mimi, I never kiss and tell.” John’s voice was pleasant but firm.

“Why haven’t you married again? You’re relatively young, you could find a more appropriate wife who will keep you in line.” Mimi was bound and determined to be cranky today.

John knew that “a more appropriate wife” meant, “more appropriate than Yoko.” He grinned and said, 

“Maybe some day I’ll just up and surprise you with one, Mimi.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. Surprises like those are vulgar. I worry that you are in a catch basin, swimming around and around with no way out. You need to break loose from this ‘partnership’ of yours and lead your own life before it’s too late.”

John did a double take. There was something in the way Mimi said ‘partnership’ that made him uneasy. Was there a touch of sarcasm or irony there? John wasn’t sure. You never could be sure with Mimi. So often her probes were absolutely blind, and it was best not to react to them for fear of giving the game away. John was silent. 

Irritated by John’s silence, Mimi probed some more. “I don’t understand why you live in that man’s thrall.” Her expression was pugnacious, her chin jutting out and her eyes licking fire.

“’That man?’ I assume you mean Paul?” John was playing dumb, which was the safest way to play it with Mimi.

“You spend more time with him than you do with women, as far as I can tell, for heaven’s sake. It isn’t proper.” 

“He’s my songwriting partner, Mimi. We work together. Work is very time-consuming.” John was getting weary of Mimi’s attitude. He was fighting an urge to get up and walk out.

“I’ve read that you live right next door to him. Is that true?” Mimi was on a mission, and John was just discovering that she might be hot on his trail. He was quite discomfited by it, and bit his lip as he tried to think of a response that would not sound angry or defensive. If he gave in to her provocations, she would know she had wounded him, and smelling blood, she would go in for the kill.

“I live across a mews from the McCartneys, all 5000 of them, yes. It is very convenient for us when we work. When I lived 40 minutes away, back when I was with Cynthia, it was incredibly inconvenient for our work.” 

“Cynthia, hmmph,” Mimi grumbled. John was secretly delighted. It appeared as though the red herring he had thrown into the mix might distract her from her attack on Paul. “I never did see what you saw in her,” she opined. “A rather horsey face, and such a clinging vine.” 

John was trying to picture a vine with a horse’s face, and failed. “Cyn was a good friend to me,” John said softly. “I regret how I treated her in the end.”

“Well, if she’d had a backbone you never would have left her. She should have confronted that awful woman and forced her off her property and away from her family.” Mimi was glowering again, but at least she was glowering about Cynthia now, and not about Paul. 

John sighed. There was no point in arguing with her. Cynthia had behaved with as much dignity as a person could be expected to muster in the face of some supreme insults, delivered by John and his then inamorata, Yoko. John could honestly find nothing to fault there.

“Should we go out to a restaurant now?” John asked abruptly. “I’ve made reservations at the Bournemouth Ritz,” he added. “I hear they make a very good roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.” John had known better than to go to some new-fangled restaurant. The solid British basics were called for in such a situation. 

A great deal of fuss surrounded separating Mimi from her apartment, involving wheelchairs (“Honestly, it is so undignified to be wheeled about…”), the failings of her assistant (“I don’t know why it should take so long to find my gloves; they’re where they always are, in my top drawer…”), the overly enthusiastic well wishes from the staff in the lobby (“You’d think I was on my way to meet the Queen the way they go on…”), and the waiting Rolls Royce limousine (“Why choose something so flamboyant, John? It is tasteless…”). Eventually, however (and not a moment too soon from John’s point of view) they were in a prized table overlooking the ocean in the Ritz’s main restaurant. Still, she fussed. (“Is that a fan I feel? Why is it always necessary to point fans at the tables?” “It is so dark in here. How do they expect a person to read her menu?” “This bread is as hard as a rock. You’d think they’d account for the fact that older people have false teeth…”). 

John ordered a whiskey. A double one. No ice or water. With a tequila chaser. The look on John’s face was desperate, and the waiter understood immediately. Within a few minutes, John’s liquid tranquilizers were arrayed before him.

“That’s an unconscionable amount of alcohol, John,” Mimi chided. “You’ve always drunk too much. Do you have liver problems? Is that why you’re so thin? You get that drinking problem from your father, of course…” 

Now it’s dad’s turn, John snickered to himself. Will anyone be left unscathed before it is over?

“I don’t drink all that much, Mimi. And no, I don’t have a drinking problem.” 

Mimi studied his face severely for a few moments, and decided to drop this line of questioning. “You didn’t answer my question about a woman, John,” Mimi suddenly proclaimed instead, having started picking delicately at her mushroom soup. 

“What question was that?” John asked, enjoying his own soup immensely and pretending disinterest in Mimi’s query.

“When are you going to get married again?” 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get married again, Mimi. Marriage isn’t for me. I would have thought that would be clear to you after my two failed attempts.” 

“You chose the wrong women, that is all,” Mimi scolded.

“If so, what makes you think I would choose the right woman this time?”

Mimi fixed him with her beady eyes, glowing like black coals. Flames seemed to dance in her irises, but it was probably just the reflection from the candle on the table. “You have shocking taste in women, that is true,” she said. “But from what I hear, you aren’t even trying to find a woman.”

“Oh? And who would you have heard that from?” John responded. There was finally some pepper in his tone.

“I have it from Julia, of course.”

My half sister who thinks she knows me so well, John thought sourly. “Julia is in no position to know what goes on in my life,” John said sharply. “She is merely repeating rumors.”

“Rumors?” Mimi asked, her eyes lighting up momentarily. “What kind of rumors?” 

“The kind that stupid people spread when they haven’t got a clue.” John was tired of the game, now, and wanted an end to it. Thankfully, just then, the main meal arrived. Saved by the beef, he thought to himself with wry amusement.

They ate in silence for a good 5 minutes. John noticed that Mimi’s appetite was bird-like, and she was having a difficult time making any kind of inroad into her plate. For a moment his attitude towards Mimi softened. She had a very hard outside shell, but she was soft and weak inside. 

After several minutes, John heard a soft parry. “So it isn’t true, then, what they say about you and Paul?” Mimi’s voice was uncharacteristically uncertain. John almost thought he had dreamt it, but then noticed that Mimi was waiting, her breath obviously baited, terrified of the answer.

“What are you talking about, Mimi?” John asked with as innocent an expression as he could muster under the circumstances.

“Julia told me that there are rumors that you are actually ‘living with’ Paul, and that is why there are no women in your life.” Mimi was actually embarrassed by the question, and didn’t look up from her plate, where her fork inefficiently poked at the food. 

John was breathless. Why didn’t Julia come to him instead of Mimi? Why would she put Mimi through this? John cleared his throat, which was suddenly clogged with some odd emotion he couldn’t describe. “No, Mimi, nothing like that is true. People talk. They apparently haven’t got anything more productive to do.” 

Mimi looked up from her plate, her face awash in relief. “People are horrible gossips,” she said. “I knew it could not be true. That is what I told Julia.” She looked proud of herself in addition to feeling relieved. Despite her constant complaints and criticisms, she adored John Winston Lennon. She had always adored him. And she knew he would never fall to such filthy, unaccountable depths and engage in unspeakable behavior with another man…

 

*****

 

“Woman, I don’t know him,” John muttered to himself, quoting by heart from Luke 22:54-57. John had memorized those parts of the Bible that described Peter’s denial of Christ, because they felt all too real to him. At times like these they repeated endlessly in his mind an accusing refrain about cowardice.

John was being driven back up to London, having finally deposited the querulous Mimi back to the tender mercies of poor Doris (“You needn’t have stayed up, girl! I’m fine on my own! Watch what you’re doing! You almost dropped me!”). John figured he’d have to find a new assistant for Mimi soon. Maybe Rosemary was still available?

But, John thought, dragging himself back to St. Peter, was it really cowardice - what he had done? John felt that he had been driven by cowardice, at least to an extent, but his reassurance of Mimi was also an act of kindness. Nothing would have been gained by telling the truth to Mimi. She was too set in her ways, too much a child of her own times, to ever understand the love two men could have for one another. And, for all John knew, she still harbored resentment of her long dead husband’s sexual orientation. Consequently, that kind of love would always seem not only obscene but also avoidable to her. If only he could find the right woman… And John knew, too, that Mimi would be filled with disgust and disappointment and this would affect her opinion of him, but ultimately the true victim of her prejudice and hatred would be Paul. He would become the ‘devil’, just as Yoko had. He would become the horsey-faced clinging vine like Cynthia. In Mimi’s world it was always someone else’s fault when John let her down. John had never been bothered too much by this when she was attacking Cynthia and Yoko. He had told his wives to brush it off, ignore it, ‘that’s just Mimi’. But John knew if Mimi started in on Paul, he would go after her with all guns blazing. No one would be allowed to denigrate Paul in his hearing! And he really didn’t want to end his relationship with Mimi that way. Having seen her lack of appetite, and the frailness of her limbs, he had come away knowing that her death was not far away. Blissful ignorance was what she needed now, more than anything else.

 

*****

 

“How was she?” Paul asked carefully, having already assessed John’s body language and expression. Obviously, the visit had been an ordeal. 

“Still full of piss and vinegar,” John answered, “but she’s not long for this world. Very weak, very frail, barely could eat. Her spirit and her attitude are stronger than her body.” 

Paul nodded slightly, understanding John’s fear of impending loss. He had been there often enough while he had been nursing John through the cancer and had feared the worst. “Did you have a good time, at least?” Paul asked tentatively. He knew he was on iffy ground, and didn’t want to put a foot wrong.

John sighed. “My sister, Julia, has filled her with gossip,” he said in a bleak, forsaken voice.

“Oh?” Paul asked. That didn’t sound good.

“She asked about us,” John said bluntly.

Paul was silent, waiting for the next shoe to drop. 

“She asked me if it was true.” 

Paul was still silent. This was John’s story to tell, and he wasn’t going to rush it. 

“I told her it was not true.” This time John’s eyes met Paul’s and were beseeching him for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Paul. I just couldn’t break her heart that way.”

Paul felt tears threatening, and immediately rushed to envelope John in a fierce hug. He whispered in John’s ear, “Good for you, Johnny. There’s a difference between honesty and cruelty.”

 

*****

 

George Martin took his earphones off, and sat back in his chair. He had been sincerely moved by Paul’s songs. He understood Paul’s resistance to publishing them. They were too close to his raw feelings, and he clearly was not ready to share them. George would have a quiet talk with John, and suggest that he allow Paul to live with the songs for a while, put some distance between himself and them, instead of forcing him to publish them before he was emotionally prepared to do so. Eventually, George felt, Paul would want to publish them, because he was a true artist, and he could not bear to let his works of art die on the vine. John needed to be patient, and it would all work out in the end. 

That settled the main problem. This meant they only had two songs that needed to be eliminated to get down to the final 14. George’s next move would be to ask John if he could listen to those 16 songs so he could proffer his opinion on them to John and Paul. He sighed and picked up his book. He had been reading about the Nazi Ardennes offensive of December 1944. But as he read, Paul’s haunting music, words and voice singing ‘Calico Skies’ danced in his head.

 

*****

 

Thanksgiving had snuck up on them again. This was Linda’s big holiday, where she went all out and invited all their closest British friends to a traditional American dinner. The fact that the tradition dated back to the colonists who later revolted in order to overthrow their British relatives seemed to have escaped Linda’s knowledge, or at least it didn’t dampen her hospitality.

Of course, in Linda’s version of the tradition there were no turkeys, chickens or ducks. If this bothered any of her guests, they were too polite to say so. Linda had enlisted her daughters to help her cook the massive dinner. They had over 20 guests this year, and it promised to be a humdinger. Even Heather had been enlisted. Her specialty had always been the pastries and bread, so Linda put her to work on the pumpkin pie crust and the dinner rolls. Linda was exhilarated as she worked, because Heather was in a brilliant mood, and it made Linda’s heart hum like nothing else ever could. 

Among the guests were the other Beatles and their American wives. Linda thought how strange it was that the Beatles all had English women as their first wives/girlfriends, and all ended up with American women as their second wives/girlfriends. It was easy to feel bigheaded about it as an American, she guessed, but she had always thought it had more to do with the way American girls were raised in the ‘40s and ’50s as opposed to the way British girls were raised in that time period. American girls in that time period were raised by women who had worked hard in men’s professions during the War, and were in no mood to be overshadowed upon their husbands’ return. Although they were all fired from their jobs in favor of the returning veterans, their independent fervor had not been quelled. They had given birth to children in unprecedented amounts, but had raised their daughters to be college-educated, independent, and to feel equal to men. The GI fathers had doted on their daughters, and had encouraged them to excel academically, and not to settle for just any man. Feminism was the unexpected (by their parents) by-product of this post-War “baby boom”, and by the mid-sixties American women had taken the reins and run away with them willy-nilly, burning bras and occupying dean's offices, much to the surprise and horror of their fathers. Certainly they had never expected that to happen, or they never would have agreed to their college educations and jobs! 

Into this swarm of independent, educated and sexually experimenting women wandered the Beatles. By the ‘70s the four Liverpudlians had decided that the brasher, sassier women from America were just up their alley. And, in truth, if a woman didn’t have chutzpah, a hide of leather, and a zone-like determination, they weren’t going to make it through the many layers of protection around the Beatles that had been erected by then. Thus, only the really pushy and shameless ones, the Yoko Onos and the Linda Eastmans, made it through the barriers. 

Linda knew she had been pushy. She had gone to London in search of Paul McCartney. She had cornered him in the Bag ‘o Nails nightclub (funny how he thought that he had cornered her). She later attached herself to him again after she had wheedled her way into the Sgt. Pepper press conference. But he had proved to be a tough nut to crack. Soon he was on to other women, saving his real affection for his absent lover, Jane Asher, and - now Linda understood - his true soul mate, John Lennon. Linda had been surprised at how quickly she had been fucked and left, despite her stash of primo pot that Paul had excitedly enjoyed, and even though she hung around in the area for a while. Jane Asher was coming back, and Paul had cleared his house of hangers-on, and had disappeared back into his respectable relationship with the red-haired British actress. Linda had felt used and thrown away, so she had flown back to New York, and then to Los Angeles to throw herself into her photographic career. It had all seemed so hopeless, because at the end of the summer, Linda had seen photographs of Paul vacationing in Greece with Jane Asher, and in December of 1967 Paul had announced his engagement to marry the woman.

Linda had not forgotten Paul, of course. She had felt a connection with him that she had not expected to feel. He was a sensual man with warm, mischievous eyes and a deeply nuanced sexuality, but also a masculine strength. He was definitely in charge, and although he was gentle and kind, he was no one’s pushover. When you were in bed with him - his eyes and hands on you - you knew that there was no other lover who could replace him. She had gone to London to “get” him because he was a Beatle, because it was a way to show the girls back home that she was not the loser they thought she had been in high school, and to prove to her father she had all the right stuff. She had not expected to feel so deeply touched by the man, to the point that she craved the moment he would hold her in his arms again. 

So Linda had kept her iron in the fire. Every month or so she would send Paul a little gift, designed to capture his heart. Each gift would be like a piece to a puzzle, and when he put the puzzle together she hoped that he would see her heart. While she had been in London in the spring and summer of 1967, she had befriended Peter Brown, who worked in the Apple offices, and her gifts would get to Paul through Peter. But when Paul and Jane had gone with the other Beatles to India, it was as if he had dropped off the face of the earth. She began to lose faith that the connection she had felt with Paul was returned by him. She had understood before that he had thousands of women throwing themselves at him, and hundreds that he had slept with, and so of course he wouldn’t automatically realize that in her he had found the “right one”, but as the months went by Linda lost hope. She’d made her bold play, and it had not worked. 

It was the May 1968 trip to New York to promote the new Apple Corp. enterprises that had been Linda’s salvation. She knew they were coming to New York before they landed, because of her press pass and her contacts in the music business, so she was at the airport with her camera to greet John, Paul and the weird “Magic” Alex upon their arrival. She had shouted to Paul as he walked past, “Remember me?” She had managed to catch Paul’s eye with this coy question, and he had smiled in recognition. Whether he recognized her or not, he was interested in the bold blond. As he approached her vicinity, she handed him her phone number. He reached out and grabbed it quickly and kept moving. Her heart had been beating loudly as she watched him vanish in the clamoring crowd.

“Mom, I think we’re running out of butter!” Heather’s worried voice broke through Linda’s unvarnished memories. 

Linda’s mind snapped back to her late 1991 reality. “There’s more in the larder fridge,” she said succinctly. And indeed there was. Linda never allowed her stores to fall short. 

 

*****

The crowd was laughing and their voices were cheerful as they consumed Linda’s hors d’oeuvres and imbibed Paul’s cocktails and wines. Linda had invited Cynthia and Julian, and Sean was there, too, and John sat with the fragments of his two families and appreciated their presence as well as their company. 

“I heard from your sister Julia that Mimi is very ill,” Cynthia eventually said, softly.

“Is that true?” Julian asked, alarmed. Mimi had always been lovely to him, and had been perhaps the only person in Julian’s life, other than his mother, who had appeared to favor him over Sean. 

“Julia has a busy mouth,” John joked. “She’s like a bee flitting from flower to flower, germinating everything in sight.”

Cynthia had no idea what John was talking about, but that was nothing unusual. John often spoke out loud thoughts that others would have kept to themselves. She decided not to pursue that line of inquiry.

“I was in the Liverpool area to visit my friends, and I dropped by to see Julia, and asked after Mimi. She told me Mimi is living in assisted living in Bournemouth?” Cynthia wanted to exonerate Julia from John’s accusation of busybody-ness.

“Yeah, Julia and Jacqui told me that Mimi was having falls, and not getting enough liquids. So we moved her to Bournemouth. It’s a great place - I wouldn’t mind to retire there - but she behaves as though it were a concentration camp.”

Cynthia laughed. “She would,” she said between giggles. Sobering up, she asked, “Is it true that she is ill, though?”

Julian and Sean were listening with wide eyes and equally wide ears. Their father had not filled them in on their great aunt’s condition.

“She is very weak, very frail,” John responded. “But she is as ornery as ever. I saw her last month, and she kept up a steady line of criticism of everyone she had ever known or met in her entire life.”

Cynthia laughed. “Oh? I assume that included me?”

“Yeah, apparently you’ve got a kind of horsey face, and are a clinging vine.” 

Cynthia laughed heartily, even though Julian was infuriated-by-proxy at this insult. Cynthia said, “When I lived with her she was horrible. I could do nothing right. But after you left me, and were with Yoko, she treated me as if I were the second coming of Christ.”

John laughed, too. It was great to have this old friend in his life; a person who remembered and understood all the people John remembered from the old days. It was Paul and Cynthia, and Pete Shotton, with whom he still corresponded. Oh, and George Harrison too, of course. But George was not much in John’s life anymore. John shrugged that thought off as he looked across the room and saw George in deep conversation with Neil Aspinall, another of the evening’s guests. 

“Don’t worry, Cyn. He had much worse things to say about Yoko, and Paul, and my father.” 

Sean’s head jerked up at the mention of his mother’s name. It bothered him when his father spoke carelessly about his mother. Yes, he knew the divorce had been bitter, but it seemed to Sean that Paul was far more polite to his mother, and more understanding of Sean’s love for his mother, than his own father was. 

“I don’t worry about what Mimi says,” Cyn said with sympathetic warmth. “She loves you more than anything else, and so of course the rest of us are not worthy of you.”

Sean took a quick look at Cynthia. She had said a very kind thing about Mimi, and if you spun the thing out, it was also a kind thing about his mother. He smiled warmly at Cynthia, who smiled back and winked. 

 

*****

 

Across the room, George Harrison was chatting with Neil Aspinall. After the usual small talk about each other’s wives and children and work lives, Neil settled on a more controversial subject.

“Every time I turn around, someone is whispering in my ear that John and Paul are more than just friends and partners. Is that happening to you?”

George heard Neil’s question, and realized that Neil was not among the cognoscenti in John and Paul’s world. George was certainly not going to be the one to let the cat out of the bag.

“Yeah, there are always these stupid people coming to me, and poking around, asking about them. It’s ridiculous.” George’s voice married the right amount of casual disinterest with indignant righteousness.

“It sounded completely stupid to me, too,” Neil said, relieved to hear George’s response. “I’ve known them both since we were all teenagers. I never saw anything like that!”

“Neither did I,” George said, honestly. He loved Neil, and he knew he was a close friend of all of them, but he was outside the innermost circle, and the bond between the innermost circle (Ringo, John, Paul and him) was unbreakable. There were things they shared with their close friends and families, and then there were things the four of them shared only between them as deep, dark secrets. And this was one of them. These secrets had survived betrayals, and lawsuits, and deep aching separations. George had no intention of breaking that bond now.

 

*****

 

Linda had finally finished the garnishes on her platters, and had directed her daughters on where and how to arrange the platters on the long dining table and sideboard. She went to the sink to wash her hands, and as she did so she found herself wandering back, in her memory, to 1968. 

Linda had waited by her phone, in turns expectant and defeated. It was late the next day when it finally rang.

“Is this Linda?” came the deep, sexy, British voice.

“Yes, who’s this?” She asked, pretending ignorance.

“This is Paul McCartney. You gave me your number at the airport.”

“Oh! Of course! Paul! I’m so pleased you called me!” 

“I was wondering if you wanted to come over tonight?”

“Of course I would. When and where?”

“It will have to be late, because John and I have plans until about midnight. We’re staying at a friend of ours’ place.” He gave Linda the address. 

“I look forward to seeing you again,” Linda said in her sexiest voice.

Paul chuckled on the other end. “I look forward to you looking forward,” he joked. And then they both hung up at the same time. 

Of course, when Linda got there, the guard at the door was not interested in her claim that Paul had invited her.

“Yeah, you and every other woman in New York, lady,” he drawled in his Brooklyn accent.

“Call him and ask!” Linda challenged him. “He will be upset with you if you don’t let me through!” 

“I’ll take that risk,” the guard smirked.

Linda said, “I don’t have time for this.” She pushed him aside and marched past him, and up the stairs. The guard followed after her, but Linda was already banging on the apartment door. Paul opened it.

“Linda! I’m glad you made it!”

Linda turned to the guard and gave him a victorious grin. He shrugged and went back to the front door.

Paul invited her in, and then Linda dug into her purse and gave Paul a bright smile. “I’ve brought some great stuff!” She pulled a bag of primo marijuana out of her purse, and Paul’s face danced with delight. 

“John!” He called loudly. “We’ve got some primo stuff!”

A rumbled John Lennon came out of a bedroom, and barely noticed Linda. He grabbed some pot, and some rolling papers, and said, “Thanks, me and mine will enjoy this I’m sure,” and he disappeared into the bedroom again. Linda noted that a woman was sitting up in the bed, as could be glimpsed through the open door before John shut it again.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Paul suggested with naughtily lifted eyebrows. 

They had rolled and lit a couple of blunts, and then stripped naked and cuddled in the bed as they smoked. 

“Do you really remember me?” Linda asked, skeptical that he had any memory at all of their meeting a whole year earlier.

“Of course I do,” Paul said, slightly indignant. His ability to be indignant was thwarted by the effects of the pot, however. “You’re the one at the Bag ‘o Nails. I stopped you from leaving. I don’t know why. There was something about you…”

Linda was dumbfounded. He really did remember her and the connection she had felt. He had felt it too! 

Paul allowed another puff of mary jane smoke to escape his mouth. “It must have been magic,” he added.


	21. Chapter 21

Instead of carving a turkey, Paul would instead cut Linda’s special tofu turkey, which was filled in the center with one of her specialty stuffings. She had found a way to infuse the creation with the seasonings and spices that were usually used with turkey, and the meal was able to give the slightly wan impression of a real turkey. Everyone was happy to at least experiment by trying it, and most of them were pleasantly surprised with how it tasted, and how filling it was.

Ringo was eating his meal when George Harrison approached him. After a few niceties, George said, “Neil doesn’t know about John and Paul.” George meant it as a kind of warning to Ringo not to let the secret slip, but also because he wanted someone safe to talk to about it. He was always cutting off his wife’s attempts to discuss the subject, because his loyalty to John and Paul went even deeper than his loyalty to his wife - at least when it came to the secrets the four men had always protected from the world.

Ringo’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth and his eyebrows lifted up towards his hairline for a few telling seconds. But then he swallowed the food, and said, “I’m amazed that they’ve kept it secret this long.”

George nodded and said, “I would have thought the tabloid press was more on top of things than this.” He grinned quickly, and then played with his own plate of food.

“Actually,” Ringo said, “It shouldn’t matter to anyone one way or the other. It’s our music that is for sale, not our lives…”

George nodded. “I still feel bad about Neil. I think he would be okay with it if he knew.”

“Not our story to tell,” Ringo said firmly. “Our story is we see nothing, we hear nothing, we say nothing, and we know nothing.”

George couldn’t argue with Ringo’s precise assessment, and dropped the subject. It was what it was.

But Ringo had thought about what George had said, and later in the evening approached John. Somehow he had divined that John was more open to discussing the situation than was Paul. He actually managed to squeeze in next to John on a sofa, and John - a little blissed by the alcohol - put his arm around Ringo, and leaned in to expel the breathe of alcohol all over Ringo’s face.

“How ya doin’ mate?” John asked sloppily.

Maybe John wasn’t the right one to approach, Ringo thought, and immediately abandoned his idea of broaching the subject of Neil with John. He sat there trying to have a coherent conversation with the drunk John, and finally managed to get away. He saw Paul chatting with George Martin across the room.

 

*****

 

“I really enjoyed listening to your songs - the ones that John wrote, and you composed. I think they are extraordinary.” George Martin had to speak directly into Paul’s ear because of the noisiness of the happy crowd.

“What did it remind you of?” Paul asked in return, also speaking directly into George Martin’s ear.

George smiled. “Rubber Soul, a bit,” he said with a modest smile.

“Bingo!” Paul responded. “Do you think the cuts are ready?”

“Yes, almost, and I have some ideas on which two you should leave off,” George said into Paul’s ear.

“Oh, thank the lord!” Paul shouted gleefully, reducing George Martin to laughter. “John and I are so tired of it all, and so immune to the music, that we’ve just thrown our arms up in despair! Go find John and tell him! He’ll be so relieved!”

Just then Ringo approached them. He gave first George Martin, and then Paul, huge loving hugs. He turned to Paul and said, “When you get a minute, can we talk?”

George overheard this and said, “I’m just leaving. I’ve got to find John.”

Ringo said, “He’s over there on the blue sofa,” and George Martin nodded in thanks and wandered off in that direction.

“What’s up?” Paul asked in his businesslike, cheerful way.

“Can we go somewhere quieter, so we can talk without shouting?” Ringo asked.

Paul nodded, and led the way to his study. No one was in there. He shut the door and headed towards his liquor cabinet. “Whiskey?” he asked. Ringo nodded in the affirmative, and chose the less worn out chair to sit down in. Paul was soon there, handing him his tumbler, and then sitting in the other, more worn out, chair. “So - what’s up?” Paul asked again.

“Neil Aspinall,” Ringo said flatly, getting right to the point.

“What about Neil?” Paul asked, his heart beating quickly. He was afraid that Ringo was about to tell him that Neil was sick, or near death, or some other horrible thing…

“George - our George - told me that Neil had asked if the rumors about you and John were true.” Ringo laid it out cleanly, and then shut up and watched Paul’s face.

“Shit.” Paul said. A few seconds went by before Paul spoke again. “It is like the tangled web - it just gets bigger and bigger, no end in sight.”

Ringo’s expression became empathetic. He waited for more.

“Neil is one of my oldest friends. I’ve known him since I was 13. The Inny, you know.” Paul’s eyes were tearing up, Ringo noticed.

“He’ll be okay with it, Paul,” Ringo said solidly. “It isn’t right to keep him - of all people - in the dark. George kept up the party line when he spoke to Neil, but I think Neil deserves to hear it from you and John so he doesn’t go around denying it to others, only to feel betrayed later if it all comes out. He can be trusted to keep the secret.”

Paul nodded. “Of course. You’re right. I have to talk to John, of course, but I’m sure he’ll be okay with it.” He stopped to think for a few moments, and then said, “There are so many people we love, and who we should share this with, but we’ve spent our entire adult lives hiding it. It just takes one person to strip us of our privacy. It’s hard…”

Ringo smiled. “I understand. But Neil is one person who can be trusted, and who has a right to know. He is the President of Apple, after all, and has devoted his life to us.” 

 

*****

 

Of course, Ringo could not let the opportunity to importune George on the Anthology issue go to waste. Both George and Neil were there, and so after talking to Paul, Ringo dragged Neil over to where George was seated, trying to chat up one of Mary McCartney’s girlfriends. Honestly! Ringo thought. George had no sense of decorum whatsoever. His wife was just 20 feet away!

“George, Neil and I want to talk to you about the Beatles documentary,” Ringo said determinedly.

“This is a party, Ritchie, not the right time…” George started.

Ringo was having none of it. “You’ve always got some kind of excuse, George, and this is important.”

“Not everyone is hurting for money, Ritchie.” George was being his own insensitive self.

Neil Aspinall had winced at George’s comment and tone. Why did these four always insist upon dragging him into their ugly internecine battles? They all expected him to be on their sides! He was only one person, and his obligation - as President of Apple - was to do what was best for the company, and not what was best for the individuals John or Paul or George or Ringo. They were all so bigheaded with strong feelings of self-entitlement, and Neil often felt he was being squeezed from all sides. At least John was back in Paul’s camp again - like before Yoko Ono - and Neil knew that those two were, again, on one page. And in this instance Ringo was on their side. So George was the bumpy road. He was obviously going to make the others grovel, and even after that he might not agree to the project. Neil could see him putting them through that exercise and then saying ‘no’ anyway, just to prove that he had the power and influence to scotch the whole thing. Of course, the three of them could out-vote George, but they couldn’t force him to participate, and they all had realized the cram down attempts on Paul back in 1970 had been a terrible mistake. They weren’t likely to repeat it.

The frustrating part of it all was they all stood to gain an enormous amount of money from the TV rights, the video rights, the album rights, and not to mention all the new fans who would be introduced to the Beatles because of all the publicity. This was the best thing possible for Apple, and it was frustrating for Neil to find the bickering between individuals was still going on after 21 years!

Ringo had heard George’s insulting comment, but knew he could react to it. Instead, he said softly, “That wasn’t a very kind thing to say, Geo.”

George saw Ringo’s face and he felt ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, Ritchie, but I’m just not into glorifying the Beatles, and I don’t know why you are. It’s all about John and Paul, John and Paul. They have always hogged the lion’s share of the attention and credit, not to mention the money.”

Ringo was staring at George as if the man had gone mad. “George, they wrote all the hits. They are the ones who fueled the engine. Do you think you or I would have gone to such heights without them?” Ringo’s voice was shaking because he was so upset.

“They hogged all the hits, so that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” George’s face looked strained and angry.

Ringo tried again. “You weren’t writing songs in 1962, or 1963 or 1964. That is when we became famous. It was based on their work that we got famous. Anyway, they share the profits with us evenly, so you really haven’t got anything to complain about.”

“Not the Lennon/McCartney song catalog. They sure didn’t share that.”

“Well, why should they? They wrote the songs, Geo, we didn’t.” Ringo could not believe he had to have such a basic argument with George.

“They pushed their songs ahead of mine, so of course they had the hits.”

“George, I don’t remember you ever saying a word about your songs until Sgt. Pepper. You weren’t writing songs before then - at least not enough to be competitive with John and Paul.”

“Well, I wrote with Paul before. Why did John exclude me from the partnership to begin with? He and Brian worked it out that it was him and Paul, and they left me out.”

“Because,” Ringo said with as patient a voice as he could make it, “at the time you weren’t writing songs.”

“I would have,” George said, “if they had included me.”

Ringo sighed heavily. “Well, whatever. We can’t fix what happened 30 years ago, can we? All we can do is try to make the most out of what we have now. And you are shooting yourself in the foot by not getting on board with this project.”

George had that mulish look on his face that Neil knew well. He decided the conversation had gone as far as it could go, especially under the conditions extant. Both Ringo and George - and not to mention Neil - had had their fair shares to drink. So Neil said, “Well, George appears set on his view. All we can ask him to do, Ritchie, is to think about what you have said. But I can add - for your analysis, George - that if this project was green-lighted, and if you all participate - especially if you all record a few songs together - you each stand to make in the neighborhood of £20 million. That’s without even performing or touring. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Neil had seen George’s eyes grow large at the announcement of the amount of money he stood to gain, but George said nothing. Neil realized that his job was done. He urged Ringo to come away with him.

“Let George alone. George, just think about it, and give me a call anytime if you have any questions about the finances.” Neil walked away thinking he had made inroads to George’s stonewalling. Only time would tell.

 

*****

 

Paul spent the night with Linda after the big T-giving blast. She had worked her ass off for days and he was very appreciative of all she had done to make a nice holiday for his children and for their friends. He wanted to show her his appreciation, and had purchased a lovely necklace for her made out of tiger-eye. She liked unusual semi-precious stones more than gems. They made love that night, and as they held each other afterwards Paul whispered,

“I’ve been so wrapped up in my work, I’ve let myself drift away from our family. I think you and I need to get away somewhere, just the two of us.”

Linda heard this and despite her tiredness her heart was dancing. “I would really love that,” she said softly.

“Where would you like to go and when? And for how long? You tell me those three things, and I will make it happen.” Paul’s voice was firm and confident. Linda believed that he would do as promised.

“Let me think about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said. She knew what she wanted. She wanted at least two weeks, and more if possible. And she would want to go somewhere out in the middle of nowhere with an ocean and a swimming pool, with sun and warmth. She would do some research in the morning and then let Paul know. And she wanted to go as soon as possible - she didn’t want to be away from the kids at Christmas, so it would have to be right away in early December, or over the New Year.

Later the next day, Linda had done her homework and decided that she wanted to rent a remote villa in the Caribbean. She wanted to go for at least two weeks, and maybe three. The three weeks after Christmas. Paul had been home with her all day, helping the girls and James clean up after the party, and hanging out with the kids. She told him what she wanted, and he smiled at her and said, without a flicker of doubt,

“Done.”

 

*****

 

While Paul quickly went about setting up his three-week getaway with Linda, he knew he would have to break the news to John. He had already told John that he had to make it up to Linda for being so distracted, but Paul doubted very much that John was going to take this news very well. Paul felt bad about that, but Linda needed him and his attention, and he totally owed it to her to make sure she got it. Still, it was going to be difficult to explain it to John. Things were finally in a balanced place with John, and he hoped that this wouldn’t ruin everything. 

John was busy writing letters again. Boy, was John a prolific letter-writer. As Paul approached John, he put both of his hands on John’s shoulders and gave him an impromptu two-minute shoulder massage.

“How’s it going, Johnny?” Paul asked. His heart was beating like a fucking drum.

“Writing Aunt Mimi. She pretends to disdain you, but she just wrote me complaining you never call or visit her.”

“But she always acts like it’s a bother when I call her!” Paul responded defensively.

John laughed. “That’s my Mimi. She absolutely adores you, you know. But heaven forbid anyone should figure that out.”

“I doubt that she adores me, John. She still somehow makes me feel like I am presumptuous even to deign to talk to her.”

John laughed even louder. “She adores you, like everyone does, Paul. Give her a call. She’ll treat you like shit while you’re on the phone, and then brag about it to all the ladies in her assisted living home afterwards.”

Paul smiled. “I’ll do that. What’s a good time to do it?”

“Afternoons, at about 1 p.m. She’s had lunch, and it is before her nap.”

“I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Like I said, be prepared for a load of shit. But she will be secretly thrilled.” John’s head was leaning back against Paul’s stomach, so he could look up into Paul’s face above him. 

“Ok, I’ll be forewarned. But John, I need to talk to you about something.” Paul’s magic fingers stopped massaging, and John’s eyes blinked as he looked up at Paul’s face.

John saw the curtains drop down over Paul’s eyes. Ah-oh, he thought. “Well, do I need a drink?” John was twinkling, but he was very worried.

Paul laughed, but it was a shallow, nervous laugh. “It’s no big deal,” he said unconvincingly. “But let’s pour ourselves a nightcap and I’ll tell you what’s up.”

John sighed, and quickly moved in the direction of the sitting room. He wondered what the fuck was up. It couldn’t be good, because Paul would have just blurted out good news. That was how Paul was; if something good just happened he would just burst with the news. It was one of the most appealing things about him - his childlike enthusiasm.

As Paul handed him his drink, John asked, “What’s going on?”

Paul said, “Nothing too much,” and he smiled reassuringly at John. “It’s been a long time since Linda and I have been off by ourselves, and I’m taking her away for a holiday right after Christmas.”

“A holiday?” John repeated dumbly. “What? Where?”

Paul smiled. “You know how it has been with us, we’ve been so wrapped up in each other. And then we’ve been working on our album, and there was the Oratorio, and our trip to Paris. Linda’s been a trooper, and she needs my undivided attention for a while.”

John heard the words and knew they were fair and reasonable. But he was feeling nerves fluttering at the bottom of his stomach. He knew he had to share Paul with Linda, but he truly, truly, truly did not want to do so. He couldn’t help himself.

“Where are you going, then?” John asked, his heart in his mouth.

“Well, it’s a kind of secret between me and Linda. Like when you and I went to Paris.”

John heard this and felt like a thundercloud was hanging over his mood. “How long?” he asked, trying to keep his voice on an even keel.

“Three weeks.”

“Three weeks!” John’s voice was close to a shriek.

Paul winced at John’s shout. “Linda and I haven’t been away alone together in years, John,” he said, trying to calm John down with a calm, reasonable voice.

“We were only gone for four days to Paris, Paul. Four days.” John was fighting the outburst with all his willpower, but the tension and anger was ringing in his voice. “She wants three weeks!”

“We’ve gone away for months together on tour, and left her alone with the kids,” Paul pointed out, trying to maintain a calm demeanor. “She isn’t asking for much.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do for three fucking weeks without you here?” John’s voice was almost a wail at this point.

Paul gulped. This was as bad as he feared it would be. But he had promised John he would be honest about his feelings, and here is where the rubber hit the road.

“John, I need this time with Linda. I love her, and she is someone I can’t live without. I can’t live without you, either, but she is very important to me too. I want to do this for her. It is very important to her, and she has just lost her father. She needs this, too. You’re a big-hearted person. You must realize how much this will mean to her.” Paul was downright pleading now.

John heard Paul’s plea, and somehow the honest expression of his needs got through to him when logic and reason did not. “Okay, okay…” John was taking deep breaths. “I just can’t bear for you to be gone three weeks. Can’t you cut it shorter?” His eyes were pleading.

Paul felt terrible, but he had promised Linda whatever she wanted, and what she wanted was not unreasonable. “No, John, I promised Linda she could choose and this is what she wants. I can’t start nickel and diming her now.”

John smiled in spite of himself. “You’re picking up my Americanisms.”

“I get them from Linda, too,” Paul smiled warmly.

It was John’s turn to sigh deeply. He didn’t have any fair argument to make. Linda was Paul’s wife, the mother of his children, and was entitled to her time in the sun. Too bad that he would have to be alone for three weeks. There was a time in his life when he was basically alone all the time, and while it was a drag, it wasn’t as bad as when Paul was with Linda. He knew what would be going on between them, and he feared that Linda would influence Paul away from him. Three weeks was a long time. Still, he had to behave like a grown-up, so as not to upset the apple cart that Paul and he had righted so recently.

“I guess I can look after James,” John said in a downtrodden way. “He and I can have some fun.” He forced himself to smile.

Paul’s bright smile and delighted expression was a reward in itself. John thought to himself, why didn’t I realize earlier that this was the way into Paul’s heart?

“John, that would mean so much to me,” Paul said sincerely. “James kind of idolizes you.”

“He does?” John was surprised.

“Yes, he does,” Paul smiled. “It will be so special for him to have that time alone with you.”

John started to get into the spirit. “He should come and stay here - it will be like a little holiday for him, too.”

“That sounds great,” Paul said.

“And then, when Sean comes for the holidays, we can all three hang out together.”

Paul was actually tearing up but they were happy tears. He loved his son so much, but knew how insecure his son was, and he also knew how much John’s attention (and Sean’s) would help James. Now he could spend the three weeks with Linda and not worry about what was going on at home. “John….” Paul took a few deep breaths… “...thank you.”

 

*****

 

“So Paul told me how he really felt about it, and I actually heard what he said, and we worked it out.” John was extremely proud of himself as he relayed the episode to Fiona. “We didn’t get crosswise! We didn’t fight! I got upset, that’s true, but he explained to me he really needed to do this for Linda. I hadn’t really seen it that way before. I thought Linda was guilting Paul, but then it was clear Paul wanted to be with her too - she’s important to him.” John stopped to take a breath, and then noticed that Fiona was holding back a giggle. “What?” He asked her.

She chuckled and said, “You’re so excited. It’s actually adorable.” Fiona knew that ‘adorable’ wasn’t a very professional term. However, it was an accurate word. Hopefully that would justify her use of it.

“It’s just that I wasn’t sure I could really act like a grown up in real time,” John said, leaning forward to put his point across. “It was amazing when I felt myself giving up the anger, and accepting the bad news. I never knew I could do that!” John was grinning and showing his excitement with his body language.

“That’s a major accomplishment,” Fiona agreed. “So when will Paul and Linda leave?”

“Just after Christmas,” John said. He thought for a moment and added in a distracted tone, “I know they’re going somewhere sunny because of what Paul plans to pack.”

Fiona tried not to let her amusement show at this remark. Obviously, John was a bit more emotionally involved in this romantic trip of Paul’s than he chose to admit. But at least he was mature enough to pretend not to mind. She thought going on to another subject to get John’s mind off his buried jealousy was probably the best idea.

 

*****

 

At approximately the same time that John was bragging to Fiona, Paul had picked up the phone and with surprisingly shaky fingers began dialing Mimi Smith’s telephone number. The call first went through a central operator before it was connected to Mimi’s room, and answered by Mimi’s personal assistant.

“Is Mimi there?” Paul asked politely.

“Who is calling, please?”

“It’s her nephew John’s friend, Paul.”

The middle-aged woman did some simple math and realized she was probably talking to Paul McCartney. “One moment please.”

Paul waited nervously for Mimi’s sharp, haughty voice, and prepared himself for the verbal onslaught he knew was coming. He was surprised when a very weak sounding voice said his name.

“Paul?” The voice sounded weak and even…grateful?

“Yes, is that you Mimi?”

“Who else would it be? You called me!” The voice adopted a more strident tone.

Ahhh, that’s more like it, Paul thought. To his surprise, Paul decided he preferred Mimi this way. “Well, Mimi, you know how slow on the uptake I’ve always been. You’ve mentioned it to me several times.”

Paul heard a cackle at the other end of the line. “I never worried so much about your brains, young man,” she said gamely, although the tone and tenor of her voice was alarmingly weak. “You were always too big for your britches.”

“So you thought you’d cut me down to size by pointing out all my faults, repeatedly, is that it?” Paul was chuckling now.

“Somebody had to do it,” Mimi responded reasonably, making Paul laugh out loud.

“How I’ve missed you,” Paul said sincerely.

“You could call me more often,” Mimi said, her voice sounding feeble. It made Paul’s throat close up for a moment.

“I’m sorry. I’m terrible about calling people. I’ll put it in my calendar to call you more often.”

“Yes, John was the communicator, and you were the doer. I remember that well.” Mimi’s voice sounded as though it were coming from miles away.

“How are you feeling?” Paul didn’t want to point out that she sounded weak and perhaps ill.

“I’ve been fighting off a small chest infection,” Mimi admitted. She didn’t add that it had taken a terrible toll, and the doctors were considering hospitalizing her.

“Are you getting proper medical care?” Paul asked.

Mimi snorted. “I am in a home for old folks. I have doctors and nurses crawling over me day and night.” Mimi managed to make this level of care sound like a burden rather than a blessing. “I do want to ask you a favor, though,” Mimi continued.

“Of course. Anything.” Paul was surprised that Mimi was going to ask him for something. She’d never asked him for anything before.

“I am worried about John,” Mimi said.

“Oh? Why? The cancer really is all gone. I go with him to the hospital when he gets tested, and the results are clean.”

Mimi hadn’t been thinking of the cancer, but hearing Paul’s reassurances made her feel better in any case. She forced herself to continue, although it was out of character for her to put her true worries out there for others to speculate about. “He spends a lot of time with you,” she finally said flatly.

Paul couldn’t tell if this was a question, a criticism or merely a factual statement. Because Mimi was Mimi, Paul always worried there was some kind of critical subtext to what she literally said. “Yes, well, we have to, we…”

“You work together, yes, I know, John explained. But my worry is that he depends too much on you. You’re a married man with a family, and I fear that he is overly dependent on you.”

Paul was dumbstruck. He hadn’t expected the conversation to take this kind of a turn. “Well, it doesn’t feel that way to me,” Paul responded honestly.

“He needs a wife - a good woman. It isn’t good for John to be alone, he thinks too much, and then gets morose. He needs to get out of himself more.”

Paul didn’t know where to start to answer this awkward question. He knew there was a reason why he had avoided calling Mimi! He decided he would have to temporize. He was good at that at least.

“John gets out plenty, Mimi. He’s a regular bon vivant. He has a lot of friends in London, and his work is very time-consuming and fulfilling.” Paul’s comments were perhaps exaggerated a little, but still within the realm of truth.

“But does he date anyone? He needs a woman to take care of him. The last time I saw him he was so thin. He isn’t eating properly.”

Paul thought John had been doing pretty good in picking up some weight after the cancer treatments. He still was on the thin side, sure, but he wasn’t anywhere near as thin as he’d been, say, back in the late ‘70s. I’ll have to temporize, Paul told himself sternly. He’d spent decades reasoning with John, and he knew that Mimi was a lot like John in some ways, and with neither one of them could you start a response by contradicting any part of their own statement. So, Paul had learned to agree with their overall statement before adding remarks that gently contradicted the overall thesis.

“He is thin, yes, but he went through chemo. It’s only been a year, and he has gained back some of the weight he lost. I can only tell you that when he eats around me, he eats plenty. He’s not dieting, if that is what you’re worried about.”

“I’m worried that when he is not with you, and he is alone in his house, he doesn’t eat or he eats badly. He needs someone with him full time, a good woman.”

Paul realized she wasn’t going to let go of this stick, so, hiding a deep sigh from Mimi, he said, “What would you like me to do about this, Mimi?”

“Persuade him to date. Maybe you and your wife know some women? He needs someone to love him, and only him.  
There is no one in his life who can fill that role for him.”

Paul felt a thrum of guilt. He filled the role for John as best he could, but he couldn’t love John and only John, because he also loved Linda. Was Mimi right? Did John really need someone just to himself? Paul pushed these troubling thoughts away, and concentrated on temporizing again.

“Let me talk to Linda about this, and we’ll see what we can do. But John is pretty stubborn, and he seems to have his mind set on keeping his present lifestyle the way it is.”

Mimi sighed, recognizing the truth in what Paul said. “I worry about him,” she repeated. “Take care of him for me, won’t you?”

Paul felt tears tickling the back of his eyes. He paused quietly for a moment to regain his composure. “Always, Mimi,” he said softly. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll always be there for him.”

Mimi heard the tears in Paul’s voice, and they didn’t surprise her. She had known almost from the start that Paul loved her beloved John, and that it was - for the most part - an unselfish love. He had the positive, confident qualities that John had lacked, and together they had forged a strong and effective bond of friendship. “I’m not going to live forever, you know,” Mimi said, her voice getting weaker. “I need to be sure about these things to set my mind at rest.”

Paul smiled into the phone. “You’re going to outlive us all, Mimi,” he said jokingly. “We’re all scared of you!”

Mimi chuckled, but she was very tired now. Perhaps it was because she was weak and tired, and she felt her time was growing short, but she let something slip that she had never intended to say to anyone.

“I have often wished that you were a woman, Paul. You would have been a perfect wife for John.”

Paul was struck dumb yet again. Twice in one conversation Mimi had completely thrown him. Temporize, he told himself.

“Hey,” Paul said in a mock insulted tone, “why do I have to be the woman?”

Mimi managed a raucous guffaw. “Because you are the prettier one, of course,” she said graciously. She thought also as she said this that Paul was much more than a pretty face.

“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige you in that,” Paul said warmly, “It has always been entirely out of my hands.”

Mimi laughed again. It felt so good to laugh like this. John and Paul had always been tremendously exhilarating company because they, too, like Mimi, enjoyed these outrageous bursts of repartee. But again, she felt the weakness coming over her like a wave, and she said softly, “I’m going to say goodbye now, I need to rest.”

Paul decided to go for it, although he had never said anything like this to Mimi before for fear of having his head handed to him on a platter. “Have a good rest Mimi. I love you, and lord knows John does.” A moment later he heard the click on Mimi’s end, denoting the disconnection of the telephone line.


	22. Chapter 22

“I called Mimi today,” Paul informed John as they faced each other across the dinner table. John had become quite the chef, and had served up a vegetarian pasta dish and salad after hovering over a recipe book for hours. He didn’t use Linda’s recipes. He wanted to establish his own repertoire in the hope that perhaps Paul would someday think to himself when eating Linda’s food, “John’s tortellini is better.” John was following a recipe for squash and spinach tortellini in a pesto sauce, and the little pasta pockets took hours to make properly. All in all, after a good session with Fiona and a lovely few hours cooking, John felt that it had been a fun afternoon and evening. And now he sat across from Paul who was scarfing down the pasta hungrily and making all sorts of little exclamations, like ‘this is great!’ and ‘oh! Mmm!’ - just as John had hoped he would. John savored his small victory in silence.

“I’m glad you called her. So how did she treat you?” John asked, amusement dancing on his face.

Paul had pondered the question of whether he should repeat the Mimi conversation to John. In the end, he decided he should. Mimi sounded ill, and she shouldn’t have to worry when she was ill. John was the only one who could put Mimi’s mind to rest, really. John wouldn’t know to do that unless Paul told him about what Mimi had said.

“She’s very worried about you,” Paul said after swallowing another little delicious nugget of pasta, squash and spinach. 

“The cancer, I suppose,” John said, looking back at his plate and not at first surprised by what Paul had said.

“I reassured her about the cancer,” Paul responded quickly, “but that wasn’t what really worried her. She thinks you need a good woman in your life.”

John nearly spit out his mouthful of red wine. He choked a bit, thumped his chest, and then took a large sip of water before he could speak. “She’s always after me to get married again,” John grumbled, “I’ve run out of excuses for why I’m not remarried, and why there isn’t a woman in my life. She doesn’t believe I could still be single after all those years since my divorce from Yoko.”

“I guess, from her perspective, that is a bit hard to swallow. After all John,” Paul pointed out with infuriating objectivity, “you went from Mimi’s house to living with roommates to living with Cynthia to living with Yoko. She never knew you to be one who enjoyed living alone.” 

“I’ve told her that I’m not cut out for marriage, but it’s as if she doesn’t even hear me.” John was looking stumped.

“I think you should reassure her that you are happy in your life, that you have numerous friends. You can exaggerate and say you have had your share of dates and girlfriends, but you just aren’t interested in marriage. After all, she never married again after her husband died. You can remind her that it runs in the family.”

John was staring at Paul in uneasy surprise. “That’s scary. You came up with that fake story too fast.” John was thinking, what has he glibly lied to me about? 

Both men were silent for a few moments as they continued to eat their food. Paul then said, chuckling, “She actually confessed to me that she had often wished that I was a woman.”

“What??” John asked, his face alight with amusement.

“She is of the opinion that I would have made a perfect wife for you.”

John saw Paul’s merry face and he burst out laughing. “Well, I never,” John said finally, shaking his head and addressing himself to his food again. 

“She sounded very weak, and said she was fighting off a chest infection. Have you spoken to her doctor lately? I was a bit worried about her.” Paul’s face was now a study in calm concern. 

John looked up and his face reflected his anxiety. “I’m not good at that talking to doctors thing,” John said plaintively. He was silently asking Paul to step in. 

Paul heard the silent question as clearly as if John had actually spoken out loud. “You’d have to be on the line, too, because I’m not related to her,” Paul pointed out. “They probably wouldn’t talk to me otherwise.” 

John nodded in agreement. “Tomorrow morning?”

Paul nodded ‘yes’. For a few more moments the sound of forks hitting china was the only ambient noise in the room. Then, Paul spoke: “There is an alternative to telling her the playing-the-field story if you really want to put her mind at ease.” Paul’s voice was determinedly offhand and objective.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You could tell her the truth about us.”

 

*****

 

“She has pneumonia,” the doctor told them. John and Paul were on different telephone receivers on the same line, although Paul had done most of the talking thus far. 

“Will she beat it?” John had finally managed to ask a question, and his voice sounded small and fearful.

“I am not able to give you that reassurance,” the doctor said kindly. “I think it would be best that you come here to see her. If anything will pluck her up, that will. And if it doesn’t, you really will want to see her before…” the doctor trailed off.

Paul jumped in. “What time is a good time for us to be there?”

John heard the word “us” and his spirits revived instantaneously. Paul was not going to make him go through this alone. 

“The sooner the better. This is assisted living, and there are no prohibitions about visiting hours, although my colleagues and I believe that if she doesn’t rally in the next 24 hours, we are going to have to move her to a hospital.”

“No!” John shouted. “She would hate that!”

Paul heard the distress in John’s voice, and his own calm one interjected itself. “Doctor, we will be there tomorrow, before noon, and so hopefully you will not need to move her to the hospital before John can consult with you.” 

“Of course, naturally,” the doctor said, glad to have the family coming in. “I have been talking with your sister, Julia, and she and your other sister are planning on arriving on the coming Saturday.” 

John realized how serious this was. He looked at the diary he kept next to his bedside. Today was December 4th, a Wednesday. 

“If there is an emergency,” Paul added firmly, “you have John’s authority to get her to the hospital of course.” 

John heard himself ‘amen-ing’ this suggestion, and the doctor thanked them for their time and instructions. They all hung up, and Paul went up from the kitchen to the master bedroom (where John was) to pick up the pieces. As he feared, John was laid out on the bed, weeping. 

Paul climbed up on the bed next to John, and engulfed him in a comforting spoon. He sang a song softly in John’s ear in a deliberately gooey tone: “To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn turn turn…”

John chuckled and elbowed Paul in the stomach. “Don’t quit your day job,” he quipped.

 

*****

 

The car trip from London to Bournemouth took only a little over two hours since they left in mid-morning to avoid the rush hour traffic. Paul drove. John had packed some sandwiches, and ended up eating most of them himself, reminiscent of a drive to Scotland they once made together in 1965. This time, at least, John had made more than two sandwiches, so there was enough for Paul, too. 

The night before, in explaining that he’d be off for awhile, and he couldn’t say how long, Paul had told Linda that Mimi was very ill, and that her doctor didn’t think she had many more days in her. The two of them discussed how weird it was that John should be losing Mimi less than six months after Linda had lost her father. Paul had told Linda,

“There’s a weird parallel thing going on in John’s life, your life and my life. It is almost as if the three of us were meant to be together.”

“What do you mean?” Linda had asked. 

“Well, your mum died when you were 17, and John’s mum died when he was 17 - both from accidents. And my mum died when I was a teenager, just a year before your mother and a little more than a year before John’s mother. Then, skipping ahead, you and I got married within a month of John and Yoko marrying. Then my father died just weeks before John’s father died.”

“I remember,” Linda murmured.

“And now John’s aunt is apparently dying within months of your father’s death… It just seems fateful, somehow.” 

Paul was thinking about this conversation as he drove to Bournemouth the next morning. He didn’t mention it to John, because he didn’t want to imply out loud that Mimi was probably going to die soon. Paul suspected that John was still expecting miracles in that department.

As he drove into the building’s car park, Paul felt as though he should say something to prepare John. “You know, when Linda and I first saw her father when we got to Long Island last summer, we were both shocked and amazed at how weak he looked. He didn’t even look like a ghost of his former self.” 

“You’re suggesting that may be the case with Mimi, is that it?” John asked bluntly.

“It’s a possibility. I would just prepare myself for it just in case if I were you.” 

“I just saw her last month, and she is frail, of course, but she looked like herself.” John was defensive now.

Paul smiled comfortingly. “I’m sure you’re right, but just in case, prepare yourself.” 

John nodded bleakly, and they entered the building, took the elevator up to the top floor, and soon were knocking at Mimi’s door. The personal assistant answered it, and she had obviously been crying. Paul felt John stiffen beside him, and immediately grabbed and squeezed John’s hand. John turned to him and Paul urged him to enter the room with his eyebrows. 

Paul has the most expressive eyebrows in the world, John thought to himself as he entered his aunt’s sitting room. A nurse was sitting there writing in a chart. “Where’s my aunt?” John asked her.

“She’s in her bedroom,” the nurse said softly. “Her assistant has gone to tell her you’re here.”

The waiting was agony, even though in truth it was fewer than 5 minutes. What John didn’t know was that Mimi had insisted that her assistant prop her up on the pillows, and brush her hair a bit. She also insisted upon wearing her glasses, a new bed jacket, and a coat of bright red lipstick. 

“She’s ready,” the assistant told John.

John turned immediately to Paul, his face a study in panic, and Paul realized John wanted him to come too. He nodded silently, and then followed a few feet behind John as they entered Mimi’s bedroom. 

John saw Mimi seated in the bed, an at first glance he was tremendously relieved. There she was, looking aristocratic, with a bright red slash of lipstick across her face. She obviously could not be at death’s door. He even felt a little twang of anger at the doctor for getting him so worried. But as he approached her, and he got a better look, what he saw did worry him. Her skin was the color of yellow parchment, and her hands were constantly shaking.

“John - what a lovely surprise!” Mimi said, forcing a bright brave smile on to her face. “No warning at all!”

John noticed that the voice was weak, and that speaking appeared to cause her effort and distress. “Gotta keep you on your toes, old lady,” he said to her gently, seating himself in the chair by the bed and clasping her hand tightly. The hand was teeny tiny, more a collection of veins and bones than anything else, and he could feel the constant shaking as he cupped the one hand in two of his. “Paul’s here too,” he said softly. He looked over at Paul and beckoned him over with a nod of the head. Paul approached the other side of Mimi’s bed, and took the chair there. He reached out and grabbed her other hand in his two hands. 

Mimi looked like a leprechaun in clover. Her two favorite boys - there they were. “To what do I owe this honor?” she asked Paul archly.

“I had so much fun talking to you on the phone the other day,” Paul flirted recklessly, “that I couldn’t stay away.”

“Posh!” Mimi expostulated, making both John and Paul laugh involuntarily. “What have these doctors told you?” She was glaring at Paul when she asked this, knowing Paul was the grown up between the two, and he was far more likely to answer her honestly. John would have prevaricated about it, of this she was sure.

Paul’s eyes met John’s, and he shrugged his shoulders in despair. He really didn’t know how to handle this, but was silently giving Paul permission to take control and do what he thought was best. So Paul turned back to Mimi and made direct eye contact. “He told us that you have pneumonia, and it hasn’t gotten better in three weeks, and he is concerned that if it doesn’t get better by tonight, he may have to hospitalize you.”

John sucked in a great gulp of air, momentarily upset that Paul had gone this far. But Mimi took it much better. 

“If I’m going to die, I’d rather die here, and not in the hospital. And I do not want - I repeat - I do not want to be kept alive with extraordinary means.” Her instruction was to Paul directly. Paul saw the firmness in her face and voice and the nod he gave her was so slight that no one else caught it but her. She then turned to John and saw the open distress on her nephew’s face. “John, you had to know eventually I would die. You’re over 50 years old! You don’t need me, and you haven’t needed me for years. Everything will be the same for you.” Mimi’s voice and expression were bracing - John was a bit taken aback at the brutal honesty of it. 

John felt as though he should protest her analysis. “Maybe I didn’t appear to need you physically in my life,” John said earnestly, “but knowing you were here - that I could see and talk to you if I needed to - that has always been a great comfort to me. And I enjoy our correspondence tremendously. There’s no reason for you to give up just because you have a bit of an infection!” 

“I have no intention of ‘giving up’ as you put it, young man!” Mimi announced fiercely. “But this time ‘round I don’t think I’m holding the winning hand.” 

This silenced John, and there was quiet in the room for a few moments. Paul thought that maybe John wanted to unburden himself a little, so he got up and went to stand behind John. He put his hands on John’s shoulders, and leaned down and whispered in John’s ear: “Tell her something to put her mind at ease. You can tell her the lie or you can tell her the truth. But tell her something that will let her know you will be alright.” He then straightened up and said to Mimi, “I’m going to leave you two alone for a little while to chat privately. Let me know when you’re sick of each other, and you want me back.”

Mimi guffawed and watched with open affection as Paul tapped the shoulder of her personal assistant, and escorted her out of the room. She was now fully alone with John. Her eyes moved to John, and she felt them pool with tears. For a moment she thought she saw the little 5-year old boy with the reddish hair…No! If I go there I will fall apart.

John cleared his throat. “Mimi, Paul told me that you are very worried about me, because I don’t have a woman in my life.”

Mimi was so grateful that her plan had worked. She had prayed that Paul would talk to John about this issue, and he obviously had. “Yes. You are a person who is meant to have someone in his life. You need to have a person in your life more than any other individual I have ever known. I can’t sleep properly, worrying about you being left alone, now and later - when you’re in your old age…”

“Mimi, Mimi,” John whispered, leaning in closely. “Please don’t worry about that. I am not alone.” 

Mimi was skeptical. “Oh? I hope you don’t mean that you have attached yourself to Paul’s family. It isn’t practical. You need a woman of your own.”

Mimi was certainly not making this easy on him. John tried again. “I know that is what you think I need, but it isn’t, really.”

“Then what is it that you really need?”

“What I have is what I need.” John was staring at Mimi, willing her to understand without having to say the words.

“Paul.” Mimi’s word had a kind of I knew it finality to it.

John took a quick breath. He couldn’t believe she had said it. 

Mimi’s eyes softened and then she spoke again. “You think I don’t know how much you fancy him,” she said, her eyes again filled with tears. “It was never going to happen, and it was painful to watch. He was never going to be able to love you the way you love him.” Mimi saw that John’s face was showing signs of indignation and protest, so she quickly continued. “Oh, I know he loves you, but his love is like a brother’s love. You have been brave all these years to fight these improper urges, and to stick to women. I am worried sick that since your divorce that you have given in, and that you are living a life of debauchery.”

John’s eyebrows flew up. Debauchery? Apparently Mimi feared he was a raging queen and was having a series of dangerous sexual liaisons with an endless series of men… Before he knew it he started to laugh. 

Mimi was indignant about the laughing. “I don’t think this is at all amusing, John,” she lectured.

John finally regained his composure and said, “Oh, Mimi, if you think I’m having affairs with an endless string of men, you’re wrong. Is that what you’ve been worrying about?”

“You are without your wife, without a woman, living in the shadow of Paul’s family, and unable to…well, he is unavailable to you at that level. What else do you think I would worry about?”

John shook his head and said honestly, “That isn’t true at all. You’ve got it all wrong. I can’t imagine where you got that idea.”

Mimi looked a little embarrassed. “Well, there was your cancer, all of a sudden, and this new homosexual cancer thing is very scary.”

“You mean AIDS?” John was thoroughly confused now. “Mimi, AIDs isn’t cancer, and I haven’t got AIDS, and I’m not exposing myself to AIDS - I promise you! I had skin cancer from sitting too much in the sun… You should have told me that you were worried about this. I could have reassured you.” John was looking very relieved, and so was Mimi.

“Your uncle George was … that way,” Mimi said, afraid to meet John’s eyes. “I know it when I see it. It was a very painful thing to watch. It was so impossible.” 

John was speechless. This just kept getting more and more bizarre. But John felt a certain amount of anger boiling at the bottom of his stomach. He had to say something. “Why?” John asked sharply.

“Why what?” Mimi asked.

“Why was it ‘so impossible’ for Uncle George to be that way?” 

“Decent people don’t talk about such things,” Mimi snapped. She was looking very tired, but in his anger, John didn’t notice it.

“Decent? Decent?” John had a hard time holding his tongue. He struggled mightily. He got up from his chair and went to the door and threw it open. “Paul!” He shouted down the hall. “We’re sick of each other and we need you!”

 

*****

 

Paul bolted out of his comfortable chair in the sitting room at the first hint of John’s outburst, and hurried down the hall, Mimi’s assistant hot on his heels. John was in the hall choking back angry tears. The assistant rushed past John and into the bedroom, closing the door. Paul put his arm around John, and led him to the sitting room. He sat John down on the sofa, and then joined him. 

“What happened?” Paul finally asked softly. 

“She thinks I’m a fucking poof, and she thinks I had AIDs and not cancer, and she believes I’m fucking a series of men, because I really want you but I can’t have you!” The words burst out of John is a rush. “She said it wasn’t ‘decent’…to live that way!” 

Paul’s mind was racing. He would have bet that Mimi would have been okay with hearing the truth. He certainly had been wrong about that! “John, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have advised you to tell her about us.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t tell her about us! I was going to, after I realized what she was really worried about, but then she said all this stuff about my Uncle George, and how it was ‘impossible’ to live that way… She called it ‘debauchery’!”

Paul couldn’t help it. He trapped the laugh in the back of his mouth, but John heard the sound. He glared at Paul accusingly. “I’m sorry, John,” Paul laughed. “I can’t take that seriously. Me, being debauched! I can’t even picture it.”

John couldn’t help himself either, as soon as he tried to picture the same thing, and chuckled a little. “Yeah, you’re kind of the anti-debauched type, aren’t you babe?” John’s voice had dropped to a normal tone, and he was starting to see the humor in the whole situation. He sat quietly for a few more moments and then added, “That woman really knows how to push my buttons.” 

Paul smiled at John and said, “From what I can remember, you know how to push her buttons too.” 

“What am I gonna do? Now I’ve upset her by charging out of there! How do I explain that to her?” John was upsetting himself again, so Paul really didn’t see that he had a choice.

“I’ll explain to her,” Paul said. “It isn’t as bad as you think. She’s used to your shouting matches, and your storming out. You used to do that to her all the time when we were kids.”

John acknowledged that Paul’s point was well taken. He was so grateful to have Paul there with him to handle these tricky interactions. 

At that moment the assistant came in to the room. “How’s she doing?” Paul asked quickly.

“She’s resting now.”

“Did I seriously upset her?” John asked, his face dressed in worry.

“She said that you were highly emotional, and that I should leave you alone and you’ll calm down.” The assistant had a slightly (but still professional) amused expression on her face. 

Paul laughed outright. “She’s a tough old bird,” he announced to the room.

 

*****

 

Mimi slept straight through the night, but awoke early in the morning. The dawn was just beginning to peep through the curtains, and Mimi made a joke to herself. Well, I guess I’m still here. She felt exhausted, but not ready to give up just yet. A few moments later her assistant came in, and quietly moved around the room, helping Mimi with her morning routines, until Mimi said in a rough morning voice,

“Where’s John?” 

“He left last night, and went to his hotel. I have the telephone number.” 

“I want to see him again,” Mimi said. “He should have calmed down by now.” The assistant went out to call the hotel phone number. 

Paul answered the phone, after glaring at the bedside clock. 7:00 a.m. His heart was thudding. He hoped it wasn’t the doctors telling them that… “Hello?” he breathed into the phone.

“It’s Doris, Miss Mimi’s assistant.”

“Oh hello, Doris. This is Paul.” Paul was holding his breath. 

“She would very much like to see John again today. Is he still angry?” 

Paul felt the air escaping him, and relief follow behind it. “Oh, he wasn’t really angry. That’s just how they are together.”

Doris giggled. “So she said.” 

Paul chuckled and said, “Give us an hour or so to pull ourselves together, and we’ll be over.” After Paul hung up, he turned to his other side and gently prodded John’s arm, causing John to groan, yawn, and then stretch. 

“Want some, do you?” John said in a sarcastic voice, one eye open and the other still closed. 

“If I ‘wanted some’, as you so delicately put it, you wouldn’t have to ask. We had a call from Doris.”

“Who the fuck is Doris?”

“Mimi’s assistant?”

“Oh, yeah, her.” Suddenly John sat up. “Mimi! Is she okay?”

“She wants to see you today, so I guess the fireworks are over,” Paul said. “Let’s get our act together and go over there.”

“Yeah, quick - before she changes her mind,” John snorted.

After 45 minutes of bumbling around the hotel suite, and quickly chomping down a few pieces of toast, John and Paul got back in Paul’s car, and he drove them over to Mimi’s place. 

“What am I gonna say to her?” John asked. “Will you talk to her first?”

“What do you want me to say to her?”

“Give her some credible reason why I got so upset about what she said…about debauchery and indecency… Stop laughing, Paul! It’s not funny!” John was giggling now to match Paul’s uncontrollable giggles.

“I can’t help it!” Paul’s voice went up very high as he defended himself, which only made John laugh more. Paul had to force himself to stop laughing for fear of causing an automobile accident. After he managed to control his amusement, he said with as much dignity as possible, “I’ll think of something.” 

It was only minutes later when Paul entered what he was starting to think of as the lioness’s den. Mimi was lying back on her pillows today, and there was no slash of bright red lipstick. She looked very pale, and her breathing was harsh. 

“Mimi, it’s Paul,” he whispered in her ear, and watched as her eyes flew open.

“Is John here? Is he mad at me?” Mimi’s voice was frighteningly weak.

“He’s right outside. He wanted me to explain about yesterday.” Paul said softly.

“Why you?” She asked, a tiny speck of spunk in her voice.

“He’s afraid you might have misunderstood why he was so upset about what you said,” Paul said.

“What did I say?” Mimi asked. She could not remember what she had been saying when John had charged out of the room.

“According to John, you implied that if two men share a life together, that somehow it is indecent, or…” Paul felt the laughter bubbling up in him and was trying desperately to damp it down.

“…Or what?” Mimi asked, her hand squeezing Paul’s, as if Paul’s answer was gravely important to her.

“…Or ‘debauched’. He was quite insulted by that particular word.” Paul couldn’t help himself and was unable to stifle a few chuckles.

“It doesn’t bother you, apparently,” Mimi said with some of her characteristic spirit. 

“I can’t take it seriously, I guess. Mimi, you don’t need to worry about John. I told you I would take care of him, and I meant it. As it is, we basically live together.”

Mimi was silent. Her eyes were closed. 

Paul continued. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m telling you that John and I are debauched.”

Mimi’s eyes popped open and Paul saw deep amusement there. Her hand squeezed his and Paul squeezed back. “John…” she whispered. 

Paul said, “I’ll get him,” and freed his hand from Mimi’s. He found John on the sofa in the sitting room, leaning forward with his forehead in his hands. “She wants you, John. She doesn’t seem so good. I’m thinking your sisters should get down here immediately. She may not last until tomorrow. Do you want me to call them?” 

John nodded ‘yes’, and then headed for Mimi’s bedroom. He approached her bed, and after sitting next to her bed again grasped her hand. It felt clammy. 

“John,” Mimi croaked. “I love you no matter what,” she managed to say. It was getting very difficult to keep her eyes open. The bedside lamp was bothering her and she squinted in irritation. John noticed this, and turned the lamp off. The day was gloomy, so the room was very dark with the lamp off. 

“I love you too, Mimi. Paul is calling Julia and Jacqui to get them down here as soon as possible.” There were tears streaming down his face.

Mimi seemed to nod, or at least her head seemed to move a little. She seemed to drop off to sleep. John sat there for the better part of an hour, and then Paul came in. 

“How’s it going?” He whispered. 

“She’s been asleep almost the whole time, but she told me she loves me.” 

“Of course she does, John. Did you ever doubt it?” Paul sat down on the chair on the other side of the bed. “I spoke to your sisters. They are catching a flight, and should be landing at about 6 p.m. I’ll go to the airport and pick them up.” 

 

*****

 

The indomitable Mimi Smith died that night with her nephew, nieces, Paul and Doris by her bedside. It was a very peaceful death. John was devastated, and spent the next day under the covers in the hotel room bed while Paul was on the telephone helping Julia make mortuary and funeral arrangements. 

They stayed in Bournemouth for a few days, until after the funeral. John spent two hours each day on the telephone with Fiona. And each night he cried in Paul’s arms. Knowing that Mimi had been so disapproving of a same sex relationship was making her death harder for John. He had always craved her approval, and now she was dead and he knew - if she had known - she would not have approved. He was unable to speak of this with Paul; instead he unloaded on Fiona. But on their last night in Bournemouth, while they lay in bed, John was finally able to express this sorrow to Paul. 

“Mimi would have been disgusted by me if she’d known the truth,” he said. The room was pitch black, and somehow not being able to see anything made it easier for John to say this out loud.

“John, that’s not true. She told you that she loved you,” Paul said. 

“But she didn’t know about us when she said it,” John responded.

“John, that’s not true, either. I told her about us before you went in there.”

John’s head stopped short and then he said, “What? You - what?”

“Didn’t you know? Didn’t I tell you?” 

“No, you didn’t tell me! What did you say? What did she say?” John was wide awake now. He sat up, and reached across Paul to turn on the lamp. Paul had to quickly cover his eyes to shield them from the light.

“I told her that we live together, and…” Paul laughed as he remembered, “I told her that we are debauched.” 

“You what? You didn’t!” John was trying not to laugh along with Paul, but was ultimately unsuccessful. “What did she say?”

“She was very amused and then asked to see you, and then she told you she loved you. I think you can let that worry go, John.” 

John was thinking back. “That’s right, she told me ‘I love you no matter what.’” His voice expressed the wondrousness of it all. He fell back against his pillows and stared up at the ceiling as his mind raced.

“So, I hope this means you’re going to stop mooning around so much,” Paul said. He had turned on his side, and his head was in the palm of his hand.

“My aunt just died, Paul. Have a little respect.” John said in mock anger.

“Okay,” Paul sighed loudly. “I was hoping for a little debauchery tonight, but I guess that’s not on…” He pretended to be offended and turned over to his other side in a manufactured snit but before he could settle himself again, John was on top of him. 

“I never say no to a little debauchery, you tease…you know that very well…”


	23. Chapter 23

It was Paul and Linda’s turn to host Christmas this year, and Mike McCartney and his family were coming down to stay with them in London. Heather, Mary and Stella would all be staying at Cavendish, so Linda asked John if Mike and family could stay at his house, seeing as how there were sufficient bedrooms that way, with no one having to sleep on sofas or the floor. John, who would be hosting Sean the week after Christmas, was fine with this idea, and asked the housekeeper to prepare the rooms. Hosting the Mike McCartneys was not for the feint of heart. Mike had three daughters in their twenties from his first marriage (Theran, Brenna and Abbi), and three sons under age 7 from his second marriage to Rowena Horne (Josh, Max, and Sonny). John really had no idea what he was in for. 

The loud clan arrived via two separate cars two days before Christmas, and John heard the din coming from the mews before he heard the backdoor buzzer. He picked up the phone and called Paul, who was at Cavendish.

“Your brother’s here,” he said, and hung up. Then he went downstairs and opened the mudroom door. There stood Mike’s blond wife, Rowena, holding an infant in her arms and a toddler by the hand.

“We need to use the loo!” She announced, and pushed past him dragging the little boy. “He’s potty training!” she shouted as she headed in the direction John had pointed. John was bemused by this abrupt arrival, and then he turned to find Mike on his doorstep, with another small boy peering out from behind his dad’s pants leg, and Mike simultaneously offered up another one of those bearlike McCartney hugs. Apparently the whole family was like that. John was noticing a car full of young women still parked in the mews.

“They can come in, you know,” John said to Mike, nodding in the girls’ direction.

Mike said, “They are going to double up in their cousins’ rooms,” he said, “apparently because I’m too embarrassing, and their cousins are more fun.”

“Makes sense to me,” John said. “They can park here, and I’ll show them to the back gate.” As John headed in the direction of the car, Mike accompanied his son into the house, and made it to the kitchen, looking around the opulent room in surprised interest. Someone paid a decorator a lot of money, he thought, in thrifty McCartney fashion.

The girls saw John Lennon approaching their car, and they started whispering and giggling. “He’s really handsome,” the eldest, Theron, said. “Much better looking in person.” 

“Shhhh, he’ll hear you,” whispered Abbi as she lowered the car window. 

“Hey ladies,” John drawled. “You can’t be Mike’s daughters - you were so tiny before!”

They all groaned. “Obviously, we grew,” said Brenna. John saw a very Macca-like indignation on her face and he smiled warmly at her, causing the young woman’s heart rate to increase alarmingly. 

“Well, park your car over here, and then I’ll help you carry your stuff over to Cavendish.” 

They met Paul coming out of the gate, and Paul took the luggage away from John after the obligatory round of fierce family hugs. He told John to go see to Mike, and he’d join them in a few minutes.

Back at the house, Rowena had managed to get her son to the toilet before disaster, and was now free to take in her surroundings. “This place is much more posh than Paul’s place,” she said to Mike in a hushed voice. 

“I’m afraid to sit down,” Mike agreed.

“I peeked in the sitting room after we came out of the lav, and there is a white carpet and white furniture!” Rowena’s face was quite worried. “And there are expensive breakable art pieces in low places!”

“Well, that’s going to work - with three small boys.” Mike was thinking maybe it would be better if they all slept on the floor in Cavendish, or sent all the girls down here instead. Just then, John came in to the kitchen and greeted Rowena, who was still holding the baby.

“Who’s this, then?” He asked politely, smiling at the shy infant.

“This is Sonny,” Rowena said.

“Really? That’s his actual name?”

“You got a problem with it?” Mike snarled with fake indignation. 

“No, no,” John laughed, holding his hands up in the surrender position. “Let me show you to your rooms.” 

Mike was trying to get used to a meticulously dressed John Lennon, leading them down a marble hallway, and up a set of marble steps. 

“Marble,” Mike muttered. 

“It’s the original, from when the house was first built,” John expounded enthusiastically. 

Mike shared a distressed look with Rowena. A small boy could crack his skull falling down marble stairs. He said nothing, but cleared his throat a bit.

The room he offered the two older boys had a double bed. The double bed was a bit high off the ground. Rowena stared at it dubiously. Her oldest son, Josh, said loudly, “How are we supposed to get up on that?” 

Both Rowena and Mike immediately hushed their son, pinking up in embarrassment, but John laughed. “You know, I never thought of that. I have some step stairs for my old cat, and we can put it next to the bed, and you can get up that way. What do you think?”

Josh said, “Super!” 

John then showed Mike and Rowena the large guest suite for them. Mike saw a place to set up the travel crib, and immediately went to work. Rowena, meanwhile, was utterly nonplussed by the room. Walls were white, carpet was white, but the most beautiful multi-colored blankets and pillows and drapes dazzled the eye, and what appeared to be expensive mahogany etchings were mounted on the walls. 

John noticed that Rowena was studying the décor. “I got the fabrics and the art pieces when Paul and I were on tour in South America.” 

Rowena smiled at John. “It’s all beautiful. Everything is. But we have three small boys. Mike and I are afraid they’ll spill on the carpet, or break your art pieces.”

John smiled. “If they spill on the carpet, I’ll have it cleaned. And I’ll have the housekeeper but the objets higher up. How’s that?” 

Rowena smiled with full relief. “That would make us both feel much better,” she said.

“Hello! Where is everyone?” It was Paul’s voice calling from the downstairs hallway.

John walked towards the stair railings and shouted down into the well, “We’re up here ba..mate!” Phew, that was close. John took a quick glance in Mike’s direction, but he was focused on the travel crib. 

A moment later Paul was at the top of the stairs, and hugging Rowena. He took one look at the baby and went gaga. Rowena smiled. These McCartney men sure did love babies and children. It was such an appealing part of their makeup. Rowena had never had the pleasure of meeting Jim McCartney, but she had decided that he must have been an incredibly loving and effective father. Meanwhile, Paul was smothering Sonny with tickles and kisses and the baby was giggling. 

John sat down on the bed and watched Paul fuss over the baby. There was an extremely revealing fond smile on his face, and the adoring love was there for all to see, but fortunately no one was watching. 

 

*****

 

George Harrison had been having a terrible several months. From 1979 until 1986 things had been going great for him. His film company, HandMade Films, had been putting out one big hit after another. His 1987 album, Cloud Nine, had been a huge commercial and critical hit, and he’d had a great time hogging the spotlight at the Beatles’ induction in the first Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame event in early 1988. The problems hadn’t started until HandMade Films produced the disastrous movie Shanghai Surprise in 1986, which had gone way over budget and then was followed by a dismal showing at the box office. The film made up barely half of what it cost to make it. Still, the company weathered that major loss due to other more successful films. 

It wasn’t until the 1988 film The Raggedy Rawney bombed big time, followed shortly thereafter by the 1989 bomb Checking Out, that the small independent film studio failed. Still, for a surprising amount of time George had been blissfully ignorant of this fact, because of the arcane layers of legal mumbo jumbo his manager Denis O’Brien had designed to misdirect taxing authorities and any pesky creditors (not to mention George). It wasn’t until late 1991 that George had really begun to understand the enormity of his financial losses. He had been wiped out, literally, and the company was bankrupt. His beloved Friar Park was mortgaged to the hilt, and he had no way to pay the mortgage down. It so happened that the amount Neil Aspinall quoted as George’s potential take from The Anthology would pay off his business debt, help him keep Friar Park, and have a little leftover to spare. This information had been playing in his mind ever since the Thanksgiving dinner at Paul’s house, and George finally convinced himself that he would have to hold his nose and cooperate with Apple to finish The Anthology. To that end, he picked up the phone and called Neil.

 

*****

 

John curled up on the end of his sofa in the sitting room, and Neil Aspinall sat at the other end. Both men were sipping 50 year-old scotch whiskey that Neil had brought with him. Paul was across the mews at Cavendish, and Mike and his wife were there, too, dining with the whole family. Neil had called earlier that day to tell John that George Harrison had decided to cooperate in the completion of The Anthology. John had been surprised. He thought for sure George would have refused to cooperate forever, if for no other reason than to stick it to Paul and him. The funny bit was, he - John - could live with or without The Anthology. He was mainly doing it because Paul wanted to do it, and also because Paul thought Ringo needed the money. In any case, he had invited Neil over for a drink in order to tell him the truth about his relationship with Paul. 

John was still mourning Mimi’s loss, of course, but what she had told him on her deathbed had been correct. She hadn’t been a part of his regular life for decades, and although there were moments when he had started to write a letter to her only to remember she was no longer alive to receive it, John found that he could function quite well despite her death. Still, on this night, he didn’t feel like joining the huge McCartney family reunion. They were so relentlessly happy, loud, cheerful, energetic and hilarious, and John wasn’t in the mood to celebrate so soon after losing Mimi.

Neil had arrived shortly after 8 p.m., and the two men enjoyed their whiskey in front of a briskly snapping fire. (Mike had started the fire. Usually Paul set the fires, since John was useless at such things, but since John had a resident McCartney, he’d gotten Mike to do it.) He and Neil had discussed the sudden change of heart by George first.

“I’ll bet he needs money,” John drawled. “I can’t think of any other reason why he would agree to participate.”

Neil chuckled uncomfortably. George was his friend, and he hated when the various Beatles trashed each other to him. “Maybe,” Neil responded, “but he could have had a change of heart. Ringo really leaned on him at the Thanksgiving dinner party.” 

John shrugged and nodded. That was a slight (very slight, in John’s opinion) possibility. But he abandoned the thought. “So what’s the schedule, then?”

“We’re working that out now, and I’ll be in touch when it’s settled.” 

“That’s alright, then. Just remember, while you’re making the schedule - I’m lazy.” John smiled as he said this, and Neil chuckled.

“How could I forget?” Neil said, taking another sip of whiskey. 

The two men were quiet for a few minutes. Neil was relaxed, watching the fire, enjoying the whiskey and John’s company. John was strung a bit tighter, trying to figure out how best to open the difficult subject. He finally cleared his throat.

“You know, at Thanksgiving, Ringo mentioned something to Paul, who mentioned it to me.”

“Oh?” Neil was busy stroking one of John’s cats, who had found its way to Neil’s lap. 

“Apparently you asked George about Paul and me. The rumors?” John tried to sound unperturbed by the subject matter. He was successful, although he didn’t know it.

Neil felt embarrassed and his voice came out in quick, stressed syllables. “Yes, John, I’m sorry about that…it’s just that everyone was asking me, and I of course didn’t believe it, but…” 

“Neil! Neil, it’s okay,” John said, laughing a little to show there was no problem. “Paul and I discussed it, and we believe we should have told you a long time ago that, well, the rumors are true.” John was looking into his glass as he spoke, because he did not want to see Neil’s expression.

Neil was still coming up with explanations for his gossipy curiosity when John’s words played back to him, as if there was a tape. “You…what?”

John did look up this time, and he saw absolute astonishment on Neil’s face. “It’s true,” John repeated softly. Neil was silent in his surprise, and John rushed in to fill the awkward silence. “We would have told you years ago if we’d thought of it, but we’re pretty insular, and you know - one slip of the tongue and all hell breaks loose for Paul’s family.”

Neil mumbled the repeated words, “Paul’s family.” He was still quite shocked. He could not believe it, and had never been suspicious, and he was beginning to wonder if John was having him on as a kind of funny revenge for gossiping about him with George. 

“But George said it wasn’t true…Doesn’t he know?” Neil was stammering in confusion.

“George has known about it for a few years. He was just being discreet, I guess,” John said gently. John saw Neil’s floundering, and added, “Linda and I share Paul, you know. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride. His marriage to her is real, and his relationship with me is real.”

Neil was trying to take it in. “You…you share him?”

John laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. “It’s a lot to take in. Do you not want to talk about it?” 

Neil was gradually getting his heart rate back to a normal pace. The cat had jumped off his lap and stalked away in irritation, no longer enjoying Neil’s vibe. Neil leaned over and put his whiskey tumbler down, and then finally found some words. They were ridiculously mundane and predictable. “I had no idea…”

John chuckled again. “I can see that.”

“This is real? You’re not having me on?” Neil’s face actually looked hopeful. He had spent his life loving and caring for the four friends who had gone so far in the world, and he -like everyone else who knew them or knew of them - had ascribed certain personas to them, and John and Paul had been incredible womanizers - both of them - and so successful at it, that he was finding it impossible to get his head around John’s announcement. 

“Neil, I really wouldn’t joke about something like this,” John said in a soft, understanding voice. “Is it really that shocking to you?”

Neil finally saw John’s expression. John’s eyes looked insecure and worried. He knew he had to get a grip so he could reassure John that….that what? Neil really didn’t know what to think about this information. And - crap! - the publicity! If it got out, The Anthology… Neil couldn’t help his brain from racing ahead to the business implications. He was very close to panicking. Would they have to rethink The Anthology now? This news - if it got out - would destroy the sales. It would completely overwhelm whatever positive things they could think of doing, and John was so unpredictable. You never knew what he was going to say to a reporter…John’s worried face came back into focus, and Neil forced his brain to shut up.

“I am very surprised, yes, but ‘shocked’ may be a bit strong.” Neil managed a smile. It looked a little weak and wobbly. Part of him wanted to know more, but the larger part of him wanted to get the hell out and go home before he lost two of his heroes forever. 

“Do you find it…disgusting?” John’s voice sounded suddenly intensely insecure, and his body language appeared even more so. 

“Disgusting! No! No of course not!” Neil scoffed. Did he? Did he not think homosexuality was disgusting? He certainly had thought so before John had told him this news, although Neil had always been a very circumspect and polite person, and would never have admitted this to anyone. 

John wasn’t convinced. There was something central that had changed about Neil’s entire demeanor. He looked unsettled, nervous, and he perched now on the edge of the sofa like a bird ready to take wing at any moment. John was beginning to think telling Neil was a terrible mistake. 

Neil said, “Excuse me, John, I need to use the loo.”

“It’s down the hall and to the left,” John said. He watched Neil leave the room, and his heart fell. He immediately picked up the phone and called Cavendish. Stella answered. “Stell, it’s John. I need to talk to your dad. Right away.” 

A moment later Paul was on the line. “What’s up?” he asked (predictably). 

“I told Neil, and he’s horrified. He’s trying hard not to show it, but he’s disgusted by it. I’m sure of it.” John’s voice was panicking a bit, and it sounded as though John was on the edge of tears.

“I’ll be right over,” Paul said, and hung up. He immediately excused himself, and hurried across the garden and down the mews. 

Meanwhile, Neil had used the moment in the bathroom to compose himself. He had to pull himself together for John’s sake until he had a chance to think about this by himself. He had thought nothing John could do or say would shock him, but boy! was he wrong. He slapped cold water on his face, toweled himself off, and prepared to return to the sitting room. 

John had just hung up from talking to Paul when Neil walked in. 

“I suppose now you’re going to say you have to leave?” John’s voice sounded bitter and angry.

“Do you want me to leave?” Neil asked, as if he had been socked in the chest. 

“No, but you can if you want. I wouldn’t want to make you stay…” 

Neil sat down and faced John squarely. “John, don’t be silly. It was a major surprise. I just was not expecting it. You have to give me a little time to digest it, is all. It’s like I have to rearrange all my ideas and opinions.”

“Why?” John asked abruptly. 

“Why what?”

“Why do you have to rethink anything? We’re still the same blokes we always were. We were lovers since the early sixties, you know.”

Neil hadn’t known. For some reason he thought it might have been something weird that happened after John left Yoko. Now he was shocked all over again. He sat there with his mouth hanging open with no idea whatsoever of what to say next. 

Into this tableau strolled Paul. He noted the absolute silence, and although Neil’s back was to him, he could see John’s hurt and truculent expression. “Hey, Nell,” Paul said softly, as he walked around to the chair opposite the sofa, and sat down. 

Neil saw Paul and actually felt relief. Paul would know what to do next, because obviously neither John nor he knew what to do, and that is what Paul usually did do: make sense of crazy shit that John said or did.

“I understand John told you about us,” Paul said seriously, but his face looked objective and calm. There was warmth around the eyes, too.

“He did, yes. Bit of a sho…surprise,” Neil managed to correct himself but too late. Although he was looking at Paul, Neil heard John’s snicker.

Paul smiled easily and said, “We are sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, you know. We’ve been so busy trying to protect ourselves, that I think sometimes we overdo it.” 

Neil took a deep breath and smiled sheepishly at Paul. “I’m afraid I never saw it coming.”

Paul nodded. “John and I have always been extremely careful, for obvious reasons.” John could be heard grunting off to the side. Paul gave John an expression that seconded for a remonstrance, and then turned back to Neil. “Anyway, we’re sorry if we’ve upset you.”

Neil murmured his reassurances that no such thing had happened and then said, “I can’t help thinking about Apple. It’s like I’ve been programmed, and I can’t help myself.”

“What about Apple?” John demanded angrily.

Paul acted as though John had not spoken. “You mean, how this information will impact Apple if it were to become public? Is that what you’re worried about?” 

Neil nodded shamefully. “I can’t help it. I have a fiduciary duty.”

Paul smiled reassuringly. “We get it. We don’t want to hurt Apple either. I really don’t want the information to get out because of my wife and children. It isn’t like we’re dying to announce it to the world, and as you yourself can attest, we’re good at hiding it.” 

Neil heard this and felt a little less stressed. “Oh?”

Paul knew at that moment that Neil’s concern had to do with Apple, more than anything else. “John and I don’t want the public to know. It would be disastrous for my family and John’s sons, not to mention our careers.”

John stood up, and stomped out of the room. Paul watched him go, a bit worried but knowing in the end John agreed with what he said. Yes, John hated living a lie, but he was more afraid of living the truth. Paul turned back to meet Neil’s eyes, and found them studying him.

Neil said, “John is upset.”

“He hates the lying,” Paul said in a matter-of-fact voice. “But he won’t talk about it publicly. He doesn’t want to deal with the backlash. Trust me.”

Neil felt a bit of relief washing over him. “So now what?”

Paul smiled. “Nothing is different than before, Neil,” he said logically. “The only difference is that you now know the truth. If you keep it to yourself, everything will be okay.”

Neil chuckled. Paul was a master mediator. Neil realized he was being emotionally manipulated at one level, but he was very grateful that this shocking news might not scuttle Apple. “I just can’t believe it, Paul. I’ve known you since we were, what? Thirteen?”

“About that, yes,” Paul admitted. He said nothing else in explanation or apology.

Neil struggled with what to say next. “I thought you liked women.”

“I do like women,” Paul said calmly, trying to meet Neil’s evasive eyes. “But I love John. I’d do anything for him.”

Neil heard this, and on a certain unenthusiastic level he understood what Paul was saying. “I think I should go home, and let you…[he almost said ‘comfort’ but didn’t, because the image it brought up embarrassed him]...talk to John.”

“I’ll do that,” Paul said firmly with a businesslike smile. He accompanied Neil to the front door. “I understand George has caved,” he said with a look of amusement on his face. Neil was noticing that Paul looked and sounded just like he always did, and the fact that he had…well, er…that he and John…er … well, in any case, Paul didn’t seem any different than before.

There was an awkward moment at the door before Paul reached over and engulfed Neil in a huge hug. “It’s okay,” Paul whispered in Neil’s ear. “We’re the same blokes we always were. It will be okay.” 

 

*****

 

“John?” 

The bedroom was pitch black, and Paul waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Eventually, he could just barely make out the form of the bed, and he gingerly walked in that direction. When he found the side of the bed, feeling with his hands, he climbed up on the bed and eventually cozied up against the lump in the bed that was John. John had been crying.

“Johnny, it’s going to be fine,” Paul whispered, as he gathered John up in a loving spoon. “He just needs a little while to get used to the idea.”

John was able to mumble, “He hates us. He thinks it’s disgusting.” His tone was very self-pitying.

Paul squeezed John a bit and whispered in his ear, “No, you have to see it through his eyes, Johnny. He’s known us forever, and he had no idea. We made it our business to keep it from him. He needs some time to adjust, that’s all.” 

John was enjoying being squeezed and held by Paul. He was especially enjoying the attention, and the fact that Paul had come running over without a second thought, leaving his family behind. John felt that he was a bad person for being happy about this, but every little clue he was able to accumulate that assured him that Paul was his, made him happy.

Paul, meanwhile, was becoming aroused. Fuck. Paul was pissed at himself because he was so easily aroused, and so he went around feeling horny all the time. He was doing nothing to encourage it, but his cock was growing larger by the moment as he rubbed up against John’s ass. He shouldn’t be doing this. He was expected back at Cavendish, and it was rude to leave his family awaiting his return.

For his part, John was smiling inwardly. He could feel the engorged member pressing against his ass, and he knew that he had succeeded in diverting Paul’s attention away from his wife, brother, sister-in-law, and all of their children - even the babies! This gave John a feeling of confidence and victory. He snuggled in a little closer, shoving his ass backwards towards Paul’s pelvic area, and he smiled inwardly again as he heard Paul’s moan of desire. It was doubtful that Paul would be going back to Cavendish tonight; well, at least not for the next little while.

 

*****

 

“Where’d you disappear to last night?” Mike was having breakfast at Cavendish, and Paul was sitting across from him nursing a cup of coffee as Mike asked this question. 

“Hmm?” Paul temporized. “Oh, Neil Aspinall was there, and we got to talking…you know how it goes.”

“Neil was there? You should have told me! I haven’t seen him in ages!” Mike was a bit put out.

“One thing just led to another…he had come over to discuss Apple business. I’m sorry, I didn’t think to tell you.” Paul made himself busy with his newspaper, hoping that they could move on to another subject.

“How’s he doing?” Mike asked.

Fucked up for sure, Paul thought bemusedly, but that is not what he said. “He’s typical Neil - calm, centered, detail oriented. He’s done a fantastic job with Apple.”

“It’s sometimes hard to believe that we’re all the same people who were kids at the Inny,” Mike pondered. “We’ve come so far.”

Paul nodded in agreement. He decided to change the subject. “How’s John treating you?”

“He cracks me up. He is so domestic. I would never have guessed that in a million years,” Mike said, chuckling. “He rinses out his coffee cups and puts them immediately in the dishwasher, and comes by with the sponge and wipes away all the crumbs, almost as they are falling off the toast.” 

Paul laughed. He knew exactly what Mike was talking about of course.

“Rowena and I are worried about the boys, which is why we drag them over here as soon as they wake up. Can you imagine what they could do to all that luxurious white carpet? It is horrifying to think…”

“Yeah, white wasn’t the most practical choice, but John says it feels ‘clean’.”

“It’s ‘clean’ when it’s ‘clean’. But if it gets dirty, it will look filthy.” Mike was grumbling now.

“It never gets dirty,” Paul assured Mike. “John would never stand for that.” The brothers laughed, a bit in wonderment that their old teenage friend had turned into such a housekeeping Nazi. 

Then Mike said something that alarmed Paul. “I think John had someone in his bed last night.” Mike’s eyes were dancing with mischief.

Paul’s heart thumped. “Oh?” was all he could manage.

“Yeah, Rowena and I are pretty sure we heard some ‘activity’ in there, but whoever she was, she was gone by the time we woke up at 7 a.m. He’s a cagey one.”

Paul felt a bit sick. He knew he shouldn’t have given in to his urges…

“I don’t know why he’s so secretive about it though,” Mike mused. “It isn’t as if Rowena or I would be upset by it.”

Paul said nothing, and managed a sickly smile in agreement. There was nothing he could say that would be anything other than an outright lie. Paul didn’t like to lie outright, and only did it when absolutely necessary from a moral point of view. For everything else, he much preferred misdirection and temporizing. 

“Do you know who she is?” Mike asked.

“He hasn’t mentioned anyone,” Paul responded. 

“It’s weird he isn’t married again, or dating someone regularly.” 

“John has lots of friends; he stays busy. He tells me he isn’t cut out for marriage.” Paul managed to string these truthful sentences together in apparent response to Mike’s direct question. Somehow they relayed the impression that John was playing the field, and preferred it that way, even though that impression would be wrong. 

“He’s a bit of a player, then, eh?” Mike was unusually interested in this line of questioning and it was beginning to bother Paul.

“You need to ask John if you want an answer to that one,” Paul evaded, laughing. “He’s unpredictable. You never know, he could change his mind tomorrow.” Just then, to Paul’s relief, Linda and Rowena came in the room and the subject changed. 

What didn’t change was Paul’s sense of guilt about keeping the truth from his brother. He couldn’t figure out why he was so opposed to the idea of Mike finding out. He suspected part of it was their birth order, and Paul’s role in their relationship as the older brother who had everything together. Somehow telling his brother about John might elevate Mike to the catbird seat in their brotherly relationship. Paul did not like to feel that he was in the weaker or less powerful role in any situation, much less with his “baby” brother. But it was more than that. Paul was afraid of losing Mike’s respect and regard. Although Mike loved taking the mickey out of Paul, he also revered his brother. Paul did not want to let Mike down, or cause Mike to look away from him in embarrassment or disappointment. 

 

*****

 

Later that night, back at John’s house, Mike and Rowena were getting settled in bed. It was Christmas Eve, and the family had opened a few presents back at Cavendish, and John had shared dinner with them, and exchanged presents. His son Julian had dropped by for a few hours, and Mike was amazed at how old Julian was. It had been many years since he had seen him. After a while, Julian had left, and John had accompanied Mike and Rowena back to his house.

Mike turned to Rowena in bed and said, “Paul was being evasive about John’s sex life.”

“Don’t tell me you told Paul about last night!” Rowena was embarrassed. Other people’s sex lives were private, and she was a bit peeved with Mike for mentioning it to Paul.

“Paul was very discreet,” Mike said. “But he was clearly hiding something. I know all the signs.


	24. Chapter 24

The sun felt heavenly as it slowly caused the salty ocean water to evaporate from her tanning skin. The last two weeks had been like a honeymoon to Linda, who, for almost three years, had felt as though she had been crawling through the desert after mirages. Paul had been very present with her the whole time, which is something she’d missed so much for so long. He had surprised her by finding a villa with stables and horses, and every day they rode horses on the beach - in the morning as the sun rose, and in the evening as the sun went down. He had remembered what she had said to him about missing that time together, and this touched her deeply. The villa was rustic, and it was a few miles away (an easy trip on horseback or via jeep) to a dusty, quiet little fishing village. This was just the sort of understated, no-luxury break that Linda most appreciated.

On horseback, Paul always became a different person, or at least to Linda he seemed to do so. She felt like maybe he was 12 years old, and so was she, and there was an innocent camaraderie to their explorations on horseback. They would race each other, or walk the horses slowly side by side, and they never spoke of problems while riding horses. Instead they always spoke of hopes and dreams, the way 12 year-old friends would. At times like those, it felt to Linda that there was still life to be lived, and dreams to be realized. This, of course, was a very refreshing thing to feel when you’re 50 years old, as Linda was.

Paul, meanwhile, was rediscovering the person he was when he was Linda. He had gotten out of that vibe by spending the majority of his time with John, and John expected and inspired different things out of him than Linda did. Paul, too, had always kind of liked the bare bones hippy lifestyle that Linda preferred. Paul was honest enough to know that he enjoyed that lifestyle because he also knew that when he tired of it he had enough money to go five-star again. But for Linda, these simple things were what she really wanted, and nothing else. Paul admired that tremendously, and also appreciated the fact that her being that way was what kept him sane and then helped him heal during and after the death throes of the Beatles.

On one early morning horse ride, Paul asked Linda a simple question. “Where do you see us in ten years? We’ll be 60 then.”

Linda’s first reaction was to feel a piercing relief that Paul had said “us” instead of “yourself”. Her second reaction was to ask herself the same question, because lately she had stopped dreaming of the future. Lately, getting through the present was hard enough. Paul waited patiently as Linda composed a response. He was good that way - he always gave her enough space to gather her thoughts.

“James will be grown, all the kids will be on their own,” Linda was thinking out loud. “I guess I used to dream that when we retired, and the kids were all grown, we could spend more time on our farm in Scotland, and in our ranch in Tucson. Those are my two favorites of our homes.”

Paul’s reaction to this surprised him. He had asked her a question without knowing what he thought about what he wanted for himself ten years from now. What struck him first about what Linda had said was that he could not see himself “retiring” at age 60. Paul honestly never thought about “retiring” at all. It was jarring to hear that Linda so blithely and unquestionably looked forward to a time when he would retire. Oh, well, Paul thought. Maybe I’ll feel differently 10 years from now.

What struck him second was even more serious - how on earth could he hope to keep this triangle going? John would rather die than to spend much time every year in either Tucson or the Scottish farm. John would want to spend time in London, New York, Los Angeles. He was a big city kind of guy. Oh well, Paul thought again, maybe I’ll spend half the year with John, working, and half the year rusticating with Linda. But as soon as he thought that he knew it would not work. He himself couldn’t see limiting his work life to six months, John would not stand for being reduced to a 50% life mate, and, Paul couldn’t imagine leaving Linda alone in either Scotland or Tucson, by herself, for half the year. Oh, crap.

Paul said some encouraging things to Linda about her hopes for the future, but he himself did not speak of his own dreams. He realized that as complicated as things were now, the kids being in school had been the glue that kept their ménage afloat: All three grown ups had to compromise about where they’d rather live in order to accommodate the children. Once the children were taken out of the equation, the distinct needs of three very different people had to be taken into consideration, and Paul worried that his own needs would end up being subordinated to Linda and John’s.

Later on, by himself, Paul pondered it more. He didn’t usually worry about the future, but for whatever reason this alarming conundrum had never occurred to him before, and now it was preying on his mind. The more he thought, the more he believed they would have to cut the year up into thirds, not halves. One-third of the year they would do what Paul wanted, one-third what Linda wanted, and one- third what John wanted. They would all have to sit down and work it out together. Having come to this ambitious conclusion, and not wanting to start poking holes in it one moment sooner than he had to, Paul was finally able to let the worry go and continue to enjoy his time with Linda. 

 

*****

 

John and James, meanwhile, had been thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. James especially enjoyed the fact that John treated him like an adult. John was okay with pizza every night, if that is what James wanted. Every night, James had stayed up far too late watching movies and playing video games, and sometimes John watched and played with him. John would get tired and say, “I’m going to bed. How about you?” And James would say, “In a little while.” And all John would say is, “Well, see you tomorrow.” James would sleep in until 1 or 2 p.m., and John would not act disapproving when he finally showed himself downstairs. John would merely look up from his newspaper, magazine or book and say, ‘Hey, James!’

James blew off school for a few days in a row, pretending to be sick. John didn’t question the illness; he didn’t even put a hand on James’s forehead or insist upon a trip to the doctor, like his mother would have done. John seemed glad of the company. If James forgot he was supposed to be sick and got overly energetic and ate too fast and too much for a “sick” person, John didn’t appear to think there was anything suspicious about that. In fact, John didn’t notice at all. Finally, the school actually broke for the Christmas holidays, and then a few days later Sean showed up. James, at 14, was still a bit immature. He had been babied a lot by his parents because he had been such a shy, sensitive boy. But Sean, at 16, was a generous enough kid to overlook this factor, and the three of them - John, Sean and James - rubbed along together quite well.

John had been grateful for the company, because he was missing Paul big time. It had been years since he had gone more than a few nights without sleeping with Paul. Never mind the sex, just sleeping without him was a serious bummer. Paul was a cuddler, and so was John, and so John’s bed pillows had been getting a real workout. John stepped up his visits to Fiona from two to three times a week while Paul was away. Fiona had suggested it, and at first John thought it was unnecessary, but he soon realized it was essential. Each session had turned into a litany of John’s complaints and fears about Paul’s extended absence. What if he decided he wanted to be with Linda more - or, fuck - what if he wanted to be only with Linda? Or, more realistically, John worried, what if he decided to go back to the 50/50 breakdown, where he would live with Linda for a period, and then with him?

Fiona patiently walked him through these anxieties. For her part, she strongly suspected that Paul was every bit as attached to John as John was to Paul, and that John’s fears were unfounded. Fiona had begun to think that perhaps it had been Linda who had ended up with the short stick, and so she felt a kind of female solidarity with Linda, and was glad the woman was getting her husband to herself for three weeks. Fiona’s only job was to help keep John together until Paul’s return. 

Paul. Fiona could not help but wish she could actually meet and talk to the man that John was obsessed with. She really didn’t need to meet Paul to treat John, because although he had been incredibly obstructive and difficult in the beginning, John had become, over the years, the most open of all her patients. She no longer had to prime the pump. As soon as he sat down he started spewing, and at times it was hard to keep up with her note taking. Still, having met Paul through John’s words, she had a desire to meet the man himself. And she also thought the man probably could do with some therapy himself. From what she had learned over the years, Paul was a man who kept his fear, anger, and sadness to himself as much as possible, and so he probably would truly benefit from therapy. Of course, Fiona knew, people like Paul never chose therapy. It was part of their neurosis to avoid therapy like the plague.

Today, Fiona observed John obliquely. He was staring off to the side having what appeared to be a momentary muse. He seemed to snap out of it, and then turned to look at her and said, “Paul told my Aunt about us before she died.” John had not told Fiona this fact until now - over a month after Mimi’s death.

“How did she respond?” Fiona asked.

“She said she loved me no matter what.” John was in a kind of trance as he relived those few moments with Mimi before she was gone.

“That must have been a relief,” Fiona commented neutrally. She was thinking that Paul was a champ for carrying this water for John.

John thought about it for a while and then said, “Yes, it has been a relief - a huge relief. If Paul hadn’t told her, I’d have regretted forever not telling her, and gone on forever thinking that she would have disowned me had she known.”

“Paul is a good friend to you,” Fiona pointed out.

John smiled. “He can be so cheesy, though. He was singing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ to me in his lounge lizard voice. That fucker. I was trying to wallow in my grief, and he kept making me laugh.” 

 

*****

 

Sixteen days. It had been sixteen whole days, with five more to go. The villa he had rented had no air conditioning, so the windows were thrown open and a half-hearted breeze was meandering limply around the room. It was about three in the morning, and Paul was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He had experienced many more than one night like this during his holiday with Linda, and already he had memorized where all the ceiling cracks were located. The days took care of themselves, so long as he filled them with activities, although whenever he came to rest, he would feel anxiety pricking his senses, and soon he would be kicking his foot or tapping his hand in nervous rhythm. But the late nights, early mornings were the hardest. He and Linda would have sex, or they wouldn’t, and Linda would fall off to sleep in Paul’s arms, contented, and then Paul would doze too, but would wake up again a few hours later, unable to sleep.

It was like being weaned off a habit-forming substance, Paul decided, remembering when he had given up cocaine, and also when he had given up cigarettes. He literally was longing to hear John’s voice again, and feel his thigh against his…I have to stop thinking about it! Paul forced himself to think about the day’s activities. Each day Linda and he had eaten breakfast on the terrace, and then gone for a horseback ride. They would meander down to the beach and swim and sunbath for a bit, and then would go back to the house for lunch. After that, they’d lounge around the pool, Linda falling asleep and Paul surreptitiously doing paperwork. In the evenings they would sit on the terrace and watch the sunset while drinking margaritas, or sometimes they would go to the town for an early dinner. At night they fell asleep in each other’s arms, usually after engaging in some kind of physical affection. It was certainly not a hard life, but inside Paul’s head was a ticking clock, and he would literally rip the page of the calendar off in his head as each day ended.

This didn’t mean that he wasn’t enjoying Linda’s company. Much to the contrary, he absolutely loved being with her, and her calm, flexible demeanor calmed him down like nothing else could. She and he would share joints on the terrace, too, and then giggle like children over silly thoughts. No, what Paul realized was that he had grown accustomed to having John in his daily life, and it didn’t feel right when he was away so long from him. The guilt-inducing thought that occasionally occurred to Paul was that he never tortured himself like this when he was away from Linda and alone with John.

Paul was also worried by the fact that John had just lost Mimi. He had suggested to Linda that they should postpone their trip and Linda was amenable, but John would not hear of it. He had actually insisted that they go. Paul thought that was amazingly openhearted of John, but he still worried about John’s state of mind. (What he didn’t know was that John wanted to get the holiday ‘over with’ sooner rather than later, and had felt that since he had gotten used to the idea of the trip, best they should get it over with now and have it behind him.) 

 

*****

 

Halfway through the third week of Paul’s holiday, Neil Aspinall gave John a call. He had talked with Ringo about the John/Paul thing, and Ringo had calmed Neil down with some downhome Liverpudlian common sense and humor. Neil realized he had been taking it all too seriously. Whether he approved of homosexuality or not, it wasn’t necessary to even think about their sexuality when he was dealing with John and Paul. He only had to think of them as his old mates and business associates and let all thoughts of…intimacy…leave his mind.

“John, this is Neil,” he said into the mouthpiece after his telephone call was answered. Neil’s voice was artificially positive and confident. John was always a tricky one in situations like these.

“Neil, hello,” John’s voice sounded disdainful and distrusting.

“I’d like to see you, I feel I owe you an apology,” Neil said, his confidence shaken somewhat by the flat, hostile sound of John’s voice.

“You don’t like queers, I get it,” John snapped. “You forget I heard all that crap everyone said about queers back in the day.”

“You were the worst one, John,” Neil retorted, but his voice was amused.

John couldn’t answer that because it was indubitably true. He had been the worst homophobe ever until he had finally bedded Paul. Then he had become a secret sympathizer, and as the ‘60s and then the ‘70s went on, he’d become more and more vocal about being open-minded about it. Only since his reconciliation with Paul had he gone back into silent mode on the subject. There was too much at stake. There had always been too much at stake. John felt his anger deserting him.

“You’re right, Nell, I was a regular gay basher back then. I was probably overcompensating because of my feelings for…” John stopped. Something told him Neil really didn’t want too much detail about his feelings for Paul. “Anyway, sure, wanna meet at a pub for a pint?”

Later that evening, John met up with Neil at a pub near Neil’s house. The driver had deposited him, and had been instructed to check in with him in an hour or so. John wanted to see Neil, but worried that they’d fall out again if Neil gave off even so much as a whiff of disapproval.

Snug in their booth at the back, with the comforting dark and sports noises surrounding them, John and Neil went unnoticed and unrecognized. It was easier and easier to be anonymous the older he got, John realized. Most of the time this gave him a twang of fear and insecurity, but at times like these he was grateful for it. Neil had ordered their pints, and they studied the menus in silence for a few moments while sipping their beers. After the barmaid had taken their order, they both relaxed somewhat in their seats, eyeing each other with awkwardness.

“I guess I’ll start,” Neil said, chuckling a little at the silliness of two men being awkward after knowing each other intimately for over 30 years. “I apologize for my reaction the other night, John. It was inexcusable.”

John sighed and said, “Your reaction wasn’t too bad. It’s just that the handful of friends who we told before we told you didn’t react negatively at all. Well, George pouted for a while because we ‘left him out’ again…” Neil was chuckling at that. “And I had some rough moments with my Aunt last month…”

“I’m sorry about that, John. How are you doing with that?”

“I’m okay most of the time, but mainly I’m missing Paul. He’s been off on holiday with Linda for almost three weeks…” Oops; too much detail for Neil. John abruptly changed the subject. “Yours was the first negative experience I’ve had to the news from friends so far. It wasn’t that bad, but it reminded me of what we would be in for if the news became public. We would be pilloried in the press.”

“Yes, I believe that to be true,” Neil said sadly. “It would completely overshadow and pull the rug out from under The Anthology.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? Paul says that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yes, I have to worry about it. The health of Apple and its new attempts to husband the Beatles’ legacy depends on your secret remaining a secret.”

John heard and received the warning from his old friend. A look of frustration crossed his face, followed by sadness and then acceptance. “I know,” he admitted. “It’s killing me to live like this, Neal, but it would be even worse if it got out. You can count on me keeping my big mouth shut.”

“So, am I the last to know?” Neil asked, a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

“No, not by half. We haven’t even told Paul’s brother yet, or George Martin…”

“So, George Martin doesn’t even know?”

“Not from us, he doesn’t. And he’s never said a word about it to us.”

“Well, I feel better then,” Neil chuckled, “I knew before George Martin knew!” 

 

*****

 

“We should have John and Paul over for dinner soon,” Judy Martin was saying to her husband. “It has been awhile. I understand John lost his aunt not long ago.”

“According to the newspaper, she died on December 6th,” George Martin responded.

“John must be devastated. I know he had a close relationship with her,” Judy posited.

George snuffed in amusement and said, “Tortured relationship is more like it.”

“Speaking of ‘tortured’, have either of them discussed their living situation with you yet?” Judy was curious, because she had been the one to convince George that the two men had a sexual relationship. She had picked up the vibes at more than one evening spent with them over dinner. It had taken several evenings before George had begun to see Judy’s point, but the main convincer was the proximity of their homes, and John’s stubborn refusal to be set up with even the loveliest of Judy’s friends and associates. George had always thought the two men were incredibly close; they were very intimate friends. It wasn’t that hard for George to believe that they were lovers, because the creative interplay between them was almost sexual by itself. Still, it would be nice if they would confide in him. It felt a bit awkward at times pretending like there was no 500 pound guerilla in the room.

“No, but I really don’t expect them to. I suppose there is a slight chance we’re wrong, but those two are tight. The only reason their break up was so brutal was that they had so much info on each other. It had to have been agonizing for them, especially Paul.”

“Why Paul especially?” Judy asked, sitting down in her chair.

“Because John took no prisoners, and Paul hasn’t got that killer instinct. Paul took almost all of the hits, but John got all of the sympathy.”

Judy thought about that. “You’d think that Paul would be bitter about that, but he honestly doesn’t seem to be.”

George smiled with affection as he thought of Paul. Paul, the young genius he had mentored. “Paul doesn’t have a bitter or mean bone in his body. He can be demanding and perfectionist, but that’s just business. Paul just doesn’t have the desire to hurt people, even when he is hurt himself.”

“Paul’s your favorite, isn’t he?” Judy asked with a smile.

George grimaced. “I shouldn’t have any favorites, but yes, Paul has always been my favorite. He is a genius, a genuine one. He doesn’t realize how talented he is, and doesn’t seem to know his best work from his worst work, so of course he was a producer’s dream.”

“So, shall we invite them?” Judy asked.

“I’ll call tomorrow.” 

 

*****

 

“What are you thinking about?”

Paul came out of his zone with a snap. Linda had asked him a question. They were seated in chairs on the terrace watching the sunset, and smoking joints. Paul had been thinking about John. He had no intention of telling Linda that.

“I was thinking about the album,” Paul prevaricated. A few minutes earlier he had been thinking about the album. “This one is a tough one. We can’t seem to get it together, although George Martin is advising us.”

Linda watched Paul’s face for a while and decided to ask the forbidden question. “Do you miss John?” she asked.

Paul was surprised by the question. He knew he had to be careful with his response. “I do miss the goofball,” Paul said, smiling. Linda giggled. “He kind of fills up a room, you know.”

Linda smiled. “It’s okay, Paul.”

“What’s ‘okay’?” Paul asked, not clear what she meant.

“It’s okay that you miss John. I know you love him, too. I kind of miss the big lummox myself.”

Paul laughed out loud, in love with Linda all over again. What a great girl she was! (Paul fell in love with her “all over again” several times per day.) “I’m so glad you said that. I’ve been worried about him, because of Mimi.”

Linda reached out and clasped Paul’s hand and squeezed. “The timing couldn’t have been worse. But I’m sure he’s got his hands full with James.”

“It wasn’t until we landed here that it dawned on me, Lin - we left our 14 year old son alone with John Lennon! They’ll be arresting us for child endangerment upon our return!” 

 

*****

 

George Martin called Paul’s house, but was told by the housekeeper that Paul and Linda were out of town. So he called John’s house, and was soon chatting with John. This did arouse George’s curiosity a bit - he had a hard time understanding how Linda fit into the whole situation.

“John, we were hoping you’d come over for dinner next Friday. I understand Paul is out of town?”

“Yeah, he and Linda are off jetsetting somewhere,” John said laconically, “but I’m free if you still want me.”

“Don’t be silly - of course we do! Arrive 7 p.m., and dinner will be just before 8.”

John hung up the phone, glad for the invitation. He was doing his best to fill up the long hours before Paul’s return. He had grown so dependent on Paul for company that he found that being on his own stressed him out. Now that he had Friday night nailed down, he only had to figure out what to do with the next three nights!

By the time Friday evening came, John had used up every idea he could think of to keep himself entertained. He had to stop himself from leaving for the Martins’ too early because he was so eager to get out of the house. George and Judy both met him at the front door, and Judy enveloped John in a warm hug. John looked a bit eager and forlorn at the same time, and Judy sensed the poor man was missing his partner. She was glad she’d thought of the dinner date. Soon all three were arranged around the sitting room with pre-dinner drinks (George Martin liked to make unusual cocktails for guests; tonight’s masterpiece featured Grey Goose Vodka, cranberries, and mint: a Cosmopolitan with a mint twist. It was perfectly iced, and John found himself, surprisingly, slurping the damn thing up. (Surprisingly, because John usually hated the sweeter type of cocktail.)

“So Paul and Linda are out of town?” Judy asked. George tried to hide his smirk. Judy was so nosy about such things.

“Yeah, they’ve been gone almost three weeks,” John said with great indignation, as if “three weeks” were tantamount to three years.

“How lovely for them! Where did they go? Somewhere sunny?” Judy was laying it on a bit thick, George thought.

“I think so,” John said, leaning forward with interest. Finally! Someone other than Fiona who wanted to talk about this important issue! “They didn’t tell me where they were going, but by what Paul packed I surmised it was a sunny place.” John didn’t realize he had just let it be known that he had seen what Paul packed. Why would he have known what Paul packed unless he was, well, in the bedroom with him while the man was packing? Judy shot a veiled but victorious look at her husband, who tried not to notice it.

“So when are they getting back?” Judy continued.

“On Monday. Three more days.” John didn’t realize how quickly he’d responded and how strong the emphasis was in his tone; because of these “tells” it was pellucid to George and Judy that John had been ticking down the seconds and was now at his wits’ end.

George cleared his throat. It was time for him to rescue John from Judy’s conversational clutches. “So, John, how’s the album coming?” George pretended not to notice Judy’s quick glance of irritation in his direction.

“We’ve finally decided what songs will be on the album, save 1 or 2 that we’re still debating. I still think the album is too Lennon-heavy.”

“John, it amazes me to hear you say that! I don’t recall you ever advocating so hard for Paul’s space on an album.” George was genuinely perplexed by John’s remark, and John, in turn, could see the disbelief on George’s face.

“I’m not a complete hog,” John said, chuckling. “ I have enough sense to know that Paul is a far more commercially successful artist than I am, and there has to be enough Paul on the album to appeal to the masses who actually buy the albums in droves.”

Privately, George felt that this explanation was extremely patronizing, but he said nothing in direct response. Instead, he said, “Paul does have the knack of speaking directly to the audience’s heart, doesn’t he?”

John did a double take and realized that his self-serving version of why he wanted more Paul on the album was not washing with George Martin. All he could do was nod and smile non-committedly in response.

The conversation about the album having petered out to a semi-awkward silence, Judy piped up again. “You live right next door to Paul and Linda, don’t you?” This question was none too subtle, and George was not thrilled by it. But John did not seem to take offense, or acquire suspicions about it.

“Yeah - well, more like across a mews, and down the mews a bit. What do they say? Kitty corner?”

“Hmmm,” Judy said, curious now, “does this mean you have to walk all the way down one block, then down another, and then up the next to get to each other’s houses?”

Unaware he was being grilled, John said, “No, there’s a gate at the end of Paul’s garden that empties on to the mews, and so we just go through there.”

“That’s very convenient,” Judy said sweetly. This time it was a warning look George sent her way. She subsided, realizing that she had pretty much satisfied her own curiosity on the subject. She got up and said she had to go to the kitchen to put finishing touches on the dinner, which would be ready in about 15 minutes. She then sashayed out of the room feeling pretty proud of herself. But almost as soon as she was out of the room, John turned to George and asked,

“So what was that all about?” John was giving George a level look, and George knew that look from way back. John was no one’s fool - at least when he wasn’t on drugs or alcohol - and when he was compos mentis he could smell a hidden agenda at about 200 yards.

George paled a bit, but he was not a fearful man. He had never really been afraid of John Lennon, although he had frequently gone way out of his way not to have to go head to head with him, because it was so utterly tiresome and counterproductive to get crosswise with John. “My wife is convinced that you and Paul have a relationship,” Ge orge finally confessed. The way he had said “relationship” left no room for doubt.

“Oh.” John was silent for a while. “Do you believe her?” John asked in a conversational voice.

George was a little surprised that John was not defensive or angry, nor had he dissembled. “Yes, I do,” George finally said, taking care not to stop meeting John’s eyes, and maintaining as steady, calm and non-judgmental a demeanor as he possibly could. The two men stared at each other in complete silence for a good 30 or 40 seconds. George was not about to say anything more, and was waiting for John to speak first.

“I see.” John said. He looked down at his hands, thought a moment, and then looked back up to meet George’s frank stare. “If it were true, how would you feel about it?” John was channeling Neil Aspinall’s reaction, and was wondering if it was Neil who had let the cat out of the bag. It seemed an amazing coincidence that this subject should come up with George Martin just a few weeks after Neil had been told the truth.

“John, Judy convinced me about this at least 2 or 3 years ago,” George said, “and it has made no difference whatsoever in my feelings or opinions of the two of you. Have you noticed any difference in the way I have interacted with you?”

John froze and his brain did a quick browse around the neuron networks and then said, quietly, “No.”

“I’m sorry Judy was so obvious, but I guess we’re both a little hurt that you and Paul didn’t trust us enough to tell us yourselves. It isn’t as if it would make a hair’s worth of difference in how much we love you both.” George had leaned forward now, his voice more eager and pleading. He was seeking a reaction from the rational, logical John and not the reflexive, defensive John.

John finally smiled. Then he shrugged. “Is it that obvious?”

George laughed and leaned back, relieved he’d connected with the “good” John Lennon. “Not to me, it wasn’t, until Judy pointed out all the clues.”

John was a little alarmed now. Clues? There were clues? “What clues are these?” John asked, forcing a look of disinterested amusement on to his face.

“I can’t remember them all now, John. But I remember she thought the fact that you and Paul said ‘we’ all the time when you talked about your private lives was a big one. Plus, while I interpreted the way you sometimes look at each other as fondness, she saw something more…weighted… in it. There were a lot of little things, but none of them were ‘obvious.’”

John was not becalmed by this reassurance. His mind began to race with the potential millions of ways that he and Paul might have already given away the “truth” of their “relationship” to lots of other people who had been quietly keeping their revelations to themselves. Do they all know? John’s inner drama queen asked in a shriek voice. Do they all talk about us behind our backs? John’s defensiveness came up to the fore. “Why didn’t you say something to us sooner?” He asked, storm clouds gathering over his eyebrows.

Oh, dear, he so easily snaps from good John to bad John, George thought to himself with impatience. Now George would have to manipulate himself out of this mess. “It hardly mattered to either of us, John, it wasn’t our business. We did, on a number of occasions, each wonder how we might broach the subject, but it always felt a bit tacky to bring it up ourselves. I guess we were hoping that eventually you would want to tell us.”

John took this in, and his rational self reasserted control. “Well, I guess I can see it was awkward for you. But Paul and I are just now - in the last couple of months - starting to open up to the people closest to us. Each time we do tell someone, it is terrifying for us. We don’t know how someone will react. Will they rush off and sell the story to the tabloids? We’re trying to start capitalizing on the Beatles stuff again, and this news could ruin that for all four of us, and then Ringo and George will really hate us forever. We just told Neil a few weeks ago, and he totally freaked out!”

“Really? He had no suspicions?” George was surprised by this.

“Apparently. He was very upset, and very worried about Apple, but since then he has calmed down a little about it.” John was now confiding in George. He had started out defensive, and now George’s sober, calm presence felt like the shoulder to cry on to end all shoulders to cry on.

“Neil will come around,” George said reassuringly. “He loves all four of you, and he will come to terms with it.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” John said, “but it still sucks that people think that two people being in love is something you have to ‘come to terms with’. I had to deal with that same reaction with Yoko, too. People are so judgmental. It pisses me off that I’m not allowed just to be who I am, and love who I love, and have everyone else not give a damn either way.”

George smiled at John as one would smile at a precocious 10 year old who - though brilliant for his age - still wasn’t wise enough to interpret adult behavior. “John, you and Paul - you’re part of the fabric of literally millions of peoples’ lives, and certainly of western society. Nothing you do will ever be considered un-newsworthy, and certainly always millions of people - and thus the press - will always ‘give a damn.’ You can’t escape this fate now. If your fame was going to die, it would have died by now.”

John thought about what George had said. He knew George meant it to be kind and inspiring, but it had the opposite effect on John. “All this means is that I will always have to live a lie. I will never be able to live my life openly and without fear. I suppose some people would kill to be in my place, but all I can say is that it most often feels like an anvil around my neck.”


	25. Chapter 25

It was close to midnight when Paul and Linda finally straggled into the foyer at Cavendish, their flight having landed an hour late. The house was absolutely silent, but eventually a tired old dog wandered out from the kitchen to greet them, with a gently waving tail. Paul was incredibly eager to see John, but felt it would be rude and inappropriate for him to charge off down the garden leaving Linda alone, so he contained himself, and dragged their luggage upstairs. As he did so he reflected sadly on how quiet the house was without all the kids. Having just one kid still at home was hard, and when that kid was at the age when he preferred to shut himself up in his bedroom and be alone it compounded the feeling of the empty nest. Of course, tonight James would be over at John’s house, sound asleep (hopefully). Later, after they had showered and had a nightcap, Paul and Linda went to bed. It was an agony for Paul, lying there after Linda fell asleep, waiting for the morning when it would be acceptable for him to go see John. 

John, meanwhile, was wide-awake in his bedroom, watching the clock. He knew Paul’s plane had landed, and he should have been home before midnight. Why didn’t he come over? At 2 a.m. he got up, and wandered up to one of the rooms on the top floor, and hung out one of the windows trying to see if there were lights on at Cavendish, but his view of the house was blocked by trees. Frustrated, he went downstairs to the sitting room. There he found James sound asleep on the sofa, fully dressed, with his brand new Super Nintendo controller still in his hands. The TV set was lit up, and the last screen of the game was frozen on it. John felt a thrum of guilt. Paul would kill him if he found James this way. Good thing he’d come downstairs before Paul got home!

“James, wake up,” John urged, poking James in his side. The boy’s eyes flew open and stared in sleepy stupor at John. “You have to go up to your bedroom,” John said, giving him gentle nudges.

“Why?” James asked drowsily. This was a sensible question, since John hadn’t cared one whit where he had slept over the last three weeks. What was this sudden urgency all about?

“Your parents might come over at any minute. I don’t want them to see you this way.” John was now pulling James’s arm. “Come on, get your ass up and move.” 

James could see the reason in John’s request. If his parents knew how much crap he’d been getting away with in the last 3 weeks, they’d never let him stay with John again. Consequently, he was more than willing to join in on John’s little Potemkin Village routine. Consequently, he bestirred himself, abandoning his detritus and dragging himself up the stairs as if he were 90 years old. John quickly rushed about putting away the Nintendo equipment, fluffing pillows, folding blankets, and collecting up the discarded food plates and glasses. It’s a good thing he came down here - he wouldn’t have wanted Paul to see all this evidence of his lackadaisical parenting style. Soon, he was finished with his clean up, and now it was 2:30 a.m. Paul had still not come over. Should he walk down the alley and look up the garden to see what was going on? It was too late to call. John couldn’t decide. He hoped nothing happened to the plane. Suddenly John was filled with the certainty that Paul’s plane had crashed. He called the 24-hour information line at British Airways, and checked on Paul’s flight. It had arrived safely over two hours earlier. Paul and Linda must be home by now. John could not avoid the thought any longer: Paul had decided not to come see him upon his return, and had gone to bed with Linda! John felt this as both terrifying and a betrayal. What did this mean? Did this mean that Paul was going to want to change up their living arrangements in Linda’s favor? John was now fully awake and filled with anxiety. He began to pace, while literally wringing his hands.

The master bedroom at Cavendish was dark, and Paul had finally fallen asleep. There was a sound that awakened him, and he jerked awake. Someone was at the door. He turned to look at his bedside clock, and saw that it read 3:17 a.m. He sat up, his heart beating in terror, as a dark form became visible in the doorway.

“Paul!” It was a hoarse whisper. It was John. 

Paul fell back against the pillows in relief. His hand flew over his chest as he willed himself to calm down. For a moment there he thought Linda and he were about to be killed. He then threw the covers off, and headed for the doorway, where John was lingering. Paul shooed John into the hallway with expressive hand gestures, and then closed the bedroom door behind him. John started to speak but Paul shushed him. He gestured to the stairs, and then headed down to the foyer. When he got there, he turned around and John immediately engulfed him in a smothering hug. This hug went on for several moments, maybe as long as a minute, before John pulled back and asked in an angry growl,

“Why the hell didn’t you come home?” He asked in a hushed voice.

Paul thought to himself, I am home, and then he realized that John meant Paul’s other home - John’s house. “It was too late,” Paul whispered back, surprised at the strength of John’s anger. 

“It’s not too late. You’ve been gone for three weeks! Why didn’t you come over?” John’s stored anxiety was threatening to take over. 

“I’m sorry, John, I thought you were asleep, and it seemed wrong to just abandon Linda here alone so early in the morning.” Paul’s face had accrued that I’m reasoning with a mad man look that had always simultaneously irritated and becalmed John Lennon. Slowly, John’s temper began to cool. “I missed you so much,” John finally acknowledged.

Paul smiled warmly. “I missed you too, you nut case.” He grabbed John and pulled him back into a fierce hug. 

“Come back home with me,” John urged.

“I can’t duck out on Linda in the middle of the bleedin’ night, John!” Paul whispered back.

“Oh why the hell don’t you two go to John’s and let me get some sleep!” The loud voice pierced the darkness. Both men turned in shock and there was Linda on the stairwell, with a hastily donned dressing gown, hands on hips. 

“Christ, Linda, you scared the crap out of me!” John shouted back in mock anger, as Paul bent over in giggles.

“Well, you ask for it, comin’ up here in the middle of the night, stealing my husband out of our bed!” Linda’s mock anger was just as hilarious. 

“So, there you have it, Paul. Linda gives her permission!” John had grabbed hold of Paul’s arm and was starting to drag him towards the garden doors. 

“Ahem, gentlemen,” Linda said with amused impatience. “I think it would be advisable if Paul put some clothes on first.”

Paul looked down and realized he was naked. “Oops,” he said, and dashed upstairs to get some clothes. 

Once he’d disappeared, John said, “Sorry, Lin.”

“You don’t look too sorry,” she said, amused. “You look like the cat that got the canary.”

 

*****

 

The cat that got the canary, John repeated to himself, as he lay next to Paul. There was a shimmering hint of dawn slipping through the cracks in the curtains, and it cast a halo over the bed. Within its dim light he could see Paul’s face, lax with sleep. Although their lovemaking had been fast and furious, John remembered it all now in slow motion. 

For John, it had been mindless. He could sort of visualize himself as a cat pouncing on a bird. What had passed between them had felt that primal to John. It was almost scary how frenzied he had felt, and he now wondered whether Paul had been a little taken aback by the intensity of John’s need. He stole another glimpse of the ‘sleeping beauty’ as John often thought of Paul at times like these, and smiled. If I scared him last night with my ferocity, at least maybe he’ll never leave me alone for three fucking weeks at a time again!

As if John’s thoughts had awakened him, Paul stirred, cleared his throat, and half-opened his eyes. He noticed right away that John was staring at him. He couldn’t see John’s features, because he was backlit, but there was a kind of preying proprietary-ness to John’s silhouette that caused a tingle in Paul’s stomach. While much of their doings of a few hours earlier were like a blur to Paul, the overall memory of it was as if he was being devoured at both ends - through his mouth and his ass at the same time. This made him chuckle.

“Don’t tell me you want some more,” Paul’s sleepy voice queried. "It's only been a few hours."

“You have a lot of time to make up for,” John responded in a silkier, more dangerous voice. He reached out and brushed hair away from Paul’s eyes. “I’m thinking of tying you to this bed until I get my fill.” 

“Just so long as you let me up long enough to go to the loo, I suppose I’d survive,” Paul joked. 

John lay back down and urged Paul to turn to his side to face him. They stared at each other fondly at length, and then John leaned in for a kiss. Paul leaned in too. It was a chaste kiss, closed mouths, but it was very sweet. It made both men smile softly. “Right now I think I just want to lie here and stare at you,” John whispered. 

“Ok,” Paul responded agreeably. “And maybe I’ll stare back.”

 

*****

 

John looked through the large plate glass window down into the empty studio below. It seemed like a prison to John at the moment. It was nine o’clock at night and Paul was hunkered down over the soundboard yet again, leaning forward, eyes closed, with hands over his earphones. Paul is going to polish this fucking diamond until it disappears. John felt the moment was here when he would have to put his foot down. It was time to finish off this album, and prep it for release. They had ultimately settled on 9 Lennon songs and 5 McCartney songs. John had dragged Paul kicking and screaming through the process of including more of his own work, and he suspected that Paul’s refusal to give the thumbs up on the final master had more to do with his insecurity about his own 5 songs than anything else. Taking a deep breath and thinking here goes! John pushed himself away from the glass partition and sat down next to Paul at the console. He lightly poked Paul’s arm to get his attention, and soon Paul’s eyes were two question marks as he removed his earphones.

John spoke in a low voice leaning in close to Paul’s ear so the sound engineers would not overhear. “We’re done, Paul. At this point we’re just chasing our tails. We’re in danger of making it worse, now, instead of better.” John had always found himself having to play this role, and as the years had gone by he had learned to do it with ever more tact and understanding. As an older man, he now fully understood the deep insecurity that drove Paul’s perfectionism, and it no longer irritated him so much as it stirred his compassion. 

Paul started to argue, but then saw the look in John’s eyes, and the set of John’s jaw. John was really out of patience now. He was drawing a line in the sand. Unless Paul wanted to create a scene in front of the studio staff, he would have to concede defeat. He nodded in silent assent, and removed the earphones entirely, setting them aside. He signaled to the sound engineer to stop the playback and said, “I think we’re done now.”

The sound engineer’s face was a comical combination of shock and delight. He had started to believe that he’d be sitting there in that dark control booth pressing and repressing the play button until kingdom come. He quickly rewound the tape, and stashed it away in its canister, making markings on some tape that he adhered to the cover. He was moving as fast as he could in case McCartney changed his mind.

Privately, Paul was secretly confident about the album. John’s work was both piercing and accessible. He felt that some of his own work spoiled the over all theme of the album, but at least his songs were well arranged and produced. And he had been both amused and touched by John’s song, 7 Levels. John had played that song for Paul only a month earlier, and had insisted upon its inclusion. 7 Levels wasn’t a single in Paul’s mind, but it was a very strong anchor on the album, holding down the end of the first side. Paul knew the song was about him, and while he worried that the song might give too much away, he also felt that the references John had leavened in the lyrics were obscure enough that only he, Paul, understood them all. The lyrics he had unsuccessfully argued should be changed (because he thought they were too revealing) still worried him. John had described Paul’s eyes as “dark green pools buried deep in a wood,” and this detail felt a little transparent to Paul. There were perhaps dozens of color photographs of Paul’s eyes looking like, well, dark green pools buried deep in a wood; many of those photos had been taken by Linda, who had instantly recognized the description when she first heard the song. “Ah, so it’s about you, then,” she had said softly, with a bit of wistful mischief sparking in her eyes. Paul had actually blushed a bit. It was difficult for Paul to watch his wife listening to John’s intimate and sensual musings. He had definitely felt overexposed. 

Paul got up and stretched languorously, and then absent- mindedly tucked in his shirttails as John collected their combined notebooks and headed for the door. Paul followed a few steps behind, and they both walked away down the hallway like the last two standing after a difficult but ultimately victorious skirmish.

*****

 

It was March 1992, and it was time for the new album’s release. John had lobbied endlessly for the title to be 7 Levels, and Paul had finally capitulated, mainly because he couldn’t think of anything more clever with which to replace it. Paul would have preferred a title that focused on John’s lyrics concerning his cancer, but John had argued that it was all the same thing: whether he was exploring his psyche over the chemo and the fear of death, or he was exploring his psyche over his relationship with Paul, it was all of a piece. It was the state he was in emotionally at the moment. Paul’s work on the album, meanwhile, was reactive. His work wasn’t so much examining his own emotional state as it was reacting to John’s. This fell right in line with John’s view of Paul’s cordoned off personality - the onion-like layers John had been assiduously peeling off now for almost 35 years. Sometimes John felt as though he would never get to the bottom layer, no matter how long they both lived.

Today they were meeting at the McLen offices at one Soho Square to discuss the album release details, and promotional details. They would also discuss the world tour they planned to support the album. Most of the long-term staffers at McLen had long since come to terms with the fact that John and Paul had a personal relationship that needed to be protected from the press and the world at large. The old-timers were incredibly loyal, and did their best to shield their bosses’ privacy from the newer employees and the interns. Meanwhile, John and Paul were oblivious to this fact, and believed that their secret was safe from all but a tiny trusted few. And even those few never addressed the issue with them directly. It was an awkward situation for everyone involved, but somehow it worked in a twisted kind of way.

The partners’ manager was at the head of the table, while everyone else lounged around the table casually. John and Paul were at different ends of the table - Paul next to the manager, sitting upright, and going through paperwork, and John down the table laying back in his chair, and trying to stifle a series of yawns. 

“The release date is in one month, on April 15th,” the manager said. “I’d like to do some advance publicity. I’ve spoken with MoJo and Rolling Stone, but I think that a Playboy interview would also be a good idea. What do you two think?”

“Do Playboy’s interviews still have cache?” Paul asked. 

“The interview still is widely reported in secondary sources,” responded the P.R. director. “And we have had inquiries from a series of news magazines as well.”

“John and I don’t want to do too many print interviews,” Paul said, “so lets be strategic about the ones we do. We can do a bunch of short TV news interviews wherever we go to supplement.” 

The ultimate decision was to do as the manager had suggested, which meant setting up three photo and interview sessions. All of them would take place at McLen offices in London within the next week. In addition, the tour manager gave a report on the tour promoters’ interest so far, and was given the task of coming up with a draft 34-date tour for the next week’s meeting. John and Paul were not too interested in another 60 plus date world tour like they’d done 3 years earlier, so they’d agreed to limit the number of months they’d be gone this time. After everyone else had left the conference room, the manager and the PR director asked John and Paul to stay behind with them.

“What’s up?” Paul asked them in a businesslike tone.

“We need to discuss the interview process in more depth,” the PR director said.

“Oh? In what way?” Paul asked. John had been silent throughout the meeting, and even now sat low in his swivel chair watching the others’ interactions.

“There are still rumblings in the press about your relationship,” the manager said flatly. “I think we have to assume they will come on strong and hard on that subject.” The manager was looking directly at Paul as he spoke. 

“So what else is new?” The voice came from the end of the table. Everyone looked towards John in surprise. It was the first time he had spoken. 

The manager redirected his gaze to the end of the table. “I suspect they will not be as willing to be put off this time,” he said.

“Why’s that?” John asked, laconically.

“Because it is three years later, and you still live next door to each other, and you still don’t have a woman in your life, and it is fairly well known amongst reporters who hung around the hospital that Paul literally moved in to your hospital room with you when you were having chemo. In addition, the issue - gay rights - has gained momentum as well, and there will be those among the press as well as activists who will want to make poster boys of you two. That is why we are not having a press conference this time. I will try to contain it by handpicking the interviewers and laying down some guidelines, but you both need to be prepared for some pretty pointed questioning just in case.”

John had subsided in his chair and appeared to have nothing further to say. Paul spoke up. “Can’t we simply tell them we are not answering questions about our personal lives, and will only discuss the album and tour?” 

“You can do that,” the PR director said, “but that will cause them to assume that the rumors are true, and you will have no control over how that fact will be spun in the final articles.” 

“So what do you suggest?” Paul asked.

“I thought we could do some mock interviewing. I can come up with questions that are far more intrusive than anything you will actually experience, and so you will be more than prepared for the actual interviews.” The PR director, a gay man, had a great deal of sympathy for his clients. They really had no idea how bad it could really go if things were allowed to get out of control. 

Paul looked down the table and met John’s unreadable eyes. “What do you think John?”

John shrugged and said, “Whatever. I think I can handle myself, but I don’t see how practicing could do any harm.” 

 

*****

 

The Playboy reporter sent to interview Lennon & McCartney was fresh from reporting the battlefield in the Persian Gulf. He was chosen specifically because he was a serious news reporter, and the McLen PR director was a bit put out by this information. He thought he’d had an understanding with his counterpart at Playboy, wherein an arts reporter would be sent to do the job. The last minute switch of reporters put the PR director in a dilemma. He could cancel the interview, but he suspected that would create an unnecessary hoopla amongst reporters. It would be like spreading scrum on the waters to attract the sharks. Still, he had been ruthless in his interview prep, and had been very pleasantly surprised at how well his clients had fielded his intrusive and even aggressive personal questions. They were obviously first class pros at this game after over 30 years of fielding impudent, stupid, silly, mean, provocative and presumptuous questions. John, especially, was adept at tying his questioner up in knots of words. In the end, he felt that the two were as ready as they could be, and they would probably sail through the Playboy interview with flying colors. He hoped.

John and Paul appeared on the surface to be cool, calm and collected. In truth, both of them knew what the stakes were: the success of their album, their tour, and the peace and happiness of Paul’s wife and both’s children. Paul felt a bit sick in his stomach. He didn’t know what worried him more - the potential exposure of his relationship with John, or a bad review of the new album. John’s nerves were more like pre-game jitters. He enjoyed parrying words with reporters, because reporters were wordsmiths like him, and it was more of a challenge to match wits with them than it was with your average, everyday person. John didn’t doubt that he could handle it all with aplomb, but Paul worried a bit that John had a temper, and if provoked might become very indiscreet or at least nasty. Paul figured he’d spend at least some of his time monitoring John’s moods and running interference.

The reporter, James Wilson, was 30 years old, and had been reporting freelance for 8 years. This was his first shot at a Playboy interview, and he was an ambitious and tenacious reporter. He was an avid rock music fan and had thoroughly enjoyed the 7 Levels album. He felt it was more intellectual and nuanced than the Last Year’s Echo release. He had nothing against homosexuals, but he disliked phoniness and hypocrisy, and because he was young and hadn’t experienced much of the complexity of human emotions yet, he felt that if it was true that Lennon and McCartney were lovers, they owed it to the world to be honest about it. There was also a self-righteous aspect to his thinking; he believed they themselves would be all the happier and healthier if they would just be honest. Consequently, he was determined not to be swayed by the famous duo’s charm while he was asking his questions. He had reviewed the tapes of the press conference in 1989, and had read their other interviews from that period as well, and had noted that they had very skillfully maneuvered around the personal questions and had not been pinned down despite some reporters’ valiant attempts. Wilson quite arrogantly felt that he would be the one to “break” this huge celebrity story.

The RS and MoJo interviews had been shorter affairs, wherein the reporters had obediently kept to the script. They had asked questions about the music, and hadn’t strayed into personal territory. This was largely because RS’s Jann Wenner was close to John Lennon, and MoJo’s editor was close to Paul McCartney. Consequently, the Playboy interview was the only white-knuckle experience ahead for John and Paul.

Wilson’s first impression upon meeting first Paul and then John was surprise. They still looked quite youthful for men of their ages. McCartney was a few months away from his 50th birthday, and Lennon was already 51, and headed for 52. Lennon was dressed in blue jeans and a white pullover sweater, and wore black hightop sneakers. McCartney was a bit more formal in a pair of slim-fitting silver-grey slacks, a matching jacket, and a crisp white shirt with no tie. Incongruously, he wore a pair of white converse sneakers. 

Paul quickly ascertained if the reporter had enough to drink and was comfortable, and John plopped down on the sofa facing the reporter, his eyebrows raised a bit in amusement. Paul finally made himself comfortable and then joined John on the sofa, being careful to leave a few feet between himself and John. Paul had been informed of Wilson’s background, so he began the conversation by asking him about his experiences in Kuwait and Iraq, and listened - sincerely absorbed - to the war stories. 

“I would never have that much courage,” Paul said honestly. 

“I don’t know if it is courage or stupidity, Paul,” John drawled. 

Well, that didn’t go so well, Paul thought to himself. John 1, reporter 0. He gave the reporter a friendly smile to let him know John’s comment was all in harmless fun. The reporter, unfortunately, appeared to be immune to his charm. We’re probably fucked, Paul thought. This worried him a great deal, because of Linda and his children, and, if he were being entirely truthful, also because of the album, their tour, and the upcoming Anthology project. Life could be so fucking complicated.

 

*****

 

“How’d it go?” John and Paul’s manager had entered the room almost as soon as the reporter had disappeared into the elevator. The PR director, who had been in the room, was relatively satisfied. He was fatalistic. He knew that gay people would catch on immediately that the two were lovers, but he doubted whether the answers provided would pierce the dense perceptions of the general straight public. He felt that they had skimmed by. There had been some pretty iffy moments, but between John’s insouciance and sarcasm, and Paul’s understated humor and charm, they had somehow managed to dodge the worst of the bullets. Still, there had been bullets. And they had been many and close between. He looked over to the sofa where John and Paul still sat. They looked exhausted, and Paul looked a bit worried. The manager was still standing in the doorway, looking concerned, and awaiting a response. 

The PR director took the lead. “It was dicey there on and off, but I think overall we handled it pretty well.” 

John said, “That asshole won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.’”

The manager said, “No out-and-out bloopers then?” Inside he was sweating bullets.

“No, no,” the PR director said. “But I do think the man will write extensively about the rumors, though.” 

The manager sat down abruptly in a nearby chair, and the four men sat in dumb silence for about a minute. The manager finally said, “Well, it’s nothing we haven’t faced before, and we can deal with it. At least it’s over, and we won’t subject you two to another interview like that again. It was a calculated risk, and maybe the best thing is to avoid long, detailed interviews in the future.”

John and Paul were uncharacteristically quiet. Paul felt the same way he’d felt when Imelda Marcos’s thugs were beating them all with sticks after their Filipino gigs in 1966. John was thoughtful but not terribly concerned. He felt confident that he could laugh off whatever snotty comments the reporter published about them. All in all, they were all relieved it was over, and felt just the way a football team did after completing a hard won tie match. 

 

*****

 

Linda had decided to give a dinner party. She hadn’t done one since Thanksgiving, and was eager to connect with friends again. One side effect of living this triangle existence was that she had discovered she needed her friends more than she ever had before. This party was going to include more of her friends than Paul’s, because it had dawned on her that she had left them out of the loop a lot ever since she had moved back to London, and John had moved in nearby. Strangely - or not so strangely, depending on how you looked at it - a number of Linda’s friends were homosexual. She had been active in the New York rock/art crowd in the mid to late sixties, and had met more than her share of rock reporters, writers, musicians, group managers and producers during that period, and many of them were homosexual. 

One of them was Danny Fields, the ‘70s rock manager and impresario. Linda had spent some private time with him in the ‘70s after her marriage, although it had sometimes been awkward trying to meld Danny’s New Yorker curiosity with her husband’s intense need for privacy. She knew that generally Danny had gotten the short end of the stick in their interactions since her marriage to Paul. She also knew that most of her former New Yorker friends were furious with her because she had cut off those friendships shortly after her marriage. They all thought it was because she had become arrogant and presumptuous. None of them knew about the years in Scotland in a dreary cottage in dreary weather, trying to prop up an almost suicidal and drunk husband while simultaneously raising a baby and a six year old. All that information had been safely locked away from the world, so her friends would never know the amount of pain and suffering she had endured watching her husband circling the drain and pulling him up out of his depression so that he could carry on. None of them knew that she had never really wanted to go on stage and pretend to be a musician. She had done it all for love, but none of her old “friends” had understood this, except maybe Danny. Consequently, Danny was the only one of that group who was still in her life, albeit tangentially.

In addition, Linda had been developing another vegetarian cookbook, and was working with an editor named Gray Parsons who was a gay man. Parsons had taken a dislike to Paul because he felt that Paul was too controlling. Linda found that amusing because of the amount of time she was left alone and to her own devices when Paul was with John. But so long as they were all keeping their ménage a secret, then people were going to reach erroneous conclusions about her relationship with Paul. She supposed the erroneous conclusions were better overall than if the truth were exposed, so she quietly and effectively managed the undercurrents of her social interactions with such friends. 

Another one of the friends Linda invited was someone she had worked closely with on animal rights and community interests in Sussex, Lillian Warren. Lillian was in her late fifties, and was a lesbian who had not had a relationship in many years. She had focused her attention and love on her pets and wild animals, and in Linda she had both a close friend and a secret love object. Linda was oblivious to this information, since she herself was not a lesbian so did not recognize the crush symptoms.

So among the invitees were Danny Fields, Gray Parsons and Lillian Warren. Linda had also invited a few friends that she and Paul had developed together back when they were living in Sussex. There were a few couples from the area, including a clergyman and his wife. All in all there were 10 people invited, including John, for a total of 12 diners. James was shipped off to his sisters’ flat for the evening, and he was tremendously relieved by this fact. Linda had never even considered not inviting John. She knew that Paul would never stand for the exclusion, so of course he was number one on the invitation list. It was a little surprising that he accepted the invitation, because lately he had been a bit standoffish from Linda because of her attempts to revitalize her married life with Paul. Ever since the holidays in January, she had been actively working on arranging activities and events to reel Paul back into the heart of their marriage. 

Paul, meanwhile, had reviewed the guest list with some concern. He had never really “got” Danny Fields, and that Parsons person was a snob and treated Paul as if he were some kind of ogre. He liked Lillian Warren well enough, but when they had lived in Sussex it seemed that she hung around their house for unnecessarily long periods of time. He also worried about how John would get along with Fields and Parsons. He doubted that John would put up with Fields’ presumptuous-ness and Parsons’ snobbery. He was concerned that the evening would be stressful for him in ways that Linda could not even begin to understand. He wanted to ask Linda why she was doing this, but something held him back. He knew that when he had committed himself to John he had also given up much of the moral high ground to Linda on issues of friendships and relationships outside the marriage. Whereas "before John" Paul and Linda had both kept each other apart from their individual friends and pursuits by mutual agreement, things had changed when John came in to the picture, and Paul was convinced that, under the circumstances, he couldn’t ask Linda to make sacrifices related to her personal friendships.

John had agreed to attend the party because he was feeling competitive with Linda. In fact, he had decided that he would give his own dinner party in a few months in honor of Paul’s 50th birthday, and invite his and Paul’s friends. Of course, Linda would be invited, too. Two could play at this game. He had no intention of leaving the field open for Linda, and thus, despite his disinclination to hang out with a bunch of people he didn’t know who were mainly Linda’s friends, he forced himself to take care while dressing. He wanted to look fantastic, and to sweep the feet out from under these friends of Linda’s. He wanted them to speak of nothing else but the night they had dinner with John Lennon. He was pretty sure he could carry it off. He definitely wanted to shine at Linda’s party, so that Paul would be proud of him. That was the main thing: to gain Paul’s attention away from Linda, and to see the pride shining in his eyes for him, and not Linda. 

Danny Fields was the first person to arrive. He deliberately arrived a half hour early, so that he could spend some alone time with Linda. He was surprised when Paul answered the door. They gave each other an awkward hug, and then Paul led Danny to the kitchen where Linda was at work putting finishing touches on her hors d’oeuvres. When she caught sight of Danny she squealed, and ran excitedly into his open arms. They kissed each other on the their cheeks, and then Linda said, 

“It’s been forever! Too long! It’s so great to see you!” 

Danny responded, “I’m available any time at all. All you have to do is call.”

Paul chuckled nervously. It was amazing how frequently lines from some of John’s and his songs came out in normal conversation. He wasn’t sure he liked the closeness between Linda and Danny, but couldn’t say why. He had always guessed that Danny couldn’t be trusted. Paul felt that Danny had his own possessive interest in Linda, and he might use that interest to his benefit at any given moment, even if it meant causing harm to Paul’s marriage to Linda. Feeling like a fifth wheel, Paul ambled back into the sitting room. He studied himself in the mirror over the mantelpiece and adjusted his collar and tie. He had dressed in a nice suit for the evening. He wondered where John was. He could use John’s company right about now. He thought he could just about feel equal to all of Linda’s friends if he had John by his side.


	26. Chapter 26

It was one hour into Linda’s party, and the conversation - lubricated by drink - was filling every crack and corner of the time. Paul had been listening with polite and dutiful patience to first Danny Fields’ anecdotes and stories, and then Lillian Warren’s painfully detailed explanations of all the improvements she had made in the local Sussex animal rights’ community. He had laughed at the Unitarian clergyman’s jokes, and got updated with the farming issues the Sussex farmers were facing these days with some other guests. Linda had finally set up the buffet, and people were lining up to eat. Paul saw John across the room deep in conversation with Danny Fields. That ought to be interesting, he thought. I hope John behaves himself. 

John was saying, “I really enjoyed the Ramones - Yoko and I went to see them play in the Village once.” John was well aware of Fields’ role in promoting and managing the Ramones, and was an expert at stroking the egos of industry folk.

“I was sorry to hear about you and Yoko breaking up. That must have been painful.” Fields’ expression displayed ersatz empathy, which John quickly noted.

“We had a fairly amicable split, as such things go,” John said calmly, not allowing a single vibration of his voice to sound stressed. “Our relationship had long since run its course by the time we finally called it quits. We’re both happier this way.”

Fields didn’t quite know where to go from there. But he was nothing if not pushy, and true to his New York roots he didn’t give up easily. “So, I don’t see anyone here with you tonight. Are you between relationships?” (He was actually prying, trying to get to the bottom of all those rumors he’d heard. Of course, it was all for Linda’s sake…)

John looked down his aquiline nose at Fields, and allowed a few uncomfortable seconds to pass. This would convey to Fields that it was a presumptuous question. John then said, “I don’t like to talk about my relationships. I’m not keen to marry again, that much I’ll say. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.” This was almost word for word the answer he had given to the Playboy reporter a week earlier.

Fields didn’t feel comfortable raising any further questions about the rumors he’d heard. He was hoping to corner Linda about them later. He was relieved when Lennon turned away and wandered off towards the buffet table.

Earlier, Gray Parsons had sat down next to Paul on a sofa, and then only afterwards noticed who was next to him. He couldn’t get up and walk away; that would be unforgivably rude. So he had turned to Paul and said, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Paul smiled one of his patented Macca grins and said, “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

Parsons cleared his throat. He may as well say what he had come here to say. Linda had told him to raise the subject with Paul, and it was clear she would not go along with his idea unless he had Paul’s approval and involvement. “I’ve been thinking that a very good business could be established making vegetarian frozen meals, if Linda’s name was on the product.”

Paul stared at Parsons for several moments as if he was trying to figure out the man’s angle. Parsons could feel himself being judged, and it irked him, but he retained a pleasant demeanor. Paul finally spoke. “Have you mentioned this to Linda?”

“Yes, we’ve spoken about it before. She seemed quite interested in the idea, but she was anxious to know your opinion on the subject. I have done quite a lot of research, and I do believe it is a viable business.”

Paul felt as though he had been hit in the gut. Why hadn’t Linda mentioned this to him before? What was going on? It felt as though his relationship with Linda was sliding out from under him. Instead of reacting, Paul was quiet. He considered Parsons’ suggestion, and then said, “I’ll contact John Eastman and we can all discuss this proposal in a business environment.”

Parsons was relieved to hear that the idea was going to be seriously considered, but he felt the slight slap of Paul’s subtle remonstration about his bringing the subject up during a private dinner party. A moment later, Paul moved away. Paul’s eyes had been devoid of any warmth, and his hand was cool and the clasp was weak. Clearly, Paul was not pleased that Parsons had taken it upon himself to discuss a potential business with Linda behind Paul’s back. Parsons interpreted this as more of Paul’s perceived controlling ways. It didn’t occur to Parsons that discussing a business with a man’s wife that required the use of the husband’s name, and doing so behind the man’s back, might be considered inappropriate by an objective third party.

Linda, meanwhile, had finally found a moment to sit down in the kitchen and have a cozy talk with Lillian. Lillian saw the circles under Linda’s eyes, and noted that Linda had gained some weight and looked older and far more strained than she had done when she lived in Sussex. Lillian had drawn the incorrect conclusion that Paul was responsible for the move to London, and that it had happened over Linda’s objections. Lillian was determined to get to the bottom of her concerns about Linda’s welfare, and persuade her to move back to Sussex. She, too, like Linda’s friends from New York, had wrongly interpreted the McCartneys’ super-close marriage to be down to Paul’s controlling ways, rather than a genuine desire shared by both of them to keep their family life private.

“How is life treating you here in London?” Lillian asked, leaning in closely so only Linda would hear.

“It’s fine,” Linda said. “James likes his school here, and he doesn’t get bullied. That was the major reason why we moved here.”

Lillian was surprised to hear this. “I thought it was Paul who wanted to move back to London.”

Linda looked curiously at Lillian. “I guess he did want me to move back to London,” she said slowly, “but he would never have insisted upon it. In the end, it was my decision. My daughters had moved to London for work, and I was missing them. Paul had to work in London because that was where John lived, so he was spending only half his time with me, and we missed each other. And then James was having a hard time at school. It made sense for all of us to move. It was a whole family decision, really.”

“Are you happy, Linda? Is Paul treating you right?” Lillian was thinking of the rumors about Paul and John Lennon when she asked this question.

Linda was indignant. “Of course he treats me alright! We just got back from a 3-week holiday alone in the Caribbean! Lillian, what’s this all about?” Lillian was taken aback. She knew Linda was a deeply loyal person, but there was a ring of truth in Linda’s voice. Lillian should have felt better to know that Linda was fine, but instead she was disappointed that Linda was not thinking of moving back to Sussex any time soon.

John had been selecting items from the buffet table when he was approached by a slinky-looking man dressed in an expensive suit and wearing a noisome cologne. John could tell the man was lingering next to him trying to work up his nerve to introduce himself, so he decided to turn on the charm and introduce himself.

“This food looks great, doesn’t it?” John asked the man. The man nodded eagerly in response. “Hi, I’m John,” he added.

“Yes, I know,” the man said.

“And you are?” John prompted politely. Obviously the man was fan-flopping.

“Garsons…I mean, heh,” the man chuckled sheepishly, “Gray.”

“Do you have a given name?” John was having fun. By now he had finished decorating his plate, and he gestured that they should both find somewhere to sit down and chat.

“Gray is my given name, my last name is Parsons.”

“Ah - ‘Garsons’ - I get it! Very clever!” John smiled warmly while he pretended that the man’s misspeak was deliberate.  
“So what do you do, Garsons?” John asked. This was way fun.

Parsons didn’t know if John was being friendly or insulting. “I edit and write cookbooks, and have a number of food-related businesses.” Parsons had dressed up his resume a bit for Lennon’s sake.

“Cookbooks,” John repeated. “Is that how you know Linda?”

“Yes, I’m editing her latest one…”

“She is an amazing cook,” John said. “So are you a chef or something?”

“I do have a Cordon Bleu certificate.” Parsons exaggerated. He had the lowest certificate. Not that this mattered to John, who had no idea what a Cordon Bleu certificate was anyway.

“Is it important - that Cordon Blue-thingie?” John’s eyes were dancing with mirth. He knew when he was having smoke blown up his ass, and he also knew how to blow it right back.

“It is the French master chef course,” Parsons said, sinking deeper into his fluffed up resume.

“Ah - French! Well, that must mean something special,” John mused, deeply amused by his own line of bullshit.

Parsons was looking at John sideways. He couldn’t tell if he was being made fun of, or if this was just John Lennon being nice to him, and pretending interest. One thing Parsons had picked up by now was that John was not really interested in his cooking career. He decided to change the subject.

“So I understand that you and Paul have a new record soon to be released?”

“Yes - in a few weeks,” John said. “Are you a fan?”

“Oh, yes, I love your music,” Parsons said. It was calculated to express that it was John’s, and not Paul’s music that he favored. John noticed this and was not amused. Now he began to feel that his twitting of this twit was no longer just a way to amuse himself at a boring party, but was now a righteous cause.

“Paul and I are appreciative of the compliment,” John responded with what passed for (just barely) a sincere expression of gratitude.

Parsons didn’t know what to say now, since John had included Paul in on the thank-you. Would it be too rude to point out that the compliment was meant only for John? “I especially prefer your writing style,” Parsons clarified, ill-advisedly.

“How can you tell the difference?” John asked with false innocence. “Paul and I can barely remember who wrote what lines. It always surprises us when others insist that our writing styles are noticeably different.”

Parsons’ smile back was sickly. He had no way of getting out of this morass and was firmly stuck in this mess of his own making.

John saw this and felt avenged. But he wasn’t through yet. “So, how long have you known Paul?”

“I met him through Linda, and we’ve only talked a few times.” Parsons was going to be careful about what he said from now on. He cleared his throat and added (he couldn’t help himself), “But we are going to meet with John Eastman about a business proposal Linda and I have.”

John’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. A business proposal that he had with Linda? That ought to go over like a lead balloon with Paul. “So what is this ‘business proposal’?”

“Frozen vegetarian meals for sale in markets,” Parsons said. “They would be Linda’s recipes, and her name on the boxes.”

John thought about this and wondered if Linda really had anything to do with this proposal. Still, he suspected Paul would be none too thrilled to have this man stirring up Linda’s independence. “You know, Linda won’t do anything unless Paul is there with her,” John said carefully in a warning tone.

“Yes,” Parsons said nervously, realizing that he had said too much. Again. “That is why I spoke with Paul about it this evening.”

“Umm,” John said, watching the man’s face with suspicion. “Just don’t get too ahead of yourself, that would be my advice.”

Parsons took this to mean that if he did, Paul would come after him in some way. His dislike for Paul was clearly visible when he said, “Husbands who control their wives are small people. I don’t see why Linda can’t have a part of her life completely to herself.”

John was finished being amused. Now he was pissed. “Paul doesn’t control Linda, Garsons,” John said sharply. “My warning was aimed at the fact that Linda is intensely loyal to Paul and also to her brother, and she will always want them behind her in any business deal. She isn’t going to wander off alone into some business with someone she barely knows. You will not know this, since you are neither rich nor famous, but people are constantly proposing business ideas that feature us giving them the use of our names. It’s always their little attempts to siphon off a bit of our fame for themselves. As a result, we have become very suspicious of all such approaches.”

Parsons was struck dumb. His hands were shaking, and he leaned over to put his plate down on a nearby table. He was embarrassed and insulted, but afraid to say or do anything for fear of an even more vicious attack from Lennon. To his relief, John got up and said,

“I’m going to get more food, and I’m sure Linda wants me to mingle more.” 

While John had been wrangling with Parsons, Linda had been finishing her perplexing conversation with Lillian. 

“We miss you in Sussex, Linda,” Lillian had said softly.

Linda’s heart melted and she smiled. “I really loved living there when the children were young, and we were all doing the carpools and the parties together. It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through - watching my kids leave the nest. I’m proud of them, and glad they are independent and building their own lives, but I miss my girls so much. And now James is growing older - he’ll be 15 soon! He says he wants to do a lot of surfing this summer, and John and Paul will be touring, so James and I will be living in Sussex for the last several weeks of summer.”

Lillian’s face lit up. “That’s fantastic! We’ll have to get everyone together!” But mainly Lillian was thinking of “several weeks” of having Linda to herself. But this brought up the subject she had hoped to raise with Linda, although with the partiers all around her she had found it more awkward to do so than she had expected.

“Linda, for sometime now I’ve wanted to talk to you about these rumors in the tabloids about Paul,” she finally managed, her voice low and discreet.

“Yes?” Linda asked, immediately feeling her defense shield come up.

“Well, you know what they’re saying about Paul and John Lennon. They’ve been saying that for years, but at first I couldn’t put any weight in it, but now - still?”

Linda sighed heavily. “Yes, of course I know. You can’t hardly miss it, can you? It’s only because they’re putting another album out, and they’re touring again. When the spotlights go on, all the crackpots get stirred up. It’s kind of like turning on a light in a room and watching all the cockroaches scurrying for cover.”

“I take it then that there is no truth to it?” Lillian asked delicately. Linda could not know that Lillian was praying for the rumors to be true.

“They love each other very much, Lillian. It would be weird if they didn’t. They grew up together, went through so much craziness together. They have this deep creative and emotional bond. I’d say the relationship is deeper than any other pair of male friends I’ve ever come across. But Paul is my lover, and his love for John is different than his love for me.”

“Do you feel left out of it?” Lillian was just curious, now.

“No, I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. I met Paul more than 10 years after he and John had been partners and best friends. John was a staple in Paul’s life, and I never knew him when that wasn’t true. In the ‘70s, when they were estranged, this was very painful for Paul, and I came to understand how deep that bond went by watching how the pain never died, even after 10 years. So, that part of Paul that is John’s - I never had it to begin with. It was part of him, like every other part of his personality, and I accepted it then, and I accept it now.” Linda hadn’t realized that her voice had gotten a bit louder until she heard Danny’s voice.

“Can I join in?” He asked eagerly. He was standing in the kitchen door, having tracked Linda and Lillian there.

Linda felt worried. She wasn’t sure what Danny had heard. “Yes, of course, Danny, come in and join us. Want a cup of coffee?”

“I’ll get it myself,” he said, as he did so. He then sat down across from Lillian and next to Linda. “You were talking about Paul and John,” Danny said, “and I have wanted to ask you about all those rumors.”

“Linda has just told me the rumors aren’t true, but what is true is that they have a very close bond. I asked her if she felt left out of it, and she said no.” Lillian was pissed off that this man had interrupted her private moment with Linda. She had met Danny Fields a few years before, when he’d come to visit Linda in Sussex while Paul was on tour with John the last time, and had gotten a bad vibe off him. Consequently, she wanted to protect Linda from Danny’s prying.

“The rumors are everywhere, Linda,” Danny said flatly. Linda was used to his brash New York approach, but Lillian was strictly British and aghast at the man’s crassness. “It’s the talk of New York.”

Linda laughed. “Well, that will last all of 15 minutes. ‘New York’ has a new scandal to hash over every 15 minutes.”

“Seriously, though, Linda, don’t you worry that it is true?” Fields was determined to drag his friend into reality if it killed him. He ignored Lillian’s grunt of disapproval.

“Do you imagine I wouldn’t know if it were true?” Linda asked playfully, giggling at the idea of it. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Danny. I’m a New Yorker too.”

“But when they’re on tour together, and you’re not there, how do you know what goes on?”

“Honestly!” Lillian protested.

“It’s okay, Lil,” Linda said softly. “Danny is like a bull in a china shop, but he means well.” She turned to Danny and said, “People gossip. The gossip takes on a life of it’s own. It gets to the point where you’re forced to prove that the gossip isn’t true, whereas the burden of proof ought to be on the person who made up the gossip in the first place! Paul and I decided a long time ago not to respond to gossip of any kind. We never have, and we never will. We refuse to be put in a position where we have to prove a negative. And John has been in that position many times before, and he has the same approach. There’s nothing we can do to stop the gossip, so we just live our lives and try to ignore it. I really would appreciate it if you - our friends - would ignore it too.”

Danny was actually convinced, based on Linda’s comments, that the rumors weren’t true. He was inclined not to believe them anyway, because he knew that Linda had been a very sexual person and a person who had her head screwed on right, and she wasn’t going to live in a loveless, sexless marriage. She wasn’t interested in great wealth, or the fame she had accrued in her marriage to Paul, so the only thing tying her to McCartney was her love for him and their children.

Lillian, too, was convinced, although she was severely disappointed. That put paid to her fantasies about living in Sussex with Linda while Paul was with John, and the McCartney marriage would serve as cover for them all.

Linda realized she’d spent too much time hidden in the kitchen, and got up and said, “I need to be getting back to my other guests.” Lillian and Danny reluctantly followed her back to the sitting room, where the other guests were all circling.

John saw Paul talking with an older couple, and decided to join them. He just popped up next to Paul with an expectant face, and Paul said to the minister and his wife,

“This is my friend John,” and John gallantly bowed his head and offered his hand first to the woman and then to the man. “And John, these are friends of Linda’s and mine from Rye, Samuel West is the minister at the Unitarian church, and Joan is his wife.”

“So what were you talking about?” John asked, prompting them to continue their conversation.

“The church needs a new bell tower,” Samuel said.

“Of course it does,” John said quickly and too cheerfully. The Wests looked at each other in doubt. Was that sarcasm?

Paul cleared his throat. He turned to John and spoke slowly. “We were talking about the village fete, and how the community could raise sufficient funds to pay for it.” Paul was staring at John pointedly: behave yourself!

“Why don’t you just pay for it yourself, Paul?” John chirped, his eyes alight with mischief. “You’re made of money, after all. Everyone knows that.”

“Oh no!” Mrs. West cried. “The community needs to pay for it! It needs to be a parish project!”

“Maybe just matching funds, that’s all that we could accept,” added Mr. West hopefully.

Paul smiled at the Wests comfortingly. “John is just teasing me,” he said softly. “He likes to throw the cat in among the pigeons. I have always found it most effective, when he does this, just to pretend as though nothing is amiss.” 

John guffawed loudly. He turned to the mystified Wests. “He knows me too well,” he said. “He’s Mr. Moneybags, and I can’t let an opportunity to rib him about it go by…”

The Reverend and his wife chuckled at this comment, but uncertainty and awkwardness glowed around them like an aura.

Thinking he'd completely derailed the Wests’ plot to ensnare Paul in their fundraising scheme, John bid them adieu and wandered over to where Linda was standing, talking to some of the guests. There was an older woman standing just to the side and a little behind Linda, and John had noted that the woman had been shadowing Linda all night. What’s up with that? He wondered. He decided to peel her off Linda for a while and get to the bottom of it all.

“So who are you?” He asked bluntly, after he walked up to her and faced her directly. He shot a quick wink at Linda. She saw what he was up to and gave him a warning look: behave yourself! John managed to look hurt by Linda’s accusing gaze.

“I’m Lillian Warren,” the woman said in an equally blunt style. She stood there stolidly, challenging John with a direct stare. John’s eyebrows went up. Oh goody! Someone to play with! This party is turning out to be a fucking gold mine!

“Well, Lillian Warren, how do you know our beloved Paul and Linda?”

Lillian didn’t like the smartass tone, and she wasn’t going to take any guff off this Lennon person. “I am a near neighbor of theirs, down in Sussex,” she said in a firm, no-nonsense voice.

“How near?” John asked. Somehow he made the question sound like a prod.

“I have a cottage just outside of Rye, and their farm is just down the road.”

“Hmm, strange. I lived there for about a year and a half a while back, in the windmill. That farm is huge - many acres. I didn’t think anyone was ‘near’ to it.” John stopped for a moment, theatrically posing in thought as if he were trying to remember. “I don’t remember you at all from that time.”

Lillian had known that Lennon had set up in the windmill after his divorce from Yoko Ono, but she had never been introduced to him during that period. She was not stupid or slow on the draw, however. She had immediately taken from John’s comments that he doubted her closeness to Paul and Linda, not only in terms of physical proximity, but also in terms of friendship. “Linda and I ran the local animal shelter organization,” Lillian announced, puffing herself up. “We spent many hours together organizing it.”

John said, “Organizing an organization must take a great deal of hours,” John opined. “So, what, did you find homes for stray cats and dogs?”

Lillian was insulted. This man was an oaf! What on earth did Paul - who was an animal lover himself - see in this asshole? “It is a bit more sophisticated than that,” Lillian said sharply. “We dealt with hunters going after the local game and endangering the wild animals. We made sure that farmers didn’t dispose of their old and sick horses - we have a sanctuary we set up. We are extremely active and well organized.”

John was amused by the woman’s lack of a sense of humor, but he began to suspect there was more to the woman’s psyche than just a shared love of animals with Linda. He suspected she was a fellow gender bender. Forgetting for the moment that he despised the fact that others were always poking at him about his relationship with Paul, John decided to do a little poking himself.

“So, are you married Lillian?” John asked politely.

“No.” Lillian was glaring at him.

“Neither am I,” John said flirtatiously.

Lillian gave him a sour look. What on earth was he up to now? John continued,

“So you’re ‘playing the field’ just like I am, eh?”

“At my age I wouldn’t dream of ‘playing the field’, whatever that means,” Lillian scoffed.

“So there’s a man in your life, is there?”

“I didn’t say that, and no, there’s not, if it is any of your business.”

“Oh, you got me there,” John said, pretending to have been hit by an arrow in his heart. “I am terrible about minding my own business. It must be because no one else minds their own business when it comes to me.”

Lillian - against her better judgment - felt herself softening a little. “I’m sure that must be horrible; all those awful people telling lies about you, and publishing it for everyone to see. I was just commiserating about that with Linda.”

“Oh?” John’s ears pricked up. “What was that all about?”

“These irresponsible rumors about you and Paul. Honestly, it’s as if they have no sensitivity about how this would impact Linda!”

John noted that Lillian’s only concern was how the rumors affected Linda. He was cheered up a bit that his suspicions were on target. “It’s not ‘like’ they have no sensitivity, Lillian,” John said, “They really do not have any sensitivity. Not about Linda, not about Paul or me, and not about our children. We’re just cardboard cutouts to them, or characters in a soap opera, and they believe that by choosing to be performers and songwriters, we have ‘bought in’ to being treated like this.”

“Well, Linda didn’t choose to be famous,” Lillian huffed.

“Well, yes she did. She knew what she was getting into when she married Paul. No one twisted her arm. It’s the kids who had no say in the matter, actually.”

This shut Lillian up. She had no reply. John continued cheerfully,

“The three of us - Paul, Linda and me - we do our best to protect the kids from gossip, but there is only so much you can do. They’re all old enough to hear about it or read about it themselves, so it’s just one of the burdens they have to bear for having the temerity to be Beatle children.”

Lillian nodded in wan agreement, although she was not at all sure how the conversation went off on this tangent. She decided to bring it back to dead center. “In any case,” she said, “Linda handles it all so marvelously. She is a very strong woman.”

“Indeed she is,” John agreed. “She’d have to be to put up with our Paul and me.” He chuckled as he said this, but he was watching her eyes for a reaction. What he saw was a hopeful gleam. Score! 

“The way you say that makes it seem that she is married to the both of you,” Lillian sniffed, thinking how awful for Linda that she had to have this boorish man hovering around all the time.

“She is, in a way. We’re a package deal. Always have been.” John was feeling euphoric that he had punctured the woman’s confidence. At times like these, he was not a nice person.

“You weren’t a ‘package deal’ when she married Paul,” Lillian differed.

“Weren’t we?” John asked lightly, his eyebrows raised as if to ask her to explain.

“The two of you were barely talking for years,” Lillian pronounced.

“Ahhh, talking…,” John said, pretending to finally get Lillian’s point. “You’re right about that. But then ‘talking’ isn’t really how Paul and I communicate, you know. We inhabit each other’s minds, so it really isn’t necessary for us to even be within shouting distance in order for us to communicate.”

Lillian was shocked at John’s comments. He was trying to make her believe the rumors were true! Fortunately, she’d already had the truth from Linda, and Linda was no liar, so she couldn’t imagine why Lennon was teasing her this way. “Well,” Lillian finally muttered, “that’s interesting. But I’m still not sure Linda saw it that way. She had a real marriage, and they have been inseparable.” Her loyalty to Linda was sticking out now like a sore thumb.

“Except when Paul and I are in London and she is not, and except with Paul and I are on tour…” John pointed out reasonably. “Linda and I have had to learn to share Paul, you know, and it hasn’t always been pretty. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“No she didn’t! And I don’t know why you are filling my head with all this nonsense. Do you find this funny?”

John pretended to look ashamed. “I’m bad, I know it. But I thought that since you and Linda are so…close…she would have confided in you. Apparently I’m wrong.” With that, he smiled in a friendly way and said, “I’m going to track Paul down, and see what he’s up to.” He turned on his heel and was gone, leaving Lillian bruised and bleeding in his wake.

Later that night, after Paul had assisted Linda in clearing up the party mess, and stacking everything neatly in the kitchen for the next day’s clean up, he and Linda sat down like a limp puddle on the sitting room sofa.

“Well, I’m exhausted!” Linda declared.

“Me, too,” Paul chuckled.

“Where’s John?” Linda asked.

“I sent him home over an hour ago. He was getting plastered, and was starting to be indiscreet.”

“Indiscreet?” Linda’s face reflected her concern.

“Oh, he was unintelligible, so I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I just walked him back to his place, and tucked him up in bed. He was sound asleep within seconds.”

Linda giggled. “He was quite the butterfly tonight, flitting from one guest to the other. He seemed to be in a very good mood, laughing and joking with everyone.”

Paul chuckled half-heartedly, because he had not trusted John’s good humor. “Personally, I think he was up to no good. He gets in these moods…”

Linda said, “Oh, you’re too hard on him. He was a perfect angel.”

Paul looked at her skeptically. “He was quite rude to Reverend and Mrs. West,” Paul said. “He suggested they were trying to get me to pay for the bell tower rescue.”

“Well, weren’t they?” Linda asked. “They usually do tend to rope us into these ‘community’ fundraising events.”

“They’re harmless,” Paul said, “and I agreed we would match whatever funds they raise from the community at large.”

Linda leaned over and kissed her husband while patting his thigh. “I am glad it’s over, though. Danny and Lillian were cross-examining me about the rumors.”

Paul was surprised by this. “No one said a word to me about it,” he said.

“They’re all scared of you, Paul. They wouldn’t dare.” Linda was chuckling.

“I’m not scary! Why would anyone be scared of me?”

“You are scary to outsiders, because you put on your heaviest suit of armor in front of them. It is quite intimidating actually.”

Paul had no inkling that this was how he was perceived by people he thought were friends, but he didn’t doubt the truth of Linda’s comment. “It’s that Beatle thing again, working against me. It’s hard not to suspect that they all want to plug into that Beatle magic.”

*****

 

A few days later Linda received a number of thank you notes from her party guests. She sat down to read them all at once while Paul and John were at work. She was at the kitchen table, with a hot cup of coffee.

“Linda,” read Lillian’s note first. After the first paragraph thanking her for the “wonderful” evening, Lillian had gotten right down to brass tacks: “After you and I spoke, John Lennon came to talk to me. He was horribly rude. Is he always like that? He asked a series of questions about my personal life, implied that I was lying about our friendship, and then proceeded to inform me that you had to ‘share’ Paul with him! He was trying to make me believe those horrible rumors are true! I just thought you should know, because you may not realize that he isn’t really your friend…”

Linda sighed as she read this. Oh, dear. Of course, Linda knew that Lillian had no sense of humor, so she wasn’t really surprised by this.

She picked up Gray Parsons’ thank you note next. He got straight to the point: “John Lennon was quite rude to me about our proposed business venture. He was trying to warn me off. I don’t know why you allow him in your circle. He does not appear to have your best interests at heart, and is loyal only to Paul.”

Oh, dear, Linda thought. But then, Parsons was quite arrogant, and probably John’s own arrogance was more than a match for his. Linda could see why Gray and John would not get along.

She picked up Danny Fields’s thank you note last: “Linda, John Lennon was a little rude to me - meeting him was quite disappointing!"

Linda sighed. When would she ever learn never to question Paul's take on John Lennon?


	27. Chapter 27

The Playboy Interview  
Lennon & McCartney  
The legendary songwriters’ new album addresses illness, impending loss, and the healing power of love

John Lennon, 51, and Paul McCartney, 49, were interviewed by Playboy correspondent James Wilson in London last month on the subject of their new album, “7 Levels”, which will be released this month. The former Beatles and long-time creative partners are also on the verge of kicking off their second world concert tour in three years. Here, they discuss their album, Lennon’s cancer scare, and those persistent rumors about their intense personal friendship.

PB: Your new album, 7 Levels, is a major shift in your usual writing process, isn’t it?

JL: You think so? 

PB: The theme is very personal, very connected to your real lives.

JL: All of our music is connected to our real lives; all of it is personal.

PB: But these songs are very specific to your bout with cancer, aren’t they?

JL: Well, cancer is what inspired many of these songs - or at least the experiences we had going through it - but with every song we write, something in our life inspires us.

PM: But James makes a point, don’t you think John? This album is much more focused on that one event, and how it felt to you.

JL: How it felt to us.

PB: When Cells Collide is perhaps the most literal of the songs on the album, with respect to the cancer ordeal. One expects the song to be satirical based on the title, and it is, but the music has features of classical music, like Day In the Life.

JL: That was Paul. Paul did the music for my songs this time out. 

PB: On all of them?

JL: Yes. All of mine but one. He wrote 5 songs on his own, and I did my edits on his songs.

PB: What made you separate the tasks this time around?

JL: It seemed like fun. We’d never done that before. For me, it was kind of liberating. I could write whatever I wanted, and didn’t have to worry about matching it to music!

PB: Paul, were you influenced by classical music when you composed the music to When Cells Collide? I know your Liverpool Oratorio was a success.

PM: Carl Davis also was responsible for Liverpool Oratorio, by the way, just so we get the credits straight. I don’t know if I thought “classical” while composing. I just thought since the lyrics discussed science in an allegorical way, the music should be more formal and intricate.

PB: Paul, one of your songs - Calico Skies - is very folk-y. It isn’t clear to me what the song is about. At one point it appears to be about a love object, and at another it appears to be an anti-war song. What was your thinking?

PM: It’s both.

PB: But what inspired it?

PM: The song just took on a life of its own. They do that, you know. I was writing about one thing, and it morphed into something else.

PB: The song starts with a compelling line: ‘It was written that I would love you/ From the moment I opened my eyes…’ Who was that about?

PM: It is about a soul mate, I guess, whoever that soul mate is for you or me. 

PB: How does that connect up with the guns at the end? And what does ‘calico skies’ mean?

JL: [Laughing] Man, you’re relentless. You need to take a chill pill.

PB: [Chuckling] I’m just full of questions, I am.

PM: I was channeling how the skies in Liverpool looked when the bombs and fires were going off at the time I was born. The Nazis were bombing us on the night I was born, so I was born under ‘calico skies’. Lots in my generation were, too. So it was kind of a generational reference.

PB: I see. And was your ‘soul mate’ born under calico skies too?

PM: Beats me. [Laughter.]

PB: Perhaps the most intriguing song on the album is the title song: ‘7 Levels’. John, you sing that one. Did you write it? 

JL: That one I wrote entirely. Of course, Paul did his magic in the studio with the arrangement, harmonies and instrument choices. 

PB: It is about a ‘soul mate’ in much the way Paul’s song ‘Calico Skies’ is about a ‘soul mate’, wouldn’t you agree?

JL: It was an exercise: To write a song about a loved one.

PB: Is it about Paul? There are lines in the song that sound very like Paul. And there is a famous story about the time Dylan introduced you to pot, wherein Paul said the ‘secret of the universe’ was that ‘there were seven levels’, which is one of the lines in the song.

JL: What other lines do you think sound like Paul? 

PB: The line about the dark green/brown eyes, for instance, and the description of the smile with the crinkled nose…

PM: My nose does not crinkle!

JL: Actually it does, mate.

PB: [Laughs] So you just happened to write a song about a person who looks like Paul and who, in the last verse, shares your muse?

JL: Well, maybe it was a little inspired by Paul. I had to write about something.

PM: I’m not a ‘thing,’ by the way. I’m a person.

PB: [Laughs] The lyrics sound very romantic, too.

JL: Oh, romance. No. I haven’t got a romantic bone in my body. 

PB: This leads me to questions about your relationship.

JL: Oh? ‘Romance’ leads you to our ‘relationship’? That’s odd.

PB: Well, of course you’ve heard the rumors. You dealt with them 3 years ago with your first album together, and those rumors are even more alive than they were then. They don’t seem to go away.

JL: They never will go away if people keep repeating them. 

PB: Are the rumors about you and Paul - that you are lovers -true?

JL: I’m just curious - just for my edification. How many times are we required to answer that question before people stop asking us it?

PM: If we’re a little irritated it is because it is not an amusing situation for us any more. I could laugh it off if it weren’t for my wife and children, and I know John feels the same way about his sons. 

PB: John, do you have a woman in your life?

JL: If I did, I wouldn’t discuss it here. I learned my lesson about having public relationships with women in the ‘60s and ‘70s. I learned a few things the hard way, and have decided I don’t want to discuss that any more. Now, if you want to talk about the men in my life, that’s another story… 

PB: [Laughs] You what?

JL: That was a joke by the way. 

PM: He can’t help himself.

JL: Just want to make it clear. A joke.

PB: [Laughs] John, you live just across the road from Paul and his family, don’t you?

JL: Across a mews, yes.

PB: Why do you live so close?

JL: I have always liked Paul’s neighborhood, St. John’s Wood, ever since he first moved into his house there in 1966. And it is convenient for us, since we spend many hours working together, and it is also walking distance to EMI. I don’t know why people make such a big deal about this. After all, Linda and the kids live in Paul’s house, too, and Sean lives with me when he’s not in New York. It’s all just ridiculous. 

PB: Why do you think the rumors are so persistent, then?

PM: John and I are close friends, and perhaps they misinterpret the fact that we literally grew up together, and we work together so closely. I guess I can sort of understand why people think that way, but the truth is I’m a happily married man, and John is a happily single man. 

PB: John, you have spoken many times very movingly about the double standard and the hypocrisy concerning how gays and bisexuals are treated. Do you think you are falling prey to the same hypocrisy and prejudice when you say the rumors are ‘ridiculous’? 

JL: [Sighing heavily] The only thing ‘ridiculous’ about the rumors is how flimsy the evidence is. I’m not saying it would be ‘ridiculous’ if Paul and I were actually lovers. I’m saying the ‘evidence’ people keep throwing at us is ridiculous. 

PB: If you were lovers, why would you not be willing to share the information with the world? Wouldn’t it be for the benefit of gay, lesbian and bisexual persons to make it public?

JL: If we were lovers, you might be right. But you never know about these things. Sometimes these things are like a boomerang. They go off at weird angles. In fact, if we were lovers and if we disclosed this to the world, it might do more harm than good. You never know.

PM: This is all theoretical, of course…

JL: …Of course…

PB: Paul, what was the impetus behind your song, Waiting? It sounds as though you are writing about the drawn out process of waiting for the chemo results, and for the chemo to end.

PM: I was channeling that a bit, yes. I spent a lot of time with John while he was going through chemo. He needed a friend, and I’m his friend. I know he would do the same for me.

PB: Yes, according to some hospital sources, you actually moved into his hospital room.

PM: John wasn’t in the hospital for a terribly long time. A few nights I spent the night there in a pull out bed. People have turned it into something it wasn’t. We just found that the time passed more quickly when we were at least attempting to work. Also, John was comforted by my company while he was in hospital, as I would be by his. My wife and children came often for dinner - Linda would bring home-cooked meals - so I think people may have gotten the wrong impression. 

PB: It seems that an awful lot of people have the wrong impressions. 

JL: Our point exactly. 

PB: The songs on the album seem to tell the story of a man who suffered pain and a near death experience, and that this experience caused him to connect even more closely with his soul mate, and that soul mate endured fear of loss in the attempt to keep the man’s spirits up. In other words, it tells the story of you, John, suffering a near-terminal illness, nursed by you, Paul, and that the two of you ended up even more intimate with each other as a result. Is that not the story you meant to tell?

JL: [Turns to Paul and says] I don’t even know where to start!

PM: All those things are true, actually, but the bit we argue about is why does it have to be something more than a close brother-ship or a tight friendship? It is possible to love your friends without it being…

JL: …sexual…Yeah, that’s exactly it. Of course, I know the answer to why they keep talking about it. Sex is fun to talk about, especially if it is naughty sex. 

PB: [Laughs] John, do you think that gay activists should be supported in their attempt to roll all same-sex couples into one community?

JL: Sometimes you have to create a ‘community’ in order to effect change. I whole-heartedly support their attempts to make life out of the closet more tenable, so these individuals can live their lives in the full light of day like everyone else does. You’d have to be a pretty small, cold, rigid human being to object to that.

PB: Paul, do you agree with John?

PM: I don’t think people should have to live in the shadows, or with shame. But I do think that over-sexualizing things is bad for children. I think it is better to think of same sex couples as individuals, with all sorts of personality traits and goals. No two of them are the same.

PB: Another song that you sing, John, is Suffocate. It is an extremely poignant song about how it feels to be going through chemo and not knowing if you will live or die. Can you talk about your experience while undergoing this treatment? And are you clear now?

JL: First, I’m clear now. I get tested every 6 months, and it has been over a year since I tested positive for cancer cells. I’m taking care of myself; I had melanoma, and so I don’t expose myself directly to the sun. As far as how it felt to be hanging by a thread - being fed with poison and worrying about whether the poison would kill the bad cells, or maybe it would kill too many of the good cells - yes, that was the message I was trying to get across. Was I successful?

PB: Yes, yes. My mother had treatment for breast cancer, and she told me that song was very close to her heart because it expressed everything that she had felt when going through chemo.

PM: I’m so very sorry to hear about your mother. Is she okay now?

PB: Yes, thank you.

JL: Thanks for telling me that. I wrote the song hoping to connect with other people similarly situated.

PB: Paul, your song Counting Sheep - that one really plucked my heartstrings. It is about a man trying to sleep, but not being able to because of his worrying for his loved one. Who was that loved one?

PM: I was writing about John, here. His cancer scared the shit out of me. Sorry for the poor language. John suffered worse, no question about it, but those of us who love John suffered too, and that was the point of this song.

PB: You must admit that the songs are a very intimate series of songs to and about each other.

JL: We go back to 1957. That’s 35 years ago! It would be surprising and even disappointing, I think, if our interactions were unemotional and dry.

PM: John and I share a very singular history. We both know what it is like to be idolized on the one hand, and harshly judged on the other. All we can do is honestly address these issues, and hope that others understand the subtleties of the situation.

PB: It is just that the album, as a whole, seems to tell a story. Each song, like a building block, seems to build an edifice of John Lennon and Paul McCartney as an indivisible couple. Do you disagree with this assessment?

PM: I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure I agree with your conclusion. From my perspective, we’re like twins. What happens to him is - in a real way - happening to me. 

PB: But is it disingenuous to be upset when reporters ask about your relationship when you clearly and voluntarily write about it?

JL: No.

PB: [Laughs] ‘No’, why?

JL: Because we are artists. We are prepared to offer up our experiences and feelings to others in the format of songs, but that doesn’t mean that we are also offering up our own personal lives in public conversation. These are two different things. We have to be honest as writers - what is the point in creating art that isn’t true? I have no interest in doing that. But beyond giving our best, most honest work to those who want to share it, we owe the public nothing. 

PB: This answer could easily be interpreted to mean that you are not telling us the truth about your relationship with Paul.

JL: And it could easily be interpreted to mean nothing of the sort. I can’t help what spin others will put on my words.

PM: It’s almost impossible to prove a negative, you know.

PB: Yes?

PM: Somebody says, because Paul spent a few nights in the hospital with John, and because John lives down the street from Paul, this means there is something kinky going on. They have no evidence, no proof whatsoever. And then we are supposed to do what? Deny it? Prove that it is untrue? From our perspective, we have no obligation to comment on it either way. 

PB: I see your point, if those two facts were all there was that lead people to make these assumptions. For myself, I have been relying totally on your own words - in the songs from this new album and from the last one - to draw my conclusions. I’m just asking you to show me where I’m wrong.

JL: Why does it matter so much? Does it change the music? Does it make the music better? I don’t mean to be rude, I really don’t, but consider how rude it is for people to continue to ask the same question of us over and over when we clearly don’t want to talk about it anymore?

PB: Okay, fair enough. Let’s move on to the next song. ‘False Spring’, John you sing that one. Did you write it, too?

JL: The lyrics, yes. Paul did the music. 

PB: What is it about?

JL: I went through the first round of chemo, and I thought I was clear. And then a few months later it came back. It was really one of the worst few months of my life. I had to do another round of chemo - and I had just started to get my hair back, and my health back. It was devastating. I didn’t want to go anywhere, or see anybody. I only ever saw Paul and Linda, and the kids. I wouldn’t have made it through without them. So the song is about that bitter time, when defeat was snatched out of the jaws of victory. 

PB: That had to be extremely demoralizing. 

JL: It was. I could barely move. You know, I’d spend the afternoons on the sofa at Cavendish - Paul and Linda’s house - and Linda would sit on the sofa with me and keep me company. She would do what she could to keep me out of the dumps.

PB: She sounds like a close friend to you.

JL: Like a sister. More like a sister to me than any of my actual sisters. She was so nurturing - she is a very nurturing person. But strong, too. 

PB: And ‘Narcissus and the Mirror’? That is funny and painful at the same time.

JL: It’s about how vain I am, and how hard it was to have cancer when you’re vain. You know, I made Paul cover up all the mirrors in my house, or take them down. He put brown paper over all of them. I just didn’t want to look at myself. I eventually lost all my hair during the first round of chemo, but it was worse the second time, when only some of it fell out, and I had all this straggly hair growth. I just kept getting my head shaved. Otherwise, I looked like Skeletor with a weedy mullet.

PM: He didn’t look as bad as he makes out, by the way. But I’m vain, too, so I could totally understand how he felt.

JL: Oh, you’re not anywhere near as vain as I am, Paul.

PM: See? It’s always a competition with us. Like those Monty Python sketches - ‘You grew up in a matchbox? Luxury!’ [Laughter]

PB: That’s kind of an unusual request though, isn’t it? ‘Hey Paul, come over and cover up my mirrors.’

PM: [Laughs] You think that’s weird - luxury! [Laughter] John has no boundaries. What’s his is his, and what’s mine is his. So, you know, when something doesn’t work in his house, he calls me up and tells me to come fix it. I might be in the middle of dinner with my family, but I know I’ll have no peace if I don’t go straight over and fix it.

JL: That’s your job on earth, Paul: to fix things for me. Everyone knows that! [Laughter] You see, James, Paul can fix almost anything, and I am hopeless. So fixing things has always been part of his role in our partnership, along with worrying about the contracts and money…

PM: …And the pre-production work, and the post-production work, and the marketing, and the band rehearsals, and the sound checks…

JL: He’s not bitter.

PB: [Laughing] So, perhaps this ‘equal’ partnership is not so ‘equal’?

PM: Oh, it’s absolutely 50/50.

JL: That’s right!

PM: John breaks things, and I fix them. John loses things, and I find them. John pisses people off, and I calm them down. John spends money, and I pay the bills. John starts fights, and I finish them. I do 75% of the work, and John gets 75% of the credit, and we both get 50% of the money. See - equal! 

JL: [Laughing] Unfortunately, everything Paul just said is totally true.

PB: So what does Paul get out of all of this, John?

JL: Me! My incomparable company!

PM: [Mumbling] ‘Incomparable’ is right.

PB: [Laughing] So, Paul, This One. What’s that about? 

PM: I was thinking how it would feel if John should die, and I never told him what he meant to me. I guess you could call it a cautionary tale - don’t let that moment go by. Find the time to tell the people you love how you feel. I never really got that chance with my mum, because you know they downplayed the seriousness of her illness to my brother and me. We thought she was going in for some little thing, and then we came home from school to find out she had died. As a result, the last few times I’d spoken to her I’d been a typical 14 year-old. You know, griping about housework and homework, and teasing her about her using hoity-toity pronunciations. I lived with the guilt of that for years, and it still makes me cringe when I think of it. So, when John got so sick, I was determined that I wouldn’t blow my chance to tell him exactly how I felt. You know - just in case.

JL: He means, ‘in case I corked.’

PB: The lines:  
Did I ever take you in my arms/look you in the eye, tell you that I do? Did I ever open up my heart/ let you look inside?   
Those lines are very intimate. You wrote those for John?

PM: Yes. When someone you love is very sick, it is no time to be coy about how you feel. You have to be very direct, and very clear. 

PB: Did you actually say those words to John, I mean, other than writing the lyrics?

JL: He did. And it meant a lot to me. I think I started blubbing. Did I start blubbing, Paul?

PM: Well, I was blubbing. I don’t recall if you were.

JL: He’s so self-centered.

PB: In ‘Nevermore’, John, you write a kind of modern, updated version of the Edgar Allen Poe poem. 

JL: I was interested in Poe’s use of the raven as a symbol of darkness; and was it also death? Or was it just a bad omen - indicating that something bad would happen but it is an uncertain fate? Whatever it was, it was unknown, dark, and scary. That is what cancer felt like to me. It didn’t have to end in death for it to be this horrible, dark experience for me. 

PB: Paul, you were viewing it from the outside. Did it feel that way to you, too?

PM: I believe it is impossible to really know how someone else’s fear feels like. I could only compare it to times in my life when I’d been afraid and depressed. I could identify with him on that level. But John - he was on that road by himself, really. We could try to keep him company, but we weren’t experiencing it the same way he was. I did have selfish fears for my own experience, though.

PB: What were those?

PM: You know, what would I do without him? Between Linda and John, most of my emotional needs are met. I don’t really have too many very close friends other than them. And so, it was frightening to me to think of losing John. You know, I had a bad time in the ‘70s when we were estranged…

JL: You and me both.

PM: …But John dying would have been much worse. It felt like, don’t die on me and leave me alone on this godforsaken planet! At least when we were mad at each other and not talking I knew he was here on the planet, and if I really needed him I could reach out…

JL: And I’d be there.

PM: Isn’t that a song lyric? Not one of ours though. [Laughter] Motown, I think. 

PB: Would you have been there, though, John? According to the biographers, Paul tried many times to reach out to you and you repeatedly shut him down. 

JL: Well, there’s let’s be friends and write together again reaching out, and then there’s my whole life is going down the drain, and I need you right now reaching out. I wasn’t ready for the former until 1981, but I would have dropped everything and come running for the latter at any time during our estrangement. 

PM: I would have done the same. It’s what family members do for each other. 

PB: So you liken each other to brothers?

JL: Like Paul said, more like twins. We’re a bit closer than your average brothers, because we chose to be close - it wasn’t forced on us by birth.

PB: I hesitate to say what I think about ‘Tangled Web’, John.

JL: Why is that?

PB: I’m afraid you’ll rip my head off for saying that it sounds like you’re writing about living a lie, and constantly having to lie to hide the truth.

JL: See - you made the comment and you still have your head. You silly boy! [Laughter] Actually, all of us live a lie at one level or another. For example, one of the lies I was living with during my chemo was the whole “I’m doing great, everything’s fine, nothing to worry about” message I had the business office put out. 

PB: Any other lies you want to talk about?

JL: What other lies do you think I’ve told?

PB: Okay, okay. I’m moving on. Paul, you’ve written about your songwriting experiences with John on The Song We Were Singing, haven’t you?

PM: Yes. One thing that happens to you when a close friend is very ill is you begin to be haunted by all the old memories, the fond memories. They comfort you on one level, but taunt you on another. That was just something I wrote in the hospital, waiting for John’s surgery to be over. I played it for him later in the recovery room. 

JL: It pissed me off, though.

PB: Really? Why?

JL: Do you realize how annoying it is to have a partner who can write a whole fucking song while you’re having a 30- minute minor surgery? All they did was remove one of my cancerous moles. I was under a local. And he’d written a whole song! Working with Paul is like some really good amateur runner trying to run with a pro. You just keep huffing and puffing but sooner or later you fall behind.

PM: He’s so full of shit.

PB: [Laughter] We Knew It Would Be Like This. John?

JL: I was playing with the concept of luck, or I guess you could call it fate. I tend to be a glass half empty kind of bloke, and Paul is a glass half full type. So, ‘we knew it would be like this’ is the kind of tautological take on fate. He knew it would work out, and I knew it would be a bloody nightmare, and we were both right!

PB: Again, another song about you and Paul.

JL: Technically, it is about how something can seem foreordained if you are superstitious enough. I’m terribly superstitious, and Paul is more rational. I was just using our two opposite approaches to fate in a way to make fun of the whole concept of ‘luck’, or believing that things are ‘fateful.’ It is just another example of how we can use our personal experiences to make a greater, more general statement about life.

PB: Then there is the last song, ‘Surcease.’ I take this to be about how it felt when the cancer finally was gone.

JL: You’re right.

PB: The music is exquisite. Haunting. Paul, is that you?

PM: That was me. 

PB: What was your inspiration for that other-worldly music?

PM: John’s lyrics. When I read John’s lyrics, I hear the music that goes with it. John’s lyrics are very - lyrical. [Laughs] I mean, they are freighted with musicality, and I just try to be the conduit of the music at that point. It isn’t music I would have ever composed if John hadn’t written the lyrics, so I always feel as though John indirectly composed the music.

JL: ‘Indirectly’ is the key word here, because I never hear the musicality in my lyrics. It’s just Paul’s particular genius that he hears music behind words and images, and it just flows out of him. He doesn’t realize how special it is, because to him it is normal. It has been that way for him his whole life. 

PB: Paul, what do you have to say about that?

PM: I suppose this is true, although I don’t know about the ‘genius’ label. I never really thought about it like that. I do remember hearing the music in my head when I was very young, and feeling frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to get it out of my head and into the world. I begged my dad to teach me instruments, because I thought then I could get it out of my head. Still, it took me years to really learn how to pull it out of my head and into the instrument. Once I met John my learning curve accelerated by bounds. Somehow, we plugged into each other’s particular talents.

PB: So - your tour - have you got the plans ready yet?

PM: They’re still in the works. We should be announcing the first dates within the week. 

JL: We’re looking forward to getting on the road again. We had a blast last time.

PB: Will Linda be traveling with you this time, Paul?

PM: She’ll visit. The girls are working this summer, and James wants to go to surfer camp, so she’ll spend most of her time with James. But the whole family likes to come and visit us a few times when we’re on tour. 

PB: John, do you feel left out when Paul has his wife and kids around? Or maybe you’ll bring a friend?

JL: You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you? Like I said, I don’t talk about my personal relationships in public anymore. I will tell you I will most probably never marry again. I tried it twice, and I’m a terrible husband. I’d rather stay loose and not be continually letting some woman down.

PB: How long do you think you can carry on as acts in the music business? Do you see retirement in the future?

PM: Nope. We take it one day at a time; that’s all we can do.

JL: We’ll retire when I finally decide to sit down and refuse to get up. Otherwise, Paul would have us go on forever…

PM: What's wrong with forever?


	28. Chapter 28

John and Paul were at the breakfast table at John’s house, drinking black coffee. They sat like two blitzed frat brothers, the day after the big party. Their manager had just sent over - by delivery boy - two copies of the Playboy interview that was being mailed to the subscribers even as they sat at their table. They had both perused it first, and become increasingly alarmed at the grab lines and the photo captions. The photos chosen were very…suggestive…even the ones from their early Beatle years. The word “intimate” with respect to their “friendship” was mentioned numerous times throughout the article.

“Man, this is worse than I thought,” John said, finally breaking the dead silence.

Paul was mute. He barely nodded his head in agreement, as he started at the beginning of the article and began to read in depth this time.

John watched Paul’s face as it studied the magazine. He was worried. He knew Paul tended to choose flight over fight whenever possible. Would this scare him right back to Cavendish and under Linda’s apron? John supposed the controversy would die down eventually, but now it was going to be prolonged by the album promotion and concert tour. It will have been the second time they had to deny these strong rumors and whispers bruited about by even mainstream press, and at some point - was it this time, or maybe three times would be the charm? - it would no longer be possible to bury the rumors.

“Pud,” John said softly. At first he did not capture Paul’s attention. He spoke louder. “Pud, what do you think about this?” John leaned forward as he tried to catch Paul’s eye.

Paul finally looked up, but he looked stressed and distracted. “This is horrible, John. They completely ignored our edits! This is almost worse than if they just said we were queer for each other. They’re using our own words - the way they’ve edited it - to catch us up.” Paul’s brain was still frozen in shock, but the fear was banging on the door, and would soon be barging in.

“I think maybe we see it as obvious because we’re so close to it,” John said reassuringly, although he wasn’t all that sure that this was true. “We see the holes in it because we know where they are.”

Paul shook his head - John didn’t know if it was in agreement or disagreement or just overall stress - and then John watched as Paul’s eyes went back to the magazine.

John tried again. “The only conclusion the bloke drew was that we had a close connection on a creative and emotional level. He never says there that he believes the sex rumors. Most everyone will have the same opinion, I’m sure of it.”

“He said we have an ‘intimate’ connection, John. Over and over. It is one thing to say we have an intimate friendship, but to keep using the word over and over - it is like he is winking heavily to the audience.”

John couldn’t disagree with this. After all, this was the same reason why he was upset by the descriptive additions to the interview. He looked down at his copy, and tried to concentrate on it. At least the man published all the comments about every song, John thought. If nothing else, maybe we’ll sell some records and concert tickets because of the article. It was an outstanding record review. At least in this way maybe something could be salvaged. 

Paul found himself reading the same passages over and over, and it was a form of mental torture he was inflicting on himself. He might not have been able to stop if the phone hadn’t rung. John answered. A few moments later he whispered, one hand over the voice box of the receiver and said,

“Paul, its management. They’re on a conference line.”

John pressed the button on the speakerphone.

“Have you read it?” Their manager asked.

“Yes,” John responded in a dull voice. Paul said nothing. He still looked shell-shocked.

“They completely ignored the edits I sent them!” the P.R. director cried. “It’s unfortunate that it sounds so…reasoned and credible,” he added. “Somehow that makes it more…believable…”

“Yes, it is unfortunate,” John snapped. “Why didn’t you protect us from this?”

“John, John, let’s don’t get personal now,” the manager said quickly. “We had no idea that Playboy magazine was going to fuck us. They are well known for allowing their subjects to edit the interviews, and I’ve got a call out to the editor right now to demand an explanation.”

John cast a look at Paul and was filled with anger because of the distress he saw there on Paul’s face. John said, “How could it be more personal than them dissecting our relationship in a fucking sex magazine which is meant for hets? I’m beginning to wonder what ever led us to believe that this was a good idea!”

“It isn’t that bad, John,” the manager said. He had found it necessary to hold the PR director down in his chair and gesture at him wildly not to speak. “He eventually accepts your decision not to answer more questions about it, and moves on to give a thorough and outstanding review of the album.”

The ‘it’ the manager referenced was the sexual part of the John/Paul relationship. John and Paul both understood that without requiring an explanation. Still, the manager’s comment was met by a cold silence from John and Paul.

The PR director decided to speak up. “There is nothing here that we can not handle. I think we just come out with a press release that says we’re disappointed in how much attention the interview paid to unsubstantiated gossip, but that we appreciate the fact that the interviewer did a thorough job of reviewing the album.”

John huffed, and it could be heard over the telephone line. “And how many times can we get away with acting all indignant about this ‘gossip’, given the fact that it is actually true?”

John’s angry voice echoed for a long time because it was the first time either John or Paul had admitted the truth of their situation to their top management team. John and Paul knew the team knew, and the team knew that John and Paul knew that they knew, but it had never been spoken of in quite such a direct manner before. But what worried the manager and PR director more was McCartney’s silence. In the past, Paul had always run the meetings, and John had only every once in a while weighed in or echoed what Paul had said. The manager asked,

“Paul? Are you there?” He was hoping for a calmer client to deal with than John was right at that moment.

Paul cleared his throat. “Yes, I am,” he said slowly. “And I agree with John. This is a PR disaster. John and I are coming in to the office. We have to meet and come up with a strategy, but I don’t have a whole lot of optimism that it will be very successful.”

At least he’s talking now, John thought hopefully. 

 

*****

 

They were in the limousine driving towards McLen offices at One Soho Square. John kept sending surreptitious glances Paul’s way, and all he could see was a sunk-in Paul staring out the side window, a forefinger on his bottom lip, deep in what appeared to be unpleasant contemplation.

“Pud? Are you okay?” John snaked his arm around Paul’s shoulder, and leant his face in close to Paul’s ear.

Paul chuckled in a long-suffering way. “Yeah, I’m okay Johnny, you needn’t worry…” He finally met John’s eyes evenly.  
Paul immediately saw the insecurity in John’s face, and knew he had to nip that poison in the bud. He knew how destructive John could be when he thought he was losing something he loved. “No worries - because we’re in it for the long haul, aren’t we Johnny?”

John felt his heart lift. “Yeah?” he asked, his eyes dancing, and his face leaning over to see Paul’s expression.

“John,” Paul said, his voice freighted with meaning. “No matter what happens, it’s you and me. Understand? I don’t care what the world thinks about us, I only care about what you, Linda, and our kids think about it. You’re the only ones that matter to me.”

John felt his heart lifting. “You mean, you’re not going to run for the hills?”

“Please. I would cut my eyes out before I’d let you go. We’re in it together, right? Come hell or high water. I need you more than I need public appreciation…” Paul thought for a moment before continuing. “If it comes to the point where there is you or my career, you do know what I will choose, right?”

John was mesmerized and his voice was soft and wondering as he found the courage to ask, “You would choose me?”

Paul smiled, the blood and warmth moving into his face and his voice. “I will always choose you, luv, always.”

 

*****

 

Because of this bracing recommitment to each other on the drive over, John and Paul showed up at One Soho in fighting form. There were fans and paparazzi hanging out in front, and both men got out of the car in as uncaring and blasé a method as possible, and smiled and waved to the fans and cameramen while signing a few autographs, and then disappeared into the offices. They were on the elevator before John said,

“That was stupid. Arriving in the same fucking car. We must have left our brains back at home.”

Paul actually chuckled. “I think from now on we ignore the rumors completely, refuse to answer, and let them guess all they want. At a certain point it is pathetic to keep denying it. Do you agree John? I want us to be on the same page when we go into this meeting.”

John was delighted with Paul’s rallying spirits and his newfound confidence in facing the reality of their situation with more spunk. “Yes, I totally agree. I couldn’t agree more.”

 

*****

 

Across town in another office building, George Harrison was facing his own Armageddon. He was meeting with a new top-flight forensics accountant and financial advisor, who he had hired to start investigating the reason why he didn’t seem to get straight answers from his manager, Denis O’Brien. There had been some serious problems in a few of the companies George co-owned with O’Brien, but O’Brien was always telling him that he shouldn’t worry about it. George was nothing if not a worrier, so of course he worried about it. His friend Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame, had suggested that he hire someone to look into it quietly, just to make sure. So here he sat, his wife Olivia next to him, waiting to hear the results of the investigation.

The man bustled in followed by two assistants. All of them wore colorful braces and had bow ties. They were all groomed to within an inch of their lives. George’s Liverpudlian sensibilities were aroused, and he regarded them all with a slightly ironic gleam in his eye.

“It is most gratifying to meet you again, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison,” the accountant stated formally. “We have been very busy on your behalf. We haven’t by any means completed our investigation, but felt we had come far enough along that it was time to give you a status report and provide you with some initial advice.”

“Well, let’s get on with it then,” George drawled, and then smiled briefly at the young secretary who delivered his cup of tea. She quickly scurried from the room, blushing from the brief interaction with a Beatle.

“Of course,” the accountant said. “From the beginning of your association with Mr. O’Brien in 1973, we have ascertained that he engaged in some fairly well known but very controversial and even illegal money laundering and tax avoiding and evading techniques.” The manager motioned to an assistant, who put a transparent chart on a projection machine, and the chart was immediately projected on to one of the conference room walls. The chart reflected a dizzying array of circles connected back and forth and between each other with lines. It looked like a mass of circles and lines going every which way, and there was no solid center to it. “Each bubble is a different entity he created; in England they’re called limited companies, and in America they’re called limited liability companies, but they are basically the same thing - entities created for the sole purpose of holding one or one set of assets by disengaged partners, controlled by a managing partner - which is usually yet another limited company.”

“’Illegal’ you say?” Olivia asked, still stuck on the manager’s preamble.

“Yes, in both England and America it is illegal to evade taxes. If the sole or a main purpose for creating these entities is to hide assets and the income deriving from these assets from taxing authorities, then the activities associated with the entities are illegal. And even if the activities don’t rise to the level of evasion, which is criminal, the mere avoidance of taxes can give rise to hefty penalties and interest on the taxes which were improperly avoided.” The manager saw that Olivia had sat back in her chair. She looked seriously worried now. “I wouldn’t worry on your husband’s behalf with respect to the criminality of the conduct,” the manager added soothingly. “It requires intent to convict someone criminally. He may well be liable for the penalties and interest that are assessed against at least some of these entities, but I believe we can show that it was O’Brien alone who understood the criminality of the conduct.” The manager didn’t add that the way he would do this was by convincing the taxing authorities that George Harrison was a financial idiot who had no idea whatsoever what was going on with his portfolio. The least said about that to Harrison the better.

“When you first signed with O’Brien, you did so on a personal basis, and he then commissioned his own company, Euroatlantic Ltd., to do the work. By doing this, he was able to take a 20% cut of your personal profits. In addition to this, his firm was being paid hourly for the actual work it billed. Under this arrangement, O'Brien was paid the 20% profits through your publishing company, Harrisongs Ltd. This arrangement was quite unusual; generally personal managers are paid through an artist’s main production company, although they occasionally have liens on the song publishing rights. The reason for this is that it would be so easy for a dishonest manager to scrape off more than his share of the publishing profits since it is an indirect vehicle. This unnecessarily aggressive and complicated arrangement ensured two things: that the amount and method of payment to him was opaque, and the terms of the arrangement would make it very difficult for auditors and outsiders to understand its full ramifications.” 

The manager stopped to study his clients. He didn’t want to get too far ahead of them. They both looked pole-axed. “Do you have questions about anything I have told you?”

“Yeah. Are you saying that these limited company thingies are just like a giant smokescreen - smoke and mirrors - and that there is nothing left in them?” George’s voice was shaking with ill-disguised anger that was deeply infused with fear.

“At this point we do not know what assets, if any, remain in these shell companies, and to the extent they exist, how much they are pledged to other parties. This Firm does have a great deal of experience in recreating the financial transactions of such schemes and in each such situation we have regrettably discovered that there was little or nothing of value left that wasn’t pledged to others several times over. We suspect that we will come to find out that this is true with respect to your entities as well.” The accountant had expressed this as gently as possible, but he knew it was going to be a very bitter pill for his clients to swallow.

“Oh, no!” Olivia gasped. She turned to her husband. “All that work you’ve done! All your hard work! Everything!”

“Oh, it may not be as grim as all that, Mrs. Harrison,” the accountant interrupted quickly. “You see, there is still a steady income from the song publishing and the music royalties. If you redirect them away from any of the O’Brien entities you will certainly have a generous income to live on. The problem is, once the scheme collapses, there will be all kinds of creditors coming out of the woodwork demanding to be paid, and calling their loans. My guess is that there will be a fairly substantial debt to be paid when all is said and done, not the least of which will be the taxes and penalties.”

“So what do you suggest?” George asked. He had been momentarily uplifted by the vision of an endless stream of royalties, only to be smacked down again by the vision of an endless stream of creditors banging on his door. 

“The first thing you must do is disentangle yourself from Mr. O’Brien. First, your income stream should be immediately diverted to a trust account. You should have your lawyer send him a letter revoking any powers of attorney he might hold, and these should be sent to any and all creditors of the companies. We are compiling a list as we go, but we are not even half done yet. The downside to this strategy is that O’Brien and the creditors will claim that you cannot keep the income stream since it is collateral for the entity loans. That is why you must put it in an interest bearing trust account. You will not be able to use the funds until you get a court order.”

“Court order!” George cried. Not more lawsuits! This was Allen Klein and the Beatles all over again! “Anyway,” George said, “I’d like to talk to Denis. We’ve been friends for 20 years. I can’t believe that he has done this intentionally, and so I am not quite ready to just throw him to the wolves.” 

“Of course, you should take this report we’ve prepared and discuss it with your lawyers. Meanwhile, do you want us to continue our investigation?”

“Yeah, please do that. We’ll meet again.”

 

*****

 

“I’m glad you were able to make it here so soon,” the manager said. He wasn’t really glad at all. He could tell his clients were angry, and even though Paul hadn’t said so he thought that even Paul was blaming the management team for setting them up with the Playboy interview. It was ridiculous; how was anyone to know how it would turn out? He had told them it was a calculated risk. It is true he had recommended it, but they had been fully aware of the risk and went into the interview with their eyes wide open. John and Paul really were two rarified human beings, and while not perfect themselves (far from it) they seemed to expect nothing less than perfection from their staff. Still, truthfully, Paul was as hard on himself as he was on others, and right now in addition to the accusation he could see in McCartney’s eyes, he could also see the self-reproach. There was no such self-reproach in John’s eyes. He was just plain mad. 

“Let’s get to work,” Paul said. He was all business now, and looked focused and determined. This was a pleasant surprise after his disquieting silence on the telephone line. He was seated at the top of the table, and John - now confident about Paul’s love, and feeling safe because of Paul’s energy and determination, settled next to him, slung low in his swivel chair. When Paul was feeling up and in charge it always sent a thrill and a corresponding sense of security down John’s spine.

The manager scrambled to find a seat that gave him some moral authority, so he settled at the other end of the table. The PR director sat next to him in silent solidarity. They could both sense a client uprising in the making. 

“First, I want you both to know that I don’t blame either of you for this mess,” Paul said firmly. John’s head swung around in shock and surprise at Paul’s pronouncement, and the management team relaxed a bit. “It is entirely my fault.” 

“Paul! Don’t be ridiculous. How could this be your fault?” John was sharp in his response. In the background the management team was remonstrating too.

“No, really, it is my fault,” Paul said, his voice calm and unemotional. “I’ve been so afraid of people finding out, while at the same time not wanting to lie outright, that I’ve insisted upon this coy game, and now it has bit us in the ass. It was only a matter of time before the mainstream press decided to play the same game back at us.”

The room was silent for a good twenty seconds before John said softly, “We all were doing the same thing, babe; we all agreed on the strategy.” 

The manager and the PR director murmured in agreement.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Paul allowed. “The main thing is, the strategy has run its course and no longer works. We have to change our approach.”

John knew what was coming, and was already on board, so he watched the faces of the manager and PR director to see their reactions.

“We don’t want you to respond to the interview at all,” Paul said firmly, facing his management team. “We are going to ignore it totally, along with all the resulting gossip. There will be no denials, and no misdirection, but also no confessions. We are going to talk about our music and our tour, and only our music and our tour, and we are going to politely decline to respond to any more questions about our private lives - and that includes my marriage to Linda, and questions about our children.”

“Can we at least tell the press that you are tired of responding to these endless prying questions only to have the press focus on irrelevant things instead of your music, and from now on you will not be responding to questions about your private lives?” The PR director was trying to figure out a way to ease into the change in strategy.

“That sounds okay to me,” John said softly, so that only Paul could hear.

“Yes,” Paul said out loud, having John’s express buy-in, “but let us see and approve the press release before it goes out,” Paul said succinctly. “And I don’t want anyone here to get all defensive on our behalf and comment - no matter how bad, how pointed, or how nasty it gets. We’re just going to batten down the hatches and sail into the wind.”

“That was very poetic, Paul,” John said objectively. 

“Thank you,” Paul said cheerfully. “I’m a songwriter, you know.” He felt relieved that he had finally bit the bullet and had decided to do what he should have done all along. If he had thought that Linda would disapprove of this strategy, he would have consulted her first. But he knew she would be 100% on board with this. She had never felt as though she should have to justify her life to the press or to other people. Paul could hardly wait to tell her what he had done. He knew she would be proud of him. He looked to his left and saw the light shining in John’s eyes as he gazed back. Paul could easily see that John was proud, too.

 

*****

 

In New York, Jason was reading the Playboy interview. His heart rate had gone way up, and he wished that Gerry were home so he could explode all over him. Those idiot people - why couldn’t they leave John and Paul alone? Let them make their music, and perform it, and make people happy! What the fuck was wrong with that anyway? Why did the press have to be so fucking nasty and intrusive? Jason was clearly upset, because he didn’t usually swear, even internally to himself. He needed someone to rant at, or something (not too expensive or rare) to smash! But then, there would be a mess to clean up, and it can be the devil to get all the tiny slivers of glass up off the floor that were always left after a good smash. Better not go there. But still! 

He felt compelled to do something about this outrage. He got up and paced for a while, and decided that there was nothing for it - he would have to call John. He hated to call John, because everyone else was always calling John. He felt that part of the value of his friendship to John was that he was not the needy one. He waited for John to call him, instead of always importuning him for attention. But desperate times call for desperate methods. He decided not to wait until Gerry came home. He figured Gerry would talk him out of the drastic step of calling John, and right now he did not want to be talked out of his decision.

The phone rang in the cavernous London home. John picked it up on the fourth ring, just before it went to the answer phone, and he whistled into the voice box.

Jason recognized that signal instantly. “John! This is Jason!”

“Jason? Jason!” John’s voice was so joyous it lifted Jason’s heart, and his confidence.

“I had to call! I’m spitting nails! That fucking Playboy interview!” Jason’s voice was indignation personified.

John laughed. “Oh god, Jason, you’re a tonic. I needed to hear from you. How did you know?”

“Well, you know I don’t like to bother you. I know you have so many demands on you. But I couldn’t sit still and not let you know how pissed I am!”

“I think you’re silly for not feeling like you can call me whenever you want, Jay,” John said softly. “I will always want to hear from you, and never feel that you are a bother.”

Jason teared up over this, but didn’t want John to know it. He wanted to give John his support, not solicit it for himself. “I don’t know why they don’t leave you alone, and focus on your incredible music. You sent me that advance copy, and I have to say that Gerry and I were blown away by it. As you know, we’re not great rock music fans, but we were both very moved by the songs on that album! They should have just concentrated on that, and left you two alone!”

“I know, huh?” John declared. “But the press can’t help themselves. They’ve got to create some kind of controversy or they won’t be able to sell their fucking magazines.” 

Jason couldn’t understand how John could be so philosophic about it all. If it were he, he’d be livid! “I just want you to know that those of us in the…er…I guess you’d call us the ‘gay community’ have your back! This new disgusting idea of dragging people out of the closet is not acceptable. The vast majority of us are on your side!”

John smiled into the phone. He could actually see, in his eye’s mind, a riled up Jason, all fiery and excited. “I love you, Jason, I really do. You’re just about the best friend I have, other than Paul and Linda of course. You never ask anything of me.”

“Why would I ask anything of you, John? Why would one friend ask another for anything but love? I don’t deserve any praise for being what any friend ought to be, no matter what.” 

“That’s why I love you Jason. It’s because you said that. You don’t know how much that means to me, especially since I know from my own experience that you actually mean what you say. But anyway - please don’t get all bent out of shape about it. It turned out to be a defining moment for us.”

“For you and Paul?” Jason asked.

“Yes! At first, when Paul read the damn thing, I was terrified he was going to run for the hills. You know, he has been so terrified of being unmasked, and having his carefully constructed life be torn apart by the ravenous hordes.”

“Well, he has good reason! He has those beautiful children to worry about, and the wonderful Linda!” Jason declared loyally.

John smiled to himself. “The thing is Jason, I never knew if it came to the point where our relationship was going to be disclosed, what would Paul do. Would he run back to Linda and hide behind her skirts, or would he stand by me?”

“Yes?” Jason asked, breathlessly.

“And I finally got the answer. Paul told me no matter what, he was in it for the long haul. If it came to a choice between his career and me, he would choose me!” John’s voice was joyful and victorious. 

“Of course he would, John!” Jason bayed. “Did you really have any doubt? It has been years since I’ve had any doubt about that! That man loves the very ground you walk on! A blind man could see that!” 

John had to stop talking. His throat had constricted, and he began to feel his eyes welling up with tears. After a long 30 or 40 seconds, he finally said, “Jason, will you and Gerry come and visit us while we’re on tour? I really want to see you two. You two always remind me that most human beings are good and admirable.” 

Now it was Jason’s turn to well up. He, however, was able to regain his composure sooner than John did. It was only about 20 seconds before he said “Gerry and I will be wherever you need us, whenever you need us, no questions asked. Just tell us where and when, and we’ll be there.”

 

*****

 

George had an awkward conversation ahead of him with his friend and manager of almost twenty years - Denis O’Brien. Somehow he couldn’t quite accept that Denis was devious and deceitful. Surely, there had to be a reasonable explanation for the irregularities the accountant had referenced. Maybe there was some misunderstanding that Denis could clear up. That is certainly what George wanted, because he had given Denis his absolute trust. It would be ironic if the man he had gone to in order to straighten up his affairs after the disastrous Allen Klein turned out also to be an incompetent and a fraud. 

Olivia was stealing around the kitchen quietly as she prepared supper. They had invited Denis over to eat an early dinner, but it was styled as a business meeting, which meant that Denis was not bringing his family. George didn’t want to embarrass Denis in front of his wife and children. 

They all ate in a companionable silence, before George broached the subject. He had greeted O’Brien at the door, and had tried desperately not to stare at him too hard; despite everything, he did not want to believe the worst. 

“Denis, I’m a bit worried about the finances,” George assayed. 

“In what way?” As usual, O’Brien was his usual confidant American self. 

“In the way that I don’t know what I own any more, or where all my money is going.” George tried not to sound accusing as he said this.

“George, you own 80% of Harrisongs, 80% of Handmade Films, and 80% of Darkhorse.” O’Brien sounded firm and cheerful.

“Yes, but what does that mean?” George had leaned forward so he was facing O’Brien. Olivia was as silent as a mouse at the other end of the table.

“I don’t understand the question,” O’Brien finally commented, after an awkward silence. 

“I’ve been worried ever since the problems at Handmade Films,” George said softly. “I don’t understand what went wrong.”

“That’s the nature of the film business,” O’Brien said, reassured that George was still ignorant of the real problems. “You win some, you lose some.”

“But, we can’t make any more films without further infusion of cash, right? So how can we call ourselves a film company? And what does an 80% interest in a bankrupt company mean?” George had finally begun to suspect that O’Brien was shining him on. 

“George! There has been no bankruptcy! It is just a dry spot for us. In fact, I was going to suggest that you infuse some new investment funds into the business so we can look for another film.” O’Brien’s face was a picture of confidence and hope. George saw the “confidence” as a façade, and the “hope” as a come-on.

“No,” George said sadly. “No more funds. Not until I have a full accounting of what Handmade Films owes. What assets of mine have been pledged against those debts, by the way?”

Denis was dumbfounded. The tables were turning, and he couldn’t figure out why or how. “The only collateral pledged to support the Handmade debt are Handmade assets.”

“Are you sure, Denis? Are you sure that the income stream from my song rights aren’t collateralizing the Handmade debts?” George’s face was snapping with an intense energy, and O’Brien was taken aback.

“Of course I’m sure!” O’Brien responded. But his inside voice was telling him, he’s on to you…


	29. Chapter 29

Mike McCartney was on a mission. He had his three daughters in tow, and he was headed for the shopping mall to buy them some summer togs. Rowena was at home with the small boys. Mike’s daughters were in their late teens and early twenties and desperately wanted to wear expensive, trendy clothes, but Mike could not afford them, and had no intention of allowing his daughters to grow up thinking they were entitled to them. However, he was going to spring for some fun summer clothes at a modestly priced department store. It was a bit difficult for his daughters to understand that their cousins Mary and Stella were able to purchase name-brand labels, whereas they were consigned to the copycat brands, but Mike was determined to raise his children to understand that the ability to access wealth came from one’s own endeavors and luck, and not by virtue of the family they were born into.

The shopping expedition was successful, and the girls had put aside their desire for more expensive duds in favor of the excitement of creatively mixing and matching less expensive items. Mike was proud of them. As a spur of the moment treat, he had agreed to pay for them to visit the mani/pedi salon. While they luxuriated, he found a comfortable seat out in the mall promenade, and engaged in some entertaining people watching. 

“Mr. McGear?”

Mike jumped. He turned to see a man who had just sat down next to him on the bench. “Yes?” Mike asked. It wasn’t that unusual for Liverpudlians to recognize him, and at least this one had used his independent, not-taking-advantage-of-my-brother name.

“I’m William Fieldstone from the Liverpool Echo,” the man said.

Mike clammed up immediately. He knew without a doubt that this was going to be about his brother. Mike had read the Playboy interview, and had been enraged by it. The very idea of John and Paul in that light! “I see. What do you want?” Mike’s voice was brusque and suspicious.

“I was hoping to get a comment from you on the rumors about your brother and John Lennon.”

“First,” Mike growled in a low tone, not wanting anyone to overhear, “I never speak about my brother to the press. If you have a question about Paul, talk to Paul! Second, Paul and John have answered those questions repeatedly for three years now. I have nothing further to add to their answers, seeing as how it is none of my business. And, I might add, if it is none of my business, it is even less your business!”

“But, don’t you think it is odd that they live so close, and seem always to be together?” The reporter had moved in close and was speaking softly, having ascertained that Mike McCartney did not want to be overheard.

“No, I don’t,” Mike said staunchly. “I’ve stayed at John’s place with my wife and sons, and my daughters were at Paul and Linda’s. There was nothing unusual about the setup. People need to get a life! Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk with you anymore.” Mike got up and walked into the salon, and - although he felt like a fish out of water - he sat in one of the dainty chairs in the waiting area. He gestured for the salon owner to approach him, and he then whispered, “That man out there is a reporter. He is bothering me just because I am Paul’s brother.” The salon owner didn’t need any further explanation about who “Paul” was. “I would appreciate it if you would ask him to leave if he attempts to enter.”

“Of course!” She cried. She now felt like an avenging angel, and she would eject the man immediately if he attempted an approach. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and she was denied the honorable opportunity to defend a Beatle-by-proxy. Instead, the reporter lingered outside for a few moments, and then finally went away.

 

*****

 

Paul had put the trauma of reading what he thought were revealing comments that he and John had made in the Playboy interview behind him. The management team was still aflutter about it, though, and were freaking out because they had been instructed not to respond to questions on the topic, nor to react to rumors. It was easy for Paul to put it behind him because he had thrown himself into music. He was working with the band in order to prep them for the upcoming tour, and occasionally John would actually show up too and contribute. Truly, the man was incredibly lazy. Paul smiled fondly to himself at the thought of John. He couldn’t help himself; he was putty in John’s hands. Whatever John wanted, Paul would want to get it for him.

Linda had been strangely silent about the Playboy interview. She had listened patiently while Paul had vented about how the reporter seemed bound and determined to squeeze an admission out of them no matter what, but she had kept her thoughts and feelings about his venting to herself.  
Paul had been pretty good at reading Linda’s moods for lo these many years, but somehow, now and on this topic, she seemed impenetrable. He would have pushed for a response, but some part of him believed he would regret it if he did. So he had decided to back off a little and wait for Linda to come to him with her thoughts. One thing Paul knew for sure - her thoughts were not positive ones, or she would have spoken up by now.

While Paul was musing during a brief break in the rehearsal proceedings, John was back at his house, rereading the Playboy interview for the 15th time. Each time he reread it, he felt a little bit better. What had worried him originally was that the reporter’s questions had accented the many ways in which he and Paul behaved like a couple. As the days went by, John found that he was secretly satisfied. In a way, this was the best of both worlds for John. The “truth”, such as it was, was out there for people to see if they would put their prejudices aside, but it was not really out there at all for those who would not or could not put their prejudices aside. In other words, this article ‘outed’ them to only those people open enough to accept it. For years now, John had lived with a niggling frustration that his true life, the part of it he valued most, had to be hidden from the world and lied about forever. Now, it was out there - but still with credible deniability. John was quite happy with the result.

Still, he knew that Paul would not share this happiness, so he kept his secret satisfaction to himself. It was something that he hugged tightly to himself, and whenever he wanted to revisit that feeling, he would reread the interview. He was skimming it again when the back door bell rang. John was surprised. Usually, the only person who used that backdoor was Paul, and he had a key and never rang the bell when he got home. Curious, John went to the back door and was surprised to see Linda standing there. She was holding a covered tray that smelled like recently baked scones.

“Want some company for coffee, John?” She asked brightly.

“Yes of course! Come in!” John stood aside and gestured for her to enter, and then followed her and the waft of baked goods into the kitchen. John set about making coffee, while Linda found some plates for the scones. She hadn’t been to John’s house very often; most of the time John came over to Cavendish. Each time she did go to John’s house, she had been overwhelmed by the expensive perfection. It was the exact opposite of Linda’s oeuvre. She favored comfortable furniture (some might say ‘shabby’), and had never paid much attention to the decorating arts. John’s kitchen looked as though it belonged to a world famous chef, and Linda found this a little amusing. Her kitchen wasn’t nearly as kitted out with expensive appliances and cooking miscellany, yet she was the one who actually cooked. (Linda did not know about John’s cooking lessons and attempts to surpass her cooking skills; she didn’t know because John had not told her, of course, and Paul - bless him - hadn’t noticed there was a competition going on.)

Soon they were facing each other across an expensive custom-made kitchen table, and Linda was frankly surprised at how good John’s coffee tasted. It was - almost - as good as hers.

“To what do I owe this significant honor?” John asked Linda, his eyes twinkling.

“It’s been a while since we had time to just sit down and visit with each other alone,” Linda said. She was circling the real subject she had come to discuss.

“True enough. So how are you holdin’ up?” John asked, a bit mystified by this uncharacteristic visit. Linda had avoided John’s house - or, at least John had felt she had done so - and John had assumed it was because it reminded her too much of Paul’s other life - the life he shared with John.

“I wanted to thank you for the kind things you said about me to the Playboy interviewer, for one thing,” Linda said carefully.

John was pleased by this acknowledgement - unaccountably so. “I meant every word, I wouldn’t have made it through that nightmare without you and Paul.”

“Yeah, we got pretty close during that ordeal, didn’t we?” Linda’s eyes held some kind of plea - it was as if she was trying to convey something to John non-verbally, but he still wasn’t sure what it was. John nodded assent to Linda’s comment, and then she added, “We let it slip away from us though, didn’t we?”

So that was it. She was trying to mend their relationship. John was perplexed by this attempt, because he had never really wanted to have Paul’s wife as a close friend. He couldn’t help but feel jealous and possessive when Linda was around Paul, and so he had always figured that Linda felt the same way when he was around Paul. But, in the interests of peace in the family, John formed a response to Linda’s query. “We did reach a level of closeness then that we hadn’t ever shared before or after.” John’s voice was soft, but also tentative. He wasn’t really sure where this was going.

“I have to be honest,” Linda finally said in a louder, more confident voice. “It hurt me to read that interview.” There. She’d said it.

John was taken aback, but not for long. Of course she would have been hurt by it, for the same reasons that John was secretly satisfied by it. But he wasn’t going to share that thought with Linda. “What about it hurt you, Lin?” John asked softly, consciously using Paul’s diminutive name for her in order to soften the atmosphere a little.

“The interview was almost entirely about your relationship with Paul, and less about the music. And it completely ignores the other parts of Paul’s life. It is upsetting to be treated as though I was just a beard for you and Paul.”

John leaned back in his chair. He hadn’t given any thought at all to how his rival would feel by being marginalized. But then, how long had he - John - been marginalized in Paul’s life? What about the Liverpool Oratorio after-party, or the after-party for the Hall of Fame induction? In both situations, John had been made to stand apart and act like it wasn’t tearing his heart apart. “I know exactly how you feel, Linda,” John said after an awkward silence. “I’ve been living in the shadows of Paul’s life for over ten years now.”

This, in turn, surprised Linda. She hadn’t given John’s plight any thought all those years, any more than he had hers. She was stunned, and didn’t know how to react. John saved her from this awkwardness by adding,

“Have you spoken to Paul about this? You know, he and I submitted an edited version of the interview to Playboy before it was published, but they ignored our edits and ran it their way. Our PR director is furious about it, because Playboy is noted for allowing its’ subjects to make edits. Had they followed our edits, the interview would have been much different.” John felt a need to reassure Linda for Paul’s sake. He didn’t examine his own motives for this; indeed, he didn’t even understand his own motives.

“I haven’t mentioned it to Paul, because I think it would hurt him,” Linda admitted, both relieved and gratified to hear that Paul had tried to protect her from this embarrassment but had been thwarted by the magazine. Paul wouldn’t know how many of Linda’s friends and associates had made comments to her which were at once masquerading as concern while really seeking the titillation of whatever reaction they could get out of her. It was a major drag to be treated like a false front in her husband’s life.

“He would be upset if he thought you were hurt by it,” John agreed. “But just because he would be hurt by it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t tell him. He would appreciate the opportunity to reassure you, and to do what he could to resolve the problem.”

Linda considered John’s advice. It made sense, but then Linda knew how Paul could twist himself in knots over issues like these. She had always been so protective of him; it was odd, because Paul was protective of John, and Linda was protective of Paul. It was a weird dynamic between the two couples. Linda often felt that she had the short end of the stick despite having the title of Mrs. McCartney, and bearing his much-loved children. In the interview, Paul had referred to John as his ‘soul mate’, however indirectly, when talking about ‘Calico Skies’. Of course, while Linda had born during the War, she had spent the whole war in New York State, protected by the Atlantic Ocean and her parents’ wealth. It was John Lennon who was also born in Liverpool while the city was under bombardment by the Nazis. It was John who had also been born ‘under calico skies’. Paul’s comment, made while describing that song, had truly stung Linda. It stung her because Paul clearly didn’t realize how much he had inadvertently revealed. If she brought it up with him, he would tell her she was reading too much into it. But now she really knew, especially after listening to the song ‘7 Levels’ over and over, that John was Paul’s one true love, and while she was someone he loved and needed, she could not share his muse, and thus she could not be his soul mate. Once she had arrived at this perception, she found that she could not un-ring that bell.

Linda sighed heavily. “I am afraid I am losing him to you.” The words came out, almost against her will, and then she and John sat there - time lost in the space between them - for a surprisingly long time before John could bring himself to respond.

“Funny, I‘ve been afraid of that since 1968 about you. I still feel that way. It is hard to share a be-all, end-all lover isn’t it?” John coached his voice to sound objective and unemotional.

Linda smiled at John’s little insight. “Yes. It would be so much easier if Paul were the kind of person you could have a half-love with, but he isn’t. You just want all of him, and it is hurtful when you can’t have it.”

“He has a lot to answer for, that man,” John opined. “But the thing that saves him is that he doesn’t know - he doesn’t know how it feels to be in love with him. He is too busy trying to keep us both happy. He worries himself sick over it.”

Linda laughed. “Serves him right.”

John lifted his coffee cup and the two of them clinked cups. “You’re right about that sister!”

Soon Linda was walking back down the mews, through the garden, and back to her own slightly shabby, slightly disorganized kitchen. She felt much more at home there. She did feel better having shared her fears with John, however tentatively, but it didn’t change her conundrum. She was in love with a man who loved her, but was in love with someone else. She had lived with this for ten years now, and it never got any easier. In fact, it was getting harder with each passing day.

 

*****

 

“You know, I’m getting stopped in the mall, at the dry cleaners, at the pub by people asking me about Paul and John,” Mike complained to Rowena one night after the boys were in bed, and the dinner dishes had been cleared. “It is getting to be intolerable. This is worse than the stupid Paul-Is-Dead rumors.”

Rowena had heard this complaint before. She really had nothing comforting to say, or informative to add, so she listened.

“I would say that it couldn’t go on for much longer,” Mike continued, “but the stupid Paul-Is-Dead people are still writing about it, and coming up with more ‘evidence’ for Paul being dead, and it has been almost 25 years since that rumor started. Are we going to have to listen to this new blasphemy for 25 more years?” Mike’s voice was resonating with growing anger. He felt frustrated by his inability to protect his brother or his family from these poisonous rumors.

Rowena wondered if she should actually say what she had been thinking for some time. She decided it wasn’t the right time because Mike was too angry. Later, when he was in a calmer mood, she might be able to tell him.

“I wish there was something I could do about it,” Mike mused, his voice dropping back into a more reasonable tone.

“I know you do, Mike, but you can’t. So it is best to ignore it like Paul and Linda do. I don’t know how they are able to ignore all the gossip that goes on around them, but somehow they do. If they can do it, we can do it.”

Mike doubted that Paul and Linda were as philosophical about the rumors as they appeared to be from the outside. He suspected Paul was very upset about it, but helpless to change the situation. Mike remembered how much the PID rumors unsettled Paul, and it was only after several years that Paul had grown to accept that he was stuck with the rumors and there was nothing he could do about it. Rowena hadn’t been through that experience with Paul, and just didn’t know how hard it had been for him. Still, Rowena’s advice was good. There truly was nothing he could do about it, so he would have to try to ignore it.

 

*****

 

John had not forgotten his determination to throw a dinner party, and he had decided to use their imminent departure on tour to be the purpose for the party. He would invite a group of his and Paul’s friends (and Linda of course), and he was going to surprise everyone by making the food himself. He also had an ace up his sleeve. He dialed the number that he now knew by heart.

“Hello?” Came the voice on the other end.

“Jason! This is John.”

“Oh, I’m spoiled to talk to you twice in one month!” Jason’s genuine delight came through the telephone line to John as if it were an audible sound.

“Remember when I said I wanted to see you and Gerry? Well, I’m throwing a start-of-tour party at my house in London in two weeks, and want you two to come and stay with us for at least the week leading up to it. Is that possible?”

Jason was thrilled to be invited, and since Gerry was semi-retired now, he knew he could drag the man on to a plane. “Yes of course!”

“I’m hoping you can help me with the food,” John said excitedly. “I have some items for the menu, but you are the world’s expert on dinner parties, and I really want and need your input on this.”

Jason admitted that this sounded incredibly fun to him, and then hung up to share the good news and the plans with Gerry.

 

*****

 

Later that evening, Paul dropped by after rehearsal in time for dinner. It was John’s night with Paul, and he listened with pleasure as Paul described the progress made that day. John was cooking as Paul talked, and John felt how domestic and right it felt to have Paul sitting at the kitchen table talking about his day while he, John, made dinner. If my ‘70s rock fans could see me now, John chuckled to himself. He then spooned out the vegetable casserole on to two plates, and soon they were eating.

“Ummm, John, this is great,” Paul said as he plunged into the casserole with vigor. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he had the fragrant food in front of him. “What is this?”

“It’s a recipe I found in a French cookbook,” John said as matter-of-factly as he could.

“What’s the crunchy stuff on top?” Paul asked as he prepared to stuff a whole forkful of it in his mouth.

“It’s an au gratin made with gruyere cheese, Provencal herbs, and baguette crumbs,” John explained proudly. His reinvention as a domestic god was well in hand, he thought.

“You’re turning into quite the cook, John,” Paul complimented generously.

“Yeah, who’d have thunk it?” John joked. But he was very, very happy. “By the way, we’re throwing a dinner party in two weeks.”

Paul swallowed and looked up in surprise. “We are?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be fun to have a party with our friends before we disappear on tour for four months.”

Paul digested this information. “O-kay,” he said slowly. What was John up to? He wondered. “But do you think it is wise for us to throw a dinner party together under the circumstances? Don’t you think it would send a mixed message?”

John shrugged. “I’ll say it is my dinner party at my house, and then you and Linda can be ‘guests’.” John had already thought this through.

Paul relaxed. “Well, that’s alright then. That makes sense. Who are you inviting besides us?”

“Well, I’ve asked Jason and Gerry to come and stay with us for the week of the party, and Jason is going to help me with the arrangements.”

“You mean, stay with you, don’t you?” Paul’s eyes were twinkling.

“Come on, Paul, Jason and Gerry know all about us, we don’t have to pretend with them.”

“I was just pointing out how easy it is to slip and say ‘us’ if you’re not careful. Inviting all these people is a calculated risk, because there will be so many opportunities for us to misspeak.” Paul’s voice was calm and logical, but John had been starting to get angry until Paul said ‘us to misspeak.’ It was a relief to know that Paul included himself in on the tendency to lump John and him together as a single unit.

“We know how to carry it off, Paul. We’ve done it for over 30 years now.”

“It will be fun to see Jason and Gerry again,” Paul said cheerfully, changing the subject abruptly. “So they’re staying here then?”

“Yup. I moved in with them for a few weeks once, and it is time to repay the favor.” John thought fleetingly of the miserable circumstances of that New York visit with Jason and Gerry, and then pushed it out of his mind. Thank god that horrible blip was behind them.

“I hope you intend to invite George and Judy Martin. They’ve been very kind and generous to us,” Paul suggested.

“Yeah, definitely them. I want to invite Neil, too, but I’m not sure if he will come.” John’s face looked downcast.

“Why wouldn’t he come?” Paul asked, sincerely surprised by John’s comment.

“Because he doesn’t ‘approve’, and I think he’ll be upset that we are pretending to others that we aren’t together, while trotting Linda out as if she were a beard.”

“Linda’s not a beard!” Paul’s voice was loud and angry in response.

“Calm down, Pud. I know that, and you know that, but you must realize that people are saying that about Linda behind all of our backs. If they think or they know that we’re hiding a love affair, what does that make Linda in their eyes?” John had been waiting for an opportunity to raise this issue with Paul, since he doubted very much that Linda would do so.

Paul was stumped. “Is that what they think?” He asked in an uncertain voice.

“Many of them do, of course they do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were making comments to Linda, and asking her intrusive questions. Haven’t you spoken to her about this?” John pretended to be surprised by Paul’s failure to consider this aspect of the rumors.

“No,” Paul said slowly. He was simultaneously asking himself if that was why Linda was so weird about the Playboy interview. “She seemed kind of…distant…about that interview and all the gossip it started, though. Do you think this is bothering her?”

“Paul, I would be shocked if it wasn’t. You know, she is very protective of you and wouldn’t want to upset you by it, but I bet she’s even a little embarrassed about being put in the role of scorned wife, living a lie.”

“Christ, John, this never occurred to me! If it’s true, it’s horrible! I need to do something…”

“Babe, not tonight. Don’t go barging over there while you’re upset, and force her to go into protective mode. You need to wait until the moment is right, and then ask her about it when you’re both calm. She needs you to be the protective one for her right now.” John’s voice was firm. Inside, the mean part of him was pissed off that he was enabling Paul’s relationship with Linda, but the good part of him was proud of him. John hoped that Linda would have his back like this if the situation were reversed. And, ultimately, John knew that Paul could not be happy without Linda by his side. Since he loved Paul, he wanted him to be happy.

 

*****

 

Mike picked up the post, and shuffled through the mail until he came to a smallish envelope made of extra luxurious bond paper. There were engraved initials on the flap side: JWL. His curiosity piqued, Mike immediately opened it, and pulled out a robin’s egg colored blue card. It said, in gold engraved print:

 

John Lennon  
Invites you to a Start of Tour Dinner Party  
At His Home  
On Saturday June 6, 1992  
Beginning at 7:00 p.m. with Cocktails  
Dinner at 8:00  
R.S.V.P.

 

Mike stared at it for a few moments. That was nice of John to think of Rowena and me, he thought. It would be great to hang out with John and Paul before they left on tour, and Mike was also glad that he would be able to talk with Paul about those ugly rumors…

 

*****

 

Neil Aspinall’s invitation came later than the others. Instead, John had called Neil before dropping the invitation in the mail.

“Neil, I am throwing a dinner party on June 6th, and wondered if you would want to attend,” John stated, his voice revealing none of the stress associated with the call.

“That’s nice of you,” Neil said in response. He had felt for some time now that he had reacted badly to the news about John and Paul, and really he should have been pleased that they trusted him enough to tell him. But he had also been uncomfortable about the unchallenged rumors, and the game of chance they were playing with the press. He worried what long range impact this would have on Apple.

“I would love to see you there, but I want you not to feel awkward about it,” John was saying. “If you would feel awkward, I won’t be upset if you don’t feel you can come.” John had rehearsed what he was going to say several times before ever picking up the phone.

“Why would I feel awkward?” Neil asked, trying to reassure John that he wasn’t going to let the surprising information about his old friends interfere with his relationship with them.

“Because, only a very few of the people invited - you, the Martins, Ringo and his wife, George and his wife, a couple of friends of ours from New York - know about Paul and me, and so we will be acting as though the rumors aren’t true. And of course Linda will be there.”

Linda. Neil had forgotten all about Linda. This whole experience must be very difficult for her. Neil assumed she must know the truth, and then having to lie about it to all and sundry in order to protect her philandering husband’s reputation and career…why on earth would she want to live like that? To John all he said was, “I would be honored to attend your party, John, and believe that I can behave myself.”

John felt a rush of relief run through him and said, “Then your invite is in the mail!”

 

*****

 

George Harrison had ambivalent feelings about attending the Lennon party. First, Olivia felt awkward about Linda; she felt that Linda would be on display at the party, a la, See? Those stupid rumors are untrue? When in fact the rumors were true. It seemed very unfair to Linda. And second, George had just come to terms with the idea that Denis O’Brien had defrauded him, and that he was probably wiped out financially again. It would be far too embarrassing to George if John and especially Paul should discover this information. He didn’t want people asking him questions about the problems with Handmade Films, either. On top of that, John and Paul’s new album, and their recently announced tour, had kept them at the top of the heap, whereas George’s star was in its descent again.

On the other hand, George was glad that John had included him. George had a sneaking suspicion that it was Linda who had insisted upon including him at the McCartney parties, and if not only Linda, Paul. Getting an invitation directly from John meant something special to George. He doubted he could turn down the invitation for this reason alone.

 

*****

 

Mary and Stella were curled up on opposite ends of the sofa in the sitting room of their shared flat. It had been the first time in a long time (because of their busy separate schedules) that they had been able to just sit together and share some girl talk.

“Man, that Playboy interview was hairy,” Stella had opined in her direct way. “That reporter was relentless. He just wouldn’t stop. Somehow, altogether, he made it seem obvious that there is something going on between them.”

Mary sighed. She worked at McLen and had inside knowledge. “You know, they were given the opportunity to edit the thing, but the magazine didn’t use their edits. The PR director is having fits, but Daddy won’t let him retaliate against the magazine. He wants us all to ignore the gossip.”

“Why would the magazine not print their edits?” Stella asked, perplexed. “That makes no sense.”

“Well, the PR director thinks that the magazine hired this Pulitzer Prize winning reporter to do the interview, and the reporter threatened to return his fee and disassociate himself from the interview if the edits were made. He thinks the magazine was afraid of losing its credibility.”

“Hmmm…” Stella said. “I tried to get Mum to talk about it with me, but she just kept pretending that it was no big deal. When I first read the damn thing, I wanted to throttle Dad! How could he put her in that situation? But now you tell me he tried to change it, so I guess I can stop being mad at him now.”

“Dad is being dad about it,” Mary said.

Stella knew what Mary meant. “He’s such an ostrich sometimes,” she agreed.

“Sometimes I wonder if Mum and Dad are drifting apart. They used to tell each other everything. Now it seems that they are holding things back from each other. It isn’t a good sign.”

Stella responded to Mary’s comment with a moment of uncomfortable silence. This was not a subject she wanted to entertain. Her world had always revolved around their tight little family, and she did not want to acknowledge even a single crack in that impermeable edifice. Instead, she changed the subject.

“John having a dinner party. I never thought I’d see the day,” she joked.

Mary giggled. “I think it’s cute. It’s like he is trying to copy Mum.”

Stella laughed out loud. “I never thought of that! I bet he is! People think Mum clings to Dad, but no one clings to Dad more than John does!”

“So, are you going to attend?” Mary asked her sister.

“Of course!” Stella declared. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything. It’s sure to be endlessly entertaining. Are you?”

“Yes,” Mary said. “Mum called and urged us to go. I think she wants us there for moral support.” 

 

*****

 

Linda didn’t know what to think about John’s dinner party. He had never given one before, and yet he hadn’t consulted her about it. She felt a bit put out by that, although she honestly didn’t know why. She never consulted John about her parties. But still…

…But then again, the invitation clearly stated that it was John’s party, and John’s alone, and that it was being thrown at “his” house. Along with her presence on Paul’s arm, and Paul’s daughters and brother there, the party might go a long way in deflecting the rumors.

The rumors. Paul had actually opened up to her about the gossip that morning. He had asked her if she was feeling embarrassed about the rumors. Linda had told him no, because it was her reflexive impulse to protect him whenever possible at work again. But then Paul had surprised her.

“Linda,” he had said, “let’s be honest about this. It has occurred to me that people may think the rumors are true, and if they do, they might think that you were not a ‘real’ wife to me. That would be their natural assumption, don’t you think?”

Linda, taken aback, had agreed.

“You know that it isn’t true, don’t you? Nothing could be further from the truth. You are very important to me, and I love you very much. I could never go on without you.”

“I know you love me,” Linda had responded. “But I’m grateful you told me. You can never hear that enough.”

Linda’s take away from that conversation was that Paul always had the capacity to surprise her with his empathy and insight. All this did was make her love him more. She did not know she had John to thank for Paul’s uncharacteristic direct response to the effect the rumors might have on her.


	30. Chapter 30

Jason and Gerry landed at Heathrow, and were met by a chauffeur. The man handed Jason a note as they got in to the car, and Jason opened it up on the ride into the City. He noted the initials on the back flap and smiled: “JWL.” Aren’t we getting precious now? He thought fondly.

John’s scribbled writing on the beautiful bond stationary kind of spoiled the elegance a bit, however. 

“Hey guys! Sorry I didn’t meet you, but I didn’t want to turn your arrival into a paparazzi event! I can’t wait ‘til you get here!” It was signed, simply, “J.” 

Jason read it out loud to Gerry, who smiled as he looked over and saw John’s sloppy handwriting. “He should have had Paul write it,” Gerry opined. “Now, he has beautiful handwriting.”

“I think John is luxuriating in his new lifestyle as a kind of chatelaine of the manor,” Jason chuckled. “This whole dinner party idea is very symbolic, I think.”

“Symbolic of what?” Gerry asked.

“Of John’s desire to come out of his hidey-hole. He doesn’t want everyone knowing that he and Paul are an item, but I think he loves to play with people, to make them wonder. And I think he wants to show off a bit about his house and his cooking ability.”

“John? Cooking ability?” Gerry was dumbfounded.

“Oh, yes. He’s been taking lessons from a French chef for over a year now, and has been experimenting in the kitchen. He has written to me all about it. I am there in part to be his sous chef I think.” Jason chuckled again. It was so cute to see this side of John. 

It was less than 40 minutes later that they arrived at the front entrance to John’s stately manse. “Good heavens!” Jason declared as he caught sight of the imposing façade. “He really is living in grand style, isn’t he?” 

“It seems that he can afford it, Jason,” Gerry chided in whispered tones. He whispered because he didn’t want to appear like one of two hayseeds falling off the turnip truck in front of the chauffeur.

Before Jason could respond, the front door was thrown open and John was standing there with his arms outstretched. “Get over here you two right now!” He shouted, and Jason, laughing, obeyed quickly. Gerry was a little slower in his approach. Still, soon they each took their turns being smothered in John’s welcoming arms. The chauffeur had hustled past them to place the suitcases in the hallway, and John broke away in time to thank the driver who quickly disappeared. 

When they stepped inside the house, both of them were breathless. The huge marble foyer led to a magnificent white marble staircase, with elaborate carved mahogany stair rails. A cut crystal chandelier hovered over the foyer, where a round table, with an inlaid wood top, was centered, along with a huge bouquet of white and green flowers. The walls were all smooth plaster, in pure white. It was breathtaking.

“Wow, John! You really know how to live in style!” Jason announced, turning in a 360-degree circle to check everything out. Off to one side of the great foyer was a door leading into what looked like a formal office, and another that led into a formal dining room. On the other side was a large opening into a frighteningly white formal living room, with glimpses of bright reds, blues, and yellows peeking thru. The other door, balancing out the dining room, turned out to be a very comfortable sitting room, which was attached to an open plan kitchen and breakfast room. Again, white was the predominant color, but bright primary colors in textiles and paintings accented everything. Jason couldn’t wait. He wandered into the kitchen, which featured a long handmade kitchen table and a substantial island. All the counters were made of Carrera marble, and all the appliances were big, pricey, and American or German in stainless steel. The refrigerator, Jason noted, was a double size Sub-Zero model with glass doors, and next to that was a full-size refrigerated wine unit. Jason was speechless, and all he could manage was “John!”

John laughed in delight at Jason’s reaction to his design and decorating taste. He wanted to show it off to someone who could really appreciate it, seeing as how his only other houseguests, the Mike McCartneys, had been paranoid due to their young children. “Let me settle you in your rooms,” John said warmly, grabbing one of the suitcases. Jason and Gerry followed suit, and they trailed John up the elaborate, wide staircase on to the first floor, which appeared to have one huge suite of rooms on either side. The staircase went on up to a third floor, but John directed them to one of the suites. The bedroom was huge, white, with an outrageously fluffy down spread on it, but there were colorful South American tapestries and wood art pieces on the walls, and embroidered sheets. This room had its own huge closet and master bathroom on one side, and a very comfy looking little sitting room at the other. There was a huge fireplace in the bedroom, and a smaller one in the sitting room. Jason and Gerry exchanged looks. This was remarkably luxurious, and whatever they had expected, they hadn’t expected this. 

John said, “I’ll leave you two to get comfortable, and when you’re ready come on downstairs. I’ll pour us some drinks and we can talk.”

After John had left the room, Gerry said to Jason, “The artwork I noted going up the stairs and on the landings - I swear I saw Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Man Ray…it is a staggeringly beautiful and expensive collection of art.”

“That’s Paul’s. He has a world class collection, as you know.” Jason wasn’t as interested in the art, as he was in examining the exquisite accommodations of the room. 

“Must be nice to just go spelunking in a warehouse full of priceless art works to decorate your home,” Gerry commented. It seemed very generous of Paul to allow John dominion over his art collection like that.

The two men unpacked, and checked out their commodious and elegant bath suite, and, after each taking a quick shower and changing, they headed downstairs. They found John in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a bunch of lists in front of him.

“These are my plans for the party,” John informed them, as he pushed the lists aside. “Let’s go in the sitting room and get comfortable. Gerry, there’s a drinks cabinet in there. Why not choose something good for us to drink.” It was about 9 p.m., and Jason and Gerry had eaten dinner in first class on British Airways, so they were not hungry. But John, they noted, had put out an appetizer tray for them, and Gerry went to the drinks cabinet and was stunned by the array of choices. It looked like it belonged in a high-class bar. He found the aged Scotch whiskey, and decided that this was most appropriate. 

As they sat, drank, and nibbled on cheese, John finally asked, “So, what do you think of the place?”

“Well, for one thing,” Jason said, “it is outrageously elegant.”

John laughed. “Is it too over the top?” He asked.

“No! The textiles and artwork tie it all together. And of course the house has wonderful bones. When was it built?” Jason’s enthusiasm was bubbling over.

“In the Regency period,” John said. “I changed up this part of the house - the main living part, the kitchen, breakfast room and sitting room. Turned it into an open plan style, but kept many of the original features so it wouldn’t stick out too much. Do you like it?”

“Very much, John, it is all beautiful,” Gerry said sincerely. “It must give you much pleasure.” 

John thought about it for a moment and then said, “Yes, it does!” He sounded a bit surprised at his own answer. “I always wanted a home that was mine - in my taste. I always lived with someone else’s style. This suits me, I think, although…” John’s voice drifted off.

“Although what?” Jason asked gently. 

“I sometimes think that Paul does not feel at home here. I think it is too posh for him. He calls it ‘my’ house, not ‘ours’, and he still refers to Cavendish as ‘home’. Of course, Cavendish has been his home since 1966, so I suppose it isn’t surprising that he feels that way. Still…” John trailed off.

“Still, it feels as though it isn’t a house that you share with Paul?” Jason attempted to finish John’s sentence.

John smiled ruefully. “I am impossible to please, I know. But Paul makes jokes, like, ‘I’m afraid to sit in here’, and ‘I’m afraid to move, for fear of breaking something…’ It just isn’t his style. He likes things to be understated and comfortable.”

Jason smiled warmly. “John, your home is very comfortable, and there is nothing garish about it. I’m sure that Paul enjoys it here, and it is understandable if he thinks of Cavendish as his home. I’m sure you are worrying over nothing.” 

“You’re right, I know,” John agreed. “So, let’s talk about the dinner party!” 

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, Paul and Linda were curled up on the sofa in their sitting room. Linda’s head was rested on Paul’s shoulder, and they were listening to a tape of Paul playing some classical music that he had composed on the piano. As it came to an end, Linda said softly,

“That was beautiful, Paul.” 

Paul shrugged and said, “I am starting to like it better. It’s come a long way. But I think I want to share it with Carl, to see what he has to say about it.”

There was a comfortable silence for several more moments before Linda spoke again.

“So this party of John’s,” she started.

“Ummm?” Paul was stroking Linda’s arm and lost in a kind of reverie.

“What’s the party all about? Where did he get that idea?”

Paul chuckled. “I think he wants to show off his new mad cooking skills.”

“John? Cooking?” Linda sat forward to see Paul’s face directly.

“He’s been making all sorts of fancy stuff lately, and it is really good.” Paul had a faint, fond smile on his face as he thought of John. Linda noticed this, and was not very pleased about this news.

“Vegetarian?” Linda asked, hoping that John would commit the cardinal sin of serving meat at the party.

“Everything he has cooked for me has been vegetarian,” Paul said innocently. “He made this casserole the other night, with some kind of crunchy thingie on top. It was delicious. I couldn’t stop eating. Every time he makes something now, I’m blown away.” 

Linda said nothing. She felt a bit jealous about this. Thus far, her role in their triangle had been to be the mother figure, cooking good meals for her family, including John. She didn’t like the idea of John competing with her on this level. 

It wasn’t long before Paul noticed Linda’s silence. “Of course,” he quickly added, “he can’t hold a candle to your cooking, Lin. It’s just that it is so…surprising…that John has developed that particular skill. It is so…unexpected.” 

Linda patted him on his thigh. “It’s good just sitting here alone together. It’s been a long time. I was thinking we could cuddle up in bed for a while...” Linda had a very mischievous twinkle in her eye. 

Paul didn’t require any further encouragement. He grabbed her arm, and quickly headed for the stairs. 

 

*****

 

John lay in bed while his imagination revisited his evening with Jason and Gerry. It was great to see them, but John felt it was bittersweet without Paul there. In fact, it was bittersweet lying here alone in bed while no doubt Jason and Gerry were cuddling with each other across the hall. And, John thought dolorously, Paul was probably across the mews cuddling with Linda. John had kept up a cheerful mien throughout the evening, responding to Jason’s query about Paul with chirpy self-assurance. “It’s Linda’s night,” he’d answered, with a placid grin on his face. “But he’ll be with us tomorrow.” 

But John had felt a bit lost, because he wanted so much to show Jason and Gerry that he had established a life with Paul very similar to the one they had together. It was an empty gesture if Paul was off schtupping his wife while John was entertaining Jason and Gerry. It didn’t get much easier, as the years went by. He was able to push it to the back of his mind most days, but times like these were hard. Oh, well. He turned over and pounded his pillow into the right shape. Maybe if he pretended the pillow was Paul…

 

*****

 

It was the next morning at breakfast that Jason and Gerry finally saw Paul. Paul had gone down to John’s house after he had dropped James off at school, and was quite eager to see his New York friends. He felt a great deal of excitement at the thought of seeing Jason and Gerry again, and this surprised him a little. Paul liked people, but he was mainly a loner who preferred to spend the majority of his time with a small handful of people he cared for deeply. But Jason and Gerry had gotten under his skin, and he really liked them.

Consequently, he rushed into the breakfast room full of energy, and breathing a bit hard. There he saw a tableau: John, Jason and Gerry all arrayed around the table with coffee cups and breakfast detritus. 

“Paul!” It was as if all three men had shouted in harmony. Paul was set back by the strength of the sound, and then laughed. He then dove in to get a hug first from Jason and then from Gerry. Lastly, he came ‘round the table and engaged John in a hug, and planted a fat kiss on John’s cheek. “Morning lads!” He announced cheerfully. 

“Look who’s a cheerful little butterfly this morning!” John announced with a dry, sarcastic tone. “What me to make you an omelet?”

“Already ate,” Paul said, plopping down and leaning in towards the center of the table so he could be closer to Gerry and Jason. “How are you two - what’s going on with you?” 

“Gerry has dialed back to half time at work,” Jason offered. 

“Really?” Paul asked. He looked at Gerry. “How’s that working for you Ger?” 

Gerry laughed. “I really don’t know what to do with myself half the time now.”

Paul turned to John. “See? I don’t get the point of retiring!” He turned back to Gerry. “You can’t even be 60 yet!”

“I’m 57,” Gerry said. “But Jason wants to spend less time in the City, and we can afford it if I cut back.”

“But do you want to cut back?” Paul was relentless.

“I don’t love my work quite as much as you love yours,” Gerry laughed. “I don’t think anyone loves their work quite as much as you love yours, in fact!” 

This drew a knowing guffaw from John. “He’s got your number, mate,” he joked to Paul. 

“This is quite a place, isn’t it?” Paul asked the guests, his face alight with mischief.

“It is indeed,” Jason responded. “Wherever we go, we’re astonished.”

“Me too,” Paul laughed. He didn’t realize that John heard this as a subtle criticism of the house. “So what are we going to do today, John?”

“I thought today we would relax, sit around talking, maybe go somewhere for a nice dinner later. How does that sound? I’m thinking you must be tired from your travels.” 

“That sounds splendid,” Jason allowed. “Don’t you think Gerry?”

Gerry grunted in overall agreement.

“Let’s move to the sitting room then,” John directed, and at varying speeds they all obeyed.

 

***** 

 

The following few days were a blur to both John and Jason, who were doing all of the planning and most of the prepping for the party. Jason was sincerely amazed at how much John had learned in the kitchen, but was still able to one-up him a few times. Still, their communications were pleasant and entertaining. Gerry, meanwhile, enjoyed the peace and quiet of Paul’s study, concentrating on his reading and crossword puzzles. The London Times crossword puzzle was kickass. And Paul, of course, spent most of each day at band rehearsals. Soon, the day of the dinner party was upon them. 

All chaos reigned in the kitchen, where John and Jason worked relentlessly side-by-side. The buffet menu was extremely ambitious, and the savory smells had filled the entire lower floor of the cavernous house. Gerry was driven nearly mad by the smells, where they reached him in Paul’s snug. He had been put out by the paltry salad Jason had given him for his midday meal. Jason had wanted Gerry to “save” his appetite. At this point, however, Gerry was willing to eat his arm all the way up to his shoulder.

Back at Cavendish, Linda was in her kitchen visiting with Mike and Rowena McCartney. They had arrived earlier in the day, and had moved into the guest room “suite”. (Actually, it was a guest room with a tiny en suite, that hadn’t been remodeled since it had been Heather’s bedroom.) Mike was waiting for the right moment to bring up the ugly subject with Linda. She deserved to know that he was totally supportive of her and Paul. 

“Linda, this business with the rumors about Paul and John…” Michael started.

Oh no, thought Linda. Not now. I can’t deal with this now.

“Yes?” She responded.

“The rumors just don’t stop, do they?” Mike asked indignantly.

“Mike, maybe this isn’t the time…” Rowena started.

“Mike, Paul and I are used to mean rumors. We’ve been dealing with them since 1968. All we can do is try to ignore them.” Linda was doing her best to look unconcerned and sincere.

“That’s what I said, Mike,” Rowena interjected. “Let’s just leave them alone to deal with this nonsense.” 

Mike was not satisfied, but he couldn’t very well continue on given the circumstances. He shelved his opinions, and decided to discuss it with his brother. Assuming, of course, his brother ever showed up.

“Where’s Paul?” He asked.

“Rehearsing the band for the tour,” Linda said. “He promised to be home a bit early - at around 5 p.m. - so we can all get ready for John’s party, and go over there as a group by 6 p.m.”

This information suited Mike down to the ground. Obviously, John was having a party, and Paul and Linda were mere guests. If only the gossips could see them now. That would shut them up!

 

*****

 

Paul arrived home closer to 5:30 p.m. than 5:00 p.m., and Linda (who was used to Paul’s tendency to lose track of time) was philosophic. She doubted John would be philosophic, however, if they failed to be there at the appointed time, but that would be between John and Paul. She couldn’t help a small, self-satisfied smile at that thought.

Paul rushed his way through a shower, and put on the clothes that Linda had laid out for him without much thought. At this point in his life he tended to wear what Linda wanted him to wear at Cavendish or for their social events, and what John wanted him to wear at John’s house or for work-related events. His own preferences seemed quite beyond the point, seeing as how he didn’t want to argue over sartorial taste with either of his life-mates. This night Linda had chosen a slate grey shiny suit for him, to be coupled with a sky blue shirt. It looked harmless enough, and Paul doubted John would be too upset about it. 

Of course, John was quite upset about it when the McCartneys finally arrived, not only about Paul’s outfit, but also the fact that he didn’t get to his home until 6:30 p.m., a half hour late. Still, the McCartneys were there before the other guests, so they all could have the planned pre-party drink together with Jason and Gerry. By then, the servers John had hired were already laying out the food on various sideboards, and Linda was shocked and amazed at what she saw. “Who catered this?” she asked John, who took a long, (luxuriously long), moment to respond.

“Oh, these are some things that I whipped up with the help of my friend, Jason.” His words sounded lazy and matter of fact. Linda gave him a funny look. She was quite confused by the beautiful placement of the food, the expertise reflected in the preparation of the food, and the fact that everything - virtually everything - was vegetarian. She couldn’t help but feel her territory had been very thoroughly invaded by John. Before she could react, Paul had wandered over to where she and John stood and began to react to the food.

“John! You’ve outdone yourself! This all looks fantastic!” Paul turned to Linda and said, “You wouldn’t believe how hard John and Jason have been working for the last week on this food. I don’t think I ever saw John work this hard since the early days of the Beatles, when Brian had us on the death marches.” 

John beamed with amusement and pride. Linda managed a sickly smile. This was all getting off to a bad start, she was thinking. No sooner had she conjured up this thought than Mike McCartney joined them.

“John! Paul! So how about these ridiculous rumors?” He declared loudly.

Groaning quietly to herself, Linda excused herself and went to find a quiet place where she didn’t have to deal with all this chaos.

“What ‘ridiculous rumors’ are these?” John asked, a faux innocent smile on his face.

“You know the ones,” Mike growled. “I don’t have to spell it out.”

“So what do you think about them?” John asked playfully.

Mike was a bit taken aback, and Paul intervened. “Alright John, you’ve had your fun. Mike, we’re about to have a party here. We can discuss this later if we must.” 

At exactly that moment the back doorbell buzzed, and soon John was ushering in Stella and Mary, both of them dressed up to the nines, and looking stunning: one redhead and one brunette, and both of them gorgeous. As they approached both Paul and Linda beamed with pride. Not only gorgeous, but talented, smart and charming too. They had to give themselves high marks for parenting when it came to these two girls. 

Soon other invitees were arriving, and it wasn’t long before John’s living room, dining room, sitting room and kitchen were all teeming with chattering guests, excited to see each other all together after such a long time, and enjoying the ambience of John’s house and the amazing spread he’d put out for them. A topic of gossip was how surprising it was that John was so domestic. Who knew? Those few who knew the truth about John’s relationship with Paul were left with some intriguing questions, and those who didn’t know the truth were very curious. 

Among the guests who happened to be famous (in addition to George and Ringo) were Pete Townshend and wife Karen Astley, Roger Daltrey and wife Heather Taylor, Mick Jagger and “wife” Jerry Hall, Keith Richards and wife Patti Hansen, David Bowie and his new bride Iman, and Elton John with his latest penchant. It was a glittering rock ‘n roll party.

Mike McCartney had met most of these people at one time or the other over the past twenty years, although out of all the famous people he only knew the former Beatles on a deep level. He had reluctantly put his camera away after his wife’s remonstrances; she hadn’t wanted John and Paul to think Mike was taking advantage of them in any way. The problem was, Mike still thought of himself as a quasi-official photographer for the Beatles, which was an office he held in the early days when real photographers would have nothing to do with them. Still, he did see the wisdom of Rowena’s point of view. Things had got all funny when his brother became a worldwide idol. To Mike, Paul was just his older brother, but Paul had to live in the whole world, and so had changed accordingly. Mike had not gone on the whirlwind trip with his brother, and so sometimes chafed at these changes. It was a delicate balance, and, unlike his first wife, who had often nagged him to ask Paul for money, Rowena was determined not to take advantage. It was one of the things he most admired about her. Still, as one famous guest arrived after the other, Mike’s eyes were judging angles and lighting, and his fingers were itching. Once a photographer, always a photographer. He wondered if Linda was enduring the same urges.

At one point in the party he approached Pete Townshend, to reintroduce himself. Pete was in a clutch of people who included David Bowie, Neil Aspinall and his wife (the former Suzy Ornstein), and a few others. As Mike approached, Pete was saying,

“I keep trying to get John to go out on the town and party with us, but he rarely does. He is glued to this house…”

“I can understand why,” Neil’s wife interjected. “This house is gorgeous.” 

“Oh, hi Mike!” Pete said, noticing Paul’s brother for the first time. “It’s been ages. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been great, thanks, and you?” Mike was familiar with being around larger-than-life rock star royalty and knew how to match their loud, over-the-top dramatic pronouncements echo for echo.

“It buggers getting old, you know?” Pete joked, and the entire group could relate to this, and so chuckled in sympathetic response. 

“Mike, I don’t recall meeting you before,” David Bowie was offering his hand.

“Maybe once at an awards show we met, but I was standing next to Paul, so you no doubt didn’t notice me. People tend to become invisible when they’re standing next to Paul,” Mike said easily, with a smile to show that he was not bitter. (Even if he had been, from time to time, a wee bit bitter.)

“You can say that again,” Pete concurred.

“Except John, of course,” Bowie responded. “John doesn’t disappear next to Paul.”

Mike thought about that for a moment and said, “Yeah, true, he doesn’t.” He’d never looked at it that way before.

“They both stick out at the same time,” Pete concluded. “I think John’s the only one who matches Paul charisma for charisma. When they’re both in different parts of a room, like right now, you feel yourself drawn in two directions.”

Neil was feeling uncomfortable. He didn’t know where this was headed, but with Bowie and Townshend there, he doubted it would end well. He didn’t realize he was squeezing his wife’s hand very hard until she whispered, “Neil, you’re hurting me.” Neil snapped out of his worries, and relaxed his hand. He smiled gently at his wife and apologized. He hadn’t told her about John and Paul. He hadn’t told anyone. Part of him thought that if he didn’t tell anyone, and tried not to think about it, somehow it would turn out not to be true. On one level Neil knew that he was behaving like a troglodyte, but he couldn’t help himself. At least now - outwardly - he had managed to seem unperturbed by it all. While Neil mused, the conversation was going on around him.

“So Mike,” Pete asked, his eyes dancing with mischief. “What do you think about these John and Paul rumors?” 

Suzy Aspinall felt her hand being squeezed again, and decided this was a topic she shouldn’t encourage for her husband’s sake. It was a subject that never failed to upset him, she had noticed. “Pete - that’s a rude thing to do in John’s home and to Paul’s brother - bringing up tabloid gossip! You should be ashamed!” Neil and Suzy were old friends of Pete’s, and he always reminded her of her teenage son Julian, so she had no problem attacking him with her mom voice.

Pete laughed and said, “Ah, Suze…I’m just having a little fun…” 

“Behave!” She told him, shaking her index finger at him but smiling with gentle amusement at the same time.

“Yes, mum,” Pete joked.

Mike was grateful to Suzy for saving him from having to explode all over John’s party. He had been momentarily furious at Pete for bringing the subject up, and had been about to make a fool of himself. It was one thing for him - a family member - to talk to his brother and John about it. It was another for outsiders to gossip about it behind his brother's back. He smiled in gratitude at Suzy, and then decided to mingle elsewhere.

As he left, Bowie observed, “Pete, you’re lucky Suzy intervened. Paul’s brother was about to flatten you.” Bowie had seen the anger flaring in the younger McCartney’s eyes just prior to Suzy’s intervention.

“Yeah, well, we’re all subject to gossip, you know,” Pete philosophied. “None of us is immune. And anyway, I’ve always wondered about those two…”

“We’ve all wondered about everyone in our day,” Suzy said firmly, closing down the conversation as if she was slamming down the lid of an old trunk filled with musty artifacts of the past. “Neil, I want to try some more of John’s glorious food.” With that, Neil gratefully led her away from those two troublemakers, Pete and Bowie. 

Bowie turned to Pete and said, “You also managed to offend the Aspinalls. You’re a menace, you are.” 

Pete laughed and Bowie laughed with him. “So what do you think about all those rumors, David?” Pete asked formally.

“I think they’re true, myself,” Bowie answered, his eyes dancing with mischief. “How ‘bout you?”

“Well, David,” Pete announced, all puffed up with ersatz importance, “I think they’re true, too. And even if they’re not, it’s really hot to think about it.” 

For this, Pete earned a huge guffaw in agreement from Bowie.

While Mike had been mingling elsewhere, Rowena had struck up an interesting conversation with Bowie’s wife Iman, and Pete Townshend’s wife Karen. She had vaguely recognized Iman, who was a famous international fashion model, but hadn’t met either woman before. Almost as soon as she introduced herself, Iman asked Rowena, “Is your husband bisexual too?” Her question was as unperturbed and noncontroversial as if she’d just asked if Mike took his tea with milk or without. Rowena was taken aback, but Karen had laughed knowingly.

“I seriously doubt it,” Rowena managed to say, and then chuckled nervously. She knew immediately she was out of her element, being in these international jetsetter circles, where subjects like bisexuality apparently could be discussed openly at dinner parties. 

“Don’t mind us,” Karen said calmly. “Those sixties British rockers - they’ve all tried everything, you know. And they have a lot of temptation thrown their way still. But your husband isn’t a rocker, is he?”

“No, although he was part of the London scene in the ‘60s. I’m fairly sure he didn’t ‘try everything’ though.”

“But his brother did, no doubt,” Karen suggested. “And, from what I’ve heard, still does…” Karen shared an amused smile with Iman. 

“Oh, that gossip,” Rowena said, pretending not to be shocked that it had been brought up in this venue. “Paul and Linda just laugh it off. What else can they do?”

“Indeed, what else can they do?” Iman said archly, her eyes a tiny bit malicious. 

Karen noticed Rowena’s discomfort and then said, “Both of our husbands have had affairs with men, and probably still do behind our backs occasionally; we don’t let that interfere with our marriages. Maybe as a result of this we see bisexuality everywhere, even when it’s not there.”

Rowena was not comforted by this comment. She was incredibly grateful when Mike showed up at her side, and she was able to excuse herself from that awkward conversation. She decided she would not tell Mike about it. 

Together, Mike and Rowena moved off in the direction of another group, featuring the two Rolling Stones and their wives. All four of them were sprawling on a sofa and chairs in a little nook. Mick saw Mike coming, and gestured him over. Funny how the Stones all hung together as if joined at the hip, Mike thought, but then the former Beatles often did it too. Mike and Rowena had just passed a huddle inside the kitchen, where John, Paul, George and Ringo were all talking, along with the various wives. 

“Mike, it’s been a while… is this your wife?” Jerry Hall was apparently acting as hostess for the group. “And have you met Keith and his wife?” 

Once the introductions were completed, Jerry said without further ado or even a blush of shyness,

“We were just talking about these rumors about your brother and John…”


	31. Chapter 31

“We were just talking about these rumors about your brother and John…,” Jerry Hall said brightly and loudly to Mike. 

Mike was dumbstruck, but he was a bit intimidated by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. There was something about the Stones’ mystique that gave them an air of unpredictable danger, whereas the Beatles had always seemed lighthearted, positive and approachable. Like two sides of a coin, he thought. Because he was a bit intimidated, Mike didn’t feel as though he could respond aggressively. Instead, he maintained what he hoped was an emotionless but only slightly disapproving expression on his face, and he said nothing. His wife saved him from a growing, uncomfortable silence.

“It seems no matter where we go this evening, someone brings this up to us,” Rowena said softly and apologetically. “At a point, it becomes a little redundant.” 

Patti Hansen jumped in. “Don’t mind us. Everyone knows we don’t have any manners! Sit down! Join us! We’ve been boring each other silly!”

Keith laughed at his wife’s gracious comments, and moved over so Rowena could sit down. Mike took a chair opposite from her. 

“It’s all just harmless gossip,” Jerry said, defending her topic. “They say that stuff about Mick and Keith, too.” 

Rowena smiled and knew she had to respond, because Mike was looking pretty rigid in his chair. “I guess we’re a bit old-fashioned,” Rowena admitted. “But we worry about Linda and the children, and so it doesn’t feel ‘harmless’ to us.” 

“Yeah, it’s much more fun to gossip about other people than it is to gossip about your own loved ones,” Patti said warmly. “So let’s change the subject.” 

Mick asked, “What have you been up to lately, Mike?” 

Mike felt cornered by the question. He never had what anyone could call a “real” job. He had purchased his home in the Liverpool area with money he’d made in the ‘60s with his comedy group, The Scaffold, and had made money here and there by selling his photographs and graphic art pieces. He could have gone out and worked in a pub, he supposed, or in some kind of office job, but his twenties in the ‘60s had spoiled him for actual work. 

“I am a photographer and artist,” Mike said lightly.

“Lots of photographers in your family, eh?” Mick’s question was a touch bitchy.

“No, just me,” Mike said firmly.

“I was referring to Linda,” Mick said smartly. “She dabbles in photography and art, too, doesn’t she?” 

Mike could tell that Mick was implying that both he and Linda were dilettantes living off of Paul’s reflected glory, and it was a subject that Mike had always been very sensitive about. Again, Rowena saved him.

“Yes, it is remarkable that both Mike and Linda have made very successful careers out of their photography and art. But their styles are very different, I’ve always thought.” Rowena’s voice and body language did not reflect the least bit of defensiveness or irony, and so Mick had nowhere to go with his idle mischief making. He hadn’t meant anything by it, anyway.

*****

 

Across the room, Jason had settled in with Neil Aspinall, George Harrison and their wives.

“How long have you known John?” Judy Martin asked Jason politely.

“Oh, my partner Gerry and I have lived in the Dakota for over 20 years, and we were John’s neighbors when he lived there. I think we actually met in 1977.” 

“Fifteen years! That’s a long time,” Judy remarked.

“It has flown by in what seems like minutes,” Jason laughed. “John is a joy to be with, except when he’s not. I call the ‘other’ John his ‘evil twin Skippy’.”

Everyone laughed knowingly, having had experienced that “other” John more than once. 

“Do you know Paul well, too?” Suzy Aspinall asked, unaware that she was throwing a cat in amongst pigeons.

Jason thought about his answer before opening his mouth. This was rare for him, but then he didn’t really know any of these people and he didn’t know who knew what, so he felt that he had to be on his most discreet behavior tonight. “Yes, we met Paul through John years ago. I believe it was around the time of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame event when they were all in New York.” Jason had fibbed about this (he had first met Paul in the early not the late ‘80s), because it was at least a safe and halfway honest fib in case this little group did not know the truth. 

George Martin was thinking, did Jason and Gerry know about John and Paul? It seemed very unlikely that they wouldn’t know if they were at all close to John. Still, it was important to remain discreet.

“What do you do for a living?” George asked politely.

“I’m a literary critic. I write book reviews for magazines primarily, like the New York Review of Books.”

George Martin was impressed. That was a job with gravitas. 

“And Gerry?” Judy asked.

“Gerry is an attorney. I guess you’d call him a solicitor here. He does wills, estates, probate, and financial planning advice.” 

Neil, duly impressed, sat back, comfortable that this man was not going to drag them into a discussion of the tabloid rumors about John and Paul. And, in time, he was pleased to note that this prediction came true. It was a very erudite and graceful conversation, involving how the art and business worlds both matched and collided. 

*****

 

The Beatle group in the kitchen had been having a very pleasant but surface conversation. They were catching up on each other’s career happenings, and children. Paul had cornered Ringo early on and instructed him not to discuss the Anthology around George. That was still a very sore subject. And none of them wanted to discuss more personal issues with the wives all there, especially Linda. But because they were Beatles they gradually attracted other hangers on. People were arranged around the large kitchen table, and leaning against the kitchen cabinets. John sat at one end of the table, the sinecure of almost all eyes. Eventually the other Beatles wandered off, Paul with Linda to go talk to Roger and Heather Daltrey, and George and Ringo to go talk to the Stones. Olivia Harrison and Barbara Bach had disappeared into a little group of rock wives, dragging Rowena McCartney with them, where they all engaged each other in a lively discussion, starting with bragging about their various children. 

Bowie and Townshend, who had accrued a very loudly dressed Elton John to their little cabal (Elton’s protégé followed him around meekly, overwhelmed by all the wealth and fame, and said not a word), tracked John down in the kitchen, where Mike McCartney had already settled himself. So soon John found himself surrounded by loud, half-drunk loose cannons, with only Mike there to add ballast. 

“Johnny boy!” Pete shouted. “I was teasing Mike about the gossip about you and Paul, and he got irritated with me and stalked off.” Pete reached over and smacked Mike’s arm in a friendly way in an unsuccessful attempt to show Mike ‘no hard feelings.’

John had both legs on the table, crossed at the ankles, and was leaning back in his chair, which chair was precariously perched on its two rear legs. His right arm was akimbo, and his right hand was resting at the base of the back of his neck. He turned his head sideways to Mike and said, “Oh? Has Pete been on your case?”

Mike managed a smile, although he didn’t realize it came off a little grim. “I admit I’m a bit sensitive about people gossiping about my brother.”

John turned to Pete and drawled. “These McCartneys are incredibly loyal, you know. You say a thing about one of them wrong, and they all come marching. Believe me - I’ve had them all mad at me on more than one occasion.”

“Oh? What did you do, John?” Elton asked, his tone very suggestive.

“There was the time I had a fist fight in the midst of Paul’s 21st birthday celebration at his uncle’s house. All hell broke loose, and Paul’s older relatives banished me from their homes for a while. That was one of the times.” John had turned to Mike and had winked at him to show that it was all in fun, and nothing to be upset about.

“Oh, that was the fight with Bob Wooler, wasn’t it?” Pete asked. “So what did he say to you? Did he really suggest that you and Brian Epstein had a thing going on?”

Mike had stiffened in silent outrage. That fight had spoiled the whole party, and it was vicious gossip of the same genre that they were dealing with now: the unsubstantiated impugning of a man’s masculinity. 

John, however, still looked relaxed. “Yeah, Pete, my inner queer went crazy and I attacked the guy. I felt really stupid about it later.” 

Pete, Bowie and Elton all laughed comfortably, understanding that John was referring to the ‘inner queer’ that was inside of all homophobic males, but Mike had - at least for a moment (before he could rationalize it away) taken it literally. He was looking at John intently, wondering if John had just admitted to being a queer. 

“There’s a new book out that says that Wooler was really making a comment about you and Paul when you hit him,” Bowie suggested, eyeing Mike warily, but figuring John would keep Mike in line. 

“I don’t keep up with all those books,” John said, studying the cuticles on his left hand. “Each writer has his own spin. But none of those people were there at the time, so I can’t see how they could possibly know.” 

“I always thought Paul was too beautiful to be wasted only on women,” Elton said in a very objective tone of voice, apropos of nothing. He didn’t really know Mike, and hadn’t yet caught on that Mike wasn’t amused by this kind of banter.

Mike snickered in poorly disguised disgust at this remark. He couldn’t help himself. 

John noted this, and then turned lazily to Elton. “I tend to agree with you on that, Elton; anything that beautiful should be equally enjoyed by all. But it seems our Paul has different ideas on that score…”

“He certainly does!” Mike agreed, a little too earnestly. Everyone looked at him in surprise.

“See Elton?” John said in a showy manner. “You’ve set the McCartneys off marching again!” 

*****

 

Paul and Linda were chatting with Roger and Heather. Actually, Linda and Heather were chatting, and Paul and Roger were chatting.

“I’m so sorry about what you’re going through,” Heather said to Linda. “They’ve done it to me and Rog, too. Either it is some woman they have him cheating on me with, or it’s Pete, or some other man. The gossips just cannot accept that our husbands have settled down, started families, and are happy with that. It’s as if they have to be raging rockers forever in order to keep their old fan base happy.”

Linda was grateful for Heather’s tactful approach. She hadn’t heard rumors about Roger and Pete, or Roger and other men, but apparently there had been some. She wondered briefly whether there was truth to it. She wouldn’t have had that thought if she didn’t know for herself how sometimes the craziest gossip was also the truest. 

“Paul and I have endured all kinds of rumors,” Linda admitted softly. “We don’t mind it for ourselves, but some of it causes us to worry about our children.”

“Yes! I know what you mean! We worry about our children, too. There are a lot of upsides to having a rich and famous father, but there are huge downsides too,” Heather agreed. “How have you handled it with your kids? I note two of your daughters are here, and they look fantastic, by the way.”

“We always sit them down and tell them about the gossip, and we all talk about it, clear the air, and usually the kids preview how they are going to deal with it when it comes up in front of their friends, and then we all agree to keep a united front in public.” Linda had laid the information out with such a calm professionalism, that Heather was impressed.

“That’s a really healthy way to deal with it,” Heather said. “I’m afraid Roger doesn’t like to discuss the gossip with the children, so I’m the one who does it.” 

Next to them, Paul and Roger were having a quite different (and far less interesting) discussion. 

“So how’s the tour shaping up?” Roger asked.

“It’s a countdown now,” Paul said. “We’re rehearsing now, and the tour starts a week from today in North America - first show is in Toronto, and then we’re off to New York.”

“How are the sales?”

“Shows are all sold out. They all sold out within a half hour at each venue.” Paul’s voice was businesslike, and held not even a touch of braggadocio. Paul knew that in Roger he had another business head in the conversation.

Roger whistled. “That Beatle magic,” he said, smiling. Roger’s voice was admiring, without even a touch of resentment.

“Yes,” Paul agreed without rancor. While John often was offended when people attributed their latter day success to the Beatles, Paul had never deluded himself that his later work could ever truly compare in the hearts and minds of his fans. This was not because the music was worse - actually, the music in many ways was objectively better - but because the Beatles music was all tied up with youth, beauty, optimism, and the ‘60s rock culture when love was going to solve all the world’s problems, and all of these memories flooded the brains of the old fans whenever the music was played. Music and memory were conjoined forever and thus no new music, however wonderful, could ever compare.

*****

 

Gerry had spent much of the evening introducing himself to the non- or - less- famous guests. He had met a lot of very interesting people that way, and had thought to himself how John and Paul always attracted the most accomplished, most interesting people into their milieu. In this group, comprised of business types, poets, writers, artists and even a philosopher or two, the rumors about John and Paul had not been raised even once. It was a tale of two parties. Ultimately, Gerry met up with George Martin and Neil Aspinall, who were still talking to Jason, although their wives had wandered off.

Jason brightened up, as he always did when he saw Gerry, even after over 20 years. “Ah, Gerry, this is George Martin - he produced all of the Beatles’ records, and this is Neil Aspinall - he has known and worked with John and Paul since the early ‘60s.”

“Hello, Gerry,” George said as he offered his hand. “I actually produced most of their records, but not all. I had nothing to do with Let It Be.”

“That was wise of you George,” Neil laughed. He turned to Gerry and Jason and said, “We all of us had just about had it with all four of ‘em by the end of ’68. They were all thoroughly impossible.” But Neil’s face reflected an abiding fondness for his four fellow Liverpudlians despite this comment.

Neither Jason nor Gerry had ever educated himself on the Beatles’ tortured history. They had decided to just be John and Paul friends, and not worry about the past, thinking that knowing too much about the Beatles would spoil their objectivity as friends. “Oh? How ‘impossible’?” Jason asked, his eyes twinkling.

“We had a press officer named Derek Taylor back in the ‘60s,” Neil explained. “He used to have an amusing rant on it. You know, along the lines of, ‘Oh, you want four white stallions and some neon orange paint in the middle of Hyde Park at midnight, Ringo? No problem! Oh, you want a crane to deliver a grand piano to the roof, Paul? No problem! Oh, you want a psychedelic painted Rolls Royce and a guerilla costume, John? No problem! Oh, you want the entire troop of hari krishnas from the airport to camp out in the conference room for weeks on end, George? No problem!’” 

By the end of this rant, everyone was laughing with full throats. George Martin and Neil’s laughter was warm, even though there had been a time when they would not have found any of it humorous. Time had healed those wounds. 

“That must have been an amazing period to live through,” Jason said excitedly.

“It was, although sometimes it seems like a blur,” George Martin responded. “I was a deal older than them - I was 14 years older than John and Ringo. So the four of them always treated me like a slightly backward uncle. I never quite had a firm hold on what they were on about.” 

“They respected you enormously, George,” Neil said softly. He’d had his own hard feelings about Martin in the old days, stemming from Martin’s opinion that Aspinall was not an appropriate replacement for Brian Epstein, but those bad feelings, too, had softened with time. Neil turned to Jason and Gerry. “They always called him ‘Mr. Martin’, right until the end.”

George laughed at the memory. “It took several years for Paul to stop calling me that. In the ‘80s I finally persuaded him that, since he was in his forties, he could call me by my first name.”

 

*****

 

John had decided that he had spent too much time lounging about in the kitchen when he had a party going on. Had he given a party before, he would have realized how inappropriate this was a long time earlier. Still, at least it eventually occurred to him that he should move among his guests to make sure they all had an equal crack at him, so he let his chair plonk down onto four legs and pushed himself up from the table.

“Well, lads, it’s been interesting, but I’ve got to spread myself a little thinner!” He announced to assorted snorts and snickers. He then headed first for the family room. He saw Paul and Linda stuck in a corner with the Daltreys. Paul and Roger always had a good friendship. John had always assumed this was largely based on the fact that neither of them had really been a drug-abuser or hell-raiser despite their rock star status, not to mention the fact that each of them had allied themselves with an unpredictably moody partner. John moved on until he got to the formal living room, where he saw George Martin, Neil Aspinall, and Gerry and Jason in a tet a tet. That looked right. Also in the living room he found the Stones, still largely hunkered together in a nook, and George and Ringo were with them. He moved on to the dining room, where a lot of the wives had congregated, and they were all drinking, laughing in high-pitched voices, and getting just a little bit raunchy. Before he could escape, one of them - it was that troublemaker Karen Townshend of course - shouted,

“John! Oh you have to come and join us! You can compare notes with us! We’re all complaining about our husbands!”

The women all laughed, although Rowena and Olivia did not find it too amusing. Neither of them had been complaining about their husbands. It had been the other women who had been exchanging naughty stories about their men.

“Oh, I don’t have any husbands to complain about,” John said in a flamboyantly gay voice. His hip had jutted out to the side, and one of his arms had done a dramatic gesture in the air in accompaniment. The women all giggled again. John’s voice dropped back to normal and said, “You ladies have been drinking, haven’t you?” His eyes were dancing with mischief.

“Oh John, sit down and join us,” Barbara Bach finally said firmly. “We need a little of your testosterone in this room to even things out a little.” 

John’s body language and voice went back to that of an outraged drag queen. “You needn’t remind me about the testosterone; it isn’t very kind.” After the twitters had died down, his voice dropped back to normal. “Anyway, most of you gals are ballbusters. You leave your men in the shade in the testosterone department.” 

“We had to be ballbusters to put up with the likes of you lot,” Karen retorted. “But talk to us about you and Paul, dear. We’re all just dying to hear about it!”

“I’m not dying to hear about it!” Olivia declared loyally.

John laughed and said, “What do you want to know, Karen?” His eyes promised delicious secrets.

“Is it true?” Her eyes were literally challenging John in response.

“Yes,” John said in a whispered voice, as he pretended to look over his shoulder for people who might be listening. He then leaned forward as if he was conspiring with them all. “I really do suffer from halitosis, and Paul’s got athlete’s foot, and we’ve been receiving top secret treatments: such unromantic and embarrassing disorders. I don’t know how the tabloids ferret out all this dirt!” His face was alive with mock distress.

All the ladies laughed but Karen. 

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Karen jeered. 

“I’ve been hearing that a lot tonight from my guests,” John said with no apparent sign of insult or offense. “It seems you have all expected me to behave outrageously, but I’m a grown up now.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Iman said flatly.

*****

 

Paul had decided it was safe to leave Linda’s side for a few moments, so he had suggested to Roger that they go find some of the other old rockers, and they left in search of the Stones. By the time they got there, Ringo had moved on but George was still there. Paul chose an armchair facing the sofa upon which Mick, Keith and George (and now Roger) were sprawling. 

Mick was directly across from Paul, and Mick leaned forward towards Paul. He said in a low voice, “John has quite the place here, doesn’t he?” 

Paul nodded as he leaned in towards Mick, since it appeared Mick wanted to have a more private conversation. He didn’t have long to wait. 

“John has changed a lot since the ‘70s, hasn’t he?” Mick asked. To Mick, Paul’s eyes - as usual - appeared closed off. Mick had always found it impossible to get past the walls constructed by those eyes. Still, Paul’s voice was polite enough as he responded. 

“Yeah, but haven’t we all changed a lot since then? I certainly hope we have, anyway, since we’re all entering our fifties now.”

Keith’s voice suddenly interjected itself loudly. “Yeah - surviving the ‘60s and ‘70s. What didn’t kill you made you stronger.” Mick and Paul were surprised by Keith’s remark, unaware that Keith had apparently been listening in.

Paul laughed in his surprise, and Mick noticed that Paul’s eyes opened up and went from black to a glowing dark green with golden highlights as he smiled at Keith. Mick felt momentary resentment over the fact that Keith could make those eyes open up when he, Mick, could not. What was that all about? He looked back and forth between Paul and Keith but could not believe what his mind was suggesting. Nah… McCartney lived a straight life. Mick didn’t think for a moment that Paul was actually a heterosexual. He believed that Paul was at the very least a repressed bisexual. But Mick also believed that the repression was overpoweringly strong in Paul. In fact, maybe Paul was really gay, and his deep fear of his gayness forced him into being such a stick in the mud straight. Keith, of course -- Keith would try anything (and had!)

Paul was unaware of Mick’s thoughts, of course. From his perspective, Mick was not to be trusted, always had his own interests at heart, and would stab you in the back given the chance, whereas Keith had an open heart and if he was going to stab you it would be in your front, not your back. Paul had always liked outrageously honest people (witness John), so he always had affection for Keith, whereas he was always wary of Mick.

Mick, meanwhile, had been irritated by Keith’s interruption. He had been about to twit Paul a bit about the gay rumors, because Paul was so easily shocked by such things (or at least he had been, back in the ‘60s.) But now that Keith had intervened, it would be a bit harder. Oh, well. He and Keith often went head-to-head, so Mick didn’t mind taking him on if necessary.

He turned to Paul. “We’re all curious about how you’re taking all these rumors about you and John,” Mick said in a louder voice, so that George and Roger could hear too. 

Keith said, “Not all of us, Mick. Apparently only you are.” George snickered in agreement with Keith, and Roger smiled nervously.

“Still, even if it is just me, I’d like to know the answer,” Mick said, his eyes never leaving McCartney’s beautiful face. Such a waste, Mick thought. He could have fucked any man he wanted to, and instead wasted all that pulchritude on that horsey hippie of a wife… Mick examined Paul’s expression. It was placid and slightly amused, which surprised Mick a little. He had hoped for some discomfort there.

“What ‘answer’ is it that you think I have?” Paul asked casually. “I don’t know who started the gossip.”

“Mick probably started it,” snorted Keith, and George Harrison laughed out loud.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” George added, as if he was speaking only to Keith. “He doesn’t seem able to talk about anything else tonight.”

“He feels left out,” Keith said to George, as if no one else was listening. “He wants to fuck both John and Paul!”

Everyone laughed, but there was now a nasty tension in the air between Keith and Mick, which Paul sensed immediately. Not unlike the tension that sometimes arose between him and John. Paul’s tender heart got the best of him.

“Well, I can’t speak for John,” Paul said, his eyes lit with humor, “but I would never consider fucking Mick because I’m sure I’d be a huge disappointment to him.” As the others laughed, Paul winked at Mick as if to say, ‘it’s okay, we’re cool.’

*****

 

Ringo had moved on to a quiet corner with a group of musician friends. They’d kind of taken over Paul’s smallish snug. The room was redolent of marijuana. 

“So Ringo,” said a well-known session guitarist. “Tell us about John and Paul. The whole party is whispering about it.”

“I wish they were whispering,” Ringo grumbled grouchily as he lit up a joint. “They’re going about shouting it out there!”

“Well, the party’s timing could have been better…” suggested a drummer friend.

“The party’s timing is tied to the start of their tour, not the fucking gossip,” Ringo snapped back. “Honestly. It’s like suddenly everyone’s brain just suddenly turned to mush.” 

“Well, we are all turning 50…” joked the guitarist. 

“And the drugs and alcohol didn’t help either,” added a bass player.

Ringo grunted. He was just about to turn 52, and was still struggling with alcohol addiction, so he didn’t find the jokes too amusing. In fact, the party itself had become a downer to him, with everyone whispering about John and Paul. Ringo worried about Linda, and he also worried about Paul - stuck in the middle between two lovers, and having to face all these rumors. John seemed to be eating up all the controversy, and (Ringo was quite irritated with John as he thought this), John is enjoying the whispers. He wants to be seen as Paul’s lover without having to admit it. Is that why he threw this party?

 

*****

 

George Harrison had been enjoying the party thus far. He had seen a lot of old friends, and none of them had mentioned his financial problems. They were all too busy conjecturing about the John and Paul rumors. This suited George down to the ground. Although he had no intention of adding any fuel to the fire, and would do what he could to discourage the gossip, a part of him felt satisfied that Paul was in this very embarrassing, socially precarious position. George couldn’t control his resentment over Paul’s perceived perfection. Maybe now Paul would know what it felt like to be the odd man out.

These thoughts were in George’s head as he headed over to chat with Neil Aspinall, who was now sitting on the other end of the formal living room surrounded by people but apparently not talking to anyone. Neil lightened up when he saw George. He had always had a deep affection for George, and had lately been worried about George’s financial situation. He hoped George would ask him his advice about it, because Neil had thought - for a very long time - that Denis O’Brien was a con man. Neil had seen more than his share of them in the music business, while fighting them off to protect the Beatles and Apple from their predations.

“Hey, Nell,” George said in his low, nasal voice. “Glad I finally got around to you. Lots of people here.”

“How are you doing, George?” Neil asked, his eyes trying to meet George’s. George, for some reason, was not meeting Neil’s eyes as he said something bland in response to Neil’s question. Neil was stumped. He didn’t know how to raise the subject, and in fact now felt that this was not the time or place. He decided to drop it as a potential topic of conversation. 

“I like this house and all,” George said suddenly, “but somehow it feels kind of like a ‘setting’ to me.” 

Neil was surprised by this, and didn’t know what that meant. He was silent and stared at George expectedly, hoping for some explication. George finally noted this, and continued.

“I feel like John is making a statement with this house, but it isn’t really a ‘home’, if that makes any sense.” George was struggling for words to fit his sense of unease about the magnificent mansion.

Neil looked around and saw magnificence but also an over-arching artistic eye. “There is a real personality to it, though,” Neil said. 

“Yes, but it isn’t John’s personality. It is like some ideal of what John wished his personality was.” George had wondered about the house for a long time, but had only just that night been able to match words to feelings.

Neil shook his head slightly. He didn’t really understand what George meant, but he also knew that George was much closer to John than he - Neil - was, and so perhaps George’s insights were correct. 

George abruptly changed the subject again, his voice dropped to a lower register. “John mentioned to me that he told you about Paul and him.” George looked across the room and not at Neil as he spoke. Neil was grateful that George for this.

“Yes,” Neil said guardedly.

“I’m glad. I have to admit that after tonight - seeing the way everyone is poking and prying - I begin to understand their holding this information back even from their closest friends, but it isn’t necessary for them to keep it from you, Neil. You’re one of us, and you can understand.” 

Neil wished that this were true. He hoped that soon it would be true. But he was also touched that George thought that Neil understood, and that he was “one of us.” That meant a lot to Neil. 

 

*****

 

Pete Townshend had finally tracked Paul down, and had backed him into a corner of sorts. Not literally, of course, but Paul’s back was to a corner of the room where he sat on a sofa, and Pete sat directly in front of him, so Paul could not slip away easily. Pete always liked to be close to Paul, whose sexuality excited Pete’s. He had never given up hope that maybe some day it might be reciprocated. The gossip that surrounded John and Paul was like a double edged sword to Pete. On the one side, if Paul was making it with John it meant that he might be open to making it with Pete. On the other side, however, if Paul were making it with John why on earth would he want to be making it with some other bloke? 

Paul sat before Pete looking glorious, even if wildly out of style in a light blue shirt and a grey suit that seemed to dazzle in the light. They were chatting about music, and the upcoming tour, and what the Who were up to, but Pete’s eyes were really just drinking in the dark beauty before him, and his ears were soaking up the low, sexy, musical voice. Pete didn’t even want to think about what his dick was doing! Finally, Pete found his voice:

“I’m hoping those rumors about you and John aren’t true,” he said flirtatiously.

“Oh, why’s that?” Paul laughed. He was innocently unaware of Pete’s intense interest in his response.

“Because I really don’t need or want the competition.” Pete’s voice said it flatly, but his eyebrows showed a wicked kind of determination.

Paul was confused. “Competition?” He asked.

“Yeah. Who wants to compete with John Lennon over a lover?” Pete asked, planting his flag firmly in front of Paul.

Paul sat back a little. Oh, dear. Here we go again. Proposition No. 7 - or was it 8? Paul considered being willfully ignorant, but decided Pete would see right through it so there was no point. Better to be cryptic and keep him guessing.

“I see what you mean,” Paul finally said. “I wouldn’t want to compete with John for a lover either.” He let the ambivalent statement just hang there.

John had just entered the living room when his laser eyes went straight to the corner where Paul was stuck behind the likes of Pete Townshend. John’s territorial and possessive hackles went up immediately and he made a beeline for the pair. He had long ago sensed Pete’s sexual desire for Paul.

“Pete! I bet you’re up to no good, as usual!” He shouted heartily as he appeared before them, and then pushed his way thisclose to Paul on the sofa. He allowed his arm to go protectively along the spine of the sofa above Paul’s shoulders while his eyes challenged Pete's. Paul was trying not to smirk. John was apparently marking his territory, and, he thought, I’m the fucking fire hydrant. 

“Hey John,” Pete said with a less than cheerful tone, realizing when he’d been outmaneuvered once again by John and turned down once again by Paul. 

“I’ve been looking all over the place for you, Paul,” John said accusingly, turning to his partner. “I thought we were going to sing for our supper.”


	32. Chapter 32

Linda had wandered off into the kitchen to poke around in the left over pots and pans and plates, to better assess the food served that night. She had gone through the various buffet tables shortly after they had been set up, and had studied the offerings. Some of the food was somewhat expected, for example an exotic collection of stuffed olives and mushrooms, yogurt/dill dip with pickled artichokes, cauliflower and green beans, a succulent looking pile of red skinned garlic mashed potatoes, a risotto with a surprising touch of mint, and a delicious whole-wheat pasta salad with squash squares and okra. And the rest of the food was wholly unexpected, for instance braised root vegetables in a red wine reduction sauce, fresh English sweet peas very simply sautéed in butter, grilled Brussels sprouts with sautéed shallots and goat cheese crumbles on top, a steaming platter of French haricots with sesame seeds and tofu squares, all of it soaked in a homemade teriyaki sauce, not one but two delicious soups - a very interesting and adventurous fresh tomato, lentil and onion soup, and an intensely savory wild mushroom soup with delicate sprigs of thyme dancing over the top. There were also three separate delicious salads: a sweet and sour artichoke salad, featuring fava beans, an eggplant, lemon and caper salad, and a truly fresh and tasty arugula, pear and parmesan salad. Perhaps the most surprising dish was a plate full of perfectly boiled pearl onions and fat raisins, swimming in a pool of a light tomato sauce. But Linda was most impressed by the broccoli and cauliflower gratin, baked with delicious cheddar cheese and baguette crumbs. There was also a mountain of fresh made breads, and a selection of cheeses and other appetizers, including a deliciously unexpected red bell pepper spread and tiny sweet gherkins. 

The desserts had been amazing, too, ranging from the simple (little chocolat and vanilla pots de crème), to the elaborate (choux pastry towers, peach tarts, and homemade blackberry merlot sorbet, not to mention perfect looking Napoleons with delicately drizzled raspberry and chocolate on top.) And the just slightly and perfectly stewed pears with their bottoms dipped in dark chocolate were to die for! And then there had been the wine and drinks selections - Linda had never been very strong in that department, leaving it to Paul. She then wondered, a bad feeling rushing down her spine, if Paul had arranged the wines and the drinks? The idea of John and Paul planning a party together was just another invasion of her territory…

Linda was secretly very chagrinned. There were things on this menu that she would never have thought of, much less attempted. She had hoped that she could have found fault, or at least hidden packets in the trash to prove that John had actually bought the goodies from a caterer or Harrods, but to the contrary, a quick jaunt through the pantry and cupboards reflected that John had all the ingredients to make what had been made, and an examination of the pots and pans reflected evidence of home-cooked food. This was - she hated to admit - disappointing. She had wanted at least one area of influence in Paul’s life that was exclusively hers. But now John had not only matched but had surpassed her in this department.

 

*****

 

Mike was exhausted. The evening had felt like he had wandered into one landmine field after the other. He had yet to have a private talk with his brother. For instance, right now he saw Paul across the family room, fussing around the piano. John was holding a guitar. It looked like they were going to have some entertainment that night. Certainly, there were enough musicians in the place to fill out all the seats in a large orchestra.

“Looks like they’re going to sing for us,” a voice said into Mike’s left ear. He turned and saw Elton John standing there. 

Mike nodded, both in greeting and in agreement. “That’s new. Paul doesn’t usually sing at parties.”

Elton laughed. “I suspect Paul does pretty much whatever John wants him to do.” 

There wasn’t anything obvious in Elton’s tone, but something about it niggled at Mike. He suspected Elton’s comment had a double meaning, and he didn’t like that second meaning one little bit. Still, he managed to contain his temper. “John is opinionated, that’s true,” he said, willfully ignoring Elton’s sly double entendre. “But Paul is opinionated too. I suspect they match each other point for point.”

Elton’s face lit up with delight. So! The straight boy was going to play! He laughed and said, “You know, I agree with you. I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

Again, Mike felt that Elton had willfully misinterpreted what he had said. He was frustrated. Before he could say anything though, John’s voice, testing the microphone, interrupted.

“Polly wants a cracker, Paulie gets a smacker…” He intoned. Paul made a face, and shook his head in sheepish amusement. Couldn’t take John anywhere. Everyone laughed and moved in to the family room. People were hanging in the hallway and leaning in from the kitchen and breakfast room. They were all excited.

“Paul and I thought we’d play a few acoustic numbers for you, and maybe Paul will even be persuaded to play a classical number he composed,” John said. “Seems an appropriate way to celebrate our new tour, which is starting next week in Canada.” Everyone cheered loudly for John’s announcement, and settled in happily in anticipation of an impromptu performance. Keith Richards was even making some loud “woo-hoo!” noises from the back of the room.

“Thank you mum,” John responded to scattered guffaws. “For our first number,” John announced in his best holiday camp announcer voice, “we’d like to sing a little ditty you might recognize from years ago.” He turned to Paul who joined him at the microphone. 

“He’s a real nowhere man,   
living in his nowhere land,  
making all his nowhere plans,  
for nobody…”

The harmony was perfect, and Paul’s pure sweet voice was set against the nasal depth of John’s lower voice. The room full of people had quieted in genuine pleasure and respect. Mick, of course, felt a bit of jealousy and maybe even spite over the incandescence and popularity of his rivals, but the rest of the guests were transfixed by the magic of Lennon & McCartney.

“For our next number,” John said, still with the cheesy announcer voice, which caused a smattering of titters, “we dip into something a little more recent…”

Paul’s intricate guitar picking led into the first verse of Calico Skies:

“It was written that I would love you  
From the moment I opened my eyes  
And the moment that I first saw you  
Gave me life under calico skies…”

Linda heard this from her seat close to Paul, and her heart fell softly. This was Paul’s soul mate song for John, and he had no idea that he was breaking her heart by singing it, because he had no idea that she had figured out that it was about John.

Elton John leaned in close to Mike’s ear and whispered, “That’s a love song for John, isn’t it?”

Mike ignored this interruption, but his indignation was insecure. What if Elton was right? Everyone around here thought his brother was in love with John Lennon. Was he the one who was wrong? He desperately searched his memory for telltale clues from the past, but came up empty.

“This is the title song from our new album,” John said, gesturing with his head to Paul to go to the piano. Paul looked startled, and for a moment resisted before shrugging and seating himself at the piano. The song began with one of two refrains:

“He told me there were seven levels  
In the universe:  
Singing angels or dancing devils  
For better or for worse…”

The interplay between Paul’s near-classical piano, and John’s acoustic picking was a contrast much like a singing angel or a dancing devil. Opposites that matched. As the song petered out, people applauded rather than cheered. It was as if there was something more formal and solemn about that particular song. The song was intimate and estranged at the same time, with little glimpses of detail that seemed to scream ‘this is about Paul’, to more opaque poetry that was dreamlike and impenetrable. 

It had been hard for Linda to sit and listen to it and keep a smile on her face. Stella and Mary had moved over and were next to her, providing moral support. They would have been angry at their father except for the fact that it had been clear that he was surprised by this song choice when John announced it. Stella knew she would be having some words with John later. It came as scant relief to Linda and her daughters that, almost as soon as the strains of that song ended, Paul and John began to sing, again in perfect harmony, the beautiful song, In My Life.

“There are places I remember  
All my life, though some have changed  
Some for forever not for better  
Some have gone, and some remain…”

“He’s singing about Liverpool now,” Neil whispered to George Martin who nodded in agreement.

“All these places have their moments  
With lovers and friends I still can recall  
Some are dead and some are living  
But in my life I loved them all…”

“It’s such a sweet love song,” whispered Heather to Roger Daltrey, who nodded.

“But of all these friends and lovers  
There is no one compares with you  
And these memories lose their meaning  
When I think of love as knowing you…”

That’s odd, George Martin thought. He changed that last line, didn’t he?

“Though I know I’ll never lose affection  
For people and things that went before,  
I know I’ll often stop and think about them -  
In my life I love you more…”

“I know what he means by that,” Ringo whispered to his wife, Barbara. “It’s about all of us, how we were...”

“But of all these friends and lovers  
There is no one compares with you…”

That’s definitely about Paul, Pete Townshend grumbled to himself. Who else would it be about? And if Paul were my lover, I’d say the same…

“Though I know I’ll never lose affection  
For people and things that went before,  
I know I’ll always think about them,  
In my life, I love you more…”

“On this is definitely about Paul,” Elton opined to his boyfriend, and a worried and restless Mike McCartney overheard him. “They have a very special bond.”

“In my life, I love you more…” 

As the haunting chords faded away, a thoughtful silence fell over the crowd, and they were all looking at John and Paul as though they had seen them clearly for the first time. The silence seemed to last forever, but it was really only about 15 seconds before Keith Richards yelled,

“Bravo! More please!”

After that, others were invited to join, and the music went on for hours afterwards, with everyone with even a tot of musical talent joining in at one point or another.

 

*****

 

Mary and Stella had survived the night, but just barely. They had left after the music presentation, and had gone on to a happening London club. Later, they were cozied up in their flat, and chuckling over the night’s events.

“There’s nothing quite like a house full of drunken ‘60s rock stars,” giggled Stella.

“They are certainly a colorful bunch!” Mary giggled back. “And they would all shut up as soon as we approached.”

“You know they were all talking about Daddy and John, and that’s why they’d abruptly stop when we showed up. It was so bloody obvious.” Both girls giggled. “And Uncle George looked like he’d swallowed a lemon, all night long,” Stella added.

“He can sometimes be a pretty resentful person, although he has a beautiful soul in other ways,” agreed Mary.

“I don’t know,” Stella said honestly. “I get a vibe off him that he doesn’t like Daddy.”

“Daddy and Uncle George go back a long way, Stell. I’m sure you’re wrong.”

“Mary, you are too soft-hearted. I think George was enjoying the fact that Daddy and John were the subject of a lot of gossip.”

“I certainly hope you’re not right,” Mary said. 

“And Uncle Mike spent the whole night looked stressed out and pissed,” Stella continued.

“I am a bit worried about him,” Mary agreed. “I don’t think Daddy has told him the truth, and he is suffering over the gossip. Daddy should tell him the truth.”

Stella nodded absent-mindedly. “And then there were the old rockers - Jagger, Richards, Bowie, and Townshend. They are the biggest bunch of gossips ever! They’re worse than their wives!”

Mary responded immediately. “Oh, the wives were bad enough. Mum told me they were all gossiping, although Olivia tried to shut them all up.” 

“I really like Olivia,” Stella said honestly. “She’s one cool lady.” She thought for a moment and then continued. “And then there was John…”

Mary giggled in response.

“John was just so proud of his house, his food display, and he was lording it over our Dad, wasn’t he?” Stella’s face reflected her mischief.

“Stella, stop. John has a beautiful home, and he put out a beautiful array of food…” Mary was only slightly disapproving.

“Yes, but Mary - how do you think Mum feels about John being such a virtuoso with the food? Isn’t that her thing?”

Mary’s face showed a reluctant agreement. “John seems to be moving in on her territory,” she agreed.

Both girls were silent for a moment. And then Stella spoke again, amusement back in her voice. “Elton John and that fancy boy of his…what did you think?”

“I love his music,” Mary said diplomatically.

“Mar-y!” Stella complained.

Mary smiled and said, “He seemed to be teasing Uncle Mike during the music.”

“I didn’t notice that,” Stella said.

“Yes, it looked as if he was baiting him with provocative statements,” Mary responded.

“I wonder what it was about?” Stella asked.

“All of it was stressful for Mum, I think. She didn’t look very comfortable, and I felt as though she wanted to go home.” Mary was thoughtful as she remembered her mother, curled in a chair and listening sadly to Paul singing ‘Calico Skies’ followed by John’s virtuoso performance of ‘Seven Levels.’ “I’m sure she is glad that this evening is finally over.”

“Is it over, Mary?” Stella wondered. She saw the clock that read 1 a.m., and suspected that there were still remnants of the party guests at John’s home.

“If it’s not, I hope Mum has had the good sense to go home by now.”

 

*****

 

Linda was thoroughly exhausted. She had snuck out shortly after the music concluded, whispering to Paul that she had to go to bed. She knew this was Paul’s night with John, so Paul had kissed and hugged her in the kitchen, and watched her go. She had walked down the lonely mews, and across the dark garden, and into Cavendish. She had stood silently in the sitting room and had allowed the comfortable sounds and smells of Cavendish to fill her senses. She moved in the direction of the kitchen, and collapsed down into a chair. 

She was seated there when Mike and Rowena McCartney wandered in and found her there.

“That was quite a party, wasn’t it?” Rowena asked, because she could think of nothing else to say to break the difficult silence.

“I found it insufferable,” Mike grumbled. “Honestly, they’re a bunch of old women, gossiping all the time.”

“Hey!” Responded Rowena. “Women aren’t the worst gossips - men are!”

“Well,” Linda interjected, her voice dripping with irony, “that theory was well and truly played out tonight.”

There was a brief silence, and then Michael spoke.

“Linda, I am so sorry you have to go through all of this. I don’t know why Paul doesn’t just deny it all, and shut them all up.”

Another silence reigned, and then Linda spoke, her voice dull and resigned. “Mike, he can’t deny it.”

“Why not?” Mike demanded. “At some point he has to put an end to it!”

Rowena was alert and on standby. She knew that a troublesome truth was about to descend upon them.

“Because it’s true, Mike. Of course it’s true! Haven’t you figured that out yet?” Linda’s voice was kind but a little impatient.

Mike was stunned, but his brain was busy in denial mode.

“That’s not funny Linda! I know my brother! It can’t be true!”

“Mike, he doesn’t want to tell you because he thinks you will be disappointed in him. But it is most definitely true.” Linda’s voice had a finality to it that echoed in the air. She asked herself whether it was anger that had made her spill Paul’s secret to his brother. Linda was a little ashamed of herself; this was Paul’s story to tell, and she had usurped his confession. Still, Mike needed to be put out of his misery, and Linda had begun to think that Paul would never tell Mike if it could be avoided. As a rationalization for breaching her husband’s trust in her, it was sore comfort.

The silence that descended upon the kitchen was positively lethal. Rowena reached over and grasped Mike’s hand, which had fisted itself and was lain out on the kitchen table. 

“Mike,” Rowena whispered softly, tentatively. “I did wonder if there might be truth to it.” 

Mike was frozen and angry. Part of him did not believe a single word, but the more realistic side of him knew it was true. That realistic side of him was filled with rage. How could Paul have put him in this situation where he looked like a fool not to know? And how could Paul have stooped to such disgusting behavior? At that moment Mike’s distrust of and anger at John had intensified to a high level. That man had been a terrible influence on his brother in so many ways - just as his father Jim had said! As a young boy and man, Mike had been charmed by John’s bad boy ways, and had refused to believe his father’s complaints. But here was some pretty irrefutable evidence. Still, loyalty to his brother - a fellow McCartney - ran deep, so he felt confused as well as angry and betrayed. He got up so suddenly that the chair fell backwards. Without a word, he stormed out of the kitchen, and then out of the house. The women followed him, worried, only to hear the sound of an engine starting, and a car peeling away.

“I’m sorry, Rowena, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Linda said, filled with remorse.

“It needed to be said,” Rowena responded sensibly.

“I am just so exhausted. You can’t imagine. John lording it over that house, and flaunting his relationship with Paul in front of all those gossips! All the women were giving me pitying looks. It was dreadful.”

“Well, all I can say is that I didn’t notice John flaunting the relationship,” Rowena tried to comfort Linda. It was bad enough that Mike was off (to a pub?) in a huff; now she had Linda breaking down in front of her, too.

“The songs John chose? They didn’t seem obvious to you?” Linda cried.

“No…no, they didn’t. They were just…songs…” Rowena was sincere. She had seen nothing untoward. The singing part of the evening had been quite fun. 

Linda sighed, and rubbed her forehead. “Rowena, I’m so sorry about Mike, but I have a splitting headache. I need to go to bed.”

“Where’s Paul? Shouldn’t he have been back by now?” Rowena’s question was innocent and even logical. A silence descended. Linda could not help herself.

“It’s John’s night,” she answered, her voice dripping with bitterness. “Goodnight, Rowena, I will try to mend fences with Mike tomorrow.”

“I have a feeling it will be Paul who will need to mend the fences,” Rowena said softly, privately shocked at the idea of Paul splitting his nights between Linda and John. That was a bit of information too much, from her way of thinking.

 

*****

 

It was almost 3 a.m. and the last guest, a drunken session musician, had finally been shoveled out of the house and into a taxi. Gerry and Jason were splayed out on sofas in the family room, holding a half-inch each of old Scotch whiskey in their tumblers when John wandered in from the front door, grateful to have the last visitor gone.

“Where’s Paul?” John asked Jason and Gerry, who merely shrugged in ignorance. They were too tired to talk. 

John was filled with anxiety. Had Paul gone back to Cavendish with Linda? It was his night with Paul! Before jumping to a wrong conclusion, John turned around and headed up the stairs, and barged straight into the master suite. His heart stopped pounding, his face softened into a virtual representation of contentment, and his dick flirted with the inside of his underpants. Paul was sprawled across the bed, fully clothed, and obviously sound asleep.

John went back downstairs, and said, “He’s like a baby up there, dead to the world.”

Jason and Gerry smiled in relief. They had not wanted to referee a John and Paul meltdown at that moment. They were too tired.

“Thanks for all your help, Jason,” John said softly. “I could not have done it without you.”

“We make a good kitchen team,” Jason opined, and smiled warmly at John. “Go back upstairs to bed, John. Gerry and I can take care of ourselves.”

Encouraged by this pronouncement, John went back to the master bedroom, and moved right over to the foot of the large bed. John saw only Paul’s profile, as his face was in repose on the left side of his face. The long eyelashes feathered over his bottom eyelids. The supple pink mouth was only slightly open, and had relaxed into its usual mellow pout. 

God, he’s beautiful, John thought, despite that horrible get-up. And he’s mine; at least for tonight. John had begun to suspect that he was now the one holding the master key to Paul’s heart, and Linda had inadvertently confirmed it when she had come by the other day to share her concerns with him. So John decided that since he was the one who held the master key, he might as well make full use of it. But first he had to wake the bugger up! Oops, he chuckled to himself, poor choice of words…

It was with an unseemly amount of pleasure, then, that John proceeded to divest Paul of that clueless suit - John muttered about it as he proceeded. It literally shines as if it had been worn down to the nub. And then there was that blah pale blue shirt. Of all the colors to wear against Paul’s lovely ivory skin and dark coloring, blah pale blue had to be the worst…

“Humph!” Paul grunted. He awakened to find John stripping his clothes off. Normally, Paul enjoyed it when John stripped his clothes off, but it was kind of alarming for one to wake from a sound sleep to find someone pawing over one’s garments. “John - what…”

“I’m doing what I should have done the moment you showed up at the house this evening…” John said grittily, as he struggled with one of the shirtsleeves. Paul was staring at him dumbly. Poor boy doesn’t have a clue, John thought. “What possessed you to wear this horrific outfit to my party? It was bad enough you came late, but then you were wearing this! You look like a fucking bank manager who bought a suit off the back of a truck!”

Paul was insulted on Linda’s behalf. “Hey, Linda chose that suit!” He defended.

John stopped what he was doing for a moment to stare at Paul with a fake scowl on his face. “It isn’t very chivalrous of you to blame Linda for this atrocity, Pud.” 

“Oh posh, John, it’s not that important. Its just clothes…”

“’Posh’? Did you really just say ‘posh’? These ludicrous clothes are affecting your brain!” John burst out in a flurry of activity, and a shirt went flying…(“Honestly, Paul, you really ought to wear an undershirt when you wear a dress shirt…”) and then a pair of trousers…(“These trousers are big enough for Meat Loaf…Ummm...meat loaf! I just realized what I said!”)

Paul started chuckling, especially since sometimes John’s ministrations tickled him. “Really, John, your descriptions of the suit get worse with each new mention…”

“I’m afraid if I don’t remove it immediately the fucking thing will breed and produce a lot more little shiny suits…Ta da!” John’s arms were thrown up in the air in triumph. “You’re finally safe!”

Paul was lying there on his back, naked, and thus doubted very much that he was ‘safe.’ As he was thinking this, John pounced on top of him, and Paul muttered, “Out of the frying pan into the fire…” This utterance was abruptly cut off by a huge sloppy French kiss. And this kiss soon deepened into a far more erotic - even romantic - kiss. Paul felt his toes curl a bit, and his arms soon were squeezing John’s middle back. It seemed that John was feeling feisty and in control tonight. So be it. Paul’s legs separated and wrapped around John’s hips. 

John felt the warm pressure, and was filled with a sense of sexual wellbeing. He was still busily kissing Paul’s face and throat, and decided to take it all a bit lower. John felt the pull of Paul’s nether region, and it was a kind of compulsion that lead him inexorably lower, down the delicate hairy trail which led to Paul’s cock. Soon he heard the deep moans from the back of Paul’s throat. That only fed John’s appetite. His perambulations in the direction of Paul’s pelvic area became ever more intense and the kisses more slurp-y. John noticed - in some recess of his conscious mind - that Paul’s legs were pulled up, and he was breathing through his mouth now. 

Paul, for his part, was feeling that deep throbbing in his pelvic area that told him he desperately needed relief: relief in the form that only John could provide. He felt his heart accelerating, and he rubbed his inner thighs along the sides of John’s hips. By this time, John’s talented mouth was playing with his belly button. It was incredibly frustrating - Paul didn’t want the present activity to stop, but he simultaneously wanted John to go lower…lower…

John was enjoying teasing Paul by flicking licks at his belly button. By now, he figured, Paul must be half out of his mind. Time to start down a bit - to that delicate little thatch of hair that met in a triangle just above the cock. Paul always went mad when John caressed that area with licks, kisses, and little nips. It was one of John’s favorite things to do. So, slowly, slowly, he worked his way down to the thatch. He spent a lot of time there, until Paul was wriggling in frustration. 

Down! Down! Down! Paul’s inner urges were literally shouting at him. “Down! Please, down!” The words erupted from his throat with no conscious effort.

John chuckled. Now I’ve got him where I want him. He’s utterly mine now. He pulled away for a moment and felt Paul’s legs pulling him back.

“No!” Paul groaned.

He doesn’t want me to stop, it seems, John smiled to himself. Well, I certainly cannot disappoint him… John allowed his tongue to slide down to the tip of Paul’s cock, and then right down the organ’s spine.

Paul’s moans were unrelenting, as was John’s tongue. Paul felt as though he couldn’t hold himself back another moment, and if the evening’s activities were not to come to a screeching halt he had better let John know. “John! No!”

Saying “no” to John at a time like this was like the old cliché of waving a red flag at a bull. He forced his mouth over Paul’s shaft, and swallowed it almost down to the root.

“John! I’ll come if you don’t stop!” Paul’s voice was desperate. He enjoyed extended sex sessions and didn’t want a premature ending. “Please, stop!”

While nothing else would have stopped John, the specter of an early “cum” did. He pulled his mouth off Paul’s cock, and then crawled back up until he was hovering over Paul’s face. John wanted to tease Paul verbally for a while. It was so much fun to do that. John pressed his body against Paul’s, the whole length of it, and he nestled his mouth against Paul’s ear.

“Baby, I would have liked to splay you over a sofa in front of all those nosy twats,” John whispered, and enjoyed Paul’s responsive twitches of amusement. “I’m serious!” John cried, and Paul’s smothered amusement became outright chuckles. “Oh, you think it is funny, do you…” John tried to sound indignant but the amused chuckles kept escaping from his throat. 

The two men wrestled for a few minutes, with intervals of giggling and moaning. Paul had decided to fight back a little, although he secretly hoped to be overpowered. His hopes were soon to be realized. He knew it would not be long now before he would feel the buildup to a strong orgasm, and wanted to do nothing more to delay John from this important task.

John was feeling elated. His party had gone off very well, he had allowed the rumors to simmer but acted as though they weren’t true, and he was sure he had struck just the right attitudes. In addition, the food had been a fantastic success, and he felt sure that Paul was very proud of him. Now he had his lover beneath him, a lover who had put up a small fight but who had now surrendered to his control. How could life be any better than it was at this very moment? Humming to himself he reached over to the side table and grasped the ever-handy, ever-helpful tube of jelly. They were definitely going to need to use a lot of lubrication tonight!

 

*****

 

The early morning light was flickering on Paul’s face when he awoke a few hours later. From the bedside clock, Paul could see that it was only 6 a.m. He didn’t know what had awakened him, and wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt wide- awake. Slowly he changed his position, trying not to disturb John’s various limbs that had entwined themselves with his while they slept. John’s face, Paul saw, was lost in his pillow, and he was emitting a slight snore (what a perfect soft rhythm, Paul thought objectively to himself). So what’s bothering me? Paul paged through his memories of the previous night’s events. Each scenario that popped into his head appeared in his memory like a sharply different and colorful tableau. Stones, Beatles, managers, musicians, artists, friends, family…Family.

Paul’s brain stopped there. Yes, it was about his family. Paul concentrated harder. He had barely spoken to Stella and Mary all night - they had seemingly disappeared. Could he be bothered by that? But why? No, no, that was not bothering him.

Linda? Outwardly she seemed fine. He had spent a lot of time with her at the party, only wandering away just before the singing…the singing? 

No, the songs were from their tour repertoire. Nothing odd there…And, really, he and John had truly behaved themselves last night. They had barely been together until the singing, all night long…

Michael. It suddenly came to him. What Mike had said just before the party started: his demand to know about the “gossip”. John had teased Mike a bit - he had played it unnecessarily coy - and Paul had seen a look of…what was it?… Fear? No, not fear. Well, maybe a kind of dread on his brother’s face. It was as if Mike dreaded the idea of the gossip being true. 

Involuntarily, Paul’s hand covered up his eyes and he rubbed his eyes for a moment, as if this action would eliminate the thought from his mind. Mike was not going to ignore these rumors, and he was going to want to hear a denial from Paul. That is the bad feeling that had awakened him from a sound sleep even though he was still exhausted. Paul then had a scarier thought: what if someone said something to Mike last night? Someone who knows the truth, who might have thought Mike already knew? Paul’s heart started to beat. Why hadn’t he thought of this possibility and guarded against it somehow? 

Paul struggled with this anxiety for several moments, but was unable to quell it while lying there in silence, so he decided to get up, take a shower, and go find something to do downstairs where he wouldn’t bother John, or their houseguests. In fact, it might be best if he went over to Cavendish immediately, so it would appear to Mike that he had slept with Linda the previous night. What had he been thinking? He should have gone home with Linda, and kept up the façade! It was so fucking hard to live this double life, and Paul began to worry about all the small ways in which he and John had revealed themselves to Mike, as well as other party guests. The sooner he got back to Cavendish, the better.


	33. Chapter 33

The house was quiet and cool as Paul moved through the sitting room, and into the front hall, and then up the stairs to the master bedroom. Linda was asleep in the bed, and she looked so safe and comforting. Paul stripped off the jeans and top he had thrown on at John’s house after his shower, and climbed in with her. He had left a note for John taped to the fridge that he had gone over to Cavendish for a few hours and would be back later. Now, he was looking forward to climbing into Linda’s arms. Whenever things got really crazy in his head, Linda’s mere presence always soothed him. 

Linda awoke by Paul’s nuzzling. “Well, hello big boy,” she drawled in a husky morning voice.

“Don’t look now but there’s two big boys in this bed…” Paul responded, nudging her thigh with his enlarged member.

Linda laughed and said, “That’s so cheesy, Paul.”

Paul began to kiss her, with little feathery ones at first, and then more deeply. Linda was enjoying this immensely until an errant thought entered her brain…Mike! “Oh!” Linda cried in a very un-aroused kind of way. This caused Paul to pull back in surprise.

“What?” He asked, worrying that perhaps he had hurt Linda somehow in his haste.

“After the party…” Linda started.

Paul groaned. “Not now, Lin, I had better things planned for us…”

“No, it’s serious. I have to tell you now.” Linda had gently pushed Paul away, and struggled to a sitting position.

Paul was quite worried now and sat up, leaving all thoughts of lovemaking aside. 

“It’s Mike,” Linda said.

“What about Mike?” Paul’s voice had a harsh undertone. He was thinking how right he’d been to suspect something had happened last night that upset Mike. He must have received this knowledge through extrasensory sibling perception. 

“He and Rowena came back here from the party only a little while after I did - before 1 a.m. And he was upset by all the gossip at the party…”

“What gossip at the party?” Paul’s voice was strained. No one had gossiped to him at the party, except for Mick’s little jibe, which was just an example of Mick being Mick. 

“Paul, you must have noticed it. Everyone was talking about it. They weren’t even being discreet!”

Paul was stumped. “Really?” His voice sounded unsure and reedy.

“Yes, and Mike was upset for me and demanded to know why you hadn’t denied the rumors and put an end to them once and for all.”

“I see…” Paul mumbled. And he did see. In fact he could see the whole scenario being played out in front of him in his imagination. “What did you say?” 

A nervous silence followed. Linda was actually afraid to tell Paul what she had said. She feared that he would feel angry and betrayed. But she had to tell him before Mike said anything to Paul. 

“I told him you couldn’t deny it because it was true.” Linda was staring at her hands as she said this.

Now the silence felt cold to her. She looked up from under a bent brow and saw her husband frozen in place, his mouth slightly open the way it always was when he was truly shocked by something.

Paul was beyond words at this point. Seemingly, his brain was frozen, and he didn’t know what all he felt. He began internally to pick the emotions apart. Blindsided was one of the things he felt. Linda had never done anything like this to him before. Fearful - fearful for what it meant that Linda felt free to betray his secret, but also fearful for what it meant to his relationship with his brother. Angry? No, he wasn’t angry. He just felt betrayed and afraid. He forced himself to speak, because he had to know.

“What did Mike say?” There was a sepulchral quality to Paul’s voice, and it scared Linda a bit.

“At first he wouldn’t believe it. He was very upset - angry even. He stormed out and drove off.” Linda’s voice and face were both apologetic. 

Paul cleared this throat. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. Rowena thought he was off to a pub. I was so tired - I had such a headache - so I had to come up to bed. I don’t even know if he came back.” Linda was starting to feel a little better. Paul did not appear to be angry with her. He seemed, if anything, sad and a little defeated. She didn’t want Paul to feel that way, of course not, but it was better than him being mad at her!

Paul turned around on the bed so he could lean against the headboard. He suddenly felt the exhaustion that he should have been sleeping off now. Instead, the intuition that had awakened him from a dead sleep turned out to be true. Now he would have to find Mike and try to explain. “Did he seem mad because I hadn’t told him? Or was he mad because it was true?” One of these things was much worse than the other.

“Both, I think,” Linda said as gently as she could. She would have liked to have lied and said that Mike was only angry about not being told, but she could tell by the content and context of the interaction that the idea of his brother having a sexual relationship with a man was anathema to Mike. She hoped that this wasn’t serious enough to run a stake through the brothers’ relationship. 

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments until Paul was able to speak again. “What should I do, Lin?” 

Linda was relieved that he still trusted her enough to seek her advice. She had already given this conundrum some thought. “I think I should make a nice breakfast, and hopefully Rowena will come down. I can ask her about Mike, and get her view on how to approach it.”

Paul nodded wordlessly. Yes, that sounded like the only way to approach it. “I’ll stay up here,” he said.

Linda lay down again and patted the bed next to her. “Let’s try to get a few more hours’ sleep. No one else will be awake until then, anyway. It was a very late night.” 

Paul doubted that he would be able to sleep under the circumstances, but he allowed himself to be coaxed back into Linda’s arms. He could only deal with one relationship breakdown at a time, and right now the most urgent worry was Mike. The fact that Linda had told on him to his brother was a worry for another day. 

 

*****

 

It was close to 8 a.m. when John first stirred. He was still mostly asleep, but he felt around to his side wanting to connect with Paul. He and Paul both enjoyed touching each other while sleeping, and somewhere in the back of John’s subconscious mind he must have realized he was alone. His eyes flew open. Paul was not there! He turned to his side and saw the clock on the bedside table. Maybe he was in the bathroom? He sat up so he could look in the direction of the bathroom door, but it lay ajar and the light was off. He got up and wandered in that direction. He noted that Paul had left a jumbled up wet towel on the floor (the man was a slob!) and the shower stall was still damp. This told John all he needed to know. Paul had gotten up, showered, and gone back to Cavendish to be with Linda for some reason. Anger flared out of his eyes as he turned on his heel, threw some clothes on, and rushed downstairs. He had half a mind to go straight over there and demand to know what the fuck was going on. He stopped when he saw the note on the fridge.

John, I’ve gone over to Cavendish for a few hours to see my brother before he leaves. I have a bad feeling something is wrong.

John’s anger died in its tracks. A memory was forming in his mind of Mike raising the tabloid rumors with Paul and him just before the party. I was pretty flip with him, he thought guiltily. And both of us kind of brushed him off. And all of the usual suspects at the party last night were being very loud and naughty about the gossip. He and Paul were used to the ribald humor and hectoring that went on between British rock stars, but Mike might have taken it more seriously. Or, worse - perhaps Mike had put two and two together? John had never agreed with Paul’s refusal to tell Mike the truth. John had argued that it could end badly if Mike figured it out in some other way. But Paul could be incredibly stubborn once he’d decided on a given course, and so John had eventually given up trying to reason with him about it. 

Shrugging, John decided that barging in on such a messy family scenario was not his idea of fun, so he went about the business of making coffee. He was going to sit in his chair surrounded by the party detritus and contemplate how well his party had gone. He’d get the lowdown from Paul soon enough.

 

*****

 

About that time Linda got up and headed downstairs to make some breakfast for the household. Despite his doubts, Paul had fallen into a deep sleep, and Linda had tucked him in lovingly before disappearing downstairs. The poor man was going to need his sleep.

As she puttered around pulling out pans and ingredients, Rowena suddenly appeared. “Do you need some help?” she asked Linda.

“Oh! Good morning, Rowena, no, but I’ll enjoy your company.” She swiftly reached for the coffee pot and poured a cup for her sister-in-law. “Did Mike get home alright?” Linda looked stressed as she asked the question.

“He got back at around 3 a.m. He didn’t go to a pub - the pubs were all closed of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before, but it was all so stressful and confusing…”

“I’m sorry about that, Rowena. I should have kept my big mouth shut.” 

“Linda, he’d been demanding to know what was going on since he stepped foot in your house. It’s amazing you were as discreet as you were under the circumstances. He’s behaving like a baboon, if you ask me.”

Linda chuckled a little because she often had the same exasperating thoughts about Paul. Brothers to the marrow, those two. “So where did he go?”

“He said he just drove around for a few hours, and then came back. He didn’t want to talk about it. He’s still asleep now, and I think he needs that sleep.”

Linda smiled and said, “Paul, too. He’s asleep upstairs.”

“I thought he was with…well, I thought you said he was…”

“He came back early this morning.” Linda turned towards the stove and began her preparations.

“Did you tell him what happened?”

“Yes, and he is very upset. He’s acting calm, but I can tell he’s in turmoil on the inside.” 

The two women were quiet for a while until Rowena said, “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” Linda asked.

“How can you live like this - with Paul half-in and half-out of your life? And what about the children? Are you all right, Linda? Is this life enough for you?” Rowena was sincerely concerned about her, Linda could tell. This was no faux sympathy put on in the hope of coaxing lurid details out of her.

“It’s been almost 12 years, Rowena, since John came back into P… our lives, and I had fewer years than that alone with Paul. I can barely remember what it was like before.” Linda’s response was accurate as far as it went. 

“And the children?” Rowena could not imagine how they had carried off this secret triangle for all these years.

“They all know; they’ve known for years, ever since we felt they were old enough to know. We don’t lie to them, and we discuss issues openly with them.” Linda’s scrambled eggs were turning out well, and she served some immediately to Rowena, and then dished some out for herself. There were warmed over hashed brown potatoes and toast with marmalade as well. “John is like a kind of uncle to them; they all love him.”

Rowena thought about this for a while and said, “This gossip could destroy them if it were confirmed. It must be dreadful having this hang over you all the time like a kind of Sword of Damocles.” 

Linda smiled. “We don’t think about it all the time. Mostly, we just live our lives like everyone else does. It gets worse whenever John and Paul have put out an album and are touring. All the publicity that goes into those events just stirs up the gossip to a very high degree. All we try to do is keep our heads down and brazen our way through it.”

“But they’ve denied it in the past. Won’t that look bad if the truth comes out later?”

“They never actually denied it outright, you know. If you ever go back and read their answers, they always found ways to avoid direct denials. Even in that Playboy magazine article, all of their answers could be taken more than one way. They’re actually very clever about it.”

“It still seems to me that they’re playing with fire,” Rowena insisted.

“Yes, well, Paul came to that conclusion after the Playboy article, and their new strategy is not to comment on the gossip at all. Period. And that brings us back to Mike. Mike is not a fan of that strategy, I gather.” Linda put her coffee cup down, and met Rowena’s eyes across the table. “He really hates the idea of Paul being with John, doesn’t he?”

Rowena gave some thought to dissembling, but figured there was no point to being anything but honest. “Yes, he does,” she said succinctly. “Mike is quite homophobic about it. I’ve suspected for some time that there might be some truth to the rumors. They were so persistent and widespread lately, that they’ve been hard not to consider seriously. But I can tell that Mike is horrified that Paul has made that choice.” 

“That’s not good,” Linda said thoughtfully. “Because from Paul’s point of view, nothing and no one is allowed to get in between him and John. Not even me.” 

Rowena looked up at this last remark, and the look she gave Linda was very sympathetic. Linda noticed it and smiled.   
“Of course, no one is allowed to get between me and him, either. Not even John.” 

There was a companionable silence, and then Linda got to the point. “How do we approach this problem? You know Mike, I know Paul. Should Paul broach the subject with Mike and try to explain? How will Mike react to that?”

Rowena shook her head. “I’ve seen him irritated with Paul, and sometimes angry at him, but I’ve never seen him as angry as he was last night. I think he is going to try to pretend at first that he is only upset about Paul not telling him the truth, but once they fight their way through that, I think Mike’s disapproval of the situation will start coming through. How would Paul react to that?”

“Not well,” Linda said. “If he really loves a person, really cares about them, he can be deeply hurt by their condemnation. Paul won’t shout or act out, though, he’ll go quiet and pretend it wasn’t hurtful, and then will avoid Mike as much as possible after that. I do worry that this will be a serious wound to their relationship.”

“They’re both hard headed, stubborn Irishmen. You can tell they came from the same gene pool,” commented Rowena. And then she and Linda laughed at the imagery. “But one good thing I’ve learned about the McCartneys - the whole lot of them - is that they have a hard time holding on to grudges with family members. Whatever happens, they will most likely eventually find their way back to each other.”

“I hope you’re right,” Linda said. She wasn’t as sure about an eventual happy ending, because she knew, even if Rowena didn’t, what Paul was like when someone - in even the slightest degree - criticized John. He was the same way about her, actually, but John - Paul would put himself in front of a bullet for John, Linda was sure of that, whereas she had been the one to put herself in front of a knife for Paul.

 

*****

 

A bleary-eyed Jason found his way down to the kitchen at about 9:00 a.m. He was grateful that John was up, and had already prepared a fresh pot of coffee. Jason stumbled over to the counter, poured himself a cup, and then plopped down unceremoniously in a chair opposite John at the table. 

“’Morning,” John said brightly, an amused eyebrow lifted on his forehead. The tables were turned when Jason came stumbling to the table after him! But then, Jason and Gerry were 5 hours ahead of their normal time zone, so no wonder. 

Jason grunted in return, but after a few sips of coffee he began to feel blood returning to his muddy brain. “That was some party last night,” he managed.

John chuckled. “It was. I was trying to figure out how many people showed up, and I came up with 52! When I sent the invitations out, I thought some would decline, but they all made it.”

It was Jason’s turn to chuckle. “Of course they all came, John! Who would turn down an invitation to your house for a party? I suspect at least one of them probably pulled the IV line out of an arm and came here direct from the hospital!” 

John truly enjoyed Jason’s lighthearted company. But he also enjoyed Jason’s kind and eminent good sense. His face lost the amusement as he spoke. “Paul went over to Cavendish early this morning, before I woke up.”

“Oh?” Please God let there not be another breach between them…my stamina is not up to it! Jason prayed.

John passed him over the note from Paul, and with foreboding, Jason read it. He then looked up. This was better than he feared - at least it wasn’t another John/Paul tiff. “What could be wrong with Paul’s brother? I did briefly meet him last night, and I didn’t get a sense that anything was wrong.”

John sighed deeply. “Paul never told him the truth about us. I think he’s afraid that someone said something to Mike.”

Jason let that sink in before commenting. “Oh, I see. I don’t know much about Paul’s extended family. Is he close to his brother?”

“I think so, as brothers go. Of course, Mike lives near Liverpool so we’re not always in and out of each other’s houses, and I think that has made it easier for Paul to rationalize not telling his brother.”

“It’s funny though,” Jason observed. “Gerry and I have commented more than once that Paul seemed less concerned about discussing your relationship with others than you do. It’s surprising he hasn’t told his brother.” 

“I think it is a brother thing. You know, they have these roles they play in their family, and Paul was always the older brother, the brother with everything together, the brother who succeeded spectacularly, and Mike has always been the one who looks up to Paul but takes the mickey out, because he also resents him a bit.”

“Does this mean that Paul is afraid of losing his brother’s respect? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, I guess that is what I’m saying, although I think it is a bit more primal than that. Paul really won’t talk to me about it, so I have to sort of guess what’s going on.”

At that moment Gerry came into the kitchen, freshly showered and dressed, and looking bright and chipper. John saw this and cast an ironic eye in Jason’s direction. “You have yours, and I have mine,” he said sotto voce, which caused Jason to laugh out loud.

“What are you whispering about over there, and what’s so funny?” Gerry asked. He was actually amused by it, and he was more interested in pouring himself a cup of coffee than in actually having an answer to his question. Soon he joined them, and Jason said,

“John and I were just comparing the relative merits of the morning-cheerfulness-sickness of our respective partners.” 

“Oh, I see, and I suppose you mean that because Paul and I wake up with smiles on our faces ready to face the day, we are amusing to you two in some way?” Gerry was unusually talkative this morning; he was enjoying the banter.

“Oh, yes, in every way it is amusing to us,” John responded before taking a sip of coffee. His eyes glinted as they looked over the brim of the cup. 

“Ger, we need your weigh in. John was just telling me that Paul has never told his brother about their relationship, and that Paul’s afraid that someone told his brother about it last night. He went over to Cavendish this morning to sort it out.”

Gerry heard this with some level of distaste. He didn’t like to pry into others’ personal problems. It felt too much like gossiping, an activity that Gerry heartily disdained. It wasn’t as if Paul were asking him for a weigh in, after all. “I don’t see how anything I can say will be at all illuminating or even helpful,” Gerry drawled. 

John snorted. “You’re so like Paul sometimes, it’s scary,” he said to Gerry. “I guess what I’m looking for is some advice on how to handle Paul if he comes back here all distraught and worked up over Mike’s reaction.” 

“Well, I suggest we wait until Paul has exhibited one of those emotions before we decide how to ‘fix’ it,” Gerry said drily. “What I know of Paul is that he isn’t one to allow his emotions to spill out all over everybody. I very much admire that about him, by the way. If he wants or needs our help, I am sure that he is capable of asking for it.”

Jason grunted in disgust. “You’re so appropriate all the time Gerry. Every once in a while you could fall off your high horse long enough to roll around in the dirt and mud with the rest of us for a few moments. It would do all of us a world of good.”

“All but me, I’m afraid,” Gerry retorted.

 

*****

 

Paul had meant to stay in bed until Linda came to get him. That was going to be his sign that his brother was downstairs and ready to talk to him. But it was now 9:30 a.m., and Linda had not come up yet. He was fully awake, anxious out of his mind, and couldn’t think about anything else. So he got up and put his clothes on, and went slowly downstairs. Periodically he would stop, and listen very hard, hoping to hear voices. But he heard nothing. Eventually he’d made it all the way to the kitchen, convinced by then that Mike and Rowena must still be asleep. He was surprised, then, to find Linda and Rowena seated at the breakfast table finishing up their breakfasts. 

Rowena saw him first. “Paul!” She greeted him brightly. She struggled hard not to show any shyness or embarrassment at seeing him. 

Paul felt suddenly exposed. Obviously, Rowena knew about him and John if Mike did. And obviously Linda and Rowena had been talking about the situation. Paul was clearly de trop, but short of turning around and heading back upstairs he had no idea how to handle the awkward moment. 

Linda said, “Paul, come in and sit down, have some coffee. I’ll make you some eggs.” 

“I’m not really hungry…” Paul started, but Linda shushed him.

“I’m going to make them anyway, but whether you eat them or not is up to you.”

Obediently, Paul entered the kitchen proper and sat down at his end of the table. Rowena was trying to look casual and unconcerned, but the effort was a bit too obvious for Paul. Cor, this was awkward. He forced himself to man up, and so he smiled at Rowena and asked, “Did you enjoy the party last night?”

Rowena was nonplussed. That was certainly a loaded question under the circumstances! But then she realized that Paul was just trying to make non-controversial small talk, so she relaxed and said, “Yes, it was quite a lively one. All sorts of interesting people.”

Linda decided the awkwardness had gone on long enough. “The blighters were not only awkward, but totally indiscreet. Paul, they plagued poor Mike all night long by repeating the rumors to him. It was very stressful for him and Rowena.” 

There was a reproach buried in that statement somewhere, Paul felt sure, but at the moment he couldn’t focus on it. He decided to ignore it. “Rowena, I’m very sorry you both had to go through that. I should have realized how it would be and warned you both about it. Then you could have decided not to come, if you would have preferred.” Paul’s voice sounded unrecognizably formal and even a little rigid to Rowena.

“Don’t be silly, Paul,” she said with as warm a smile as she could muster. “We’re grown ups and can handle this sort of thing. The amazing thing to me is how well you and Linda handle it. It has to be incredibly annoying and intrusive.”

Paul relaxed under Rowena’s conversational ministrations. He nodded and said, “We get very thick skins, and we forget that other people haven’t had to develop the thick skin. What bothers most people barely leaves a scratch on us any more, right Lin?”

Linda had already scrambled eggs just the way Paul loved them, and put them down in front of him. “Yes, love, that’s true,” she said softly. She smiled as Paul - forgetting that he was ‘not hungry’ - dove into the food with gusto. He seemed to be finding his feet as well as his stomach. That was a good thing. She knew that one of the two of them - Mike or Paul - would have to be the mature one in the coming confrontation, and she suspected it would have to be Paul, since it obviously wasn’t going to be Mike. That reminded her,

“Rowena, can you check with Mike if he wants some breakfast? And while you’re at it will you knock on James’s door and tell him to come down to eat?” 

Rowena was relieved about the reprieve and immediately left to perform this office for Linda. After she left, Linda sat down and grasped Paul’s hand. “It’s going to be all right in the long run,” she assured him. “It’s just a shock for Mike to find out in this particular way. He’ll need time to get used to the idea and to forgive you for not telling him, but it will eventually blow over, I’m sure.” 

Paul listened to what Linda said, but a part of him rebelled. “You know, Lin, all I’ve done is to live my life the best way I know how, and to share it with the two people I love most in the world. It isn’t a horrible secret; it isn’t a disgraceful thing. It’s just a private thing. And if Mike is going to act as though it is some disgusting…”

“Paul,” Linda interrupted, “don’t get ahead of the situation. Let Mike vent if he needs to vent. It won’t hurt you if you tell yourself he just has to get rid of all that negative energy he’s built up.”

“Well, I don’t see why it has to be so ‘negative.’ I expect complete strangers to be ‘negative’ about our situation, but my own brother…”

“Paul, you’ve known all along this was going to be hard for him. Otherwise, you would have told him about it years ago. And had you told him years ago this would all have been in the past by now. It is just something you both have to go through to get to the other end.” 

Rowena felt awkward. She had overheard the last few sentences of Linda’s last comment. She made a loud sound, and then entered the room, hoping they wouldn’t realize they’d been partially overheard. She had some awkward news for them.

“James says he doesn’t want breakfast, so I assume that means he isn’t coming down…”

“Typical,” Paul muttered. “I did the same when I was a teenager, but me dad wouldn’t stand for it.”

“But you’re not your dad, and we don’t care if he sleeps in,” Linda laughed. She then turned to Rowena. “And Mike?”

Here was where it got really awkward. “Mike is packing to leave. He thanks you for the offer of breakfast, but wants to leave as soon as he’s finished the packing.” 

Paul and Linda were stone silent. They had not expected the silent treatment. That generally hadn’t been Mike’s style in the past. 

“You’re saying my brother won’t even come down and say goodbye to us?” Paul asked incredulously.

Rowena squirmed a bit. “He feels this is not a good time to talk about what happened last night. He isn’t in a proper mood for it, I think.” Rowena’s face was very apologetic. 

“I see,” Paul said flatly. “I suppose I’m a pariah now. Well fuck him. I’m going back to John’s now, so he can feel free to come down and say a proper goodbye and thank you to Linda, who put herself out for him.” Paul got up and was striding out of the house.

“No! Paul! Please don’t take it that way!” Rowena was calling after Paul, but it was no use. 

“It’s okay, Rowena, let him go. Maybe this is for the best. Let them both stew on it a bit. I think emotions are riding too high at the moment for anything good to come out of them talking it over now.” 

Rowena was clearly distressed; there were tears in her eyes. “I argued with him, begged him, to come down and say goodbye at least to his brother. He flatly refused.”

“I’ll go up and tell him goodbye,” Linda said, giving Rowena a warm hug. “McCartney men can get quite dramatic at times, I’ve learned, and this too shall pass.” 

Linda then went upstairs and banged on the guest room door. “Mike! It’s me, Linda.”

The door flew open, and a fully dressed and packed Mike stood in front of her, an argumentative expression on his face.  
“I’m going to go right out of the house, and I don’t want to even see my brother.” 

Linda took that in and said, “I know, Rowena said. Paul has left and gone over to John’s. Please come down and let me feed you, and then you can leave. There’s no reason to storm out of here. I am so sorry about the way I broke it to you last night. I was so exhausted, and I didn’t think…”

“Linda, stop. None of this is your fault. It is all Paul’s fault. He has become so bloody important and so fucking famous that he doesn’t have time for his own brother any more. He should have told me about what was going on; I shouldn’t be the last to know.”

“Lots of people don’t know, Mike; most people don’t know…”

“But some do, yeah?” Mike’s face was pugnacious at this point, and Linda realized there was no point in trying to reason with him. 

“He was afraid you would stop loving and respecting him if he told you the truth, Mike, can’t you see that?”

“I may not stop loving him - that I think is beyond my control. He’s my brother after all. But I don’t see how I can respect him, knowing the disgraceful way he has treated you and his children, not to mention…I mean, with another man? Another woman would have been bad enough!” Mike had puffed himself up to an avenging angel. He had been badly hurt by his first wife, who had left him and their daughters for another man, so he was not at all objective when it came to infidelity in marriage.

Linda said, “Paul has done nothing that he hasn’t been entirely honest with me about; and I have agreed with all of his decisions. The children and I are fine, and if we love and honor him, I don’t see why you can’t!” A little bit of flare had gotten into Linda’s voice, as the old protective habit reared its head. 

“It goes against everything our parents brought us up to believe.” Mike was staunch in his position.

“But they’re not alive to opine on it, Mike. Parents love their children, no matter what. I think if they’d lived, they’d have grown to understand Paul’s choice, and accept that this is what he needs to live a full and happy life. Can’t you?” 

Mike said nothing. He turned to pick up his suitcases, and headed down the stairs. 

“Well,” Linda said as she followed him down the stairs, “at least promise me you’ll give it some thought.” 

A harrumph was all she got in response. After a few hugs and muttered thank-you’s, Mike and Rowena had gotten into the car and driven away. Rowena’s distressed face had been framed in the window as they backed out. Sighing, Linda closed the front door. She wondered if she should go over to John’s to see how Paul was doing, but then figured it wasn’t her territory. She’d call over there and ask John about it a little later.

 

*****

 

John, Gerry and Jason had moved to the sitting room, and were dissecting the party and all of its little triumphs. Suddenly they heard the back door slam shut. A moment later, Paul passed through in a black rage. He barely acknowledged them, and went charging up the stairs. A few seconds later they heard a loud slam of the master bedroom door.

“Well, Gerry,” John drawled after a few seconds of silence. “I think it’s time for that advice I asked for.”


	34. Chapter 34

“Well, Gerry,” John drawled after a few seconds of silence. The sound of the slamming door was still echoing in the hallway. “I think it’s time for that advice I asked for.”

Gerry was dismayed. He hated to see Paul so upset. It was one thing to see John charging around slamming doors - so what else was new? But Paul, who had been so circumspect and careful about his emotions - this was almost tragic in Gerry’s book. 

“My advice,” he said slowly, “is to stay out of it. Never get in between brothers. Just do your best to comfort him, and he might be willing to open up. But whatever you do, don’t push him…” Gerry was actually cycling his own memories of a time when he’d been in a similar situation. 

Jason interjected, “We’ve both been through this with close relatives. Some of our relatives have ignored the reality of our relationship, which is hurtful in itself, but others have been outwardly hostile to it. Gerry’s brother, for example…” He petered out, and grasped Gerry’s hand. He squeezed it, urging Gerry to continue. Gerry never spoke of it, but here was a time and a place where he could speak of it, and even possibly do some good as a result. 

“My brother,” Gerry said, “hasn’t spoken to me in over 25 years. My sister will speak to me, but only if the subject of Jason never comes up.”

“Gerry, I guess I sort of knew this, but I’d forgotten. But how close were you to your brother growing up?”

“Not close. He’s a bit older than me and was very sporty. I was always wanting to read books, do magic tricks, and try chemistry experiments. Meanwhile, he’d be throwing water balloons out the window at unsuspecting pedestrians.” 

John laughed out loud. “You’re priceless, Ger. You know, the situation’s a little different here. Paul and Mike have always been very close. Do you think I shouldn’t pump him about what happened?”

“Most definitely not,” he said firmly. “I know what he is experiencing. I remember it well. It is unspeakably painful to be rejected by your own flesh and blood, and impossible to speak of it.” 

“Amen to that,” Jason whispered, remembering his own painful memories.

John sighed, and then allowed his head to fall into his hands. “What a lot of stupid drama over something so natural - people just want to be loved! I don’t understand why people are so hateful about it.” John was also hurt on a personal level. He thought Mike and he were close - a little like brothers. By rejecting his brother Mike was also rejecting John, and this confused and upset John at a deep level. But still, he knew this crisis was not his tsuris. It was Paul’s. “Thanks for your advice. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to go up to him now,” John said, stretching as he stood up. He hoped that the gift of golden speech would come to him when he was faced with his devastated Paul. The last thing he wanted to do was make it worse. 

When he opened the bedroom door, he noticed at once that the curtains had been drawn along with the shades, so although it was a bright June morning outside, it was dark and cave-like in the bedroom. He paused for a moment as he waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. Before this had happened, Paul spoke.

“What do you want John?” His voice was flat and emotionless.

“I don’t want anything, baby, I just want to be with you right now.” John’s voice was a gentle sound. He had moved towards the bed. Paul was laying facedown in the pillow, but had not put the covers over him. As John climbed in, he pulled the covers over them both, and then moved over and pulled Paul on to his side, and then spooned him with a forceful hug. Paul allowed this to happen, but said nothing further.

John was dying with curiosity to know what happened, but he forced himself to shut up and just hold Paul. The clock ticked on until about 45 minutes had passed, and John had long since concluded that Paul had fallen asleep. 

“John?” The question that broke the silence was very quiet and tentative.

“Yes, baby?” John asked. He tried not to sound too curious.

“My brother is disgusted by me. He didn’t even want to see me.” Paul’s voice sounded…broken.

The words hung in the air for several moments. John felt tears welling up in his eyes. His response was to hug Paul even more tightly. John hated like hell to be the cause of Paul’s pain. If it weren’t for their love affair, Paul’s relationship with his brother would not be ruined like this. Because of what Gerry and Jason had said about their family members, John was not optimistic about how it would all turn out. He feared that Paul would be forever excommunicated from his brother. And what of his larger family? Would Mike be so spiteful as to tell all the other McCartneys and Mohins about Paul’s love life? If he did, it ought to be interesting to find out which of the disapproving ones would have the moral fiber to stand up and stop receiving the trust fund monies, and which would pretend not to care in order to remain at the trough. John knew that he was bitter, but how else was he supposed to react? His beautiful Paul was being abused by hate and prejudice, and he - John - was the cause of it!

Paul said nothing more, so John didn’t either. At least another hour went by. John was a bit restless and worried, and he did hear the phone ringing downstairs. He knew that the maid would have arrived by then to clean up the party mess, so perhaps she would answer it. And this drama couldn’t be fun for Jason and Gerry, he thought. He hoped they would find something to do for amusement.

 

*****

 

The maid had answered the phone, and it was Linda McCartney on the line. She wanted to speak to John. Shyly, the maid approached Gerry and Jason, who remained in the sitting room, quieting trying to read but really worrying about their friends. 

“Excuse me sirs, but it is Mrs. Linda on the line. She wants to speak to Mr. John or Mr. Paul.” 

 

Jason and Gerry exchanged a look, and Jason said, “Thanks, I’ll deal with it.” The maid looked very relieved and went back to the kitchen. Jason picked up the line closest to him, and when the maid hung up the kitchen line, he said,

“Linda? This is Jason.”

“Oh, Jason!” Linda said, relieved. “I’m so worried about Paul. He went storming out of here over an hour ago. I was hoping I could talk to him or John…”

“John is with Paul right now,” Jason said diplomatically. “But I will have one of them call you when they are free if you like.”

“I just want to make sure he’s okay…” Linda responded.

“Of course. Gerry and I are here, too, and we will all take good care of him.”

“Thank you, Jason. If he needs me, I’m here. He should just call.” 

“Of course,” Jason answered. 

After he hung up, Jason sat back down, picked up his book, turned a page, and then said calmly to Gerry as if it were an errant thought, “Life with these two is never boring.” 

Gerry chuckled. “No, it isn’t. And we both predicted that from the start.”

 

*****

 

John had just about lost his ability to lie still when finally Paul moved. He gently freed himself from John, and turned over on to his back. John propped himself up on an elbow, and then placed his hand in his open palm, facing Paul. 

“Pud, how’re ya doin’?” He asked softly.

Paul’s eyes did not leave the ceiling. “There’s nothing to say. He doesn’t want to be a part of my life, and I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.” 

John thought before he spoke: for several uninterrupted moments. (This was somewhat of a world’s record for him.) “You know, babe, there is a possibility that he will come ‘round. He’s only just found out. Remember how Neil reacted? But he came to our party. He hugged us hello and goodbye. He may not approve 100% but he still loves us.”

Paul considered John’s input but then said, “I was thinking about that. How can you say you love someone and not approve of how they live their life? What does that even mean?” 

“It means they really don’t understand, is all. They know they love me, John, and you, Paul, but that is as far as their imagination will take them.” 

Paul rejected this analysis. “Well, that may be, but it isn’t love. It isn’t love if you can’t accept and acknowledge the things that mean the most to your brother.”

John noted that the conversation had suddenly veered from a general discussion of “people” to a specific discussion about Paul’s brother. He let it go without comment. If this was how Paul found it easier to talk - in a kind of hypothetical way - then John was willing to engage him on that level. Whatever worked, works.

“I guess I’ve always thought there were different kinds of love, and they all count,” John said, dragging the conversation back to the safe world of philosophy.

“And what kind of love is it that makes a person harden his heart to the people he should love without judgment?” Paul was still staring at the ceiling as he spoke.

“I don’t know, baby. I really don’t. I just know that all kinds of people express love in different ways, and some of them are negative. But you and Mike…you have a solid foundation. You go back decades. As hard as it is for you to contemplate his possible rejection of you, it will be equally hard for Mike to close you out of his life. I think you need to be patient, and wait ‘til he comes to you. He probably has a million questions.”

“But what if he doesn’t come to me? What if I’m right, and he hates me forever?” Paul’s eyes looked suspiciously wet to John. John reflexively brushed the tears away from Paul’s eyelids as they dropped off the lashes. Then he said,

“If that happens, we all go on without him in our lives. Of course, we’ll always be open to him wanting back in, but acknowledging it is his choice. We have a good life together - you, and me, and Linda, and our children and our friends and band mates. He’s the one who will be left out of a really good thing, not us.”

 

*****

 

After the maid left, Jason got up to make a late lunch. It was now almost 2:00 p.m., and he and Gerry couldn’t wait any longer. There were some leftovers in the fridge (surprisingly little, considering how much food they had started out with), and Jason supposed they’d have to eat that. Both he and Gerry were hankering after a little meat, but didn’t want to leave the house under the circumstances. There wasn’t even a hint of meat in the house, of course. So Jason warmed up enough food for all four of them, hoping the smells of cooking would lure John and Paul down from the bedroom. 

John and Paul did come down while the food was warming, although whether the smell of food was the cause, Jason didn’t know. John seemed very protective of Paul, and Paul was very subdued. He had a hard time meeting anyone’s eyes, and immediately planted himself in an easy chair in the sitting room, and stared at his feet. 

“That smells good, thanks Jason,” John said in a forced cheerful voice. 

“Well, you made most of it, John, mainly from your own recipes, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to you!” Jason answered back, also in a slightly overripe devil-may-care voice. 

In the sitting room, Gerry put his paper down, and managed to catch Paul’s eyes. He gave Paul a long-suffering look. He spoke in a soft voice so only Paul could hear. “They’re a pair of chattering dickie birds, the both of them.” He then snapped his paper back up, but had seen a brief flash of amusement in Paul’s eyes before he did so. 

A few moments later they were called to the table, and Paul went quietly, along with Gerry who, as they approached the table, put his hand lightly on Paul’s lower back. It was both subtle and protective. Paul vaguely noticed it, and felt comforted by it, and faced the food in a slightly better mood.

“Well,” Jason said. “About last night. Are those musician people real? The way they dress, their hair, their behavior - it is all so improbable!” John laughed heartily at Jason’s barb, and even Paul couldn’t help chuckling as he envisioned Elton John, wearing shoes with 3” lifts, pearl earrings and necklace, and purple shirt with ballooning sleeves, not to mention Keith…well, Keith looked like a pirate who had been marooned for several decades on a desert island. 

“We are a bit like a bunch of stuffed museum pieces - a kind of homage to the swinging ‘60s,” John opined with a BBC announcer voice.

“We’re just a bunch of regular blokes, really, just tarted up,” Paul said, surprising all three of them with his unexpected interjection. “Roger Daltrey golfs, you know, and Mick is quite conservative politically, at least about finance. It’s just that people expect a certain aura out of us…” 

“Yeah, the ‘aura’ smells like pot,” John added. 

Everyone laughed. John was feeling better now that Paul seemed to be perking up. “I was thinking you two have had a bit of a dreary day hanging around all day. I thought the four of us should go out to have a pub dinner later, and maybe take in a movie or a show? Shall I see what’s playing?”

There was mutual agreement to this, although Paul took John aside later. “This is my night with Linda, you know, so when we get back, I must go to Cavendish to sleep.” 

John’s heart fell. Oh, yeah. That. Always that. ‘To sleep’ my foot! When would he ever be able to live like normal people do, with their spouse-like person with them every single bloomin’ night? “Yes, Paul, I know. It’s a bloody bore, but I do understand.” 

Paul pushed John back against a kitchen cabinet, and leaned in closely. John could feel Paul’s pelvic area pushing against his. “Don’t be peevish, Johnny,” Paul said deeply. “We’ll be together tomorrow night. You can have a night with Gerry and Jason.”

“I’m hardly welcome in their bed, Paul,” John remarked with a heavy Northern accent, making Paul chuckle. “But I’m glad you’re getting back to your usual infuriating self.” 

“You know me. I don’t stay down for long.” Paul’s eyes were serious now.

“Well, I’m proud of you for that. We’ll have a good time this evening, and then you can go home to Linda and have a good shag. Never mind that I’ll be here, all alone, staring bleakly into the dark…”

Paul hooted loudly. “You lie!” His voice went up to the higher registers. “You’ll be wanking away at your todger!” 

 

*****

 

  
The pub they chose was tucked away in a tiny corner of Chelsea. There was a very subdued crowd there, who weren’t that interested in pop music stars. John and Paul had discovered it was a great pub to go to with a few friends if they wanted to be left alone in privacy. Although occasionally a customer might look their way, as soon as they were noticed by the objects of their curiosity they would turn their heads away immediately and not look back. 

Gerry and Jason eagerly ordered roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but looked apologetically in Paul’s direction while doing so. Paul decided not to take offense, and to pretend not to notice what they had done. Instead, he ordered a baked macaroni dish with broccoli, and then turned to John. 

John was sorely tempted by the roast beef, but seeing Paul’s enquiring eyes, he didn’t feel as though he could betray Paul on this important issue so soon after the poor bloke’s devastating run in with his brother. “I’ll have a baked macaroni with broccoli as well,” he said, causing Paul to look down at his hands and smile. 

Gerry ordered a bottle of red, and after it was opened and poured, they all four leaned in towards each other to talk. Paul was feeling a little euphoric after the terrible events of the morning. If his brother couldn’t stand to be near him, at least he had lovers and friends who wanted him around, and enjoyed his company. The fact that he was on a false high didn’t occur to Paul at the moment, and that was probably a good thing, at least for the night.

“So, tell us about some of your colorful friends,” Jason said conspiratorially. “The one with the purple shirt and the slinking little boyfriend…”

John laughed and said, “Elton John. Surely you’ve heard of Elton John?” He was met with two blank stares. “He’s quite famous, you know, ever since the mid ‘70s. He was trained classically, so the story goes. Never heard of him?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Gerry responded drily. 

“He is in our team, most definitely,” Jason said rhetorically. “And that egregious young man with him…” Everyone shrugged in silent agreement that the young man was beyond the pale.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Jay,” John said. “Elton will dump him before you can say boo.”

“He’s probably already dumped,” Paul added. His three companions looked up at Paul with surprise. Paul rarely was guilty of “piling on.” Paul looked up at the silence, and had no clue why they were all so surprised. “What?”

The three men laughed. “It’s so not ‘you’ Paul, to kick a bloke when he’s down,” John explained.

“I think I must be in a bit of a bitchy mood tonight,” Paul said, feeling guilty.

“And good for you!” Jason declared. “Everyone is entitled to an off day.” 

 

*****

 

It was close to midnight, and Paul had not come over from John’s house yet. Linda was waiting in her favorite corner of her favorite sofa in the sitting room. She was drinking some hot cocoa and hoping against hope that she would hear from Paul soon. She was quite worried about Paul, and a bit upset that Paul hadn’t called her to tell her when he was going to be home. She’d spent the whole day worrying. She had thought about calling Rowena to find out if Mike had said anything further, but she was worried Mike would answer the phone instead of Rowena, and that would be too awkward. Just as she was checking the mantel clock one more time, Linda heard the sound of the French door being unlocked, and she looked up to see Paul coming in through the door. 

“Paul! I’ve been so worried!” She cried.

Paul froze for a second. Oops! He should have called Linda hours ago. Jason did tell him. It had been just such a bewildering day. His mind was all scrambled. “Lin, I’m sorry I didn’t call…I’m okay, really.” 

Linda was fully awake now, and stood up and held her arms out for a hug, and Paul walked right into them. The tight hug went on for a good 20 seconds or so before Linda said,

“Paul, I am so sorry I started all this. It was wrong of me to say anything to Mike. I should have left it to you…”

Paul was shushing her while he ran comforting fingers through her hair, and periodically he kissed Linda on the top of the head. “Lin, Lin, it’s okay. It’s my own fault for being a coward. I knew Mike was going to behave this way, and I just didn’t want to face it. I didn’t want the status quo to change. But I should have known it was inevitable.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Linda asked.

Paul hugged her again, and whispered into her ear, “Nothing. We’re going to go to bed, we’re going to make love, and we’re going to put the whole mess behind us.” 

“And Mike?”

“It’s in his court. If he wants to see me, talk to me, I will be there. But I can’t live my life living in misery because he doesn’t approve. Like John said, we all have a good life, and he’s the one who is missing out.”

Linda heard the words “like John said,” and a twinge of pain echoed in her heart. Still, Paul was hers tonight, and she was going to show him how very much she loved him.

 

*****

 

It was time for Jason and Gerry to leave, and John was very downhearted about it. He didn’t want them to ever leave, because they were wonderful friends, and were great company for him when Paul was at Cavendish. But all of his shy attempts to get them to stay longer had fallen on deaf ears. The two of them heard New York calling, and their luggage was stacked in the hallway awaiting the chauffeur.

“It feels like you just got here,” John said, downcast. Paul was still over at Cavendish, but John had called him and told him that Jason and Gerry were leaving. 

“Yes, the time went very quickly,” Jason agreed. “We will miss you of course.”

“Will you come see us when we’re on the road? I’ll send you a list of our dates, but we should at least see each other when we’re in New York.”

Jason heard the anxiety in John’s voice, and held his arms out to hug him. He whispered in his ear, “Gerry and I will come to you whenever and wherever you want. Right now, Gerry has to get back to work, but we’ll be happy to visit you on tour. Just tell us where and when.” 

Paul suddenly appeared from the back of the house, a little bit out of breath. Without words he engulfed Gerry in a strong, emotional embrace. Gerry was surprised by how touched he was. Their eyes met for a moment and Gerry saw…gratitude…there? Gerry made his own eyes smile in acknowledgement. For a brief moment Gerry remembered how much and how long he had distrusted Paul. And how wrong he’d been. 

Paul then turned and embraced Jason. “Please have a safe flight,” Paul said to Jason. “John and I could not bare it if you didn’t.”

Jason gave Paul a smack on the cheek. What a dear human being! “I feel safe now,” Jason said, squeezing Paul’s sides with his two hands, “because no airplane will dare crash if it will be a problem for you and John.”

Paul snickered, and then let go of Jason. He and John stood on the front stoop waving goodbye to their dear friends, as they got into a limousine. They didn’t notice the paparazzi snapping a picture of them standing there, waving.

 

*****

 

“So, how was your assignation with La Madame McCartney last night?” John asked snidely, as he handed Paul a beer. It was late afternoon, and a beer seemed like a good idea.

“John, Linda doesn’t ask about you…”

“And I shouldn’t ask about her. So you’ve said, many a time. But still, I have questions…”

Paul sighed heavily. How fast John’s warm sympathy of yesterday had flown away. Now John was his usual needy self again. “Yes?” Paul’s face was a vision in impatience.

“Does it ever get old to you, Paul? The back and forth? Does it have to be so relentlessly 50/50? Can’t you be here a few days, and then over there, and then back over here?” John was clearly irritated by Paul’s late arrival today, Paul realized. And this morning, he’d promised to arrive an hour earlier, so that he could have lunch with Jason and Gerry, but Linda had been so clingy…she hadn’t wanted to let him go…

“It does get old, yes,” Paul said dully. “I wish I could think of a better way, but since Linda gets upset if I miss more than a day with her, and you get upset with me if I miss more than a day with you, I haven’t seen a way out of it. Do you?” Paul was a bit angry, and his expression was quite indignant.

John softened, and then chuckled. “Good for you for taking your own back, baby. It’s just that it is so hard. It’s so fucking hard.”

Paul looked down at his hands as he fought off tears. “That is exactly what Linda said, before I tore myself away from her to rush over here. And John…”

“Yes?” John felt involuntarily sympathy for Paul at that moment.

“What about me? How do you think it feels for me? I’m never making either of you completely happy, no matter what I do.” 

John sighed heavily and surrendered. “You’re right, Pud. I was wrong to complain. I should have been used to this by now. It isn’t as though I didn’t know what I was in for. I volunteered for this life, after all.” After this pronouncement, John gave Paul one of his wide closed-mouth silly smiles to show the unpleasantness was behind them. 

If only it were that easy for Paul. He was intensely aware that he had let Linda down by rushing over to John’s house. And he had let her down the night before by coming home late, without calling her. And he had let John down by rushing off to Cavendish the morning after the party, and by leaving him to sleep alone after the pub night with Jason and Gerry. And these were only 2 days’ worth of disappointments. Paul could remember more than a decade’s worth of disappointments he had dealt to John and Linda over the years.

And speaking of disappointments… Michael. He had gravely disappointed his brother by not living up to Mike’s image of him. There was nothing Paul could do about that, because he was hopeless in the face of John Lennon’s love. As if someone had pushed a button, Paul’s spirits plummeted. He felt tears building up in his eyes, and was fighting to hide this fact from John, so he averted his gaze.

John, of course, noticed it immediately. “What?” He demanded. “We were only having a healthy debate. You know I was just venting, right? I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Paul tried to pull himself together. “I’m not crying,” he lied.

“You are! I can see the tears! I’m sorry I brought the subject up. It was wrong of me!”

“I may be crying,” Paul finally answered, “but not because of anything you said.”

“Then why?” John demanded.

“I’m a fucking disappointment to everyone I love,” he finally said. “You, Linda…” Paul’s voice trailed off, but then he added, “…and Mike.” 

The penny dropped for John. Ah, Mike. This was all about Mike, really. John was not really surprised. He had thought that Paul’s recovery from Mike’s rejection was a bit cursory. Now he knew that it had been there always, just bubbling under the surface. John knew he had to say something to comfort his lover. “Paul, you haven’t disappointed me, I was just whining. You know how I am. You never disappoint me; not ever - even the times I accused you of it, I was just lying.” John’s voice had become soothing, beseeching. 

Paul’s lugubrious expression almost broke John’s heart, but after a taut moment, Paul’s face relaxed and he presented John with a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, John, I’ve had a bad few days. I’m tired.”

“Then let’s go take an afternoon nap,” John said gently, and took Paul’s hand. Together they went upstairs to bed. 

 

*****

 

Of course, Paul didn’t really believe John when he’d retracted his complaints about his feelings of disappointment. Paul knew that John felt it, and felt it often and deeply. On some of the nights when he was with Linda, he had lain awake knowing that John was across the mews alone and feeling misused. And the nights when he was with John, sometimes he’d lain awake thinking about Linda…Of course they both felt stinted. Paul could put himself in either one of their places, and knew that he would have felt the same - filled with jealousy and pain - if he were either of them. How could he not feel guilty? But at least he’d known that John and Linda had entered the contract with their eyes wide open. But Mike…

John was snoring softly beside him in the late afternoon light, but Paul was awake, thinking about his brother. I should have told him, right at the start, Paul thought to himself. It’s all my fault. But of course, Paul thought next, Mike would have still been disgusted by the truth, even if Paul had told him. With that thought, Paul felt a throbbing sad echo in the pit of his stomach. There was no getting away from the fact that he had strayed far away from the family teachings, and thus had earned the enmity of his closest blood relative. There was no charming his way out of this one. He would just have to suck it up - all the pain and all the humiliation - and go on as if it none of it affected him. Paul supposed that he would now be persona non grata in Liverpool, and his family - his larger family - would no doubt be estranged from him from here on out. There was no other possibility, so there was no other answer.

 

*****

 

It was an overcast June morning in the Liverpool suburbs, and in one of them Rowena McCartney was busy feeding the youngest of her sons, who was still in a high chair. Mike was reading the paper, nursing his coffee, and being as closed off and cranky as he’d been since their return a week ago from London. Rowena had not raised the subject, because it was clear Mike was not going to entertain it. He had made it clear that even though she was his wife, she had no business interfering in “family business.” 

Mike was paging through the Echo, and stopped in his tracks at the photograph he saw on page 6: his brother and John Lennon, standing on the stoop of John’s house, waving goodbye to a departing car. How sweet, he thought snidely, and he slapped the paper shut, and slammed it down on the table, startling both Rowena and their youngest son. 

“It’s disgusting is what it is! He’s making a bloody fool out of himself, and the whole family! It’s not fair to Linda and the children!” Mike’s anger was obviously still at the boiling point. Rowena was confused by what had triggered it this time.

“What’s happened?” She asked fearfully.

Mike pushed the paper across the table to Rowena, without a word.

Rowena put down the baby’s spoon, and picked up the paper. She slowly turned the pages until she came to the photograph. She read the caption:

“John Lennon and Paul McCartney wave goodbye to friends, two men from New York.” There were no blatant suggestions, just the coy insinuations.

Rowena looked up to Mike’s angry face, and felt something snap inside. “I thought you were a bigger man,” she heard herself saying.

Mike’s eyes absorbed the shock and then faced her directly. “What is that supposed to mean?” he growled.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I thought you were a kinder, more sophisticated person. The kind of person who could see the subtleties in life, including the intricacy of other people’s emotional and sexual needs. I thought you had a bigger heart - a heart that could love even when it could not understand.” Rowena knew that she was pushing it a bit far as she spoke, but she could not stop herself. She needed Mike to snap out of his pout and be the man she believed him to be - the man she married. She didn’t recognize this prejudiced, resentful man, and had concerns for her marriage if this unrecognizable Mike didn’t vanish soon.

“Rowena,” Mike responded, sucking back his pain. “My brother chose to close me out of his life. I’m only reciprocating the favor.”

“Mike, please listen to me. Linda explained to me that Paul was afraid to tell you because he knew you would disapprove. And you do disapprove. And here you are, doing exactly what Paul was afraid you would do! At the very least you owe it to him to let him explain it to you.”

“What are you worried about, Rowena? Are you in this marriage for my brother’s money? Because, if so, he isn’t going to be swayed by anyone sucking up to him! He is very stubborn that way.” Mike’s voice was very bitter.

Rowena was shocked at Mike’s unfounded attack. She leaned back in her chair, and her hand flew up to her mouth. Then she stood up and hastily took the baby out of the highchair, and left the room in an angry silence.

Mike was left sitting there cursing himself and his blasted Irish temper.


	35. Chapter 35

To quote a song, all the bags were packed, and they were ready to go. It was the day John and Paul had to leave for Toronto to start their new world tour. John’s luggage was stacked out on his driveway, and Paul’s luggage was stacked out on his driveway. At Cavendish, Linda was fussing over Paul, insisting that he eat some breakfast before leaving, and everything was at sixes and sevens. At John’s house, John was fully prepared at least an hour before the driver arrived. He could not wait until he and Paul were off, and he would have Paul entirely to himself. Basically, he had six months of Paul to himself! Yes, occasionally they would fly back to London, and Paul would stay at Cavendish. And yes, periodically, Linda would arrive with some or all of the children while they were on tour, and Paul would be with her. But the vast majority of those six months was for John and Paul. Alone, but together. That is why John was up early, and fully ready to go. He didn’t want a single second’s delay to get between him and his alone time with Paul. 

There had been some fallout in the tabloids in the two weeks since the party. Rumors about the goings on at the party were being bruited about, although mainly the fascinated reporters lingered over how cool it was that all those famous rockers were all together at the same time, and had also all jammed together. While the rocker guests and their wives had been filled with gossip at the party, they none of them shared this gossip with the enemy - i.e., the press. Still, there were whispers escaping around the edges, but it was nothing more and nothing less than John and Paul had survived before in the last few years. Consequently, whatever ‘tells’ John and Paul had exposed during the party did not result in too much new public damage, just more of the same.

Paul was busy being himself, and had compartmentalized his estrangement from his brother. He had so many other things going on in his life: the final rehearsals, the various plans for the tour, and celebrating his 50th birthday. Although this was “John’s year” for Paul’s actual birthdate, he and Linda had worked out a truce and decided to treat Paul’s 50th as a joint affair. Linda agreed that John could have his 51st instead. Once they put their minds together, they actually had agreed to plan the meal together, and had divided up the food, even working side by side on some items. It had been fun working together on the project, and it had gone a long way in helping Linda reconcile herself to John’s new talent. 

It had been only a family affair, with Paul and Linda’s children, and John’s two sons, and no outsiders whatsoever. Heather had even come, although she appeared to be in iffy emotional shape, and kept mainly to herself. John had presented Paul with a trio of cartoons, India ink on canvass, all beautifully arranged in one frame, depicting Paul and his children when they were little from the ‘70s era. Both Paul and Linda were delighted with it, and Linda had immediately hung it in pride of place. It had been a lovely evening.

The car picked up John first, and then swung around the block to Cavendish, where la famille McCartney were all standing in the forecourt fussing over their husband and father. Paul hugged each of them fiercely as the driver loaded Paul’s suitcase into the trunk. (Most of the luggage had already been sent on ahead to various staging areas; John and Paul only brought a few cases with them filled with personal items and a few days’ worth of clothing.) Finally (from John’s perspective) Paul was in the car, and they were leaving the driveway. Paul had brought the window down and was waving back at his family until the front gate closed behind him. 

“Well, Pud, we’re off on a new adventure!” John said exuberantly, as Paul settled himself in his place next to John and connected his seatbelt. Paul blasted him with a full-on Macca smile. He was equally excited about the new tour. Both men knew there would be times ahead when they would no longer find the traveling, unpacking, repacking, and traveling anything but exhausting and boring, but right at the start - when they first shoved off - they were always excited.

It reminded John of that first time they had gone to Hamburg. They had stood on the quay and watched their huge van, loaded down with luggage and instruments, being hauled on to the boat. Paul had been wearing some pretty ghastly (but at the time considered snazzy) new shoes. Later, during the choppy voyage, John had thrown up on them. Ahhhh, memories… But John could well remember the sense of adventure and excitement they’d both felt as they had set off for a foreign port; it was their first time away from England. Of course, at the time, they had not yet become lovers, but the possibility of that was dancing in John’s mind as the boat had pushed away from the port. Things had not turned out the way he had hoped and planned on that particular trip…

So, today, just as it had been in the early days, endless possibilities lay ahead of them as they started off, but surprises and inevitable disappointments would reveal themselves in time. 

 

*****

 

Linda and the kids wandered back in to the house after the car disappeared. Part of Linda found it easier when Paul was off on tour with John, because at least then she could imagine that he was missing her and the reality of their situation could be fuzzed a bit by the distance. Heather had disappeared up in her room, and James had disappeared into his room too. But Mary and Stella followed their mum into the kitchen, and set about helping her to clean up. Then they all sat around the kitchen table, falling into one of their comfortable mother-daughter gabfests. Mary and Stella adored their mother. They loved everything about her - her kooky fashion sense, her lack of interest in makeup, her emotional love for all animals, her laid back view to life generally, and her intense loyalty to family and friends. She was also ‘cool’ in the sense that nothing they could tell her shocked or upset her. She took it all in, and then dealt with it calmly and wisely. 

“You know, mum,” Stella said at a break in the conversation. “I gave John a piece of my mind the other day - at Dad’s birthday party.”

“Oh?” Linda was surprised. “What about?”

“About singing that song - ‘Seven Levels’ - right in front of you with all those people already gossiping about it.”

“Stella! You didn’t!” Mary cried.

“I did! I said I would and I did.” Stella looked very satisfied with herself.

“So what did you say, Stella,” Linda asked, her face looking amused but a little disapproving.

“I told him it wasn’t fair to put you and Dad in that situation in front of all those horrible gossips. I told him it was hurtful to you, Mum.” Stella’s face took on the look of an avenging angel.

Linda smiled. That explained it. She had wondered why John had come up to her after the party and hugged her and said, “I’m sorry for being so thick-headed.” Linda had thought he just meant it generally (because it was true), but now she knew what had prompted the sweet apology.

“Well, John apologized to me; I realize now it was because of what you said.” Linda smiled warmly at her protective daughter. She was so like Paul at times it staggered her.

“And well he should!” Stella responded, unimpressed by John’s efforts. They were too little and too late, in Stella’s book.

 

*****

 

The Toronto concert was to take place at the Rogers Centre. It was a terrific arena, Paul decided as he strolled out on the stage to begin sound check. There was a huge proscenium and dome at one end of the stadium, set back a bit, so that every seat in the place could see what was going on. This was quite unusual in stadiums. It was their first time performing there - the Centre had not opened until shortly after the end of their ’89 tour. Paul looked out on the floor of the stadium, covered with seats for the night’s show. Everything gleamed in the late afternoon sun. He stood for a few quiet moments, his arms resting on the top of his guitar, taking it in. How he loved to perform! Paul truly believed he was only half alive if he wasn’t performing. Performing was thrilling, scary, fun, challenging. Compared to that rush of adrenalin, real life seemed like a dull carriage ride in the countryside. After his moment of reverence, Paul shrugged and went to work. 

John was actually present at this sound check. It was the first one of the tour, so he wasn’t bored by it yet. He’d also actually participated fully in the last two weeks’ worth of rehearsals. He’d always been a quick study, and knew how to fake it and make it funny if he flubbed, so two weeks was just about the right amount of rehearsal time for him. He hadn’t noticed Paul’s moment of reverie out on the stage, because he had been backstage baiting their tour director. They had a new one this time out, an Irish bloke named Timothy. Not Tim, mind you, he made clear, Timothy. John’s eyes had come alive with delight; this was going to be fun! Naturally, from then on John called the poor man almost anything but Timothy, and when Timothy corrected him, John would say, “Well, at least I didn’t call you Tim.” Yes, John thought, there was a world of opportunity out there for pulling the man’s tail. He looked forward to it. 

Not so Timothy. He had spoken for some time before leaving on the gig with their previous tour director Evan Willis, and had been warned that John was more of a handful, but Paul was the difficult one. “If you stay in Paul’s good graces, all will be fine. He’ll protect you from John’s excesses. But if you piss Paul off…God help you.” All of this had sounded like hyperbole to Timothy. Only 35 years old himself, he couldn’t quite believe that a couple of old dudes in their fifties could be that much trouble, even if their egos were as pronounced as everyone said they were. 

It hadn’t taken John too long to disabuse him of that notion. 

“Hey Reginald!” John called out as he approached Timothy backstage. Timothy sighed. This joke was getting old and it was only day two. 

“Yes, John?” Timothy asked wearily. He had given up correcting the blasted man. He never should have made that comment about not liking to be called Tim. It was clear that Lennon was not going to forgive him that little moment of pomposity.

“I didn’t see any pistachio nuts in the dressing room!” John’s voice reflected both indignation and shocked surprise. (Neither John nor Paul had placed pistachio nuts on their concert rider, so naturally this confused Timothy.) 

“Pistachio nuts?”

“Yeah - salted and roasted. Not those lame ones in their shells.” John was openly glaring now.

Timothy was madly flipping through his clipboard, looking for the specific language that required pistachio nuts, salted, roasted and shelled. He found no such directive. Before he could comment on this, John changed the direction of the conversation.

“So, is the hotel okay with my swimming pool idea?” John’s face was a study in curious sincerity.

“Swimming pool idea?” Timothy looked back down at his clipboard. He couldn’t remember anything about that.

“Oh, come on, Francis. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten! We wanted it dyed purple for tonight’s after show party!”

Purple? After show party? Timothy was blinking in confusion. On one level he was pretty sure Lennon must be putting him on, but on another level he was acutely aware that this was his first tour with Lennon & McCartney, and maybe someone had forgotten to give him all the proper instructions. After all, he had managed the tours of a heavy metal group for years, and their demands were not altogether different from Lennon’s.

Paul caught sight of John through the wings and shouted, “Come on John, we’ve got work to do!” 

John made an exaggerated face as if to say, ‘My God the man’s a nag!’ “Keep your shirt on McCartney!” he responded as he headed for the stage. Timothy was relieved to see the back of him. He then quickly turned to an assistant and called him over.

“What do you know about pistachios?” He whispered frantically.

“Pistachios?” The assistant asked.

“Yes, and dying the swimming pool purple? And an after party?” 

The assistant snickered. “You’re having me on,” he said. 

“Are any of those things in the instructions?” Timothy asked seriously.

“I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered - at least the swimming pool bit.” The assistant had begun to get the gist. Lennon had been up to his old tricks. He had heard all about those from previous tour assistants. He waited a moment and said, “You know, Timothy, I’m told that you can’t believe even half of what he says.”

Timothy didn’t like to be twitted by his own assistant, but decided to let it go. He took a deep breath and then let it out. He was nervous. He wanted to do a good job. This was all new to him, and it was the big time - the biggest of the big times. He could be forgiven for being uptight and a little credulous. But now he knew what to expect, and he wouldn’t let Lennon blow nonsense up his arse again. Or so he thought.

 

*****

 

The 1992 song list included 41 songs. Many of them had been performed on the ’89 tour, but there were a fair number of new ones. They had settled on six songs from their new album 7 Levels, and six from their last album Last Year’s Echo, five each from John and Paul’s solo careers, 7 from their early Beatles’ years, and 12 from the later Beatles’ years, including the standby anthems of Let It Be, Hey Jude, All You Need is Love, and Get Back, and the closer, Golden Slumbers/The End. They’d added a few sleepers to the song list, and in some ways it was a tiny bit more adventurous than their last tour because some of these songs were fairly obscure. Among John’s surprises were Sexy Sadie and Tomorrow Never Knows from the later Beatle years, and Now and Then from Last Year’s Echo. Among Paul’s unusual choices were Heart of the Country and a charmingly bouncy version of Country Dreamer. He had added both of these for Linda, thinking that other than Maybe I’m Amazed, the majority of his selected songs were John-centric. This time ‘round Paul would be singing Maybe I’m Amazed instead of John.

They’d be doing approximately 38 songs per show, and since they had 41 songs prepared, it gave them their usual tiny bit of room to be spontaneous. Another thing they liked to do, they found during their first tour, was to mix up the song order at the last moment, and spring surprises on their band. They had the same band as last time, and the band had also recorded the last album with them, so were familiar with both the material, and the tricks that John and Paul (but mostly John) got up to.

After sound check, John and Paul met with some local and Canadian national media backstage for about 30 minutes. They moved from one proffered microphone to the other, giving each reporter 5 minutes. In this way, the reporters were denied the opportunity of getting any further than each asking about the night’s show and how much they were enjoying Toronto slash Canada. It was a very clever way for both of them to look completely accessible to the press, while not having to deal with probing or uncomfortable questions.

After this, they retired to their dressing room, where Timothy was nervously pacing, checking off lists on his clipboard. John noticed this out of the corner of his eye, and the very ends of his mouth curled ever so slightly in wicked amusement. 

“Frederick!” John barked, causing Timothy to start and almost drop his clipboard. “Where are the pistachios?” 

Paul had smirked at John’s use of ‘Frederick’, but heard ‘pistachios’ and wondered. John must be having Timothy on, he thought to himself. I’ll just lie low.

“I’ve sent Billy out to get some,” Timothy said breathlessly. He had done so just in case Lennon hadn’t been kidding.

“Well, that’s no good! By the time he gets back I won’t want them anymore!” John looked pouty, and flopped down dramatically in a chair. Paul studiously ignored him, and concentrated on re-tuning his acoustic guitar for the 100th time. The less I know about this the better, he thought to himself.

Timothy didn’t know quite what to do, so he changed the subject. “Can I get you anything…errr…other than pistachios?” He was looking pointedly at Paul, hoping for a saner request.

“Why on earth would I want pistachios, Timothy?” He asked politely, his face a study in confusion.

“John said…” Timothy started, but then saw Paul’s perplexed expression. 

John intervened. “No, Poindexter, I’m the one who wants the pistachios! What’s wrong with you? Paul is the one who wants the little tiny marshmallows that melt in his hot chocolate!”

“Marshmallows?” Timothy repeated (Poindexter??? he shouted to himself in smothered rage).

“Oh, yes, that would be lovely Timothy,” Paul said warmly. “Hot chocolate with little marshmallows. That will do the trick nicely.” His face was impossibly innocent as he turned back to his guitar.

“I’m, er, I will see if we have any…” Timothy headed for the door, to yell at another one of his assistants. After all, shit ran downhill.

After the door closed John laughed, and Paul shook his head. “You’re really evil, John,” Paul said between chuckles. “He’ll be tearing the whole place apart looking for pistachios and tiny marshmallows.”

“Not to mention the hot chocolate. Doubt they have any of that here!” He thought for a moment and then added, “I don’t think this new bloke is going to work out. He doesn’t appear to have a sense of humor.”

“Oh, give him a week or two before you lose heart. If he can take it, eventually he’ll be ready to dish it out.” 

 

*****

 

This time ‘round, John and Paul had decided to take the stage quietly, with no introduction, as if they were just strolling into a friend’s living room, or studio 2 at Abbey Road. No snazzy a cappella opening like last time. It was still fairly light outside, seeing as how it was late June, and so it took awhile for the audience to notice they had even arrived. John and Paul stood there in the middle of the stage at microphones, sincerely surprised that hardly anyone had noticed them. They hadn’t expected that. John said loudly into the microphone,

“Paul, I don’t think they’ve noticed us.”

“Maybe we should go off, make a great noise, and then come back out.” Paul suggested. His calm, unconcerned voice echoed around the stadium.

The audience of course leapt to its feet, and began screaming - both in excitement and in amusement. 

John turned back to the audience. “Paul wants us to go off again. What do you all think?”

As one, the audience hurled back a loud and resounding, “NOOOOOO!”

John turned back to Paul, and waited a theatrical moment until the crowd calmed down a bit. “Sorry, mate. You lose again.”

Paul waited a few beats for the laughter to stop before responding lazily, “Well, perhaps we should sing a song then,” but he showed no inclination to move out of his relaxed pose.

“Do you like that idea better?” John shouted at the crowd.

“YESSSSSS!” The crowd answered back.

“I win this time, John,” Paul observed lightly as the crowd quieted down, and then immediately he began the familiar bass run in to…

 

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner  
But he knew it wouldn't last  
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona  
For some California grass

Get back, get back  
Get back to where you once belonged  
Get back, get back  
Get back to where you once belonged  
Get back Jojo  
Go home…

 

From this they moved right into Whatever Gets You Through the Night, because it was a real crowd starter. Almost on cue the rainbow flags went up all over the place. John smiled as he sang. It felt good to be back on stage, no matter how much trouble he’d given Paul over it. It was always the case - Paul had to drag him out on tour, kicking and screaming, and then John would get on stage and wonder what the all the fuss had been about. And from there they sashayed into A Friend of Dorothy’s. Don’t want the poor blokes to have to put the rainbow flags and naughty signs down too soon had been John’s reasoning in placing the song after Whatever Gets You Through the Night.

“My fingers are sore!” John shouted into the microphone as Dorothy ended. “I’m so fucking out of practice! I don’t have callouses anymore!” The audience lapped it up, having always loved an out-of-control, inappropriate John Lennon.

Paul refrained from asking whose fault is that? Instead he did what he always did when John was acting out on stage. He pretended that John’s behavior was perfectly normal, and waited indulgently off to the side for John’s attention to move back towards the music. Thankfully, it always did eventually. One just had to be patient. Paul had spent a lifetime managing John’s mercurial moods, and literally thousands of hours of stage time expertly manipulating John through his ups and downs and keeping him in focus and on pace. No one else had his touch with John Lennon. No one else could bring out only the best in John on a stage. Paul had always considered this one of his most important roles in the band back in the Beatle days - channeling John’s frenetic moods and whims and keeping them under control while seeming to allow them free reign - and he fell back into the pattern so easily now that they were touring together as a duo.

Getting at least a bit serious now was important, Paul thought, because the next song was from their new album: When Cells Collide. While a bit comical and fast paced on the surface, it was in fact a bitter litany of the side effects of cancer and cancer treatment as only John could write it. John had decided this was the only ‘cancer song’ he wanted to do in concert, because the others were total downers, and thus qualified more for their planned club material than as stadium fare. (Paul and he had planned some surprise club dates over the course of the tour, but those gigs were still top secret.)

John sensed Paul’s mood shift as if it were a physical phenomenon, and it had an immediate but silent impact on John’s behavior. As Paul switched to an acoustic guitar, John settled behind the synthesizer. It was time to button down and do some serious work. 

 

*****

 

There was no after party, of course, and no purple swimming pool. John was tired, and wasn’t in the mood to torture Timothy, so he and Paul went quietly back to their hotel suite, and crashed. It was after 1 a.m. and John was tooling through the movie selection on the hotel closed circuit channel while Paul did his nightly ablutions in the bathroom. John stumbled upon some porn films. Hmmmm…. Unfortunately, most of them were of the Debbie Does Dallas motif, and none of them featured even bisexual threesomes. Bummer. But John could still get aroused by a sexy female, so decided a 2-women on 1 man film would be just the ticket. Almost as if he had read John’s mind, Paul sashayed out of the bathroom stark naked as John pushed the “buy” button. 

“We’re watching porn, Paul,” he announced cheerfully, pushing the “start” button and then setting the remote control aside. He patted the mattress beside him invitingly, and Paul, dubious, climbed in next to John. 

“What kind of porn?” Paul asked suspiciously. Hilariously, Paul was still horribly embarrassed by homosexual porn. (At least it was hilarious to John that a man so enthusiastic at both ends of the actual practice should be so shy about watching others doing it in make believe.)

“You’re in luck, baby,” John crooned, leaning over and giving Paul a quick kiss on his lips. “They’ve only got the straight variety.”

“Well, thank heaven for that,” Paul said, settling back eagerly, and snuggling sweetly into John’s side. John had to hold back a chuckle. Paul had just made the same cute maneuver that Sean used to make as a 5 year old when they settled down to watch a Disney film.

They made it about halfway through the slutty film, succumbing to their own sexual appetites along the way, and as they made love the raunchy sounds continued to come from the television speakers, but neither John nor Paul heard them over their own noise. 

 

*****

 

They were back in New York City. They had two concerts at Madison Square Garden on back-to-back nights. Because they would be there for the better part of 5 days, they’d opened up their loft. John was studying it with a critical eye. 

“This place looks like it is stuck in the early ‘80s,” he said objectively.

“That’s because it is,” Paul said over his shoulder as he headed down the hall to the master bedroom. Paul quickly put the thought out of his mind, but John stood there pondering. Little did Paul know what was going on in John’s feverish imagination.

The place had never really been decorated; it was anonymous brick, wood, and windows with all white walls. No real art was hung - just some boring, anonymous stuff. The kitchenette was seriously outdated. It really was time that they either turned this place into a home, or perhaps they should buy a real pied a terre in Manhattan that would be another showplace for John to design. John figured the two things were not mutually exclusive. He could, in fact, redesign the loft, then sell it after the tour was over, and then begin a project on a real New York apartment. But then he’d have to spend more time in New York, and the whole Paul/Linda ‘where are we gonna live’ conundrum would raise it’s ugly head. Still, it would be fun to redo the loft, now that his decorating interest had reached full flower. He’d have to troll around for the name of a hip ‘n happening New York designer with whom he could collaborate. Note to self.

Of course, John had already made his plans with Jason, and he and Paul were going over to the Dakota for dinner. John neither knew nor cared if Yoko was at home that evening. He was through acting as though the damn building was off limits. He was no longer afraid to run into her. Her predictions of how his relationship with Paul would fail and falter had turned out to be so wildly wrong, that he knew he would have no problem if they should, say, both step into the elevator at the same time. And, to be fair, Sean had told him that Yoko was no longer angry and bitter, and had admitted to Sean that John was better off with Paul, anyway. John supposed if you waited long enough, almost any wound could heal.

 

*****

 

Jason had decided that a meal out on the patio balcony would be just the thing, and had covered the delicately carved wrought iron table with an exquisite Tiffany blue cloth, and placed an artfully designed centerpiece of African violets in the middle. Pretty, and color coordinated, but people could freely see each other over the middle of the table because of the flowers’ low profile. Perfect. He also brought out his Waterford crystal, and his best bone china. What was the point of owning beautiful things if you never used them? He asked himself. Of course, if one dropped the crystal or the bone china on the concrete balcony, one could kiss it goodbye. But Jason decided John and Paul were worth risking his treasures. It was early July, and the weather was warm. No chance of rain in sight. Sun would not completely set until about 8 p.m. It was a perfect evening for a meal on the patio. He set the chilled bottle of white in a champagne bucket stand next to the table, and then went in to the kitchen to see to the details. It was then that the doorbell rang.

Gerry groaned as he got up from his seat, folded his newspaper, and went to answer the door. John and Paul had arrived with a tremendously valuable bottle of aged whiskey. They never arrived empty-handed, which Gerry appreciated, seeing as how they were world famous legends, and they could always have just figured that their mere appearance was a sufficient houseguest gift. John looked youthful and hip in his blue jeans and black t-shirt, and a tomato red shirt fitted loosely over the t-shirt. Paul was striking in his blue jeans and pure white shirt. He was wearing bright white converse sneakers. Gerry smiled at them. He noted for the first time that Paul’s hair was gleaming with silver strands now. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? Maybe it was the light. Of course, John had given up on his hair, which was greying, and had it dyed a very natural looking auburn. Gerry could hardly snivel at this; while he had allowed his hair to go a distinguished white, Jason was dying his hair a not-very-subtle shade of brunette.

Gerry was going to shepherd them into the sitting room, and Paul was obedient about following, but John went off at an angle and headed straight for the kitchen. He knew Jason would be there. Gerry looked questioningly at Paul, who threw his shoulders up in mock surrender and said, “I’ll have a little something.” Gerry had been lingering over the drinks tray.

“What’s your poison?” Gerry asked.

“What’s your specialty?” Paul returned quickly. Gerry laughed and made an absolutely perfect Perfect Manhattan. Paul took a sip and said, ‘Ahhhh’ as the cold liquid ran down his throat.

John, meanwhile, had met Jason in the kitchen, just as he had been about to remove his apron to come out and greet his guests. Seeing each other, they gave each other huge hugs. Jason chuckled, “Ah, John, you’re the sister I never had.” 

John said, “Well, I have three half-sisters, and I barely know them. You I love.”

Jason blushed at the compliment and then began to show John what he had made. The protein was fish, of course, but there were a lot of interesting side dishes that John poked his nose into to see if he could steal a few ideas. “Everything looks wonderful, as usual,” John finally said.

“I am tremendously relieved to hear you say so, given your own cooking skills John,” Jason responded.

Soon they were all gathered around the table outside in the slowly darkening evening, picking at the remainders of the food on their plates, and sharing a glorious wine. John was feeling expansive, and without thinking he blurted out,

“I’m going to remodel the loft to get it ready to sell!” 

The table went silent. Gerry and Jason out of sheer surprise, but Paul out of shock. 

“What?” Paul said, after choking a little on his wine. 

John realized he had skipped the part where he would have told Paul about his plans. Oh, well. Cat’s out of the bag, now, he said to himself cheerfully. “I decided this morning, when we arrived, and I noticed how bland and outdated it is. And it is really very small. I’m thinking we should invest in a real apartment, with some real square footage, and a view of the park. I’m tired of looking at the sides of other buildings when I look out the windows.”

John had apparently forgotten the reason for having such a low profile apartment was that it was their love nest - away from prying eyes. A high profile apartment was not exactly discreet. Paul didn’t want to squabble with John while partaking of Gerry and Jason’s hospitality, so he lapsed into a neutral silence as John babbled on.

“I want a place that has floor to ceiling glass walls and looks down on the park!” John’s excitement had conveyed itself to Jason, and Jason had begun to warm up to the idea.

“Maybe you could spend more time in New York?” Jason asked hopefully. He really did enjoy John’s company more than anyone’s except Gerry’s. 

“Yeah, I was thinking that too…” John jumped in, again forgetting that this was not something he had discussed with Paul yet.

Paul sat quietly observing and listening, and feeling anxiety eating at the bottom of the stomach. He suddenly felt as though he had eaten and drunk too much, and put his wine glass down abruptly. He sat back in his seat, and let his face go blank. 

Gerry noticed Paul’s reaction and felt concern for Paul, and irritation with John and Jason for being so clueless about it. He could do nothing to stop the two - once they got going they were a juggernaut in the conversation department. But he could try to distract Paul. He leaned over to Paul and said quietly, “How is the tour going so far?” It was the first noncontroversial thing he could think to say.

Paul pulled himself out of his dark place in order to interact politely with Gerry. Gerry was being kind, and it was only good manners to reciprocate. “We’ve only done the one date,” Paul laughed. “We’re at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night and the night after that. But the Toronto show went very well.” Paul forced himself to focus on Gerry’s face and soft voice, and to ignore the excited chirpings of John and Jason. The two of them were discussing how they were going to go apartment hunting together, and Jason knew just the right real estate agent, and had some names of some hot decorators. 

This loud conversation did eventually overcome the limp, sotto voce attempts of Gerry and Paul, and finally Gerry saw the vulnerable anxious look unmasked on Paul’s face, and gave him an intensely sympathetic look in reaction. He said softly, “They’re both the type to have extravagant dreams, but they rarely come to fruition.” Gerry was thinking of many of Jason’s harebrained schemes over the years that he had lost interest in and abandoned.

“Maybe,” Paul said sadly in quiet response. “But sometimes John gets an idea, and it is impossible to dislodge it. I have no idea what this is all about.” Paul looked miserable, and Gerry felt for him.

“I’m sure he’ll explain it all later, and you’ll have a chance to put your own two cents in.” Gerry found that his hand had - of its own volition - landed comfortingly on Paul’s forearm. 

Paul acknowledged the kind touch with softly smiling eyes. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said.

It was late, and rather than walk through the park half drunk (easy prey for muggers), John and Paul took a taxi around the park and back to their building. Paul was absolutely silent, but John didn’t notice. His mind was dancing with thoughts. The problem about distance between New York and London had been solved: Jason would be his eyes and ears in New York when he had to be in England. The plan would all unfold once the tour was over. Because to John this sounded like a fantastic idea, he hadn’t thought for one moment that Paul would have an objection. If he hadn’t drunk quite so much, or had so much fun planning it all with Jason, he might have noticed Paul’s silence sooner. 

As it was, it didn’t become apparent to John until they got back to the loft, and Paul turned and went straight back to the bedroom without a word while John was in the middle of a sentence. Well, that was rude, John thought. But then he figured Paul must really need to use the bathroom. A guy could understand behavior like that in another guy and forgive it, and John was another guy. He waited about 15 or 20 minutes for Paul to come out and have a nightcap with him, but when no further sounds came from the bedroom, he went back to see what was going on. He saw that Paul had climbed into bed, and had turned his back to the center. All the lights were off except the bathroom light. 

“What’s up with you?” John demanded as he hit the overhead light switch abruptly.

“Not now, John. I don’t want to talk about it now.” The voice was muffled, from underneath the comforter. 

John was stupefied. Paul couldn’t be upset about his plans about the loft, could he? It isn’t as if the loft was some special place in Paul’s life. “I’m not going to bed until you tell me what’s wrong!” John declared, walking in and sitting on Paul’s side of the bed. Paul had to quickly shift his legs to avoid being sat on.

“I’m very tired, and I’m afraid I’ll say something I’ll regret,” Paul said in a less tense voice. “Let it go, and we can talk tomorrow.”

John was worried now. He leaned his head in towards Paul’s and saw the closed off look in Paul’s eyes. “If you insist,” John said bitchily. “I guess I’ll nip in the guest room then.” He stomped out of the room, slashing the overhead light off, and slightly slamming the door behind him. He then marched into the living room and poured himself a triple whiskey. If there was one thing he hated about Paul, it was that tendency of his to close up like a fucking turtle whenever negative emotions ran high.


	36. Chapter 36

After John and Paul had left, Jason had plopped down cheerfully on the sofa and said with a happy sigh, “Well, that was a wonderful visit! I’m so excited about John’s plans! He’ll be back in the City more often!”

Gerry had been planning to wait until the morning to say anything to Jason, but now that Jason had brought the subject up, he felt he had to say something. “Did you notice that Paul was taken completely by surprise by John’s announcement?”

Jason sat back and stared blankly at Gerry. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, dear, that all of those decisions John had made were news to Paul. Paul was extremely upset, but he was trying very hard to hide it.”

Jason was - this was very surprising - speechless. He had been so wrapped up in John’s news and their fun planning session that he hadn’t paid any attention to Paul at all. “Oh dear,” Jason finally said. “You said Paul was ‘upset’ - was he angry?”

Gerry thought about it. “N-n-n-ooo, I would say that he looked hurt and bewildered, but was trying to hide it. And worried.” 

Jason was silent. “I can’t imagine why John would make an announcement like that if he hadn’t already discussed it with Paul and gotten the green light.” 

Gerry agreed with Jason, but then he did have one basic understanding that Jason, with his soft heart, probably hadn’t noted yet. “He’s a very famous and wealthy man, Jason. He is used to having an idea and then snapping his fingers to have it done. People like John and Paul are different from us. In a real sense, they don’t have some of the filters and boundaries that we have because they have been idols since they were very young men.”

Jason didn’t like to hear his friends being spoken of in that way, because he liked to pretend that John and Paul were totally “themselves” when in his and Gerry’s company. But of course, Gerry was often right about things like this, even if his take on things was often gloomy and unappetizing. “Oh no, do you suppose they have had a fight over this?” Jason was chagrinned that his little lovely dinner might have spawned a terrible rift in John and Paul’s relationship.

Gerry sighed. “You know, Paul is a difficult nut to crack. I sometimes find it hard to read him. But I’m not sure he ‘fights’ the way, you know, John does. I suspect he clams up and broods. I don’t know if they fought or not, but Paul was not a happy man when he left tonight.” 

Jason was distressed, and found it very difficult to sleep that night. He lay awake thinking of what he should do to undo the damage. His brain was working overtime, and he finally concluded that he could persuade John to just redecorate the loft, and forget about moving for a while. One thing he didn’t think of was letting John and Paul solve the problem themselves.

 

*****

 

Paul woke up the next morning and, as his mind began to gain focus, he felt that combination of sadness and anxiety that had often haunted him since he was a child. Paul had lived long enough to have some idea of the kinds of things that triggered that terrible feeling. It seemed to happen when there were serious abrupt changes to his everyday, accustomed routine, and he had no say in or control over them. As he lay there, he realized he had overreacted to John’s plans, but hadn’t John learned yet how much he dreaded change in his personal life? Couldn’t John have approached the subject in a different way?

Paul knew that John was angry with him, and had slept in the other room. He felt sad about the empty space in the bed beside him, but Paul knew that he had done the right thing not to confront John about the whole sell-the-loft, buy-a-big-fat- obvious-apartment thing while he was in that shell-shocked frame of mind. Lately it seemed that all the people he loved most were going off at weird unpredictable angles, in ways small and great. 

Mike - his beloved little brother - refusing even to see him once he’d learned the truth. Okay, so maybe it was a shock, and maybe it was unwelcome news, but hadn’t Paul earned enough credit in all those years for Mike to give him at least a chance to explain? When Paul was busy with work, and things were going well, it was easy for him to push this painful estrangement to the back of his mind. But at times like these, when he was sad and alone and confused, it all came rushing to the fore.

And Linda - he had never really dealt with the fact that she had betrayed him, too. She had blurted out the truth to Mike in a moment of hurt and anger. While he could understand her hurt and anger, he couldn’t understand why she had chosen such a particularly painful way of exorcising it. Couldn’t she have just let me have it good and hard the next time she saw me if she’d felt I’d done something wrong? And what had he done wrong? He thought he’d behaved very circumspectly during the entire party, sticking by her until almost the end, and doing everything he could to deflect the gossip that had apparently been whizzing around him, despite his failure to pick up on it.

And now John. John’s announcement about selling the loft and buying a great big shiny new (read: high profile, to be noted in all the papers) apartment sounded like a declaration of independence to Paul. John was apparently prepared to make a significant unilateral decision that affected both of their lives. And didn’t John remember that it was he, Paul, who had purchased the loft, and no one could sell it without his permission? Not that Paul would withhold his permission if John wanted to sell, but there was something so peremptory about John’s announcement that had cut Paul to the core. As if John were planning a future that would happen with or without Paul.

What was left for Paul to hold on to that was certain? If his brother, his wife, and John were all making decisions about him and his life and excluding him from the discussion, how was he to know or understand his place in the universe? 

As he concluded this thought, the bedroom door opened, and John was standing in the aperture, his hair sticking out all over and looking the worse for wear.

“Pud?” John’s voice sounded sad and tentative.

Paul struggled to a sitting position. “Yes?”

John took this as an invitation and came over to Paul’s side of the bed and sat down again. “I barely slept at all last night. I missed being with you.”

Paul’s soft heart melted. It was as if John had a direct connection to his heart, and could melt it with a single word. “I missed you too,” Paul said softly.

“I’m sorry I got blasted drunk and got carried away with my ideas,” John said sincerely. “I never should have said that stuff without talking to you first.”

Paul’s eyes stung with unshed tears. John was going to acknowledge he was wrong, and things would be right again. “I overreacted, I know I did,” Paul said softly. “I just don’t like important decisions to be made suddenly, I’m a bit of a worrywart.” 

John indicated through some kind of extrasensory communication that he wanted to climb in to bed with Paul, and Paul, sensing it, moved towards the middle of the bed and held the covers out so John could climb in. They faced each other as they held each other. “Well,” John said softly, his hand brushing the hair out of his lover’s eyes, “you may be a worrywart, but you’re my little worrywart, and I love you.”

Maybe John was someone he could depend on after all.

 

*****

 

A few hours later, John and Paul were up, but still in their bathrobes, lazing in the sitting area reading newspapers. The phone rang, and John answered it.

“John! It’s Jason!”

“Hey, Jay,” John said in a slightly less enthusiastic tone of voice.

“I had a thought after you left last night,” he said.

“Yes?” John was trying to figure out how to dial back his planning schedule with Jason without hurting his feelings. He and Paul had not yet spoken about John’s plans because Paul was still kind of sore, emotionally, and John had sensed it was not a good time to push his agenda. 

“Well, it seems to me that the plans we were discussing last night were a bit grandiose, considering you are just starting a 6-month tour.” Jason tried to make his voice sound neutral.

“Oh?” John asked. He was actually hopeful that Jason had cooled his jets on his own overnight.

“Yes. I think you should think about just remodeling the loft, and see how that feels to you. Once you’ve made it your own, you can decide whether you want to keep it or sell it. And, overseeing the blueprinting of your plans on a remodeling project of your own space is so much easier to do while you’re on tour than a whole new apartment.”

John was quiet for a moment. Jason was offering him the Way Out, and he should have been grateful. But John’s desire to live out loud again - to live in the sunlight (hence, the desire for floor to ceiling windows overlooking Central Park) was still deep inside John, and he hadn’t given up his dream. But he realized selling the remodel to Paul was going to be much easier than selling a move. There was more than one way to skin the cat, and John instantly decided that he could reach his dream incrementally. He could tell Paul “let’s just redecorate the loft,” and he was sure Paul would be okay with that. Later on, once the remodel was done and the tour was over, he could start pushing the move. Jason, bless him, had inadvertently shown him the real Way Out. John looked around to make sure Paul had closed the door to the master bedroom, where he’d gone to take a shower. The coast was clear.

“You know Jay, I had the same thought,” John said. “Of course, you don’t know this, but Paul was quite upset about the idea of moving. He needs time to adjust to the idea of change. He is one of those people who gets very worried about it. He still owns the first house he ever bought! He keeps his cars for 10 years. When his sheepdog died, he refused to buy another sheepdog. He clings to objects, people, places. I think they give him a sense of continuity.”

Jason was relieved to hear John’s rational tone. He couldn’t hear any stress in John’s voice, so he assumed that whatever happened between John and Paul after they left the Dakota hadn’t developed into a serious issue. 

“I was hoping we could meet at the Dakota for drinks tonight,” Jason said, “and then maybe we can go out somewhere for dinner. Gerry and I want to treat you both.”

Well, John thought, having Gerry and Jason there might help the awkwardness that still remained between Paul and him, especially since Jason had reconsidered his excitement about the move idea. Paul would feel good to have an ally on his side.

“Let me talk to Paul, and I’ll call you back,” John said. He’d done his share of making decisions without talking to Paul lately, and wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, or at least not until they had truly made up over the first time he’d done it.

When Paul came out looking all fresh and gorgeous, John involuntarily smiled. What else could he do at such a sight? He then said, “Jason and Gerry want to treat us to a dinner out.”

“We just saw them last night,” Paul said, surprised.

“Jason is having second thoughts about the whole find-a new-apartment idea. He thinks I’m taking on too much while we’re just going on tour. He wants to focus on helping me redecorate the loft, and would like to revisit the plans.”

Paul heard this with substantial relief. He certainly did not begrudge John his desire to have a nicer place to stay when they were in New York. But he didn’t want to deal with a high profile property purchase, which would only focus more attention on their living arrangements, and he had been most worried about John’s expressed desire to spend more time in New York. Paul had not been ready for those two substantial changes in his life, and he could only imagine how Linda would react, and, to a lesser but a growing extent, his children. Lately, they had become very vocal about sticking up for their mother. Sometimes John acted as though he was the only consideration Paul had when discussing future arrangements.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind going out to dinner and not paying for it for a change. How ‘bout you?” Paul asked.

John noticed that Paul had perked up substantially once he found out that Jason had already suggested to John that he scale back his plans. John sighed. He would just have to be patient. Paul always took longer to try something new and different. Paul’s resistance to change in his personal life had always been one of the banes of John’s life. “Ok then. They suggest we meet them at the Dakota for drinks, and then we can take a cab to the restaurant.”

 

*****

 

Paul was nothing if not gifted at shoving aside unpleasantness when it suited him (which was almost always). So he was quite charming and cheerful when they greeted Jason and Gerry again at the Dakota that night for drinks at 7 p.m. Dinner was going to be at a new French/Vietnamese fusion restaurant in the Soho area. Jason had encouraged Gerry to get crazy and mix some colorful cocktails, and he had produced some ice-cold blue vodka drinks, with blueberries on skewers. John and Paul both laughed out loud in delight at seeing them. No matter what happened, Gerry and Jason always managed to surprise them in a good way.

As the four men were laughing and joking (and avoiding the controversial subject from the night before) the doorbell suddenly rang.

Jason and Gerry looked at each other in surprise. They rarely had unscheduled visitors, and any such visitors had to go through the security desk downstairs, and so they would have had a warning call if someone had come from outside.

Gerry got up to answer the door. He was not at all prepared for whom he found there. Yoko Ono.

 

*****

 

It was a gloomy overcast July day in Liverpool, and this matched Mike McCartney’s mood precisely. It had been over a month since “the Party”, as Mike had started thinking of the night when he had learned that his brother had a homosexual relationship. Although the rage he had felt in the beginning had been stoked down, there remained a burning resentment against John Lennon. The more he had thought about it, the more he had understood that his brother had always been in Lennon’s thrall, right from the start. Mike, too, had been swept away by Lennon’s charisma and aura of danger, but he had never gotten very close to John. In fact, Mike had always treated John the way he would an open flame. There was ample opportunity to get burned.

His brother, he knew, had always been a golden boy. He set off an aura of enchantment that drew people to him, even if they soon realized that Paul’s determination to keep people away from his secret heart was as strong as the pull of his outrageous charm. Mike now realized that Lennon had targeted Paul for a complete takedown right from the start. The part that Mike had never allowed himself to imagine, however, given his brother’s propensity for having sex with the opposite sex, was that John would pursue his brother sexually, and that Paul would succumb. That this whole sex thing had been John’s idea was something Mike had never doubted for a moment. For whatever reason, Paul had always been a complete sucker for John. Mike remembered his father’s rages over Paul’s falling grades, and his ditching class, and his disappointing A levels. (What did Paul expect, Jim had raged, if he didn’t even study, and spent all his nights sneaking out to hang out in dive pubs with boys 2 years older than him?) Paul had suddenly been smoking, and drinking alcohol, and getting girls pregnant, and lying to his father about his whereabouts, and turning all of the trousers his father had purchased for him into drainies behind his father’s back. Jim had been nearly driven mad by it, as he was trying desperately to raise a gifted son without his wife’s help. 

As a teenager, Mike had been slightly amused by his father’s frustration, understanding the attraction of John Lennon, and enjoying very much hanging around on the outskirts of the circle of friends surrounding John and Paul. But now - now he realized there was a lot going on there that had been wrong, and he had been lied to and misled by his brother. How long? Mike wondered. How long had this been going on? 

This was an improvement. Instead of pushing the unpleasant reality out of his mind, Mike was now asking questions. He had no intention of asking anyone the questions, much less listening to any answers, but at least the questions were being posed internally. Not that Mike noticed it, but perhaps that was a start. He still was not ready to see his brother, but he had already admitted to himself, however fleetingly, he could not go the rest of his life without his brother in it.

 

*****

 

“Hello!” Gerry said, surprised and fumbling for words. He had never met Yoko Ono before. He had only seen her coming and going, and she had always given off an aura that she didn’t want anyone to approach her. 

“Yes, hello,” she said, in what was to Gerry a surprising little girl’s breathy voice. “I am told that John is here?” 

Gerry saw a very tiny, delicate woman in all black, with a large quantity of black hair pulled back severely from her face. She wore no makeup. 

“Yes,” Gerry said slowly, while inside his head the word “disaster” was echoing in his brain. He wished Jason were there instead of him. Jason would know what to do. Thankfully, Jason suddenly appeared by Gerry’s side, curious to find out who was there, and what was taking Gerry so long. He stopped up short when he saw the woman standing there.

“Hello,” Jason said putting out his hand, “I’m Jason, and this is my partner, Gerry." 

Yoko’s smile was perfunctory. “I came to say hello to John,” she said softly. She almost seemed shy and tentative to Jason and Gerry. They were a bit embarrassed that they had built her up into a kind of overpowering amazon in their minds. 

“Well, John is here, and so is Paul,” Jason said as tactfully as he could. 

“Yes, I know that. I wanted to say hello.” Yoko’s voice showed a little bit of the steel that was in her backbone. She was starting to be a little irritated by the fact that these two men were blocking her from her goal. 

Jason and Gerry were taken aback by this subtle but impressive change. (Later, after the evening was over and they were lying in bed, Jason said to Gerry, “it was like she was the little girl from the Exorcist. One moment she was as sweet as pie, and the next her head was spinning!”) 

Jason’s protective nature came to the fore. “I understand you want to see him, but I need to find out if he wants to see you. If you will wait here with Gerry for a few moments, I will find out.” His voice was very polite, but equally firm. 

Yoko appeared to be taken aback. But Gerry suggested she step into the hallway while she waited, and asked her how she was doing. Yoko gave him a look that he could only describe as contemptuous. Her attitude appeared to be that he, Gerry, was of no consequence, and that he shouldn’t bother to annoy her with small talk, so Gerry subsided, and decided he wasn’t going to feel awkward. If she didn’t mind standing there like a potted plant, ignoring him, then he didn’t mind either.

Meanwhile, Jason had gone into the sitting room, and did something unusual. He closed the door to the room that had never been closed in John’s memory. “John, Yoko is at the door.”

“What?” 

Jason couldn’t tell if the shout came from John or Paul or both of them. All he could say was that both of them were sitting there with their mouths fallen open in total shock. Paul had the wherewithal to put his glass down on a table, but John’s was still dangling precariously in his right hand. 

“She says she wants to say ‘hello’ to you both,” Jason said in a hushed voice.

John looked at Paul in a panic. He didn’t actually say anything to Paul, but Paul got the message loud and clear. John was asking, please help me deal with this! Paul stood up. He took John’s glass out of his hand, and put it down on a table. 

“Well, if she wants to see us, then by all means show her in,” Paul said firmly. John was still looking at Paul for reassurance, and he smiled down warmly at John. As Jason opened the door and headed down the hall, Paul leaned over and put his hands on John’s shoulders. “It’s okay, John,” he said is a confident, comforting voice. “She wouldn’t put herself into this position if she weren’t going to at least try to be civil. All we have to do is pretend that this isn’t the least bit awkward.”

Jason returned to the front hallway, where he saw Gerry standing, leaning against a wall with his arms and legs crossed, and Yoko leaning against the door, staring at the floor. They apparently hadn’t spoken at all. Jason felt hostility breeding in his breast, but fought it down. He knew he was prejudiced because of his fondness for John and what he thought Yoko had put John through, but he also was old and wise enough to know there were usually two sides to every story. But still, he had been the one to comfort John when he was in floods of tears over the hopelessness and sadness of his life with Yoko. Most of that appeared to be related to her over-controlling ways. He wiped these thoughts away as he smiled politely at Yoko.

“Come right through here,” he said, gesturing grandly in the direction of the sitting room. Over Yoko’s shoulder Gerry was giving Jason a look that said: she’s a piece of work! Jason led Yoko to the sitting room, where Paul and John were standing, waiting for the moment when they would see Yoko again, in person, for the first time in years - about 8 years.

Paul was the one who approached Yoko first, with his arms open and a smile on his face. He gave her a big hug, and Yoko took full advantage of the hug. She took a huge sniff of Paul’s aroma. She had always liked the way he smelled, and had especially loved his long, strong arms and long, beautiful hands. It was nice being in his arms. But now he was pulling away a bit, although still with his hands on her shoulders. “Yoko! What a surprise! How did you know we were here?” Paul asked, as if this was not the most awkward moment ever.

“The door man told me that you had arrived, and where you went,” Yoko said.

Paul stepped aside and John stood there. He didn’t want to hug Yoko, but he didn’t see a way out of it, so he opened up his arms, and Yoko made a rather overdramatic beeline for John’s chest. John helplessly gave her a light hug. Hers was like a death grip. John felt very uncomfortable with Paul, Jason and Gerry all staring at him hugging Yoko. As soon as he could politely do so, he withdrew from her embrace. Jason quickly offered her a seat and asked if she wanted anything to drink. Yoko demurred. 

“So what’s up?” John finally asked, his brain a whirring buzz saw of conjecture and panic. Yoko still was able to stir up his moods without even trying, he noted. 

“I just thought it had been a long time, and we should say hello.” Yoko sounded perfectly rational, but John was suspicious. Yoko saw this expression, and doubled down. “It has been so long, John, and there is really no reason for us to be strangers.” 

Yes there is! John was screaming inside. Involuntarily he threw a glance at Paul, who was sitting quietly, even placidly, on the sofa next to John. Paul noted John’s anxiety and knew that it was time for him to start rowing.

“It has been a long time,” Paul agreed casually. “Of course, we have spoken on the phone a number of times.” This was true. After all it had been necessary over the years to make plans to share Sean’s time, and Paul had usually ended up resolving disputes, because John would fly into a rage whenever Yoko played her control games over his visitation periods. 

John’s silence was starting to annoy Yoko. “So,” she said, her voice a bit sharper. “I just thought I’d take the opportunity to say ‘hi’. I don’t see why we can’t be friends.”

A minute ago she didn’t want to be strangers. Now she wants to be ‘friends’. Jason was not feeling good about Yoko’s overtures. He wondered what she was really up to. And it really did take quite a nerve to barge into a stranger’s home to beard John in his den! 

“Well,” Paul said tentatively, feeling his way slowly and tactfully, “I know you have a very busy life, and so do we, so it isn’t surprising that we haven’t seen much of each other.” Paul was careful to emphasize the ‘us’-ness of John and him. It was Paul’s way of letting John know he had his back. 

Yoko was irked that Paul had included himself in on her invitation to be friends. She doubted friendship between Paul and her was anything other than an extremely long shot. First, she knew Paul didn’t find her attractive, and this annoyed her, and second, he always had way too much influence over John. Part of Yoko still wondered if John was going to tire of the whole triangle situation, or perhaps Paul or Linda would. She had little confidence she could tear John away from Paul, but if it happened of its own volition, she wanted to be in a position to step back in to John’s life before some other person caught his eye and took control. Still, if she wanted John to like her again, she would have to be polite to Paul.

“Yes, it is very difficult,” she said amicably. “But maybe I can see you backstage at the concert tomorrow night?”

Oh, so now she wants free tickets, Jason snarled to himself. He and Gerry had just been handed seats in the ninth row, but they hadn’t asked for them. Jason was looking forward to attending the concert, but not if he had to sit near to or socialize with Yoko. 

Paul said apologetically, “Yoko, we don’t have a whole bunch of tickets. We’ve already given them away to our friends, for both nights.”

“Oh, I can just stand in the wings. Backstage.”

The nerve of her! Jason thought angrily.

Paul cleared his throat and looked at John. John had been absolutely silent, as if a spell had been cast on him and he’d lost the power of speech. He was trying to read John’s body language to know if Yoko’s suggestion was acceptable or not acceptable to John. He doubted that John was thrilled about it, but he didn’t like to make that assumption. He finally thought of a way to test the waters.

“John, are we having anyone backstage?” Paul then turned to Yoko to explain. “We usually don’t have backstage visitors on back to back nights. We’re so tired after a show. I can’t remember if we’re entertaining anyone tomorrow night. John, do you remember?” 

John knew what Paul was doing, and so he was about to take the opportunity to speak up. But before he could speak, Yoko trumped them both.

“Of course, it would be me and Sean. Sean very much wants to experience the show from backstage.”

Paul withheld a sigh of distress. Now there was no way to say ‘no’. He exchanged glances with John, whose face looked confused, and Paul decided to bite the bullet.

“I think it sounds fun. It will be good to see Sean before the show. But we intend to go straight back to our flat after the show is over, because we will need our rest.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Yoko said, smiling. Her smile on the outside looked pleased and polite. The smile on the inside was Machiavellian and victorious. “John! You haven’t said a word!” Yoko’s voice was flirtatious. This rankled Paul, and the fact that he was rankled surprised him. But it really pissed off Jason. He got up in preparation to escort her out of the flat.

“We’ve got to leave in the next few minutes, or we’ll be late for our reservations,” he said politely to Yoko, and then held his arm out expansively, but in the direction of the hallway. 

John said, “Bye, Yoko,” in a quasi-mumbling voice. Yoko insisted upon another hug, and even spared one for Paul. Then she finally left. 

John groaned and allowed himself to fall backwards on to the sofa. Paul whistled and uttered “Phew!”

Jason bustled back mumbling under his breath. “I can’t believe that she invited herself in here! What chutzpah!”

“Jay, it’s not our business,” Gerry corrected softly. Then he spoke so all could hear. “We should all leave now. The taxi is probably down there waiting already.” Their moods now ruined, they all straggled down the elevator and got into the taxi. It was a quiet ride to the restaurant, and Gerry was trying to think of a way to break the chilly silence. He needn’t have worried.

“Well, that was a cheery start to the evening,” Paul suddenly chirped in a manic voice from the front seat, where he was sitting next to the driver. This broke the ice, and John, Gerry and Jason chuckled. 

“That woman sure knows how to bring a party to a screeching halt,” John joked. 

“I wonder what she is up to?” Jason asked. 

“Jay - I’ve told you. It’s not our business!” Gerry reminded.

“Oh, Gerry, give up. Jason’s going to butt into my life, and I’m gonna let him. I like him in my life,” John said cheerfully. 

By the time they got to the restaurant they were all in a good mood again, and looking forward to a fun evening. After they’d eaten, they were nursing their coffee and after dinner drinks, and the subject of Yoko’s visit came up again, although this time a bit more seriously.

“Why do you suppose she suddenly wants to be friends again?” John asked the table generally. 

“Has she run out of money?” Jason wondered.

Paul laughed. “No way. That woman is sharp with a dime. She’s doing fine financially, I’m sure.”

“It takes one to know one,” John joked in a theatrical whisper to Jason and Gerry.

“Do you think she’s trying to get you back, John?” Gerry asked, surprising everyone. Generally, he didn’t involve himself in other people’s lives or gossip. But his voice was dead serious, because to Gerry this seemed like the likeliest possibility.

“I don’t see how she could think that,” John said. “She’s got to know I’m not going to leave Paul.”

“Perhaps she thinks you’re now ready to share,” Paul suggested softly. He still remembered her suggestion that John remain married to her, and then have Paul “on the side.” 

John was silent. “I suppose that is possible. I mean, sometimes when Sean is with me I complain about the sharing situation. Like when you went off in January for 3 weeks with Linda. I complained a lot. Maybe he repeated that to Yoko.”

Paul sighed. He knew it was selfish of him, but he had no desire to have Yoko back in their lives. She had only ever meant pain and estrangement to him after all. He hoped that John wasn’t in for another one of her determined charm offensives.

“What would you think about that, John?” Jason asked. “Surely, you wouldn’t be interested?” 

“No, no, of course not.” John turned and grinned at Paul. “If I was going to cheat on you Paul, I’d pick a whole new woman.”

Paul was a bit embarrassed. “It isn’t cheating, John,” he said softly. “You’re entitled to have relationships with other people.” 

“Women you mean. When you’re not around. And not when I’m drinking…”

“…yeah, yeah, and not in our home…” Paul had heard this rant at least a hundred times.

“…and not without a condom, and not when Sean’s around, and only if there is a full moon in the house of cancer…” John continued. 

Jason was chuckling into his coffee. He had always suspected Paul was a lot more possessive and jealous of John than he ever let on. John was clearly teasing Paul, and it was awfully cute.


	37. Chapter 37

The next night John and Paul arrived at Shea Stadium just before sound check, and went through the usual drill. (John was already getting bored with it, and knew that pretty soon he’d be making excuses to Paul about why it wasn’t necessary for him to go so long as one of the musicians tried out his instruments and microphones.) Later, as the beginning of the show drew near, Jason and Gerry showed up with their backstage passes. This was the second of John and Paul’s concerts they’d attended, and they felt a bit like old hands now since they knew pretty much what to expect. Also backstage were Billy Joel and Robert De Niro among others, but John and Paul were each privately dreading the moment Yoko would show up.

Paul figured she would arrive at the most dramatic psychological moment in order to make as loud a statement as possible. And, he suspected there would be some of her freaky hangers-on and probably a photographer or two. He couldn’t see Yoko missing the chance at a great photo opportunity. Oh well. He would just have to grin and bear it, since there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t hurt or embarrass Sean, or make himself look small in front of everyone. 

John was just worried over the emotional awkwardness of being around Yoko with Paul there, and all these people watching them. He honestly couldn’t wait for it all to be over. Although it had been almost a decade since he’d freed himself from Yoko’s thrall, he still felt deeply unsettled by her reappearance in his life. It wasn’t really Yoko he was afraid of, John knew. It was his own inability to recognize her manipulations until it was too late that worried him. Would he be strong enough to stand up to it, assuming she wasn't on the up and up? John hoped she was sincere, for Sean's sake.

At that moment they heard a lot of excited chatter and saw a bunch of flashbulbs going off. 

That’s her, Paul said to himself, groaning inwardly and preparing for the onslaught. 

Sure enough, Yoko Ono was there, exuding all the confidence of a major player. Sean was there, too, but he quickly peeled away from Yoko’s entourage of Elliot Mintz, Annie Liebowitz and a few others to engulf his father in a bear hug. They had last seen each other a few months earlier, when Sean had stayed in London during his spring holidays. John saw the crowd of people over Sean’s shoulder and was pissed. He had agreed that Yoko and Sean could come, but not anyone else. And there was the Rolling Stone photographer who had taken that excruciatingly embarrassing photo of him naked while embracing Yoko in late 1980. She had her camera, and was busily snapping pictures. Paul and John had a standing injunction against anyone taking photos backstage at their performances. How like Yoko to just assume she could do what she wanted, and to imperiously brush off the road managers’ attempts to enforce the rule. 

Paul, too, was irritated by the photography, but he had totally expected it so he was prepared. He wasn’t going to act all dog-in-the-manger in front of the Rolling Stone photographer, so he made his face light up in happiness at seeing Yoko, and then allowed himself to be photographed hugging her. He had only met Elliot Mintz once before, when the strange man (was his skin orange?) had been inexplicably included in a restaurant dinner outing Paul and Linda had invited John and Yoko to. That was back in the mid ‘70s. Neither Paul nor Linda had understood why he was there. And Paul, as he was reintroduced to Mintz this night, still was mystified by the man’s presence. 

John was very uneasy seeing Mintz, and apparently a couple of other people Yoko had dragged in were also known to John from his Dakota days, Paul could see. They all greeted him with over-the-top excitement and pleasure, but it all seemed so…phony…to Paul. 

“I’m sorry about all this.” Paul heard words in his ear, startled, and then turned and saw that it was Sean talking to him quietly. Upon seeing Sean, Paul’s smile became genuine, and he gave him a big hug. 

“Why sorry?” Paul asked lightly.

“I know you hate this shit. I told mom it wasn’t on, but you know how she is. Once she’s got an idea…”

“It’s okay, Sean. We’ll survive. We really prefer to rest before a show, but we can handle it for one night.” Paul was still embracing Sean as they spoke, although they had pulled apart and were looking at each other as they did so. They let go after they were caught in a bright camera flash. Shit, Paul thought to himself. Is nothing scared?

More than the photography what worried Paul about the entourage was what Yoko might have told them about his relationship with John. All this time he’d assumed Yoko had moved on, and had put the drama behind her. Suddenly it was occurring to him that maybe Yoko had been quietly complaining and gossiping about them to her coterie of sycophantic hangers-on. And people like that could never be trusted to keep their mouths shut. 

John’s bewilderment about seeing all these people from his past flashing in front of him in the light cast by Annie’s strobe lights began to get the best of him. It was chaotic, and it was causing John to become very nervous. He looked around for Paul and couldn’t at first see him. A feeling of panic was rising in his throat. His sense of disorientation drove him to push wordlessly past Yoko’s friends, and to look actively for Paul. Instead he was glad to see one of their bodyguards. “Where’s Paul?” John asked quietly.

“He’s right over there,” the man said, pointing across the room. It was with relief that he saw Paul chatting with Jason and Gerry off in a corner. He went straight for them.

“It’s fucking insane,” John raged. “What is she doing dragging all these fucking people back here?” 

“John, shhh, keep your voice down. The place is crawling with listening ears,” Paul cautioned softly. 

John quieted his voice, but his anger was still flaring in his eyes. “You give her an inch, she takes a mile.” He grumbled. Jason and Gerry privately agreed with John, as did Paul, but none of them said anything. 

“John!” It was Yoko, who had apparently snuck up behind them. “Why are you hiding in this corner? We all want to talk to you.” 

John turned around to face Yoko and said, “This is all a bit too crazy for me before the show,” he said, as calmly as he could. 

“Well, then, why don’t we all go back to your flat after the show?” Yoko suggested.

“No!” The word came, surprisingly, from Paul. It had been involuntary, and Paul had even surprised himself.

Yoko glared at him. “You don’t have to socialize with us, but maybe John wants to.” 

“No, John doesn’t,” John said angrily. “We made it clear last night. We have another show here tomorrow, and tonight Paul and I are going home - alone - to get a good night’s rest.” And Yoko must be insane to think he would drag such blabbermouths into the flat he shared with Paul. It would be all over the street the next day!

Yoko was a bit surprised by the strength of John’s reaction. She had felt he had been kind of wobbly and perhaps even ambivalent about being around her again, but this strong objection indicated that perhaps she had read him wrong. She would have to reconsider her approach. “Oh, yes, of course. I remember now. But what about after tomorrow’s show?”

Although to an objective listener, Yoko's questions were respectful and unexceptional, Paul couldn’t listen any more. He knew he was going to say something embarrassing if he stayed, so he walked away, and went to the dressing room to get ready for the show. John would have to deal with it himself. If John couldn’t stand up to the woman and tell her to get the fuck out of their lives, then he could deal with all of her bullshit and her motley crew of friends by himself. Paul wanted no part of it. What’s more, he had become increasingly worried that Yoko had violated or was about to violate the confidentiality agreement she had entered into at the time of her divorce from John, and if so, a great way to do so would be to expose John and Paul to all these flaky people in the loft they shared. He wished John hadn’t said, “Paul and I are going home…” quite so loudly and definitely. Who might have heard?

John saw Paul stalk away in disgust, and so it was with increased irritation that he turned back to Yoko. “Paul and I will be leaving for Chicago right after the show tomorrow night. We’re on tour. And we’re not spring chickens anymore. We need rest to be able to keep our energy up for the concerts. So no, we won’t be partying tonight or tomorrow night. Sorry.”   
John’s voice was polite and firm, and there was no room whatsoever to maneuver within.

“I see, of course. Maybe next time you are in New York we can get together?” Yoko had slipped back into her little girl voice and persona. She knew in the past this had always charmed John, and brought out the protectiveness in him. She watched John’s face, and saw it relaxing a little. He did appear to soften a little.

“Yeah, maybe next time. But it will be months - our tour is just starting.” 

Yoko hugged John and whispered in his ear. “Well, for me, I am so happy to have seen you again. I miss our friendship.” 

Friendship? John asked himself. Had he and Yoko really had a friendship? Perhaps they had been friends in between the rocky parts of their time together. Still, to John, the whole Yoko thing was too fraught with emotion and painful memories to be anything other than upsetting to him. “Well, I’ve got to go get ready for the show. I hope you enjoy it.” John waved goodbye to all the people in the room, and then disappeared down the hall to the dressing room. He knocked first to warn Paul, and then went in. He locked the door once he was inside. It was a huge locker room for a baseball team. Paul was seated on one of the benches dressed for the show except his coat. He looked a little down.

“You okay Pud?” John asked as brightly as possible. 

Paul looked up and shook his head. “I don’t know why I let that woman get to me,” he said. “So many bad memories…”

John sat down next to Paul and put his arm around him. “I know. I’m all worked up too. But at least the awkward part is over. We’ll see her on our way on to the stage, and if she hangs around, we’ll see her on our way out of the stage area, but then we’ll be in our car and on our way out of here, and we won’t have to see her again.” 

Paul nodded. He felt stupid. He should be comforting John, and instead it was the other way around. He slapped his thighs and stood up. “Well, Johnny boy. Time to get ready!”

 

*****

 

The New York crowd was roaring with approval as John and Paul took their final bow. It had been an exhausting night, but both men were exhilarated with how well the show had gone despite the stressful hour they’d spent before it started. As it turned out, they didn’t even notice Yoko on the way out, although Sean had given them high fives as they rushed through on their way to their car. Soon the car was racing out of the stadium in a previously planned route. They knew that Jason and Gerry had been in the crowd facing them, and at one point in the concert, after completing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” John had sung a few lines from “With a Little Help From My Friends” in a comic voice and had then said, “That’s you Jay and Ger!” No one but Jason and Gerry understood what he said, but they roared with good cheer anyway. 

When they walked into their flat, John again noted how dull and depersonalized it was. He was enthused about fixing it up a bit, but he wasn't going to think about it tonight! Tonight he was exhausted, and could think of nothing better than to curl up in Paul’s arms and get a good night’s sleep. He followed Paul down the hallway and found him in the act of undressing. 

“You want some help?” John asked.

Paul laughed. “A little help from my friend…why not?” 

John approached Paul, and pulled him into his arms. Once Paul was in his arms he found he just wanted to hold on for a while. He finally said, “I’m so glad that is over.”

Paul was hugging John back and he said softly, “Me too.”

John slowly peeled off Paul’s shirt, and let it fall to the floor. Without another word, Paul and then John were divested of their clothes, and rather than allowing an intense sexuality to overcome them, what they felt was sensual. The touching they shared was soft, supple, and sweet. They were nose to nose, and there were smiling curves on their mouths. The closeness was calming to Paul, who had been upset by Yoko’s sudden reappearance in their lives. A deep dark part of him apparently believed that John might still be drawn in by Yoko’s siren song. John, meanwhile, thought he had put the Yoko sighting out of his mind. Right at that moment he had Paul at his tender fingertips, and to him that was the whole world. 

 

*****

 

Linda had a free morning, and while that usually filled her with happiness, on this day it was worrying her. She couldn’t help falling into a blue mood. In the month since Paul had left on tour, she had often felt blue, and she knew it was because she had driven a wedge between Paul and his brother. She had regretted that moment thousands of times since then. Six whole weeks, and there was still a frosty wind blowing down from the north. On this particular morning, Linda decided she had to talk to Rowena about it. Enough time had gone by that she felt it would be normal for her to call her sister-in-law for a chat, if Mike should learn of it.

It was, thankfully, one of the girls who answered the phone, and soon Rowena was on the other line. 

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” Linda asked. She knew how it was having a house full of young children, as Rowena had now. This, too, sent a wave of sadness through Linda as she thought that her youngest was now about to turn 15 years old, and all of her daughters had moved out. 

“I just put the youngest down for their naps. Honestly. It takes longer and longer every day it seems.” Rowena had taken the call in the kitchen, and she was thankfully alone right then. 

Linda said, “I had to call to apologize again for what I said that night…”

“Linda, you really don’t have to. He was besieging you with questions. We’d all drunk too much and we were all exhausted.” Rowena had worried about Linda more than once in the last 6 weeks, wondering if Paul had given her a hard time over it. But she didn’t dare ask. It seemed with Paul and Linda the information flowed one way - from her and Mike to them - and not the other way ‘round. Paul was almost paranoid about his privacy, and now Rowena had finally realized why. At least he had a good reason.

“Has Mike said anything to you about it?” Linda’s voice sounded anxious.

Here is the point of the conversation, Rowena thought to herself. “I have tried to raise the subject with him a couple of times, but he keeps shutting me down.”

“He’s still that mad?” This was what Linda had feared the most.

“No, he ‘shuts me down’ by talking all around the subject, but not really answering my questions. I think he is still digesting it all - you know, analyzing it. I’m hoping that eventually he will know what to do, and that he will do the right thing. He just needs more time.” Rowena hoped that this information would put Linda more at ease.

“Paul no doubt is doing the same thing. I talk to him on the phone every night, but he never brings it up. Its all about how much fun the tour is, and how are the kids, and what am I doing with my days, how much he misses us…” Linda trailed off.

Rowena was a bit surprised that Linda had opened up this much. It was out of character. She sounded insecure and a little frightened. Had she pushed Paul away from her by disclosing the truth to Mike? Rowena hoped not, because she believed Linda was extremely good for Paul, and that Paul was extremely good for Linda. They supported each other unconditionally, or at least they had always done so in the past to Rowena’s knowledge. “I’m sure they both will come to their senses, and find a way to discuss the issue like grown ups.”

Linda laughed, getting some of her spirit back. “You can’t be talking about Paul and Mike McCartney, can you? Finding a way to discuss a problem openly like grown ups? Ha! Not likely.” 

Rowena laughed too, glad that she was able at least to pull a little humor out of Linda.

 

*****

 

Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. were behind them as they settled into their hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. John had been on the phone almost every day talking to Jason and the interior decorator, and the proposed plans would arrive via overnight delivery at their various locales, and John would pore over them with all of the insane intensity for which he was famous. Paul could only watch him from afar and chuckle to himself, wondering what on earth could be so fascinating. Of course, he’d been through this on the last tour, when John was planning the remodel of his London home, and Paul had been nearly driven mad by the swatches and blueprints and lord knows what else. Still, he supposed it was good for John, in that it kept his restless mind busy in a constructive way, even if it was an interest that Paul didn’t share. Paul also felt relieved that John seemed focused on keeping the loft, rather than purchasing a high profile apartment. Just the thought of the public attention that would accrue to such a venture (not to mention having to break the news to Linda!) gave Paul a sore stomach. 

And perhaps what bothered him most about the whole fix-up the flat, buy a new-one plan were those chilling words he’d heard that night at Jason and Gerry’s: “spend more time in New York.” Paul did not want to spend more time in New York. New York was John’s city - John and Yoko’s. He didn’t want to live in the shadow of that reality, and now especially since Yoko seemed to be stirring the pot again. At least London was neutral territory. Memories there went back to the early ‘60s, and most of them were John and Paul memories. But he really had to show some interest in John’s project. It was only polite.

Paul stirred and then said, “John, do you mind showing me what you’re working on?” 

John looked up as if he had been given an electric shock, and his face lit up with delight. “Well, come over here then, and I’ll go through it with you!”

Paul smiled at how happy John was that he had showed an interest. He quickly bounced across the room and sat down with a plop next to John, who laughed at Paul’s flouncy arrival. John pulled out a blueprint (which was white and black, not blue and white) and showed Paul the basic changes he was planning on making. Paul noted that the kitchenette was going away, and the kitchen area had been expanded to take in part of the living room area. In addition, the entry into the apartment had been redirected to empty into an open floor plan, rather than into a hallway. Clearly, most of John’s time was being spent on the kitchen. There were all kinds of handwritten notes in the margins around the kitchen area. The master suite looked like it was going to be updated, including the enlargement of the bathroom area (losing a little square footage in the bedroom itself). 

Paul was a visual person, and could see where John was going with the design. “It looks really good, John,” Paul said sincerely. He noted that the windows along the wall where the kitchen joined the sitting area were to be removed, replaced with cabinetry and appliances, but clerestory windows were added the full length of the wall, above the cabinets. Paul pointed at them, and without having to ask the question, John knew what Paul’s question was. 

“We always have to keep those windows closed anyway, and they face on brick walls. So why not turn the downside into an upside and make myself a great kitchen?” John’s voice was both excited and shrewd at the same time. Paul watched John’s face as it danced with enthusiasm, and he smiled gently. He loved John this way; his whole world seemed to be right when John was happy. Paul figured the small fortune this remodel would no doubt cost (judging by the king’s ransom they’d paid for the London house) was a fair price to pay to see John so engaged and cheerful.

 

*****

 

“Hello Orlando!” John shouted into the microphone, to be met with a huge groan and a loud chorus of boo's. “What?” He demanded angrily of his audience.

“It’s Atlanta, John,” Paul said in a stage whisper into his microphone.

“Hello Atlanta!” John shouted with just as much enthusiasm. This time the audience roared its approval. This tour John and Paul had found their irreverent mojo, and had dispensed with staged set pieces. Although of course they had rehearsed some for the dry nights, they were both willing to abandon them at the slightest whim. It was their way of reliving their Hamburg club days in a tiny little way. “Atlanta, Orlando, what’s the fucking difference?” John demanded of the audience, encouraging another wave of boo’s which rolled down from the very top of the stadium down though the middle and up from the floor to the stage.

“You’ve really torn it now, John,” Paul commented objectively as the booing finally started waning. “We’d better start singing before they come after us.” With that they segued into Instant Karma. 

 

*****

 

“We’re talking with two living legends!” The television reporter was enthusing over his tame interview subjects, who were doing a series of small TV and radio interviews in Birmingham, Alabama in advance of their next concert.

“Really?” John cried, clapping his hands with excitement. “Who are they?” 

“I think he means us, John,” Paul said directly to John, but knowing that the microphone was picking it up.

“Oh, bummer,” John pouted.

The television reporter laughed nervously and said, “Of course, I’m referring to John Lennon and Paul McCartney!” 

John presented the camera with a huge shit-eating grin, and Paul tried not to notice. Really, John was pulling out all the stops on this tour. Paul turned a calm, unperturbed face to the camera. 

“What finally brings you to Birmingham?” The reporter asked.

“Money. Lots of money.” John’s voice sounded chirpy and pleasant.

The reporter chuckled half-heartedly, not sure where to go with that. Paul saved him.

“Our promoter finds the best places to go, and we look for great stadiums and fun audiences.” 

Relieved, the reporter turned to Paul for some sane answers. He was wary of John, who didn’t appear to be taking the interview seriously.

“You have never played in Birmingham, have you Paul?” He asked. 

“No, we haven’t.” Paul agreed.

“Why not?” The reporter pressed.

Paul was about to say a bromide, but John jumped in, “Well, in the ‘60s this city was segregated, and we wouldn’t play any segregated gigs, and then in ’66 you were all burning our records because I made a comment about Jesus.”

Paul, internally, was rolling his eyes and groaning, but outwardly he looked cool and placid. He calmly interjected, “We’re delighted that all that stuff is in the past. We understand that Birmingham is a very open and friendly place now.” 

The television reporter gratefully ended the interview with a few useable quotes, none of them from Lennon. The man was every bit as iffy as everyone said. Thank god for McCartney.

“Well, John, you really outdid yourself this time,” Paul said drily as they returned to their dressing room. 

“Well, I told the truth, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you certainly did,” Paul agreed patiently. “But no one likes to have their noses rubbed in their past bad behavior.”

“People are always rubbing my nose in my past bad behavior,” John grumbled. “But I take your point. It’s just that those TV reporters get under my skin. They’re sooo…over-groomed and precious.”

Paul laughed wholeheartedly at that. He couldn’t agree more.

 

*****

 

It was 3 o’clock in the morning, and John was wide-awake. He had awakened from a deep sleep and his heart was beating. He’d had a nightmare. He couldn’t remember what it was, but it was horrible - that much John could remember. Beside him, Paul was sound asleep. This had been a free night, and they had spent it in the hotel suite, splashing in the oversized bathtub and then sexing and lounging in the cool, satiny sheets. They were in Las Vegas, and the hotel suite was way over the top in a gaudy but kind of hilarious way. He and Paul had been reduced to giggles when they first walked in. But always the types to make lemonade out of lemons, they had soon put the ridiculous amenities to good use.

But now John felt spooked. He tiptoed out of the room, and out on to a balcony. Below him spread a city that didn’t sleep, although all the living was indoors in the casinos. There was a vast, dark desert spreading out in three directions, and the various hotels and casinos were a kaleidoscope of lights and colors below him. He went back into the suite to find the small liquor cabinet, and liberated a miniature Maker’s Mark whiskey bottle, and then returned to the balcony. It had to be in the seventies Fahrenheit, or so the news had said, so he wasn’t chilled, even though it was deep in the early morning.

John wondered what his dream had been about. So far this tour had been disorienting. He and Paul had been on a good vibe whenever they were on stage, but when they were off stage they had settled into a kind of routine. Of course tonight in that heart shaped marble bathtub they’d behaved in far from a routine way, and so they were still capable of surprising each other. Was that what was bothering him? That the exciting surprises were now few and far between? Had he grown too comfortable with Paul, and no longer felt a fear of losing him? Or, was he just tired of hiding the truth, and living in the fucking shadows? And if it was a good thing to hide their love away, why was he so stressed out? Why did it feel like a loss, or a downgrade, or something undesirable? John knew he was kind of a danger junkie, but one who really didn’t want to live with the consequences that usually came with the tendency to tempt fate. This left him scared to high heaven if he was in an insecure place, but then bored to the ground if in a secure place. It was the worst of both worlds. And he was damned tired of living in the shadows, lying about his life. If he couldn’t live his secret life out loud, he had to find some kind of life to live out loud!

John wondered - so long as Paul wanted to be with Linda and lie about his life with John - if life would be more exciting if he and Paul spent more time apart, and therefore might not take each other for granted. The whole idea of spending more time in New York appealed to John, and he thought perhaps this would be a good experiment. The time before when he had this idea - just after the cancer - was the wrong time. Everyone had been too torn up by the whole debacle, and weren’t ready for big changes. Also, John had been acting out his rage over the cancer scare by punishing Paul, so his motives had been wrong. But now - especially in light of the problem Paul was having with his brother and with Linda - now might be the time to see if spending some time apart on a pre-planned basis might not be a good thing. John knew that Paul would not like a change in his lifestyle. He was not the most flexible of people when it came to such things. But they had four more months of touring left, and Linda was scheduled to meet them in L.A. in a few days. Maybe he’d be able to broach the subject with Paul slowly, and over time, so that by the end of the tour he would be comfortable with the idea. 

And then, John thought, he could finish the improvements to the loft, and afterwards, he could buy himself an apartment overlooking the park with spectacular views. If Paul wanted to hold on to the loft as a safe place for them to meet when he was in New York, John had no objection. But John was feeling a sense of independence flooding in where once he wanted stability. All of these thoughts were new and kind of scary to John, so he knew he would have to chew on them for a while before taking any action. Hopefully, Paul would take the suggestions in the manner in which they were meant. Just because John wanted to spread his wings a little bit didn’t mean, after all, that he wanted to lose Paul. But John hated boredom more than he hated anything else (at least at that moment he thought so), and since John also thought that the “boredom” was caused by the great lie in their lives, he felt compelled to do something about it before his relationship with Paul was harmed.

 

*****

 

Not only Linda, but James, Mary and Stella arrived in Los Angeles to join Paul on tour. A mansion in Beverly Hills had been rented, and they had arrived two days before Paul did. It was an exciting end-of-summer treat, and the girls had even spent a night at the famous Whiskey-A-Go-Go, which was a bit down at the heels and tacky, but had incredible photographs from the ‘70s all over the walls. All the famous rock stars and actors had been there in their day, including their parents and John. 

Linda was looking forward to seeing Paul. It had been two months since he had left on tour, and although they had spoken every single night, she still missed him. She also was insecure because of the way they had left things. They had never really discussed the whole telling-Mike thing, and Linda worried that this issue had been festering in Paul’s brain while he was away. 

When John and Paul arrived at the house, it was an anti-climax. Linda didn’t even hear them until Paul walked into the breakfast room where she was seated, and then they hugged in a warm silence. John saw what was happening, and, yes, he had a twinge of jealousy. He could admit that. But in the long run, the stronger the Paul/Linda relationship was, the better the outlook for John’s long-range plans. He turned and dragged his suitcase into a free bedroom with an en suite. He knew he’d be staying there for the week they’d be in Los Angeles. They had two gigs at the LA Forum, and then they’d be on to San Diego. Apparently Linda and family would be traveling with them to San Diego, and then they would fly back to England while John and Paul continued the tour. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” Linda whispered in Paul’s ear. “This would be so much easier if James were older. I could come with you.”

Paul heard this, and something grabbed his heart. He loved Linda, and was thrilled to see her and their children, but he couldn’t see trying to maintain the sharing thing on a concert tour. John was his whole focus when they were touring, and he couldn’t imagine diluting his focus and having to deal with Linda and John at the same time. Of course, he didn’t want Linda to know that this was his reaction, so he hugged her harder, and kissed her more passionately. He did love her, and he did miss her, but tours -- they were for John and him. And hopefully nothing would change that.

John was getting himself settled in his room. He knew he’d be there for the better part of a week, and he also thought he should make himself scarce so that Linda and Paul could be alone together. He had some friends in LA, and thought he’d give them a call. They could go out to clubs together, and maybe he could make it with a woman ot two, and he could have a good time on his own. A win-win situation. 

That night, Paul wanted to take everyone out to dinner, and booked a huge table at Benihana, a Japanese restaurant where they chopped the food on a grill in front of the guests, and cooked everything right there fresh. He was told they could do a great vegetarian presentation, although their specialty was beef and fish. Paul went searching for John, and found him on his bed on the telephone. John gestured that it would take a few minutes, and seemed to wait until Paul backed out of the room.

That’s funny, Paul thought. Why can’t he finish his call with me there? He waited anxiously outside the closed bedroom door for a few moments before he felt absolutely ridiculous, and then he went downstairs. Was it fucking Yoko again? Well, Paul wasn’t going to hang around waiting for John to get off the phone. Still, as he waited at the large kitchen table, he began to fret at how long it was taking for John to come downstairs. When John did come downstairs, a good 40 minutes later, he was dressed to the nines.

“You look nice, John,” Linda said as she poured a cup of coffee for Paul. She assumed John had dressed for their dinner out.

“Thanks! Look all, I’m off! I’m meeting some friends at the Troubadour. Remember the Troubadour Paul?” John’s voice was rushed. He kind of knew he was blowing Paul off a bit, but wanted to do it as quickly and harmlessly as possible.

“Friends?” Paul asked, non-plussed.

“Yeah - Alice Cooper and Harry Nilsson.” John rushed in and gave Linda a quick goodbye hug, and then added, “See you later!” He was gone before Paul could even mention the Benihana dinner. Paul felt as though he had been kicked in the groin, and was having a difficult time finding his breath. John was going off to have a rock ‘n roll night, leaving him behind to have a family night. Paul tried to reason with himself, and tell himself that John was just being polite, trying to get out of Paul’s way so he could enjoy his family. But it felt like a desertion to Paul, especially since John’s plans had been kept secret from him. Paul came back to the moment, and noted that Linda was staring at him with a worried look on her face. He forced himself to grin impishly. No point in ruining her evening, even though mine is ruined, he thought to himself.


	38. Chapter 38

In late 1992, the LA Forum was where the Lakers basketball team played, so it was an indoor arena. It had a steady side business of hosting rock concerts, however, and Paul had already played there with Wings during the triumphant 1976 U.S. tour. Paul remembered, as he entered the dressing room, how he’d hung out backstage smoking dope with Linda and some local celebrities - members of the Eagles rock group and songstress Linda Ronstadt - after sound check and before the concert. That was back in the day when he was capable of being high and performing at the same time. Paul chuckled to himself as he recalled this, knowing that now he might be able to smoke a joint before a concert, but then who would be there to keep John grounded? 

It wasn’t as if it had escaped his notice that he - Paul - became a bit of a stick in the mud when he was around John. It was only because someone had to balance John out. Paul was like the boy holding the string, and John was the balloon. If the boy let go, the balloon would fly away into the atmosphere and disappear. The boy was grounded, and weighted down with the responsibility of holding the balloon, and all he could do was look up at the balloon and admire its ability to float in air without having that ability himself. Floating-by-proxy. 

These were dangerous thoughts. Paul knew that in his relationship with Linda, he was the balloon. Linda grounded him, and he was allowed to do irresponsible things like smoke pot before concerts, and paint his toenails all the colors of the fucking rainbow, and behave like a teenager if he felt like it. Still, even as he considered this factor, Paul knew he made a somewhat tame and unadventurous “balloon”. He wasn’t going to wake up after a blind drunk on some stranger’s floor wearing a fairy crown like John did once. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out to be a balloon. Maybe the point of his existence was to be the one who could be depended upon to always hold the string. 

After this moment of reflection, Paul gave a virtual shrug and, as usual, refocused on work. He plugged in his guitar, and stopped to chat with Robbie about sound check. John was back at the hotel, having excused himself from sound check. He blamed it on a raging headache as a result of his out of control night on the town in Hollywood with his old drinking buddies. Paul had lain awake after Linda had fallen asleep waiting for the noise of John’s return. John had not returned by 3 a.m., which is when Paul had fallen asleep. And then of course John had still been asleep at 3 p.m. when they were scheduled to leave for sound check. Paul had gone into the bedroom to wake John up, and John had groaned and announced that his head was about to explode, and so Paul had left him alone, deciding to handle sound check by himself. It was at moments like these that Paul resented very much being the string-holder, but still he did the responsible and professional thing, and threw himself into his work. 

 

*****

 

John awoke in stages. His first attempt had involved opening one eye, only to shut it automatically and to yelp with pain at the sensation of light entering his brain. He knew he had a show to do in a few hours, so an effort had to be made to wake up and pull himself together. His next attempt involved moving his legs around. Slowly. Just to get the blood running. This activity seemed to have a low impact on his brain. This emboldened him to try moving his arms. He reached his hand up to cover his eyes, and then slowly opened them. Nothing stopped the dull, aching throbs, but at least this time his hand shielded most of the light from his face. A few minutes later John decided it was safe to try to push himself up on an elbow and maybe even look around the room a little bit. Ever so slowly he attempted this, but at the first movement of his neck his head screamed with pain. Still, John persevered, and after another 10 minutes or so, he was actually sitting up on the side of the bed, his back to the windows, elbows resting on thighs, and head resting in hands. 

It wasn’t until he was thus situated that a snapshot of the night before flashed in his brain. And then another. Soon it was like a slow motion, soundless scene playing in his head, but a scene out of context with no beginning or end. John groaned. Harry was a terrible influence on him, John knew. Harry was still a terrible reprobate and hopeless drunk. The amount of alcohol the man could consume should have killed him at least 100 times over by now. Where did he put it all? John had only drunk a fraction of what Harry had, but John had passed out at some point, apparently. Thank heaven Alice Cooper was there. He was the only one who retained some level of sobriety, or at least enough sobriety to help Harry drag John to the car. John vaguely remembered being dragged to the car. It was the sensation of floating over the ground, if ‘floating’ meant that your feet were dragged behind you. What had he been thinking of to go out clubbing with Harry Fucking Nilsson the night before a concert? Of course, he loved Harry. They’d been through some scary, hairy times together, and much like soldiers who had survived the foxholes together, John felt emotionally tied to Harry, even after all this time. Eighteen years had passed since their crazy Malibu twilight zone idyll had ended! John could hardly reckon it. Sad that Harry had never left that life.

John told himself he actually had to stand up sometime soon. It was going to be necessary unless he was willing to be rolled out on stage in a fucking wheelchair. Having nothing to hold on to while attempting to stand up was discouraging, but finally he found the wherewithal to pull himself up on his legs. He then staggered, naked, to the bathroom door, and holding on to it for support, flung himself into bathroom, and then over to the bidet. The place had a bidet. John aimed in its general direction and began to shoot. It took every ounce of energy and focus to keep most of the urine in the bowl. Then he moved over to the grand pedestal sink. It was perfectly designed to prop up a hung-over man who needed to brush his teeth and shave. 

 

*****

 

Linda was downstairs in the kitchen, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Mary and Stella had just left to get dressed to go over to the Forum, where they planned to hang out backstage to meet all the celebrities who would no doubt stop by. As Linda turned a page she heard a sound…it was almost like a whimper. She looked up and saw that John was leaning against the kitchen door jam. He was shaved, dressed, his hair was presentable, but his face looked like death warmed over. 

“John! What are you doing here? I thought you were at sound check!” 

John grimaced. Linda’s exclamations were making his head pound even harder. 

Grasping the truth of the situation instantly, Linda brought her voice down, got up, and assisted John to the table. She then went to pour him some coffee. Caffeine could sometimes help in a situation like this. If not the caffeine, then the hot liquid with steam coming up off it might help. She then sat down and watched sympathetically (but also with a smothered sense of amusement) as John began to sip his coffee. In this manner, 10 minutes passed without a single sound. Linda had even gone back to reading her paper, taking care to turn the pages as quietly as possible. Finally John spoke.

“I really tied one on last night,” he said, his voice gravelly and raw. 

“So it seems,” Linda said softly, with a gleam of mischief in her eye. 

“I told myself I would pace myself, but pacing yourself with Harry still leaves you blasted out of your mind.” 

Linda waited quietly for John’s next pronouncement. 

“I think I passed out.” 

“You’re not sure?” Linda asked. This seemed weird to her. How could you not know if you did or you didn’t?

“I’m not sure if I passed out, or if I just don’t remember how I got home. But I think I remember being dragged to the car, so I’m thinking I passed out.” John’s face was lined with deep ravines as he forced himself to explain. 

“That must have been a lot of booze,” Linda said objectively. “I hope you had fun before you passed out. Do you remember?”

John looked at Linda lugubriously. “Yeah, we were having fun right up until I passed out. I remember us talking and laughing and making fun of ourselves and everyone else, and I remember being at a booth in some dark dive, and then…that’s it.” 

“Is it harder to do this when you’re in your fifties?” Linda asked with faux innocence. She felt it had been very irresponsible for John to behave that way in the middle of a tour when so much was riding on him being fit to perform. 

John thought about the question. “I suppose it is, but I remember it being hard when I was in my thirties, too.”

Linda got up and fixed John some dry toast, which John ate in a dispirited manner. It was now time for him to leave for the Forum, and as he headed towards the limo he felt a bit like a condemned man heading for the gallows. With a horrible hangover, nothing could be worse than to have to stand next to huge amplifiers and electric instruments with drums banging away. But it was his own fault, and he couldn’t let Paul down, so he’d just have to endure it. Linda and the kids shared the limo ride over with John, and Mary and Stella exchanged numerous amused glances with each other as they watched John cringing behind his dark glasses every time James commented on something in his chirpy loud voice.

Fans standing outside the garage entry screamed as the car went by, causing John to smile in a very strained way, and wave his hand ever so gently. This is going to be hell, John thought to himself as the car disappeared into the peaceful, cool darkness of the underground parking area below the Forum. They all made their way to the dressing room, where Paul was sitting with some band members and some Hollywood types. John could see immediately that Paul was “on”. He thought that this was a good thing, since he, John, was not exactly going to be the life of the party this evening. 

Paul saw John arrive with his family, and he smiled. John had his dark glasses on even though they were in a dark dressing room. Serves him right, Paul thought to himself with uncharacteristic meanness. Outwardly, he looked pleased and introduced everyone. Linda went over to give Paul a hug and whispered in his ear,

“John is in a really bad way. He passed out drunk last night, and had to be dragged to the car.” 

Paul heard what she said and schooled his face to look neutral, but what was going on in his head was more complicated. First, concern for John’s well being, and second, how on earth would John be able to perform tonight, and third, how dare John do this while they were on tour, and fourth, oh my god, what if a paparazzo got a picture of John being drunk in the clubs and dragged to a car? Fuck. Just what they needed: A drunken 52 year-old rock star in the midst of a tour. The promoters would have a cow! 

That night’s show was miserable for John, and also for Paul. The only reason it wasn’t miserable for the audience was that Paul kicked himself into his highest gear and stayed there at full throttle for the whole three hours. By sheer force of his charisma and talent he had kept the show afloat. John had certainly tried. But there was no naughty acting out. He had stuck to the set pieces. He had looked so miserable, that Paul had swapped out some of John’s hardest rockers for some of his own hardest rockers to save John the agony. If John had been ill, Paul would not have been upset by having to take the burden of the whole show on his back; he would have done so gladly. But since Paul was already pissed off that John had rushed off so abruptly for a boy’s night out, the fact that he stayed out all night and drunk himself into a stupor had pushed Paul’s resentment from quietly stoked to a ferocious boil. After the concert, as they left the stage, and after he wiped the Beatle Paul mien off his face, Paul was struggling to control his temper until he and John were alone. But right at that moment they were surrounded by Paul’s family and a bunch of celebrities. Suddenly Paul noticed…no, it couldn’t be. There stood Alice Cooper and Harry Nilsson, greeting John as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. As John rushed over to them, Paul felt marginalized and taken for granted. He had just carried John through a tough 3-hour show, and now John decided to ramp up the energy?

Of course, by then, with the show behind him, John’s headache had stopped pounding, and he was ready to pick up steam. He had given his two friends backstage passes the night before, but had wondered if they would be too hung over to show up. But there they both were, looking none the worse for the wear. They were obviously veteran hard drinkers and partiers, and John had left that life behind him years before so he hadn’t bounced back so quickly. Still, they were great drinking buddies, and John was delighted to see them. 

Paul approached the backslapping threesome, and said a quiet hello to Alice and Harry. Paul actually liked Alice Cooper a lot, and felt that he, at least, wasn’t as out of control as Harry was. He had met Harry a few times, and liked him too, but felt that he brought out the worst in John’s excessive tendencies. He was greeted with good humor by John’s buddies, and managed to maintain a pleasant, warm demeanor despite his irritation with John. 

“I hear you dragged John home last night,” Paul said with an unreadable expression on his face to Alice Cooper.

“We kind of all dragged ourselves home,” Alice laughed. “We can’t hold the liquor like we could when we were young.”

“John never held his liquor well,” Paul said, “not even when he was young.”

Alice chuckled but wasn’t sure if Paul was serious, or if it was a joke. Awkward. He changed the subject. “Great show!” he said.

Paul nodded his thanks, and managed to keep himself from saying, ‘no thanks to John.’ 

John, who had been talking with Harry, suddenly turned to Paul and said, “Harry and I think it would be fun to go out tonight. Do you want to come?”

Paul couldn’t believe his ears. “John, we have a show tomorrow night. I think one night of drunken debauchery before a show is enough, don’t you?”

John frowned. Why did Paul have to behave like a scolding big sister? Especially in front of his friends. “We’re just gonna go to this new place Harry knows to grab dinner, and then we’re gonna go home.” 

Paul was dubious that any evening featuring John and Harry together would end up being anything but a disaster. But if John was going to do this thing, he figured he’d better go along, if for no other reason - to hold on to the fucking string. 

Alice felt a little worried because he’d noticed Paul’s thinly disguised displeasure about the partying the night before, but he wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity to hang out with John and Paul together.

Before leaving, Paul had quickly gone over to Linda to apologize for having to disappear, explaining to her he had to keep an eye on John. She understood, and shepherded her family into the limo to go back to the rented house. 

As it turned out, Neil Young had been backstage too, and he was enlisted to join them, and so it was a group of 5 old rockers going out to the place Harry had chosen for them. As soon as they arrived, Paul knew he was going to have a lousy night. It was a Hawaiian BBQ place, decorated inside as if a dead palm tree had exploded all over it. What’s worse was the fact that the smell of barbequed meat hung in the air like a poison cloud. It was the kind of place where the wait staff wore faded Hawaiian shirts and served drinks with umbrellas in them. Paul sighed heavily, and allowed himself to be pushed into a large banquette, in between Neil Young and Alice Cooper. John and Harry sat on the other side of the banquette laughing and joking with each other. Paul felt his temper simmering again. He told himself that he really needed to focus on his friends Neil and Alice and stop pouting. Having made that decision, he forced his mood to turn on a dime, and ordered a drink. 

This would be his only drink for the night, he swore to himself, and he chose a margarita as the least frou-frou-ish of the options available. He made sure that his water glass was continually replenished. He tried not to keep a beady eye on John’s drinking progress, but thus far John had been relatively conservative, nursing a noxiously turquoise drink for the first half hour. 

John’s head was in a strange place. He knew he had fucked up badly the previous night, and he also knew that Paul was disappointed in him. But when John disappointed someone, he illogically but reflexively blamed the person who was disappointed instead of blaming himself. He really didn’t want to face Paul right after the concert, because he knew it would be unpleasant, and John feared he might lose his temper if Paul started shaking his finger at him. So much better to delay the inevitable confrontation, and pretend all was well. And who knows? Maybe Paul would lighten up after a fun night out on the town. With this thought, John shot a nervous glance over to where Paul was seated. He and Neil were listening to Alice Cooper who was carrying on about the previous night’s activities. Crap. Alice shut up, John prayed.

“So we started at the Troubadour,” Alice was saying, “and boy that place looks beat up. It used to be charmingly tacky when we were young, but now it just looks tacky.” 

Neil said, “Yeah - kind of like us. We all looked charmingly tacky when we were young, but now we just look tacky.” Everyone laughed. But then Neil added, “Except Paul. He still looks charming. Not an inch of tacky in him.” 

John laughed too loudly at this joke. The problem was, it was true. Paul still looked like an adorable kewpie doll, and the rest of them looked a bit rugged and worse for the wear. Still, John felt guilty about his reaction, because he knew how much Paul hated being considered less than a genuine rocker. Somehow his looks had worked against him all these years by causing his fellow musicians not to take him as seriously as they should have. John searched Paul’s face quickly, and saw that bland, neutral smile. Not good. I’m gonna pay for this later.

“Anyway, we then went to this dive that Harry knows off this dingy alley in downtown LA,” Alice continued, clueless that John was shooting daggers at him with his eyes from across the table. “And it was a kind of pool hall cum strip joint. It was this hilarious, schizophrenic atmosphere.” Harry was laughing along with Alice, but John was anxious and Paul was thinking, oh please let there be no photographs… “So there were these big ladies there, and three of ‘em came over and joined us in this booth in the back. They were giving us lap dances.” By now Harry was banging the table and laughing.

“John’s gal was the biggest!” Harry chimed in. “She was fine!”

Please, please no photos! Paul’s face was as carefully blank as it could possibly be.

John had gotten wrapped up in the storytelling and was beginning to enjoy himself. “Yeah, she was fine,” John agreed. “But what happened to her? I can’t remember what happened at the end.”

Alice laughed uproariously. “You kind of passed out while she was fellating you, John. Your brain was dead but your cock was wide awake!” 

Everyone laughed robustly, even Paul. It was, objectively, very funny. But, Paul thought, it will have to be a miracle if there were no photos… 

Paul didn’t realize that he had just started on his second margarita. While he wasn’t looking, Alice had gestured to the waiter to fill it up, and (by whispering in the waiter’s ear) had suggested that an extra measure of tequila be added to it. Poor man needed to relax a little. It had to be a bitch being John Lennon’s creative partner, having to carry all the shit buckets and getting none of the credit in the eyes of the rock world. As much as Alice loved John Lennon, he couldn’t imagine having to work with him. He was impossible, really. In turns demanding, arrogant, presumptuous and even cruel, and enjoying the freedom to say ‘fuck off’ to the world only because he had Paul there to charm the pants off his victims afterwards. Alice had always liked Paul - the idea of Paul - a solid, grounded creative genius. How often had that happened in history? Not often, that’s for sure. He was a person who was hard to know, at least on a real, close level, but Alice didn’t resent the fact. The man had the right to hug his private thoughts to himself. Still, Alice had felt the tension backstage after the show, and believed that Paul needed to let go a little. Just a little. Alice figured Paul would kill himself with guilt later if he went too far. 

Paul was starting to feel less nervous, and had stopped keeping track of John. John was a grown man and could look after himself, after all. He was enjoying his time with Alice and Neil very much. Neil was asking him about some of the tracks on the 7 Levels album, and Alice was asking him about the tour. It was safe, and it was a relief after the emotion-fraught personal conversations he’d been dragged into lately by his wife, by John, by his brother, by fucking life itself. It was so nice to talk about normal things with blokes who were not emotionally distressed or demanding in any way. 

It was while he was working on his third heavily laced margarita that Paul felt all the heaviness lifting from him and floating to the ceiling. He was still on the ground, but at least he wasn’t weighted down. Neil and Alice had focused most of their attention on him, not on John, and that had surprised Paul a lot. Usually their friends preferred John’s company to his. He found himself a little bit flattered by the attention, and - this was less attractive - also a little grateful. 

“I’m sorry ‘bout last night,” Alice said to Paul quietly, leaning in. Only Paul and Neil could hear him.

“What happened last night?” Neil asked.

“That was the whole drag John into the dens of inequity on the eve before a show,” Alice said.

Neil nodded and said, “Oh. You know, back in the day, we used to do that every night. Funny how it’s frowned upon now.”

Paul had lost his inhibitions. “I never did it,” he said. “I remember one time the four of us went on high, and the show was a complete waste. Thankfully, there were so many screaming girls and chaos that nobody noticed.” Paul was thinking about the Beatles’ 1966 USA tour. A moment later he added, “I learned my lesson. I never did that again. The audience deserves better than that.”

Alice and Neil both nodded in agreement. It was hard to argue with the logic, but it was harder still to live up to such high ideals. Quietly, they both respected Paul for the fact that he had made that decision and then had lived up to it. 

“I know John wasn’t his usual self during the show,” Alice continued bravely. “But you were incredible. I mean, sincerely, amazing. You held that entire audience in the literal palm of your hand.” Alice’s compliment was indeed sincere, and it was so intently expressed that Paul was deeply touched.

“Amen to that, man. Where does all that energy come from?” Neil asked.

“It’s not like I’m out all day digging ditches,” Paul laughed. In fact, it was easy to laugh right now. He was feeling great.

Across the table, John was fuming. Here he’d thought it was gonna be another guy’s night out, and then he and Harry’s zeitgeist had been overcome by the three serious-heads at the other end of the table. Paul had brought the whole mood down to a sedate Sunday-afternoon-in-the-park vibe. Worse than that, both Neil and Alice were obviously captivated with Paul, and ignoring him. John was not used to this. Women, yes - he was used to women gravitating to Paul. But men? John took another serious look in Paul’s direction. Paul was deeply involved in his conversation with Neil and Alice, and appeared to be completely happy and relaxed. In fact, John noticed, Paul hadn’t shot him an anxious glance in over 30 minutes. This did not sit well with John. He was used to Paul watching out for him. The deep, insecure green monster inside of John was beginning to stir. John forcibly pulled his eyes away from that end of the table, and said to Harry,

“Let’s go on to a club and leave these downers to their boring talk!” 

Harry’s eyes lit up and immediately got up. John followed. He didn’t look back. He hoped Paul would be the insecure, miserable one now. 

Paul assumed they were going to the bar or the bathroom, and wasn’t concerned. He had lost track of the invisible mind fucking that often went on between him and John when they were in the same room but not within speaking distance. He had allowed himself to be distracted, and, without even realizing it, he had let go of the string. John, the balloon, was floating out into the atmosphere. 

Alice asked, “So you and John - do you ever find it is difficult to keep the creative vibe going after so many years? Does it ever feel old?”

Paul was intrigued by the question. The answer was - no. But it opened other questions in Paul’s mind. Did he and John find it hard to keep their friendship and their romantic life alive? Was that a problem, even if their creative vibe was still alive and kicking?

“Honestly, no. John and I feed off each other creatively. It is actually, I think, involuntary. It just happens.” Paul’s face reflected the mystery and awe that he felt about this reality.

“That sounds really cool,” Neil said. “Hey - what happened to John and Harry?” 

The three men looked down to the end of the table and realized at least 15 minutes had gone by since the two men had disappeared.

“I’ll go check the premises,” Alice said, laughing. “They’re probably at the bar and forgot how to get back.” 

As Alice left, Neil turned to Paul and asked in a soft voice, “So is everything okay with you and John?”

Paul looked at Neil with surprise. “Yes, of course,” Paul answered reflexively. Little did he know that his expression reflected doubt.

Neil said gently, “John seems like a real handful.”

Paul smiled. “Most of the time he’s fine. Normal. But he has his moments, like we all do.” 

Neil knew that he was being politely shined on, but decided he had probed enough. The man was entitled to his privacy. Neil figured working with John Lennon was not exactly a day at the beach, and doubted very much that he could have stuck it out so long. He wondered at Paul’s loyalty and dedication, and this led him to wonder if the rumors about them were true. Not that he cared, or that it was any of his business. It was just a stray thought, allied to his puzzlement over their long-lasting creative partnership. 

Alice came back. “They left!” He announced, shock in his voice. “The guy at the front said they went away in a cab!”

“Those assholes!” Laughed Neil. It was no skin off his back. 

Paul felt the old attack of “the guilts” swimming up his spine. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” His brain was surprisingly slow and uncooperative. He couldn’t get his shit together. He looked accusingly down at his empty margarita glass. 

Alice felt terrible. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He’d only wanted Paul to have a relaxed evening. He had never expected John to go crazy as soon as Paul let down his guard. It just went to show that you should never mess with a dynamic you don’t understand. 

“They went off in a cab,” Neil said gently, suddenly worried by the lost expression on Paul’s face. 

“Where did they go?” Paul asked, still confused by this sudden unexpected turn of events.

“Probably off to one of Harry’s dives,” Alice said flatly. “He has a thousand of ‘em, and I don’t even know where most of ‘em are.” He figured Paul was better off going back to his wife and getting himself to bed than to go on a fool’s errand chasing around bars and clubs looking for John and Harry. Eventually, John would return to the rental house, and then he and Paul could deal with the fallout in blessed privacy. 

 

*****

 

Paul had gone a long way towards sobering up by the time he got home. His pals Neil and Alice had dropped him off, and then had driven away in their taxi. In what could only be called a desperate move, Paul actually checked John’s bedroom to see if he was there. Paul sighed. He was doing that a lot lately. Everything was going wrong. This tour hadn’t brought out the intensity in their emotional closeness. To the contrary, at every turn, it had brought out everything that was anxious, threatening, distracting, and estranging in their relationship. He was filled with unease as he climbed the stairs and climbed in to bed with Linda. Linda stirred, and turned on her side.

“You smell like alcohol,” Linda teased.

“I may have had more than I intended,” Paul teased back. He kissed her on her nose.

“So is John safely tucked up in his bed?” She asked sweetly.

This comment sent a stab of guilt and anxiety down Paul’s spine, and he sucked in air. 

“What? What’s wrong?” Linda asked.

“John disappeared with Harry while the rest of us were dining,” Paul said, his voice filled with guilt and regret. 

Linda was shocked. “Oh!” This was all she could say. 

“I know. We were all having a nice time, and then John and Harry went off. We all thought they were going to the bar or the bathroom, but they actually went out and took a taxi.”

“They didn’t tell you where they were going?” Linda was starting to get seriously pissed. This was just not okay. It was a stark reminder of John’s outrageous behavior that time she had joined Paul in Rome during their first tour. 

“No. None of us knew they were leaving.” Paul actually sounded like he was reliving the surprise at that exact moment, and it pulled at Linda’s heart. 

“I am just about at the end of my rope with Mr. John,” Linda said firmly. “It isn’t fair to you what he is doing! My God! Tonight! You literally carried that entire show!” Linda had sat up in her rage, and leaned over and turned on the light. “You go to sleep, because you need it for tomorrow, and I’m going to sit up and wait for John and I’m gonna ream him a new one!” 

Paul watched Linda’s enraged face, and could actually see the bright orange energy field around her. He was incredibly grateful to her for her support and loyalty, but didn’t really expect her to fight this particular battle for him. “Shhhh, Lin, it’s okay. John will show up drunk out of his mind, and then tomorrow he will be hung over again, and then I’ll drag him through another show. After that, we’re off to San Diego and away from Harry’s toxic presence.”

Linda laughed at herself, and then lay back again. “I’m sorry, Paul. It really isn’t my business. But it pisses me off. He’s taking you totally for granted.”

“Yes, babe, he does,” Paul said, turning on his side to face her directly. “He has always taken me for granted.” Paul’s voice sounded resigned. It hurt Linda’s heart. “But he needs me, Lin. He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t admit it, but he really needs me. He will come around. You’ll see.”

Linda softened. She loved her husband, but she hated the way John was treating him. But she knew that Paul wouldn’t let her hate John, because he loved John too much. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, Linda thought silently to herself. “It’s fine, baby,” she whispered, as she decided that what her baby needed right then was a king-hell blow job. 

 

*****

 

John had lost interest in his rebellious escape as soon as the cab door closed behind him. If Paul had chased after him calling his name it would have been satisfying, but seeing as how Paul never looked away from Alice fucking Cooper, John had discovered that the fun had just drained out of the whole idea.

Still, once he’d made the dramatic drumroll exit he had to live up to its crescendo, so he’d followed Harry into another pocket dive, this time squeezed in between two large warehouses in an industrial park located in the San Fernando Valley. How the hell did Harry find these places, John wondered. The fun was out of the evening, and now he just had to bide his time until it was a safe time to return to the rental house. He needed to get back to the house after Paul did in order to make his point, but at that moment he felt exhausted and just wanted to hit the sack. He was totally disenchanted with Harry’s nocturnal alcohol-fueled world, and only wanted to be in bed with his limbs wrapped around Paul’s. 

Paul. John felt a sense of security and warmth flowing over him at the very thought of Paul. Why did he give the man so much trouble? Why couldn’t he just embrace the perfection that was Paul and his strong, loving presence? The thought gave birth to the action.

“Harry, I’ve got to leave,” he said firmly.

Harry looked at him with disappointment. “It’s only a little after 2 a.m.!” He responded.

John winced. That meant he would not be home until almost 3 a.m. if he left right now. “Harry, I’ve got a show to do tomorrow, and last night I really fucked up. I was lucky to make it through the whole show. I’m gonna go get a cab and go back to the house and get some sleep. Do you want to share a cab with me?” John was hoping Harry would leave too.

“No, I get why you need to leave. But I think I’ll hang here for a while.” Harry had looked away in drunken disappointment. John shrugged, and slipped out of the booth and headed for the front of the house. 

“I need a cab,” he whispered to the bouncer, slipping him a Benjamin. A few moments later, he was in a cab and headed west over the hills towards the Beverly Hills rental house.


	39. Chapter 39

John had a hard time fumbling around with the front door key, but eventually was able to let himself in. Once in the hallway, he kind of blundered around a bit. Not totally because of drunkenness - he had shaken off the worst of that a while back - but because of the dark and his unfamiliarity with the house. He eventually figured out where the stairs were, and then climbed the distance as quietly as he could, although he was a little clumsy and uncoordinated.

Paul heard the noises and disentangled himself from Linda. He covered his naked body with a silk bathrobe, and then tiptoed out of the bedroom into the gallery hallway. He could see - across the landing - John fumbling at the door of his suite. He watched as John finally opened the door and disappeared inside. Paul strode quickly across the expanse, and pushed himself in behind John into John’s room.

John turned around in surprise and saw Paul. His face lit up with a patent combination of delight and relief. “Babe!” He declared as he threw his arms around Paul’s neck, and dragged him close. “I fucking miss you!” 

Paul hugged John close, smelling John’s body odor and feeling his own muscles relax. “What the fuck are you up too, John?” Paul whispered in John’s ear. “What’s wrong?”

John hugged Paul even tighter than before. “I don’t know,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Do you want to go to bed with me?” Paul whispered, as he gave John a series of open mouth kisses down the side of John’s face and neck.

“Yes!” John felt as though every nerve in his body had just been released. 

Paul whispered a few dirty nothings in John ear as he pushed him towards the bed. Paul knew what John needed at that moment. He needed to be dominated, controlled, and protected, all in one fell swoop, and Paul was only too happy to be the one to fill his lover’s needs. 

They made love lustily - and then lay together in each other’s arms in the quiet dark. “Johnny, you worry me too much.”

“I’m glad someone worries about me,” John joked. He then became more serious. “I think maybe it was because I feel pushed to the side when Linda comes,” John said softly, as he clung to Paul under light covers.

“I’ll always worry about you, John,” Paul said softly. “It’s my job.”

Paul’s response did cause John to have a sober moment. Paul always had his back. No one else ever did. 

 

*****

 

Timothy had little by little gotten comfortable with working for John and Paul. It had been a bumpy start, but John had finally stopped coming up with fake demands. Periodically, John still called him by the wrong names, but it wasn’t as relentless as when they first started working together, and it was done with more affection than meanness now. In fact, Timothy had tried to make amends by telling John jokingly that he was permitted to call him ‘Tim’ if he wanted to. John had laughed and patted him on the back, and in the end he more often than not called him by his full name. Timothy had survived the initiation.

What Evan Willis had said was true. Paul was actually the boss. John made all the demands, and Paul made all the decisions. Timothy had been relieved at this, because you could talk to Paul and get a rational response. He was a total professional, and always had his eye on the ball. Timothy still wasn’t ready to share his latest problem with Paul, though. He held out hope that he would be able to resolve the problem on his own without having to drag Paul into it. 

It was that new guitarist they’d brought on in New York to “fill out the sound”. It had been one of John’s sudden whims that the band didn’t have enough guitars, and a friend of John’s had recommended this kid. The new guy’s name was Brandon, and he thought he was hot shit. It didn’t take long before he was pissing off the other band members. Still, the other band members had worked together for a number of years now, and they were tight, secure in their positions, and respectful of each other. This new guy was full of himself, and viewed his working in the Lennon & McCartney band as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Robbie McIntosh had told Timothy, “The poor boy doesn’t realize he is already at the top of the ladder. I suppose he thinks he’s the new Eric Clapton - a break out star on his own.” Robbie had asked Timothy to set the young man straight before all hell broke loose in the band. “Paul won’t thank you if it gets worse,” Robbie advised. 

This was a good warning, and Timothy hoped he would make the right choices in order to ensure that this little burp in the works would not come to John and Paul’s attention. This was his errand today: to track down Brandon and have a little chat. Finally, he located him in the band’s dressing room backstage at the Forum. The band was eating and relaxing before sound check for their second Los Angeles concert. 

“Brandon, can I speak with you for a few minutes?” Timothy asked in his most lyrical Irish brogue. Timothy always laid it on whenever he needed to sweet talk someone.

“Sure,” the young man said, although his attitude and tone of voice was grudging. He was surrounded by old people in this band, and secretly believed they were all over the hill, including Lennon & McCartney. In Brandon’s view, no one over 29 should be allowed in a rock ‘n roll band. Still, the gig gave him really good exposure, and would undoubtedly lead to something better, so he had to at least pretend to play the game. With this self-reminder, Brandon made himself get up and follow Timothy to a deserted corner of the dressing room. 

“How are you getting on?” Timothy asked as an innocent opener.

Brandon rolled his eyes. This is why he had to get up off his comfy sofa? “It’s all good,” Brandon drawled. He had grown up in an upper middle class suburban home in a well-to-do enclave of the San Fernando Valley on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and he had been one of those white teenagers who always tried to sound like they came from the ghetto. It never sounded right, even to square outsiders, but of course kids like Brandon were not self-aware enough to know that they looked and sounded ridiculous: nowhere near as cool as the original purveyors of that cultural nuance. Unfortunately, Brandon had never grown out of this poseur behavior. He was a reasonably good guitarist, but did not realize how much his father’s contacts in the music world had helped him. In Brandon’s mind, it was all down to his own talent. 

“It must be difficult to join a band that has been playing together for years on tour and in the studio,” Timothy assayed.

Difficult? Brandon couldn’t hide the sneer on his face. “It’s not difficult,” Brandon responded, a cocky grin on his face. “In fact, I’ve been trying to get those guys to try new stuff. They’re all stuck in a rut.”

Timothy thought to himself, A-oh. “New stuff?” He asked out loud.

“Yeah, it’s fucking boring, the same fucking thing every night. And McCartney - he’s such a control freak. He always goes for the easy chord.” 

This was worse than he had feared. Timothy suddenly felt as though he was up to his neck in doo-doo, and so he decided to take off the kid gloves. The musical Irish brogue disappeared in one fell swoop. “You do know that your job is to back up Lennon & McCartney, don’t you? No one is coming to the show to hear you play, except maybe your mother.”

Brandon’s mouth fell open. The nerve of this old sell out! “They’re lucky to have me. Without me they sound like a bunch of old fogies, which is what they all are.” Brandon forgot to pretend to be grateful for the gig in the heat of the moment.

“Old fogies. I see. ‘Old fogies’ who have sold more records than any other act in history.” Timothy was now glaring at Brandon, and Brandon was reacting to that glare as if he were back in his suburban rec room trying to play Nintendo while his Dad was demanding that he take out the trash. In other words, he was pouting and glaring back. “Brandon,” Timothy continued, “This attitude is getting you nowhere but out of here. You need to get your ego in check. This tour does not exist just so you can express yourself. This is a business, and a lot of money is at stake, and here you are behaving as though it is the talent night at your local school, and you’re waiting for your chance to do that surprise solo you worked on in your fucking garage!” 

Brandon stood up. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”

Timothy got up too. “Yes, you do, unless you want to be fired.”

“You can’t fire me!” Brandon said. “You’re just a glorified personal assistant! Only the musical director can fire me!”

“You think so?” Timothy’s voice was low and velvety, but dangerous. “You should think again,” Timothy said after a few seconds of silence. “If you are a threat to the success of this tour I can and will fire you. And right now I’m thinking it will be a great pleasure to do so.”

The two men stared at each other angrily for a few moments until Timothy said, “Go back and get ready for the show. You need to shut up and do what you’re told, and do it to the best of your ability. If you want to work as a professional musician you have to pay your dues. One more complaint about you from the other band members, and you’re out of here.” Timothy turned away from Brandon and then left the dressing room. 

Brandon was surprised by that comment. He hadn’t realized that the other band members were complaining about him. But once he’d thought about it for a while, he decided it made sense. They’re jealous of my talent, and threatened by me. Brandon knew that if he really did his stuff, he would outshine the others. He didn’t see any reason to kowtow to these jokers. Talent will out, after all!

 

*****

 

That night the concert was going well. The audience was crazy, and pretty high, and the band was hot. Throughout the first half of the show, Paul had noted that ‘Young Brandon’ (as they called him behind his back) was vamping a little too much around the edges. Paul normally didn’t really resent a little improv and enthusiasm, although tonight it was too much, too often, and it was a little distracting at times. He could also see that it was bothering Robbie. It wasn’t until the lead in to Eleanor Rigby, which had a guitar solo performed by Robbie, that young Brandon stepped on the end of that solo by adding a few ad libbed chords of his own. Paul decided enough was enough. He completed singing Eleanor Rigby as though nothing untoward had happened. But the next song was a brash version of Sexy Sadie, and John was belting it out. Paul was playing his Hofner bass, and he casually stepped back to where Brandon was playing, and he stood in front of Brandon, back to the audience, and said, “Stick to the routine, please.” The voice was calm, but the expression was unbending. Paul then whipped around, and was smiling again and heading toward the microphone to sing harmony on the chorus. 

Brandon was steaming. Stick to the routine. Paul was just pissed that he was showing up the precious Robbie.

The show finally ended, and John and Paul had left the stage and gotten into their limo for a ride back to the rented house, where Linda and the kids awaited them. John had been oblivious to Brandon’s antics and so was surprised when Paul growled, “Fuckin’ upstart.”

“Who?” John asked.

“Young Brandon. Didn’t you hear him stepping on Robbie’s solo?”

John thought back and vaguely remembered something of the sort. “You mean they didn’t plan it that way?”

“No they fuckin’ didn’t! Robbie’s a pro, and he would never change the routine without telling me.” 

Paul had said ‘fuckin’’ twice in a row. He rarely used swear words, so John knew that Paul was really angry. “He’s a young kid, a young turk. He got ahead of himself,” John soothed.

“We don’t do improv, John. And it is disrespectful.”

“Oh, well, babe, we get plenty of respect. We don’t need it from everyone all the time.”

Paul sighed. “I meant that it was disrespectful to the other musicians.”

John was now bored by the conversation. “Oh, well, have a word with Wix, and see if he can work it out. We have a night off tomorrow, so I thought I’d go out with Harry one more time before we leave for San Diego.”

Paul didn’t want John to go out drinking with Harry again. It had been a miracle that none of his antics had been captured by paparazzi yet, and Paul was just beginning to think they’d gotten through it all without a black eye. But Paul also knew that there was no point in saying ‘no’ to John Lennon. He was going to do what he was going to do. Not for Paul, resorting to astrologists and soothsayers and numerology to trick John into doing what he wanted him to do. He left that kind of manipulation strategy to Yoko. Anyway, he needed to spend time with Linda and his kids, and so he decided to let John be John and not get upset about it. 

“Sounds like fun,” Paul said cheerfully. “Try not to end up naked on the front page, will you mate?” 

John laughed and said, “You’re asking a lot, Pud, but I’ll do me best.” 

 

*****

 

The next morning, Paul and Linda sat at the kitchen table. They were looking over the draft of her latest cookbook, and she was asking his opinion on the photographs. They’d had a genuinely lovely night together, and since there was no show tonight, the whole family was going to drive down to San Diego in an SUV, and then planned a room service dinner and movie in the hotel suite. Paul had excluded John from the plans, thinking he’d have his own ideas of what to do. John had shown by his recent actions that he clearly didn’t really want to spend time with the family. This saddened Paul a bit, but he’d begun to realize that John didn’t find it fun or relaxing, and so there was no point in getting upset about it. 

Paul had given the whole Young Brandon problem a lot of thought, and had decided to approach Robbie to find out what was going on. He knew where Robbie was staying, so called him on the phone. It was now after noon, so Robbie would probably be awake. (Although John hadn’t shown his face yet after a night out with Harry.) Sure enough, a wide-awake Robbie answered the phone on the first ring.

“Robbie - it’s Paul.”

“Paul! I’d have thought you’d be on your way to San Diego by now.” 

“I’ve got young women in my entourage - my baby girls. They’re still doing their hair, or their makeup, or something. Look, I wanted to talk to you about last night’s show.”

“Yes?” Robbie had a good idea what this would be about. Young Brandon had been all over the place, and had ruined a few of his runs. He’d had to quickly change his chords more than once in order to avoid unpleasant dissonance. The kid didn’t seem to understand that this wasn’t a punk rock show; Lennon & McCartney were known for their melodies and harmonies, not for a lot of clashing discordance.

“Brandon, last night, was out of control.” Paul’s remark was a flat statement, brooking no denial.

“Yes, he was.”

“He stepped on your solo on Eleanor Rigby.”

Robbie sighed. “It was a surprise, yes, an irritating surprise.”

“What’s up with him? Tell me the truth.” 

“He has an attitude. I spoke with Timothy about it, because he is pissing off not only the other band members, but also the stage hands and roadies. He thinks he’s God’s gift.”

“What has Timothy done about it?” Paul asked.

“I saw him take Brandon aside yesterday evening before the show, and he seemed to be giving him a talking to. Maybe that pissed Brandon off, and caused him to act out.”

Paul sighed. Fuck young egotists and the horses they rode in on. Paul well remembered what it had been like to back up other artists and to stay in the background behind the stars. He had enjoyed every minute of it because they were good gigs, and he learned a lot, and that’s how you networked when you were first starting out. He couldn’t understand why Brandon didn’t know how lucky he was to have such talented musicians to learn from, and such a high-profile gig. It ought to be enough for him, but it obviously wasn’t. “Well,” Paul finally concluded, “I’ll have a word with Timothy, and we’ll either come to terms with Brandon, or he’ll have to go.” 

Robbie felt bad for Paul. Paul always had to be the bad guy, and when a musician wasn’t serving the greater good or the music Paul was the one who always had to fire them. John was nowhere to be found at such moments, and hence it was Paul who had the ‘hatchet man’ reputation amongst unsuccessful musicians. Robbie also doubted that any one could come to terms with Brandon. Brandon was one of those people who had to learn things the hardest way possible. The kid didn’t realize that getting fired from a high-profile gig could well be a death knell for his career, and he was too arrogant to contemplate that his talent wouldn’t overcome his reputation as a troublemaker. And, frankly, the kid was nowhere near as talented as he thought he was. Robbie had no idea why John liked the kid’s playing so much, and figured it had something to do with inside connections. That was a regrettable constant in the entertainment business, after all. 

After Paul hung up, he called Timothy. “Timothy, I need to talk to you about Brandon’s behavior last night.”

Timothy sighed. He hadn’t been able to solve the problem himself, and felt bad about it. He should have called Paul earlier, and looped him in. He was worried Paul would be angry with him. “He’s a little shit,” Timothy said flatly.

Paul laughed. “That’s what I’m learning,” he said. “Robbie told me you spoke to him before the show last night.”

“Yeah, well, that backfired. He has the worst attitude I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something.” Timothy was relieved that Paul did not seem upset with him at all. He even felt emboldened to ask, “Why did you pick him? You could have had any really experienced guitarist you wanted.”

Paul sighed. “The kid’s father was the A & R rep at Capital on John’s album, ‘Walls and Bridges’. They were all in the same rowdy crowd in LA back in 1973.”

Ohhhh, that explained a lot, thought Timothy. But he resolved to never say another thing about it.

“So what did you tell him yesterday?” Paul asked.

“I told him to straighten up and fly right, or we’d have to let him go.”

“And he said…?” Paul prompted.

“That I didn’t have the power to fire him.”

“No!” Paul’s laugh was almost a bark. “The little brat!”

“So what do you want me to do about him?” Timothy asked.

“Let me speak to him before the San Diego gig, and if he doesn’t come around, we will let him go,” Paul said. “In that event, since he was so disrespectful to you, would you want to fire him yourself - just to prove you do have the power? Or would you prefer it if I did it?”

“Oh, please, let me, it would be my pleasure.” 

Paul laughed. He was growing very fond of Timothy. 

 

*****

 

It was 1 p.m. and Paul and Linda had finally managed to light a fire under Mary, Stella and James, and their luggage was finally lined up in the hallway waiting to be loaded in the back of the SUV. Paul was anxious to get moving. He always hated transition times between one place and the other, and so he paced around playing with the coins in his pocket and sighing in frustration. When he realized they were finally going to be able to leave, he ran upstairs to say goodbye to John, to make sure he had a way to get to San Diego. It was a nasty shock when he opened the door and found the room empty and not slept in. 

It serves me right for deciding to back off and let John be John, Paul snarled silently to himself. There was a reason he kept his eye on John, and this was Exhibit A. Paul wasn’t worried that John was hurt or in jail. He would have heard by now if either of those things had happened, and of course Paul had insisted that the bodyguards go with John and Harry and stick to them like glue. Rather, he was afraid John was going to start drinking heavily, and doing drugs again, and that would be a very bad thing if it became a habit. He also worried that there would be gossip about John’s night out if he did one of his crash ‘n burns in front of the paparazzi. Paul sighed heavily. His first impulse was to postpone his departure, call the roadies, and find John. But then he decided - fuck that! He was not going to let John’s antics destroy his family visit. He picked up the phone and called Timothy again.

“Sorry to bother you again,” Paul apologized. “My family is just about to leave for San Diego - we’re driving down, and doing a little sightseeing on our way. Unfortunately, John spent the night out with friends last night, and I’m afraid he probably drank a lot and he’s not back yet. He’s got bodyguards with him, but can you hang around here at the house until he gets back to make sure he gets to San Diego by tomorrow afternoon? Preferably in one piece and not hung over too badly.” 

Timothy agreed, although he worried that he might not be up to the task. John Lennon was a handful with a capital “H”. 

Paul, meanwhile, announced to his family that it was time to leave, and got behind the wheel. He and Linda had decided to make a few stops on the way down - including a visit to San Juan Capistrano Mission where the swallows returned every year, and a mid-afternoon stop in a little hippie beach town called Encinitas where they shared margaritas and nachos before going further south to their hotel - the famous Hotel del Coronado on Coronado Island in San Diego harbor. Paul had no intention of spoiling this trip, so he turned up the radio - set to a station his son liked - and headed south. The whole car was head-banging its way down the 405 freeway.

 

*****

 

John woke up on the sofa in Harry’s bungalow, located in North Hollywood. Quite a comedown from Malibu Beach, John thought as he nursed his hang over. It was about 1 p.m., and he poured some milk into his bowl of cornflakes. That was a habit he had passed on to Harry. Harry was still out cold, half on and half off his bed. John had even put his ear up to Harry’s face to make sure the man was still breathing. Lord that man could drink! 

John was glad he had gotten one more night out with Harry. He was very fond of Harry, and the guy was going through a bad time. Harry needed John right then, and John felt he ought to be there for him. He had been very pleasantly surprised by Paul’s reaction to this decision. He had been worried that Paul was going to pout or make a fuss. But, to be fair, John realized that Paul’s earlier concern was based on the fact that the partying had been on nights before shows, and his fear that John would end up in the tabloids in unflattering ways. There was no concert tonight so that was cool, but John could not say the same about the tabloids. The paparazzi had been out in force the night before, and John hoped that none of the resultant photos would be embarrassing. He made a mental note to warn Paul about that. John had been drinking, and he had drunk a lot, but he didn’t pass out, and he was pretty sure he didn’t do something stupid like get into sloppy fistfights where he had to be rescued by bodyguards, heckle performers, or adhere tampax to his forehead. There were plenty of embarrassing memories like these from his 1973/1974 “lost weekend”, and he didn’t want to add any more such moments to that pile. 

It got to be close to 2 p.m. and John was anxious to get back to the rental house because he was sure Paul was pacing a hole in the floors by now. John had been waiting for Harry to wake up. He had forgotten the phone number of the rental, and didn’t think to ask the bodyguards if they knew the number, so he wasn’t able to call Paul and tell him what was going on. John finally lost patience, and shook Harry awake. Harry’s eyes opened, but it wasn’t clear he was really awake when John told him, “Harry - I gotta go now!” Harry groaned in response, and John gathered his things and headed for the car the bodyguards had ready for him. 

When they got to the house, John was flabbergasted to find out that Paul and the family had left without him. He had expected Paul to stick around until he got back, and it surprised John very much that Paul had no problem leaving without knowing if he was okay. Timothy was waiting for him, and arranged for a quick flight down to San Diego, which he took with John - just to make sure he delivered him safe and sound - and they arrived in San Diego long before Paul did. John checked into his suite at the Hotel del Coronado, and was unhappy to learn that Paul wasn’t there yet. It hadn’t sunk in that the family was going to drive down, and spend a full day of it while they were at it. John decided Paul must be pouting, and had left without John while in a snit. He was going to give Paul a piece of his mind over this childishness. While he was waiting, he thought he’d enjoy the California sunshine, so he went out on the balcony off Paul and Linda’s suite, ordered some food and drink, and relaxed on the chaise lounge. No point in physically suffering while he was emotionally suffering.

It wasn’t until almost 6 p.m. that the McCartneys entered the suite. John had fallen asleep on the chaise, and didn’t hear them until James threw open the balcony doors and raced over to the railing to exclaim at the ocean. “I’m going surfing tomorrow!” He shouted to his parents, and this is what awakened John, who started at the noise. James noticed John at that moment. “John! I didn’t see you!” James shouted. Or at least to John it sounded like a shout. 

Paul heard John’s name, and it was with relief that he went out on to the balcony to greet John. “You made it!” He said cheerfully, his smile easy and open. This confused John, who had thought that Paul was in a pout over John’s night out and late return. But Paul sure didn’t look angry or even passive aggressive. He looked relaxed and happy to see him. 

“Did you have fun last night Johnny?” He asked, teasingly. 

“I did, yes.” John remembered the paparazzi and knew he had to break the news to Paul before the photos were published. “But there might be pictures.” John watched Paul’s face for evidence of hidden resentment, but all he saw was an affectionate irritation.

“Pictures?” Paul asked. He shook his head. “What kind of pictures?”

“I don’t think there is anything too embarrassing,” John started, and Paul interrupted.

“Too embarrassing? That doesn’t comfort me much, knowing you.” But Paul actually didn’t look too upset as he said this. His eyes were dancing. 

What’s going on with him? John wondered. This was the first time Paul hadn’t acted uptight about his errant behavior since the tour began. It was disconcerting in the extreme.

“I just think they took photos of me and Harry walking in and out of various clubs and bars.” 

“’Various clubs and bars?’ Honestly, John, how many did you go too?” Linda had joined them, and this question came from her.

“He’s lost track, no doubt,” Paul chuckled. “Well, glad to see you made it. Takes a load off my mind.” Paul didn’t sound as if he had been worrying very much, though. Which reminded John about being pissed at him.

“Why’d you guys leave without me?” He demanded. “And why did you get here after me if you left before me?”

“We assumed you’d made your own plans,” Linda said brightly, secretly thrilled that John was getting a little of his own medicine. 

“We stopped a few times - had a great time driving down,” Paul responded as he pulled up a chair and sat down opposite John’s chaise. “We had a wonderful day.” 

John didn’t know what to think about Paul and Linda’s blasé cheerfulness, but decided he didn’t want to ask anything more with Linda and James there. “So what’s on for tonight?” John asked, when Linda and James finally disappeared into the suite. 

“We were going to order room service and watch a movie,” Paul said. He noted that John was looking a little left out. “You wanna join us, or do you have other plans?” Paul was sincerely making an effort not to be a drag on John. It had felt like he was hovering over John too much since the tour began, and Paul was frankly tired of it, while John had seemed to really resent it. 

“Yeah, sure, I’ll join,” John said, trying to sound like he was doing Paul a favor, but Paul just smiled at him blandly. John was clearly not going to be able to get a rise out of Paul, and this was beginning to bother John a little.

 

*****

 

The next day, Paul and Linda slept in a little late. They’d had an extremely romantic night, having snuck out of the movie before it was over, because Paul was feeling very horny all of a sudden. John had watched them go, and felt pissed at himself for not making his own plans. Now he felt like the fifth-wheel-weird-uncle, hanging out with the teenage boy watching cars explode after the ‘grown ups’ had gone to bed. 

Paul, however, felt as if there was a weight off his shoulders ever since he’d decided to let go of John’s string, and just enjoy being himself with Linda. She didn’t expect him to always be in control, and to always have the answer to every fucking question. It was a great relief, actually. He’d felt a huge renewal of his love for Linda, and his kids - how had he allowed himself to forget how much fun their little family had been when they were just goofing off together? Well, he vowed that he would never forget again. It was with a light heart, then, that Paul left for the stadium to meet with Timothy and Brandon before sound check. 

Circa late 1992, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium was your typical football stadium, with the added attraction of a perfect blue sky above and the softest, gentlest warm air - possibly in the whole world. But Paul had business to attend to, and had agreed to meet Timothy and the young guitarist, Brandon, in the locker room to discuss the last LA Forum performance. 

Brandon had been insulted by Paul’s order for him to “stick to the routine” and had been nursing his resentment ever since. His resentment was increased when Timothy ordered him - ordered him - to show up at the San Diego stadium two hours before sound check. He supposed he was going to be read the riot act, and he had complained about it to his dad the night before when he called up to whine. His father had disappointed him by telling him to “suck it up and keep your opinions to yourself. They hired you as a favor to me, and it’s an amazing opportunity for you, so don’t embarrass me any more than you already have.”

This information actually mortified Brandon. He’d convinced himself he’d won the job through a fantastic audition. His pride had been injured by his father’s revelation, which did not help his mood as he waited for Paul to arrive. He and Timothy had waited a good 45 minutes before McCartney deigned to join them. 

Paul, of course, was late on purpose. The young whippersnapper had to learn that the world did not revolve around him. He met them at 2:45 in his and John’s dressing room, and approached the situation with a chipper but businesslike energy. 

“So. Young Brandon.” Paul leaned forward in his chair and looked the kid in the eye. 

Brandon winced at the nickname. He hated when he overheard the other musicians and the roadies referring to him like that. But he kept his opinion to himself, per his father’s advice. 

“Do you like this gig?” Paul asked him, sincerely open to any kind of response.

“Yeah,” Brandon said after an awkward pause. This was not a question he had expected.

“That surprises me,” Paul said. “Because you don’t act as though you are enjoying it.” 

Brandon was quiet because he didn’t know what to say. 

Paul waited for a response, and when he didn’t get one, he continued. “You’re young, you’re just starting out. I know what that’s like. But no matter how big a gig is, if you don’t enjoy it, you shouldn’t do it. Better you should start at the bottom and do it your own way, than to have a high profile gig that you hate.” 

Brandon was still silent.

Paul dug in some more. “See, this is the part where you have to tell me what you’re thinking, because I can’t read your mind.” 

“I think this gig is a good opportunity for me.” Brandon’s tone was grudging.

“And so it is,” Paul responded, even though he had picked up a little sarcasm in Brandon’s tone. He chose to ignore it. “But if you’re not learning anything from it, and you hate doing it, it’s not going to help your career.” Paul’s voice was firm, but not unsympathetic. 

“So, you’re telling me I can’t ad lib?” Brandon wanted to move the conversation along, because he really didn’t want to say, I hate your old-fashioned music, because he felt he needed the exposure the gig would give him. “If that’s what you want, I can do that.”

Paul stared at Brandon thoughtfully for a few moments. His face was unreadable. Inwardly Paul was thinking, ‘this kid is a sour note, and I ought to kick him to the curb.’ 

“Actually, Brandon, what I want is to have an enthusiastic, talented guitarist who enjoys being with the band and appreciates the music. I don’t think you are that person, do you?” Paul’s voice was parental. Paul had children this kid’s age.

“Are you firing me?” Brandon asked. He was already worrying about what he was going to tell his father.

“Not today,” Paul responded. “Today I’m asking you to open up your mind and give it one more shot - one more attempt to get in flow with the band and stay there. If you don’t think you can do that, then I’m asking you to quit. We’ll shake hands friends. It’s up to you.” 

Brandon felt relieved. He wasn’t going to be fired. He figured he’d better keep his opinions to himself, and then pretend like hell to be enjoying the gig. Getting fired from a high profile gig - his father had informed him in no uncertain terms - was not a good career move. “Okay,” Brandon said. “I’ll give it my best.” 

Paul smiled, but in a slightly skeptical way. “Good. Glad to hear it. Now, why don’t you go ahead and get something to eat and get ready for sound check.” 

Brandon felt dismissed, and he awkwardly got up and left the stars’ dressing room and headed for the band’s locker room. So, the Big Man was giving him another chance. How was he supposed to show McCartney what he could actually do, if he never got the chance? Maybe if he hung in he’d eventually get a chance to prove himself. 

After he left, Paul and Timothy looked at each other and shrugged. “He’s a little shit,” Timothy repeated. To Timothy’s delight, Paul threw his head back and laughed. 

“If he fucks up tonight, you can fire him tomorrow,” Paul said to Timothy.


	40. Chapter 40

Linda was back at the hotel lying on the chaise on the balcony. She felt wonderful. It was as if someone had pushed a button and returned her husband to her. “Her” Paul was back again. He was entirely present with her, and she never got the feeling he was biding time until John returned. She didn’t know who or what she had to thank for this; but she was very grateful. When they were all together in L.A., the kids had noticed it too. It wasn’t anything they had said, but it was the looks on their faces, the giddiness of their energy, the pure joy in which they interacted with their parents. Then of course there had been the lovemaking. She and Paul had slept together every night, and although Linda knew that the first night in LA Paul had slipped out of her bed to John’s, he had been attentive enough to slip back to their bed after taking a quick shower so he could wake up with her. This feeling of intense wellbeing was something Linda was loath to lose. Their holiday would be over in two days, and she’d be headed back to London to make sure James went to school. But oh how she wanted to stay with Paul, and never leave him again. 

John strolled on to the balcony, interrupting Linda’s warm and wonderful thoughts. She actually felt a little sorry for him. John had held Paul in the palm of his hand, and had taken him for granted, and now it was her gain, John’s loss. She wondered if he had figured it out yet. Privately, she was extremely proud of Paul. He had found the inner strength to stand up and refuse to be treated like a whipping-boy-cum-governess by John. Linda knew Paul was a strong, independent man, and while he had deep insecurities, when the rubber hit the road he always lifted his head up and rammed his way through. She was glad to feel that Paul was rousing himself again. 

“’Noon, Linda,” John said. He had spent the morning sleeping in and then having breakfast in his suite before going off in search of Paul. He wanted to spend some quality time with him. “Where’s Paul?” 

“He left early for the stadium to handle a problem. Didn’t he mention it to you?” Linda couldn’t help herself. She had to rub it in a little.

“No, we haven’t spoken since last night,” John grumbled.

“No doubt he didn’t want to bother you. Something about a guitarist who is bigger than his britches.” Linda couldn’t resist letting John know she knew what the problem was, while John likely did not.

“Oh, he’s on about Richard’s son again, is he?” John was clearly (and surprisingly to Linda) irritated. John had promised Richard that his son could have the gig, and here was Paul making waves. In John’s mind, since Brandon was John’s pick, Paul ought to have consulted him before doing anything about it. What’s more, Paul was confiding in Linda about the problem - not him - and it wasn’t even any of her business!

Linda didn’t know who Richard was, much less his son, but didn’t want to let on she didn’t know, so she smiled in a noncommittal manner and asked, “Hungry?” 

“No, I ate already. I’m gonna go to the stadium and see what the hell is going on. Do you have Timothy’s phone number?”

Linda was at first surprised that John did not know Timothy’s phone number, but then told herself it was typical. Worrying about such boring things was Paul’s job, wasn’t it? She said, “I have the mobile phone number Timothy carries with him when he’s at the venue. It’s attached to the little fridge in the bar area by a magnet.” John wandered off to find it. After he’d left, she cozied herself a bit on the chaise and smiled. She was secretly proud of herself for getting the best of that conversation. 

 

*****

 

At John’s request, Timothy arranged for a car to deliver him to the stadium in time for sound check. This surprised everyone. John hadn’t been at a sound check in weeks. Paul was pleasantly surprised by John’s surprise appearance until he saw the expression on John’s face. The man was loaded for bear. 

“Paul, I want to talk to you. Privately.” John made this loud, angry demand in front of the whole band and crew. This embarrassed almost everyone except Brandon, who was happy to see Paul treated so rudely in public. 

Rather than make a scene, Paul unplugged himself from his guitar and handed it to one of the roadies. He then followed John off stage and into their dressing room. Before John could say anything, Paul spoke first.

“Don’t ever do that to me again!” He demanded, his voice low but obviously throbbing with anger.

“Don’t do what?” John shouted back.

“Speak to me like that in front of people who work for us! I won’t tolerate it!” 

John was taken aback. In his mind when he was rehearsing this conversation, he had been entirely in charge, and Paul had been meek and compliant. He wasn’t prepared for an enraged, empowered Paul. 

“Well, I’m pissed!” John shouted back, helplessly.

“So now I’m pissed too!” Paul retorted. Paul’s hands were on his hips and his face was scowling, although again, John couldn’t help thinking, he still looked like an angry puppy. This thought softened John’s approach a bit. He chuckled.

“Sorry, mate, but I have to find out from Linda that you’re dealing with Brandon without consulting me?” John’s voice was a judicious combination of appeasement and indignation. 

Paul was surprised by this pronouncement. “I always deal with these kind of problems, John. You never want to hear about it.”

John internally acknowledged the truth of this comment, and then added in a more conciliatory tone, “Brandon’s different. He’s the son of an old friend of mine. I promised Richard I’d look after him.”

Paul softened too. He regained his composure. “Timothy and I just sat him down and told him he had to change his attitude. He was being unspeakably rude to the other musicians, and we can’t have that on tour.” 

“You didn’t fire him?” John asked.

“No, but I did tell him if he didn’t improve his attitude I would fire him. Timothy and Robbie agree with me.” Paul waited a beat while John took that information on board. “And I also told Timothy he could fire Brandon if we have a repeat of the last concert.” Paul’s voice and expression reflected the solidity and immovability of a brick wall, and John knew that this was not something up for debate. But it irked him that Paul would reach a conclusion like that without consulting him. It didn’t occur to him that he had repeatedly abdicated any responsibility for such problems years earlier, and had always expected Paul to deal with them.

“Well, Paul,” John drawled sarcastically. “It’s Lennon & McCartney, not the other way around! You can’t fire anyone without my say-so! Everyone knows I’m the reason we made it, and you shouldn’t forget it! ”

Paul’s eyebrows almost flew off his face. He felt a jolt of anger run through him so powerful that he had to restrain himself from hitting John in the fucking face. But while he could curb his physical impulses, he couldn’t help himself from going “there” verbally. “And we both know how you got your name first, don’t we?” He sneered. “It had nothing to do with merit, and everything to do with you allowing Brian to wank you off!”

John’s breath came out of him as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus. “You…!” John rushed inwards and pushed Paul against a wall, and followed that with a right fist to Paul’s face. 

Paul managed to catch John’s wrist before it could do too much damage to his face, and he pushed John off him and the two men were staring at each other, breathing heavily. Paul felt tears fighting to erupt, and forced himself to hold them back. He finally broke his eyes away from John’s and then, pushing himself away, he slammed out of the room, leaving John behind to ponder what had just happened. 

 

*****

 

Paul staggered out to the main hallway, and felt his mouth and jaw aching. He knew his lip and inner mouth were cut, because he could taste the blood and see it on his finger. He could also feel his lower face swelling. He couldn’t believe this had happened. In all their years together, except for that one time in India in 1968, John had not physically attacked him. Paul was incredibly distressed, and did not know where to turn. Luckily for him, Timothy came down the hall at just that moment and saw Paul standing there with a bloody mouth and a shocked look on his face.

“What happened?” Timothy whispered. Paul could only look at him with an expression of intense hurt and confusion before Timothy grabbed him by the arm and led him to the office he’d been assigned for the night. He shut the door, and settled Paul in a chair. “Tell me what happened.” He repeated.

“John hit me!” Paul was clearly in shock, and seemed stunned and on the brink of tears. His voice sounded disbelieving. Timothy didn’t’ hesitate. He called Linda at the hotel immediately. 

He whispered into the phone. “John and Paul have had a fight. You need to get here to comfort Paul. I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel the show.” 

Linda was shocked beyond words, and began to regret her ‘winding up’ of John just an hour earlier. “Is Paul okay?”  
Her voice was scared and shaky.

Timothy said, “He’s shook up, and he’s got a bloody mouth, but otherwise I think he is okay.”

“A bloody mouth? Do you mean that asshole hit my husband?” Linda’s voice had risen to almost a banshee screech, and Timothy had to hold the phone receiver away from his ear. 

“I really don’t know what happened. Paul needs you right now.” 

Linda hung up and ran screaming for the driver. 

Meanwhile, Timothy went to find an assistant. He told him to bring some towels and ice. The assistant looked surprised, but followed the instructions, thinking what now?

Timothy turned back to Paul, and saw to his horror that the most dignified performer he’d ever met was cradling his head in his hands and sobbing. Timothy’s heart turned over, and then he got a grip. He sat down next to him, and put his arm around Paul’s shoulders. After 10 minutes, the sobbing stopped, and Paul was desperately trying to repair his face. By then the supplies he’d requested had been delivered (with Timothy blocking the door so the curious assistant could not see what was going on), and Timothy quietly handed Paul a damp towel and ice. Gently, he placed the makeshift ice pack over Paul’s mouth. He no longer needed Paul to tell him what happened. For whatever reason, the erratic John Lennon had smacked Paul in the mouth. This was without doubt the worst situation he’d ever found himself in as a tour director. 

He was incredibly grateful when the security guard showed Linda into his office. She saw Paul and a cry came out of her that would break the heart of a stone-cold killer. She rushed to Paul, knelt in front of him, and immediately encompassed him in a hug. Paul began to weep again, but softer, less achingly. Linda wept too. Timothy quietly excused himself from the room, and realized he had to go off to see what had become of John. 

Sound check had ground to a complete stop, and Wix had told all the musicians to go back to their locker room, and wait for the show. “Have some rest, relax,” he said, but his heart was heavy. The fact that Paul hadn’t come back to finish sound check worried him a lot. Paul was not the type to shirk his responsibilities, and he had seen John angry before, and knew it was not going to be a pretty scene. 

Timothy entered John and Paul’s dressing room, and found John on the sofa, with his face buried in the pillows. 

“John?” He asked quietly.

John stirred but did not respond.

“John, I need to know if we’re going on. If we’re not, I have to let the press know as soon as possible, so as not to inconvenience the audience.” Timothy’s voice was carefully modulated to ensure that no judgment was in his voice. Although he was firmly in Paul’s camp, John didn’t need to know that. 

“What does Paul say?” John asked. His voice sounded weak and afraid. 

“I haven’t asked him yet,” Timothy said softly. “Linda is with him now.”

“I hit him,” John said, almost as if he didn’t believe it. 

“His mouth is bleeding, and his face is swollen,” Timothy remarked. John needed to know the consequences of his actions. 

John groaned loudly, and Timothy could see the tear-streaked cheeks. Timothy had noticed by then that there was a whole lot of intense emotion between these two men. He hadn’t given credence to the rumors about them because they both seemed so masculine, but he did begin to suspect that there was a lot more depth to their relationship than most people understood. He decided not to be angry with John. That was not productive.

“Will you go on, if Paul goes on?” Timothy asked gently.

“Yes,” John whispered. “Is he okay?”

“Why don’t I bring you over to my office, and you can talk to him directly. But no more arguing - that’s my condition,” Timothy said firmly. 

John nodded in acquiescence, fatalistically. He then followed Timothy down the fairway to an office door. Timothy knocked and said, “Linda, it’s me and John. We’re coming in.”

Linda wanted to shout ‘no!’, but Paul looked at her in such a pleading, hopeful way that she opened the locked door, and let Timothy and John in. 

There was a very awkward silence until Timothy said, “Paul, John is willing to do the show if you are. I need to know if it is going on, because otherwise I have to alert the media immediately.”

Paul was surprised by this question. Of course he was going to go on! He had never considered anything else. “Yes, of course we’ll go on,” Paul said, although his mouth and face hurt when he made himself talk. “But I need the makeup artist before I’m ready.” 

John could see the swollen redness of Paul’s jaw, and the swollen lips, with a dark cut in them. He felt horrible. He didn’t want to hurt Paul, but that is all that he seemed able to do. He looked briefly at Linda, and saw that she was regarding him with anger and suspicion. Today he had driven a huge wedge in between himself and Paul and his family. “Paul?” He asked. His voice was an open plea. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.” 

Linda tightened her arms around Paul. She didn’t trust John not to hurt her husband, and she wanted - by her intense grasp - to remind Paul of John’s treachery. 

Paul felt defeated. He had known that the roller coaster was on a downward trend, but he hadn’t expected it to go so low. “Okay, well, let me get myself together, and we’ll do the show, and be done with all this drama.” Paul’s voice sounded empty and resigned. This tore at John’s heart. Paul looked up at John, but didn’t really meet his eyes. Paul’s face was a blank slate, and John couldn’t see through it. Instead, he turned around and headed down the hallway to the dressing room. His heart was extremely heavy. Damn his terrible temper and out of control ego!

 

*****

 

The make-up artist was surprised to have to cover up bruises and cuts on Paul’s lower face. “What happened?” she asked. 

Linda answered before Paul could think of an answer. “He literally bashed his mouth on the door handle when he bent over to pick something up. Can you believe it?” Her voice was amused and objective, and it convinced the makeup artist that she was telling the truth. Paul felt so grateful to Linda for her quick thinking. Meanwhile, the makeup artist did her best work, and managed to cover up the worst of the swelling. From a distance - which was where the audience sat, after all - the swelling wasn’t obvious. Maybe if the press photographers were allowed too close they would be able to detect the damage, however. Timothy had already thought of that, and told the press they couldn’t come close to the stage. They were pissed of course, but the security guards were intent upon enforcing Timothy’s order. 

It was 8:15 p.m., and it was time to go on stage. John had been waiting in the wings for 10 minutes before Paul and Linda joined him. Paul didn’t meet John’s eyes, but he waited calmly until it was the exact second when they needed to go on stage. Paul walked out first - strong and determined. John followed, trying to ape Paul’s confidence. They went directly into Get Back, and then into Come Together.

It was a surreal night for John and Paul, each of them performing full out for the audience, but not really connecting with each other. John felt horribly guilty, and Paul felt hurt and estranged from John. Still, he conjured up his Beatle Paul mask, and threw himself 100% into the show. John did his best to respond, hoping against hope that he would meet Paul’s eyes and know that everything was going to be all right. But Paul’s eyes - while outwardly smiling - were inwardly retracted, and John understood that the smiles were not meant for him. They were a part of their presentation to the audience.

That night proved to be the most difficult performance either John or Paul had ever given. First, Paul’s mouth was incredibly sore, and continued to swell even more as the night progressed. Singing, and making sure his tones came out of his mouth correctly, became a 100% focused task for Paul. And John couldn’t bear to look at Paul’s face without being filled with an overflow of guilt. He did his best to show Paul, through his intense performance, harmonies and backup, that he was incredibly sorry for what he had done. In truth, John was terrified that Paul would never forgive him. All he wanted was one true glimpse into Paul’s eyes, but that night Paul denied him that comfort.

The local photographers had been kept back several extra feet away from the stage, much to their frustration, and so they had not been able to take up close and personal photos of Paul’s injuries. In fact, they did not realize that there were any injuries. Timothy felt he was worth his weight in gold at that point. He had protected his charges from public humiliation and exposure. Strangely, he didn’t feel victorious. He felt protective of John and Paul, and knew that by protecting them from the ugliness of public exposure, he was doing what he could for two people he had grown to love against all odds: John and Paul.

The concert was a blistering juggernaut of emotion, with both John and Paul performing their hearts out. The audience was wild with excitement and delight, but had no idea of the deeply buried tension between their two idols. As the last strains of “The End” echoed across the stadium, the audience stood up in silent homage, before bursting out into screaming approval. Paul’s face was frozen in a smile as he departed the stage. He had completed the second encore, and knew that now he could go home, hide in Linda’s arms, and cry his fucking eyes out. John had turned on him in a way that Paul had thought was behind them. It had been the first time since their reconciliation that John had thrown his weight around in front of others and in such an insulting and uncalled for way, and Paul had been shaken to his core by it. 

John felt numb as they left the stage. John watched as Paul and Linda, who had waited backstage, climbed into a limo and drove off. A second limo was right behind them, waiting for him. Feeling empty and frightened, John climbed into this second limo, and sat in the back fighting back tears as it headed for the airport. He wondered what he and Paul would say to each other when they met again on the plane for their trip to Dallas.

But Paul and Linda went back to the hotel together. As soon as they arrived, Paul fell into bed and winced as his face hurt as it connected with the pillow. Linda came to him with a damp cloth that had been drenched in lavender oil. She placed the cloth on Paul’s forehead, and then gave him some butterfly kisses on his upper face. “I can’t believe he did that to you,” Linda whispered, as she gently caressed Paul’s bruises. 

“Neither can I,” Paul whispered back, his heart broken in a million pieces.

 

*****

 

The next morning, Paul was depressed. Linda and his children were scheduled to fly back to England early that day, while he was required to fly on to Dallas for the next concert date with John. Paul did not want Linda to leave, but he didn’t know how to put his selfish desires into words. Linda was holding him in her arms, her heart full of deep empathy, when she whispered in his ear, “Baby, do you want me to stay with you?”

Paul heard this and his eyes filled with tears. “But James…” he whispered.

“I’ve talked to Mary and Stella. They will move into Cavendish for the rest of the tour, and take care of James.” Linda held her breath. She hoped and prayed that Paul was relieved to hear this information. 

Paul was tremendously relieved. “If you think it is okay for James…”

“James tells me that he wants me to be here with you,” Linda whispered in response. 

“Lin, if you want to be with me, I want to be with you.” Paul stopped talking after that. His eyes were beseeching when he looked at Linda. “I feel like a fool and a failure.”

“Paul, listen. You’re not a failure. John behaved badly towards you, but you got up on your hind legs and went out and wowed the crowd anyway. You’re my hero.” Linda kissed Paul’s face, and his throat, and his chest. “It will all work out in the end,” she added, as she allowed her kisses to wander down towards Paul’s nether regions.

Paul was fully cognizant of Linda’s ministrations, and was also fully grateful for them. But he couldn’t help remembering John’s angry face as he struck out at him. Paul’s eyes closed involuntarily, and he felt his body wince, as he remembered that moment. I shouldn’t have said what I thought about the Brian Epstein manipulation, Paul told himself. That had happened almost - but not quite - 30 years earlier. Paul had even surprised himself when that vitriol came out of him. 30 years of knowing that John had maneuvered Brian into marginalizing Paul’s role in the Beatles. Paul was shocked to discover that he was still enraged by John’s betrayal. If, back in the day, John had come to him privately and asked Paul to have his name go first, Paul would probably have eventually given in and said ‘yes’. But to have it shoved down his throat from behind his back by the new manager - that was far too much. Especially since the decision was made during John’s cozy trip to Barcelona with Brian. What a coincidence. Not. 

In fact, Paul had always believed that John had allowed Brian to engage in sexual liberties with him. John had lied to Paul about it, and claimed nothing had happened, but Paul had never believed it. Paul had also felt as though a knife had been thrust into the very bottom of his gut as a result of that betrayal. Paul was beginning to realize that he had never properly healed from that injury. This surprised Paul, who had not thought through this issue before. He had always tended to fly above the fray, and not linger amongst the bitter remains. But now the odor of those bitter remains were forcing themselves upon him, surprising Paul with the strength of their stench. Where had that come from after all those years?

 

*****

 

Later that day, Mary, Stella and James boarded a plane and headed back for London. Mary had promised to pack more of her mom’s things and send them to her at one of the later tour destinations. All three of the McCartney children had been shocked by the bruises they’d seen on their father’s face, and although no one had told them exactly what happened, they had gathered that John had done it. In their family no one fought or hit each other or screamed insults at each other. This was so foreign to their upbringing that they couldn’t wrap their minds around it. They had urged their mother to stay with their father, all three of them, and Linda was grateful to them for making it easy for her to agree. After the kids left for the airport, Linda packed Paul’s things and her own, and was preparing for their trip to Dallas. 

John had flown to Dallas right after the concert. He had been shocked to discover that Paul wasn’t coming with him, but would arrive the next day. When he discovered this, he was already seated on the private plane. It was too late to refuse to leave, and if he did - what difference would it make? Paul would still not want to see or talk to him. So John stayed on board as the plane took off (in one of the most ridiculously dangerous airports known to modern man) and left Paul behind. For John, this was devastating, and he needed something - anything - to set his mind at ease, which was why, once he got to the suite in Dallas that he was supposed to share with Paul, he scored some pot and stayed up until 4 a.m. toking and drinking whiskey. His brain had turned to mush, which was the kind of relief John felt he needed at the moment. 

It was close to 2 p.m. the next day when John awoke. He heard banging around in an adjacent room in the suite. Was that Paul? He awoke hopefully, believing that now he had Paul to himself, so he could apologize properly, and try to put this bad experience behind them. But as he got up and reached for his robe, he could swear he could hear Paul’s voice. Who was he talking to? Perhaps he was on the phone. He finished brushing his teeth and his hair, and then, naked under his robe (and hoping to perhaps use sex as a way to reach the tender side of Paul), he entered the large sitting area of the suite only to find Linda sitting on the sofa and calling to Paul to bring her a fresh cup of coffee. At that moment Paul walked out with a coffee cup and noticed John.

“Linda!” John said. He was very surprised.

“Hello, John,” Linda said. Her face was not warm and inviting. It and her voice were both very formal. 

“Hi, John,” Paul said in a subdued voice. “We’ve asked for another suite so it won’t be so awkward, and we’re waiting to find out when one is available for us.”

“You’re not staying here with me?” John asked, looking lost and helpless in Paul’s direction.

Paul did feel a pull toward John in that moment. He didn’t like to see John like this. But he remembered the bruises around his mouth and his sore lip, and decided he couldn’t afford sympathy for John at this particular moment. Paul was trying to find the words to answer John’s question, when Linda took over.

“After what happened, Paul and I think that it is best if we have a little physical distance from you for a while. Until things settle down more.” Linda’s voice was that of a protective mother, and John felt them as patronizing and isolating.

“’You and Paul’ decided this, did you? But this is an issue between Paul and me, having nothing to do with you, and how can we work it out if we’re not left alone to do it?” John had directed his words at Linda, but they were meant equally for Paul. He was trying to shame Paul, who - in John’s mind - was hiding behind Linda’s skirts. 

“I’m not ready to talk with you about this, John,” Paul said in Linda’s defense. “I asked Linda to stay with me, and she thankfully agreed. You and I’ve been getting on each other’s nerves, and if this tour is to be a success, I think we need to see a little less of each other when we’re not on stage.”

“Oh you do, do you?” John’s face matched frustration with fear.

“John, think about it,” Paul said in an infuriatingly rational voice, “Before we had this…argument…you were already looking for ways to avoid my presence. Staying out all night, getting drunk. I didn’t get it until we had this…disagreement… how desperate you were for your independence. So, maybe that is something we both need now, and this will give us some time to think about it.”

“’It’? What the fuck is ‘it’?” 

“’It’ is thinking about whether we need to spend some time away from each other. Not forever, but just until we know what we really want.” 

John was outraged to hear this out of Paul, even though he himself had been making exactly those plans about a new life in New York. It was one thing for John to think they needed some space, but it was an entirely different thing for Paul to say it! “I see. So we have one bad fight and you’re ready to pack up and leave. Is that it?” John’s hands were on his hips as he was glaring at Paul.

Linda was getting angrier by the moment. She jumped up and moved towards John. “Stop it John! How like you to turn this into what you think Paul is doing wrong! Do you forget that you hit him in the face? How the hell did you expect Paul to react to that, for crying out loud? Did you think there would be no consequences?” Linda’s angry voice echoed in the suite for several seconds, and then the phone rang. Paul picked it up, said ‘thanks’, and then hung up.

“It’s our suite, Linda. It’s ready for us. They’re bringing the luggage there now. We’re to meet the concierge.” Paul then turned to John, and his voice and expression became conciliatory. “I said a terrible thing to you, John, and I apologize for that. I shouldn’t have said it, and I guess I understand why you wanted to hit me. But I’m just not ready to talk about all that bad stuff right now. It kind of shakes me up, that I still have those feelings. I really don’t think you are ready to deal with it, either. So let’s go to our separate corners for a few rounds, until we have a better grasp on our emotions. Ok, mate?” 

John nodded. He couldn’t speak because he felt sobs aching in his throat. He didn’t want to break down in front of Paul and Linda. Together. Looking like a strong unit. Like he and Paul used to look. 

 

*****

 

The band was very subdued as they waited for sound check to begin. Paul was late, and that was very unusual. But he did show up, and surprisingly his wife Linda was with him. She made the rounds saying hi to everyone, and then said she was going to hang out backstage. All of the musicians noticed the bruises, but none of them said anything. Paul had acted very normal, and made his little jokes and charming segues, and put everyone at ease almost immediately. No matter what was going on behind the scenes, Paul was obviously not going to drag the dirty linen out in order to get sympathy.

Even Brandon kept his actively insolent face quiet. Paul had shown him something - the professional way he had handled himself the night before, and here he was the next day, leading the sound check. Brandon actually had an errant thought that to be in show business a person might have to be tough, dedicated and determined. McCartney was obviously all three. It had also occurred to him, upon reflection (but mostly after he recounted what happened in his meeting with Paul and Timothy to his father, and his father pointed it out to him) that McCartney had been fair and reasonable with him, and gave him the chance to either choose to stay and make it work or to leave on his own terms. “That was extremely generous and rare in this business, son,” his father had said. So Brandon had behaved himself the night before, and even tried to smile and play off the other musicians a bit more. He found that even that little bit of effort on his part had earned him some approving smiles from Paul, even though the smile had to be made through a split and bruised lip. Robbie, too, had patted him on the back and said, “Thanks for your support tonight, appreciate it,” as they left the stage. Maybe this gig wasn’t as much of a drag as he had thought it would be. 

John was back at the hotel, nursing a hang over and crying in his tea. He felt desperately sad about the state of his relationship with Paul. He probably would not have hit Paul if the comment he had made (that he had allowed Brian to wank him off in order to gain influence over Brian) hadn’t been true. But because it was true, a truth that he supposed Paul had always guessed but never said to him before had cut John to the core. As usual, John’s guilt had caused him to act out. He was trying to get up the energy and enthusiasm for going out on stage again. Part of him dreaded seeing Paul again, but the other part couldn’t wait. Finally he pulled himself off the sofa, and rang for the driver. It was time to go - one hour before the show - and he couldn’t put it off any longer. 

In the limo John fought with the sadness that threatened to overcome him. Where was his hard outer shell when he really needed it? His whole life was in jeopardy right now, and it had all been his own fault. Why did he self-sabotage like this? He could never be satisfied with what he had; he always had to reach for more. Once he had what he had craved, then he didn’t crave it anymore, and wanted something else. It’s time for me to go back to full time therapy, John thought. As soon as this fuckin’ tour was over, he was going straight back to Fiona, who’d he had stopped seeing months earlier. Maybe he was one of those people who had to go to therapy their whole life to keep themselves on track. He hoped that Paul would see he was seriously working on his anger issues if he went back to full time therapy. 

John found Linda in the dressing room, sitting in a chair going through some paperwork, while Paul dressed for the show. He stared at her as if by doing so he could make her disappear. All he wanted was 5 minutes alone with Paul. Linda was like a fucking guard dog protecting Paul from him. Linda finally looked up from her paperwork and met John’s eyes. She didn’t look away. Yup, John thought. A fucking guard dog. Well, here goes.

“Linda, I would like to speak to Paul alone for a few minutes.” John said this with as much calm respect as he could muster under the circumstances. He watched while Linda met Paul’s eyes, and then he saw Paul’s almost imperceptible nod. 

She got up and as she passed him on the way out she whispered to him, “Don’t be a dick again.” 

After the door closed behind her, Paul stood up and faced John. John had been planning to be calm, rational, sincere, and to explain as objectively as possible what had led up to his outburst, how bad he felt about it, and what he was going to do about it so that it would never happen again. But in the actual moment, no words came to him. But apparently his face was speaking to Paul, because suddenly Paul opened his arms, and John rushed over and hugged back as if his whole life depended upon it.


	41. Chapter 41

The two men held each other tightly for at least 30 seconds, if not longer. Then slowly Paul pushed John away from him a little until they could look into each other’s eyes. 

John said, “Paul, I’m so sorry…”

“I know you are, John. I’m sorry too.”

“I’m the one who hit you,” John argued.

“But what I said was a sneak attack. I’m still shocked that it came out of me after all this time.”

“Are you still mad at me about that? It was so long ago!” At the time of their argument, John had been surprised by the intensity of Paul’s reaction, and the sharpness of his words about the whole Epstein/Spain/control-over-the-group thing. 

Paul sighed heavily and then shrugged. “I didn’t think so, but it seems that maybe I am still mad. I surprised myself when it came out, actually.”

John had to chuckle. Paul looked so cute, and his words were so humble and sweet. He said, “I was just very insecure back then, babe. I was afraid that he would realize that you were the real star, and then I would lose…” John’s voice petered out and a look of confusion came on to his face.

“Lose what?” Paul asked, struck dumb by John’s statement that he thought it was him, and not John, that was the “star”. Of course, Paul had always known that he himself was a star, but he’d always believed that John was one also - equally so. 

John had to think hard on that one. He finally said, “You. I was afraid of losing you. They would get in your head and take you away from me.” 

Paul took this in and started processing it. He wasn’t angry with John. He hadn’t really been angry since the moment John’s fist hit his mouth. But he was badly shaken by John’s emotional state. He had thought John had come a long way, and ever since they had come on tour, John’s emotional stability appeared to be deteriorating. Paul had no desire to go back to the toxic state of their relationship in the late ‘60s when John had constantly thrown him under the bus in front of outsiders, and then apologized in floods of tears when they were alone. That had been a very unhealthy state to live in, and it had taken Linda years to help him get over the trauma of it all. Paul knew if John was going to slide back into that behavior, he couldn’t continue to be around him. But now was not the time to say this. John was clearly too vulnerable, and he needed Paul to be strong for him. Paul said, “John, I know you’re hurting. I don’t know why, but I can tell you are. That whole get a new apartment in New York thing; the three nights out drinking to excess with Harry; provoking a fight over a 25 year-old back up guitarist of all things - you’re obviously in pain. What are you trying to tell me? Can you think about that? We can talk about it later, after the show, and after a few days. But please give it some thought.” 

John had listened to what Paul said, and he agreed with all of it. He said, “I stopped seeing Fiona several months ago, and I haven’t been regular with my Prozac. I need to go back to therapy. I think that is why I’ve been so…” John searched for a word… “all over the place lately.”

Paul heard this and hoped that it was as simple as that, but his deeply realistic inside voice told him it was no doubt far more complicated. Still, if John did go back to regular therapy, it couldn’t hurt, and would probably help. 

John was speaking again. “Paul, can you please ask Linda to go home. She doesn’t need to protect you from me. It’s like I can’t even talk to you when she’s around. We need to be able to talk to each other in order to get this behind us.”

Paul’s heart sank. He was going to have to say something to John that was going to hurt him badly. But there was no way out for him. “John, right now I don’t feel safe with you alone. I don’t think you’re going to physically hurt me, but I’m afraid we’re going to end up saying things to each other that might permanently damage our friendship. I think we need to put some physical distance between us for a little while.”

“What’s ‘a little while’ mean Paul? How long?” John’s face looked panicky. “I need to sleep with you again. I’m not sleeping at all. I’m just sitting up all night drinking and toking. It’s gonna really hurt our performances soon.” 

Paul hadn’t looked at it that way. He did need to get John through the end of this blasted tour. He’d never been on an unsuccessful tour in his life, and this tour was no exception. They were raking in money left and right, and getting rave reviews. And Paul had always enjoyed touring, and the only other emotionally wrenching tours he’d been on were the Beatles’ Far East tour of 1966, and the 1966 America tour after the ‘Jesus’ comment. Those problems had been due to cultural differences. The Japanese establishment was not ready for the rough-and-ready teenage reaction to rock ‘n roll, and the Filipino government had a lock-hold on the press, and the Beatles had misread how powerful the government was. In America, the religious right in the American south had reacted powerfully to John’s comments about the waning influence of Christianity. But this tour had been an emotional roller coaster due to John’s fluctuating moods and whims. Paul was finding it harder and harder to hide the turmoil from the band, the management, the press, and the audiences. It was taking every ounce of his concentration and effort to make the cracks in his relationship with John invisible to everyone. But even with all those efforts, John’s physical attack on him had become common knowledge amongst the band, the crew, and the management team. Paul worried that rumors were going to get out to the press. At least the swelling had gone down, and the yellow bruises and cracked lip could be easily hidden by makeup. Soon, all the physical scars will have faded. But when would the emotional scars heal?

“John, trust me on this. We need some space from each other. But if you need me, I mean if you’re really upset, call me, and I’ll come over.” 

“I need you now. I need you tonight.” John’s voice was a raw ache. 

Paul sighed heavily again. This was difficult. He wanted to give in and provide John with the answer he desperately wanted, but he didn’t want to risk it, and he also didn’t want to tell Linda to leave. She had been there for him so many times, as she had been here for him through this latest debacle, and he had no intention of saying to her, ‘everything’s fine now luv, go home.’ 

“After the show, I’ll come to your suite, and we can talk some more, but I’m going to sleep in the other suite. But first I need you to give 100% to this show. Give it your all. In the end, all this crap will work itself out, you’ll see.”

John realized he had to be satisfied with that. He was frankly bewildered that Paul was ‘afraid’ of him - afraid of the emotional damage he might do to their relationship. He could understand why Paul felt that way, but it hurt him very badly to have to face the consequences of his own behavior. “Okay, I understand,” John said softly. 

Paul reached over and pulled John back into a fierce hug. He whispered in John’s ear, “I love you, I really do.” 

John nodded but could not speak. He was fighting off tears. 

Paul then said, “Well, we’d better get ready for the show, and start pumping ourselves up!”

 

*****

 

The concert was tremendously successful, and about one third of the way through John and Paul were singing off one microphone and smiling at each other again. It was not only a tremendous relief to John and Paul, but also to the band and everyone on the crew and management team. A happy John and Paul meant a happy environment to work in. 

Periodically throughout the show, Paul would have errant thoughts about John’s loneliness, and would worry that it was a recipe for disaster if he ignored it. He would have to address it. He couldn’t kick Linda to the curb, and he honestly felt it was best if he built up his relationship with Linda again to keep both relationships in balance. But he couldn’t bear the idea of John being alone in his suite every night. He might fall into serious alcoholism or drug abuse, or go off and do risky things that could rebound to hurt him badly. 

After the show, he sat with John in his suite to explore this issue. “What would make you feel better, John? I was thinking I could call Sean and see if he’ll come and travel with us, now that he is finished with school. Maybe we can give him a guitar and he can play, too. That would even give someone Brandon could lord over.” Paul chuckled at the thought.

But John winced at the mention of Brandon. What had possessed him to threaten his relationship with Paul over that little shit? Of course the answer was that the chest beating he’d done at Paul in front of the band and crew had a deeper, darker motivation. Brandon had just been the trigger. Paul was right that they had issues they needed to work on that went deeper than firing Brandon. For Christ’s sake, John hadn’t even spoken to Brandon’s dad for over ten years before agreeing to give Brandon a gig! It wasn’t as if the man had been instrumental in his life or his career, after all. But Paul’s idea about Sean…That sounded good. It gave John a good feeling. “Yeah, being with Sean would help me,” John admitted softly. 

“I’ll give him a call tomorrow morning,” Paul said firmly. He felt relieved that he had found a solution to John’s being left alone in his suite night after night in town after town for the remaining two months of the tour. After this was resolved, an awkward silence fell over them. John finally broke it. 

“I know you have to go back to Linda, but can you help me fall asleep first? Will you lay with me until I fall asleep?” John was embarrassed having to ask, but he desperately did not want to be alone that night. He was anxious and depressed at the same time.

Paul didn’t have it in him to say ‘no’, so he nodded softly. Together they walked silently into the bedroom, and while John undressed, Paul did not. He didn’t trust himself not to become aroused if his naked skin was against John’s. It was going to be hard enough as it was not to give in and make love to John. Truthfully, he desperately missed physical closeness with John, and it was taking an enormous amount of willpower to hold himself back. But it would be just plain ungenerous not to agree to climb in to John’s bed, and hold him in his arms until John fell asleep. He knew that Linda would worry about him, but she would understand why he had to do it.

As they settled in the bed, they had a little awkwardness between them. But Paul just moved through it, and pulled John close to him in a loving spoon hug. John felt Paul’s strong arms around him, and he allowed himself to really breathe for the first time in days. His right hand grasped Paul’s hand, where it was tucked in under his stomach. Their fingers intertwined, and John whispered, “Paul, I love you so much. I don’t want to lose you.”

Paul’s eyes were tearing up, and he whispered in John’s ear. “You will never lose me, Johnny, I’ll always be there for you.”

 

*****

 

Later that night, after John fell asleep, Paul extricated himself as quietly as he could, and left to join Linda in their suite. It was 3 a.m., and he felt bad it had taken so long for John to fall asleep. The poor man had cried. He had cried for almost an hour, and Paul did his best to comfort him. But short of waving a magic wand and making all the pain and sorrow of John’s life disappear in a sparkly moment, Paul knew there were no quick fixes to what was wrong. It was going to take time and it was going to be hard for both of them. Paul now knew why he had freaked out so much over John’s idea of purchasing a flamboyant apartment in New York. He knew that this was a symptom of something that was wrong in the relationship - something that desperately needed to be dealt with. 

Linda woke up when Paul got in bed with her. “Paul?” She asked. Her voice sounded worried.

“Shhhh, baby, it’s okay,” Paul whispered. Now he could do something about that huge boner lying in bed with John had given him. Soon he and Linda were in the throes of very satisfying sex. Paul felt very comforted by this, because Linda was “safe”. She didn’t have any sharp edges or corners. She was not going to say anything hurtful to him, and she was not going to take more than she was willing to give. Paul had long since gotten over her “oops” in telling Mike about his relationship with John. At some point in the last few weeks, without Paul even realizing it, he had let it go. He knew that Linda meant only the best for him, and he also knew how pushy Mike had been about the subject, so he had no hard feelings. What he didn’t know was that Linda was still blaming herself for this. 

In the morning they were preparing to have a quiet breakfast together and Linda surprised Paul by suddenly saying, “Why don’t we invite John over to join us?” Paul’s face lit up with gratitude, and quickly moved to the phone to call John’s room. He’d already called Sean in New York and asked him to come out, and Sean had said he had to make a few arrangements, but could meet them in Miami in three days. Paul was looking forward to letting John know this. Later that day they would be leaving for New Orleans, and after that they would be heading for Miami. 

John had been pleasantly surprised by the invitation, and he came over to Paul and Linda’s suite, and made himself comfortable at the table. Paul had gone off to do something, and John and Linda were left alone for a few minutes. Linda saw that John’s eyes looked as though there were bruises under them. 

“Paul says you haven’t been sleeping well,” she said softly. She couldn’t be angry with him any more. In some ways John was like a teenager. He acted out sometimes in outrageous ways, but the motivations weren’t really mean or calculated. They were generally driven by fear and insecurity. 

John shook his head no, not trusting himself to speak.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you,” Linda said next. “I can’t bear to see Paul hurting, but I really don’t like to see you hurting either.” 

John took a deep breath. He supposed he would have to say something gracious since Linda was trying so hard to make amends. “Thanks. I don’t blame you for being mad at me though. You can’t be madder at me than I am at myself.” 

Linda reached out and squeezed John’s hand with her own. She was about to say something else, but Paul breezed in and joined them at the table. Following right behind him was the room service waiter with a huge service tray. Breakfast was served.

 

*****

 

John felt dependent upon Paul, now that Paul had withdrawn a bit from John’s thrall. Wasn’t that always the case? One took a thing for granted until it was threatened? All of the rebelliousness he’d felt in the last few months had vanished, and all John could experience was insecurity and fear. Each day between Dallas and Miami felt like 10 or 12 days. So, the three days felt like a month to John. Nothing outwardly happened to exacerbate the tension between them; in fact, the two men were painstakingly polite and gentle when they were in each other’s company. But they were rarely alone together, and there had been no sex. It was clear to John that Paul had taken a gigantic step backwards to consider the future of their relationship. This left John feeling helpless and vulnerable, but he could think of nothing he could do or say that would reach across the cold abyss and touch Paul.

And then there was Linda. She had been a constant presence whenever Paul deigned to be in the same place as John. Backstage, on planes and in limousines, in hotel lobbies - it didn’t matter. They were a united front, and he was the excluded outlier. He had a hard time understanding how he had gone from Paul’s intense number one to a distant number two in a few short months. Of course, John wasn’t really self-aware enough to understand that his conduct over the past few months might have had something to do with it. The only strike against him, in his book, was when he hit Paul in anger in San Diego. To John, that by itself explained Paul’s anger, but Paul’s tendency to hide behind his bland face when he was upset was unfair and unduly cruel.

Paul didn’t think he was upset. Paul thought he was confused, and didn’t know who he was or what he wanted any more. It was just safer clinging to Linda, who had once before soothed his jumpy nerves and wrecked confidence after he had been “Lennonized.” Did he miss John? Hell yes. But he missed the John who wasn’t on the one hand abusive, and on the other hand cringing with self-pity. He hadn’t realized how much John had grown emotionally in the 11 years since they had renewed their relationship. The change had been so slow it had become invisible to him, and the abrupt snap back to the “old John” had been a rude awakening. He had even started taking that new John for granted. Of course, there had been their share of lows in the last decade, Paul knew. He tended to pave over them when they were behind him. But now, as he had more time to himself, he began to remember all the times John had let him down. Like after the cancer. That was a terrible letdown. In fact, Paul allowed himself to recognize, it had been a betrayal. Yet he had forgiven it, and they had moved on. Now here they were again in the pits. What were they doing wrong? Was it even possible for them to make their ride through life smooth, or was it always going to be a series of peaks and valleys? And - Paul wondered - were peaks and valleys a good thing or a bad thing? He didn’t know. He really didn’t. So, for the time being, he was clinging to the safe thing. 

Paul’s worries about John being alone were about to be ameliorated somewhat by the imminent arrival of Sean Lennon, who was going to join the tour now that they were in Miami. In fact, Sean’s car was due at the hotel at any moment. Paul decided to go across the hallway to John’s suite and see how he was getting on. It had been a rough 3 days, with John needing Paul to hold him before going to sleep each night, and his endless pathetic apologies caused Paul’s always-ready guilt response to activate. This is why Paul took a deep breath to steal himself for seeing John alone, without Linda there as a buffer. 

He felt a bit odd knocking on the door, after all those years of assuming he was welcome in whatever room John was occupying. Part of him wanted to act like his old self around John, and just let himself in with the extra key, and the other part of him felt it would be inappropriate and presumptuous when he was refusing to engage in sexual intimacy with John. 

John answered the door. He was surprised when Paul walked in, and there was no Linda behind him. Maybe things are looking up? John thought. He couldn’t help it. The hope just lit right up inside of him, even though there was little to no encouragement. 

“Sean should be here at any moment,” Paul said, once he’d made himself comfortable on John’s sofa. “I sent the car to pick him up, and his flight landed a half hour ago.” 

John smiled encouragingly at Paul, waiting for something else: something more personal, something that would show him that Paul was still his intimate friend. Paul could see that John was waiting for something, but he wasn’t quite sure what that “something” was. So he smiled at John and said, “Have you been sleeping better?” 

“Only because you stay with me until I fall asleep,” John said honestly. His eyes were searching Paul’s for an intimate connection. 

“Do you think things will be better when Sean is here?” Paul asked, trying to put some emotional distance between himself and John.

“It will be great to have him here, of course,” John said slowly, not sure what Paul wanted from him. “But he can’t replace you.” 

Paul didn’t know how to blow past that admission. To do so would be cruel and even untrue. “It isn’t easy for me either,” Paul said softly, not exactly meeting John’s eyes.

“So why are you making it so hard?” John asked, his eyes sparking with life for the first time in days. 

“I’m not making it hard, John,” Paul snapped. He couldn’t help himself. Then he took a deep breath, and lowered his voice to something a bit more conciliatory. “Look. It’s very confusing for me now. Isn’t it for you? I just want to know what the hell I feel before I rush into anything.” 

John groaned. “Paul - we had a fight! When we were young, we used to fight all the time! This time it became physical, but it was over immediately! It isn’t the end of the fucking world!” 

“I don’t want to fight ‘all the time’ anymore,” Paul grumbled. He actually looked as though he was pouting. “I didn’t really like it back when we were young, either. Before, I didn’t know the difference. I didn’t know what it was like to live peacefully with someone else until I married Linda.” 

John sat up straight and felt insulted down to his socks. “So Linda is perfect! So why did you want to live with me too?” John’s sharp question echoed in the room. “Paul?” John asked sarcastically. “I don’t hear an answer. Why did you want me back in your life if it was so fucking perfect before?”

Paul was saved from answering by the loud buzzing of the door. Both men jumped, and then Paul responded first. He got up and went to the door and swung it open.

“Paul!” Sean shouted in cheerful greeting. He had no idea what had brought on Paul’s invitation to join the tour and hang with his dad. The suggestion had seemed to fall out of the clear blue sky. Paul greeted him with open arms. Soon, they parted, and Sean moved into the room dragging a bag and a guitar case, to engage his dad in a big hug.

Sean didn’t feel any tension in the room, because he was just arriving full of excitement about playing in his father’s band - this was an amazing dream coming true for the budding 17 year-old musician. He had been languishing in the Dakota apartments since his home schooling ended, trying to pull gigs at local clubs. When he did get a gig, he knew it was because he was John Lennon’s son. If he was going to have a career based on being John Lennon’s son, he might as well do it up front and center in his dad’s band! He dropped his duffel bag, and gently laid down his guitar case, and then took a free look around the hotel suite. “Sweet!” He declared cheerfully, causing both John and Paul to chuckle with affection. “Where’s my room?” He asked.

John laughed, and pointed to the left. Sean grabbed his gear and headed for his room, just as a bellboy knocked on the still-open door and said, “I have the rest of the luggage?” John waved him in and pointed him in Sean’s direction. As the man disappeared, John turned to Paul and said, 

“Thanks for thinking of Sean. I appreciate it. But we still need to talk, you and me. We have to get things straightened out between us.” 

Paul nodded briskly, and then said, “I’ll be off and let the two of you get settled. You want to have dinner with me and Lin in our suite?”

“Let me check with Sean. I’ll let you know.”

“Works for me,” Paul said in a determinedly upbeat tone. He then turned on his heel, and headed for the suite he shared with Linda, across the hall. But even as he left, he felt a sense of letdown. He was already missing John by the time he unlocked the door, and entered his own suite. Linda was relaxing on the sofa. She looked as though she was about to fall asleep, so Paul tiptoed across the room and found the mini bar, and soon had poured himself a short whiskey. Why did he feel as though he had left fun and life behind when he had left John and Sean and crossed the hallway? 

 

*****

 

The Miami crowd was wild and high as they waited for the start of the show. The smell of pot hung heavily over the arena, and even the non-smokers were feeling the effects. The music pumping into the crowd was Latin, and many of the audience members were dancing in the aisles and at their seats. It was a holiday atmosphere. 

Sound check had been interesting, with Sean finding his way with the rest of the band. Sean wasn’t that strong of a musician, so he realized he should back up his father on rhythm guitar. Maybe if he practiced more, he could get as good as Robbie, or at least Brandon. The other musicians were nice to him, but he felt that Brandon had a self-satisfied, knowing smirk on his face that seemed to say, ‘you’re only here because of who your father is.’ Little did Sean know that the same could be said of Brandon!

Sean had not gotten wise to the problems between John and Paul. That was because he was assuming that Paul was sleeping separately from John because Linda was present. Like children the world over, Sean preferred his parents’ sex lives to be the unknown country, and he didn’t waste any time or energy worrying about it. So he had come along to sound check, and did not even realize that it was unusual for his father to show up. 

Now, as the show began, Paul and then John walked up on to the stage, and the audience went wild. Sean followed his fellow musicians on to the stage. It was going to be great fun. As the evening progressed, the musicians felt a vibe, and Sean was grinning ear to ear as he blended his sound into their sound. The older musicians were quietly amused by Sean’s enthusiasm, and Brandon felt superior. But his superiority allowed him to feel unthreatened by Sean, and so he decided he was okay with Sean’s presence on the tour. 

John kept looking back to see his son there as if it could not possibly be true, and Paul noticed this and felt a groundswell of affection growing inside him. Paul didn’t want to feel the walls coming down; he thought that perhaps he needed to keep his distance until the tour was over, and then they could concentrate on fixing what was broken. But John was irresistible to him, and all of the bruises were gone and it was hard for Paul to even remember the intensity of the emotion that had overcome him when John had hit him. He began to wonder if he was being unnecessarily withholding. He looked to the side of the stage and saw Linda standing there, arms crossed, swaying to the music. She met his eyes and smiled. Paul smiled back. It was so fucking confusing! All of it! And there was no end to it!

It was time to sing In My Life. Paul felt too emotionally vulnerable that night to do this, but Wix had already started the recognizable intro and it was too late for him to nix the song. Reluctantly, he approached the microphone where John was standing already and planted himself there. John began to sing, his eyes locked on Paul’s with an intensity that was impossible for Paul to ignore.

 

“There are places I remember  
All my life though some have changed  
Some forever not for better  
Some have gone and some remain  
All these places have their moments  
With lovers and friends I still can recall  
Some are dead and some are living  
In my life I've loved them all  
But of all these friends and lovers  
There is no one compares with you…”

 

*****

 

Sean had noted there was something wrong, something deeply intense, in his father’s eyes as he had sung that song, In My Life. He had also noted that Paul and Linda had left the concert arena in one car, and he and his father had left in another. He had noted that his father was squeezed up against the car window, his face shrouded in sorrow. Sean began to feel like everyone but him knew something vital. He cleared his throat as he sat in the dark car with his father, as the car rocketed through the late night towards their hotel. 

“Dad, what’s going on with you and Paul?” He asked. His voice was soft and non-judgmental.

John turned to look at his son, and the question racketed around his brain for a while before it finally settled and made sense. “We’ve had a bit of a barney,” John responded, slipping into his old Liverpudlian slang. 

“What about?” Sean asked. He was shaken by this news. The only given in Sean’s life over the past 10 years had been the solid front that was his father and Paul. 

“It’s hard to explain,” John said, staring out the window again, his face a study in bleakness.

“Is that why I’m here? Is that why Paul asked me to come?” Sean reminded himself that nothing really fell out of the clear blue sky. There was always a reason.

“We’re just sort of trying to take a little break,” John said, his voice cracking. John hoped Sean would put it down to exhaustion after the concert, but Sean heard it for what it was - a symptom of his father’s broken heart.

“What’s it about?” Sean asked gently.

John sighed heavily. “I wish I knew.” 

 

*****

 

There were shadows dancing on the ceiling of the hotel room. There was a rhythm to it, and Paul had figured it out. His head was cradled in the palms of his hands as he lay on his back in bed. Linda was sound asleep beside him. The night seemed impossibly quiet. The Miami, Jacksonville and New Orleans shows had gone well, and Sean had really brought a lovely new energy to the band. Paul regretted not leaving immediately for New York after the New Orleans show. The whole band was heading there for a few days to rest, before completing their tour in Canada and the northwest states in America. 

Linda had never been to the loft, so Paul had made arrangements for them to stay with her brother John Eastman. John and Sean were going to occupy the loft. It had been almost two weeks since Sean’s arrival, and Paul and John had drifted ever further apart. It wasn’t because John wanted it to happen; the drifting was almost entirely Paul’s doing. But it wasn’t as if Paul was happy about the distance between them. He simply lacked the will or imagination to put his anxieties behind him, and find a new way to go forward. John’s behavior over the last few months had left Paul bereft of confidence. He didn’t like feeling insecure and clueless again. It gave John far more power over him than he felt comfortable with. Like that acid trip in 1967, when he had stumbled out into the garden to talk to flowers, overwhelmed by the glowing golden throne that John sat upon, lording it over Paul and his household. Paul had never wanted to feel that vulnerable again, and it surprised him very much that at age 50 he was still afraid of being pulled into the vortex that was John Lennon.

 

*****

 

The private plane landed in New York in the mid-afternoon, and the four principals (John, Sean, Paul and Linda) got into the same limousine to take them into the City. Linda was looking forward to hunkering down in her brother’s Manhattan apartment, and sharing some long overdue gossip time with her sister-in-law Jody. Boy, did she have a lot to get off her chest! Of course, she could never tell anyone about what had happened in San Diego, but she could unload the emotional turmoil it had caused. 

Sean chattered happily at his dad about all the fun stuff they could do while in New York. He was glad to be staying at the loft instead of at the Dakota, and was really looking forward to some alone time with his father. He had no clue what was wrong between Paul and his dad, and no one seemed interested in enlightening him. What’s more, he didn’t want to know too much about his father’s love life. Such an icky subject. 

John listened to Sean’s voice but wasn’t really concentrating on the words. His whole soul was concentrating on the feel of Paul’s thigh pressed up against his in the tight confines of the limousine. It was strangely comforting to John, and as long as he felt it there he could keep his blood pressure from accelerating. The separation from Paul would come soon enough - John knew they’d be getting to the Eastman building first, and it was less than 15 minutes away. 

Paul was holding Linda’s hand and staring straight ahead. He was sitting smack dab in the middle again: his fucking plight in life, apparently. Squeezed on both sides, but not really wanting it any other way. This was the first time since San Diego that Paul wanted to go home with John, and not Linda. But he knew to do so would hurt Linda, and in any case it was not wise. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he knew there had to be some kind of sign that would tell him when it was time to engage with John again. The problem was that he had no clue what kind of sign to look for, or what he could do to heal the breach. 

It was at that moment that the car stopped at the curb in front of the Eastman’s apartment building. Paul turned towards John and gave him a hug. He whispered, “I’ll call you tomorrow to see how it goes.” John nodded numbly. Soon, Paul and Linda were out of the car, having said their goodbyes to Sean, and the door closed behind them.


	42. Chapter 42

It was their first evening back in New York, and Sean had been so full of enthusiastic bustle that John almost forgot to be forlorn as they settled into the loft. 

“Remember when I was little and I stayed here sometimes?” Sean asked, as he stuck his nose in all the rooms and wandered around collecting memories. 

“I do, of course I do,” John chuckled. “I’m about to completely remodel it you know. Want to see the plans?” 

Sean was interested, so they shared the plans as they each downed a chilled beer. “It looks cool,” Sean said, “but why do you need such a big kitchen?” 

John did a double take and then realized he might not have shared with Sean his new interest in the culinary arts. So John began to share how he’d been learning to cook, and how he’d been getting into decorating too.

“Makes sense to me,” Sean joked. “I have a mother who does business and finance, and a father who cooks and keeps house.” 

John poked Sean in the side for that, but he was also amused by it. He then said, “Your mother says she wants to be my friend again. What do you think about that?”

Sean hesitated. He loved his mother fiercely. Of course he did. But he had long since come to realize that his parents did not bring out the best in each other; in fact, they tended to do just the opposite. He couldn’t see either one of them truly happy in the other’s company. Still, he would be an unnatural child if he discouraged friendship between his parents, wouldn’t he? “Well,” Sean drawled, “I suppose a friendship would be okay, but what about Paul? How would he feel about it?”

“Paul isn’t the jealous type,” John said firmly. “He doesn’t really like your mother - the two of them never clicked - but I doubt he fears I’ll get swallowed whole by her just by dropping by to say hello.” 

“Is that what you want to do? Drop by and say hello?” Sean was a little disappointed. He had wanted his father to himself for a while. 

John was silent, and didn’t readily respond. Into that silence, Sean spoke again.

“Are you doing this to hurt Paul? What’s going on with you two? Why don’t you tell me?” Sean was pushing now. 

John got up and moved towards the fridge to get another beer, although it was a diversionary tactic in truth. “Want another one?” He asked as he leaned in front of the open fridge, his head looking back over his shoulder at Sean. Sean nodded silently, and waited for his father’s return, and for his father’s response to the question. John popped the cap, and took a long pull on the bottle. He allowed a large sigh to escape as he leaned forward, forearms on thighs. “I’ve been doing a lot of things to hurt Paul lately, Sean. I wish I knew why. It’s like I can’t stop myself.”

“What kinds of things have you been doing, Dad?”

“Well, I made these plans to remodel the loft, and I really did it without consulting him. He is okay with it now, but the thing is I wanted to sell this one and buy a big flat with a fantastic view, and spend more time in New York. Paul doesn’t want that. He thinks it will be too obvious, and it would hurt his family.”

Sean took this information on board. His father’s desire for a nice apartment didn’t sound so terribly hurtful to him, but then he didn’t live inside a love triangle, like his father and Paul did. On the other hand, he could also see Paul’s point. “It is pretty obvious, Dad. I mean, if you bought a flash apartment together. People are already talking, and that would make it worse, don’t you think?”

John nodded in acquiescence. “That’s why I think I’ll buy it in my own name, and stay there when I’m alone in New York.” 

“You’re going to be alone in New York?” Sean was alarmed now. “Why? Where will Paul be?”

“At home in London with his family, of course,” John said.

There was no ‘of course’ about it. Sean could think back only 10 months earlier when his father was freaking out over a three-week separation from Paul. “Are you talking about the odd weekend, Dad? Because you hate being apart from Paul for too long.” 

John admitted that this was true, but… “You see, Sean, I guess I want to explore a bit. Expand my horizons. I might hate it - being in my own home, by myself - but I want to try to see if I like it. I’ve never lived alone in my life. I’ve never done it.” 

Sean hadn’t lived alone in his life, either, but then he was still only 17 years old. He expected to live alone when he was older, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that his father had never done so. Still … Sean was skeptical about his father’s plans. He’d never met a person so allergic to his own company! “Is Paul upset that you plan to do that?” Sean asked in as diplomatic a tone as he could muster.

“He doesn’t know about those plans. I haven’t told him yet.” John suddenly lost his interest in his beer. He put it down on the coffee table in front of him. Sean’s silence was an accusation. John heard it as surely as if Sean had accused him with words. 

“Why haven’t you told him?” Sean finally asked.

“Because I know it will cause some drama, and we’re in the middle of a tour. Anyway, I was going to remodel this place first, and maybe I’ll change my mind.” John wanted to end this awkward conversation. It was throwing up a little too much self-knowledge for John’s taste. 

“So what else have you done to hurt Paul lately?” Sean was taking his life into his hands now, because he was fully aware of his father’s tricky temper, and the energy John was exuding just then was “iffy” - it was the energy field that Sean remembered fearing as a young child. 

“Can we not talk about this right now?” John asked, his voice edged with irritation. “I want to enjoy this evening. What do you want to do instead?” John forced himself to give Sean one of his comical smiles, but Sean knew the drill. He had pushed his father as far as he would go for the time being. 

 

*****

 

It was dinnertime at the Eastmans, and the family was catching up. Jody had made a lovely vegetarian dinner for them all, although Paul and Linda knew that the Eastmans would have preferred some meat or fish to go with their vegies. But it was the kind of graceful, accepting gesture that John and Jody Eastman were known for amongst their friends and family. There were no children at the table, because the Eastmans’ kids were away at college, so the two couples had a pleasant evening talking about mutual friends and recent activities. 

Paul felt a little disassociated from the others, but was doing his usual expert job of hiding it. He had noticed right away how relaxed and relieved Linda was around her brother and Jody. She knew she was on friendly territory here, whereas the tour was Paul’s and John’s. Paul pushed his garlic scalloped potatoes and minted baby carrots around his plate. He managed to eat enough to appear to have enjoyed the meal. He knew objectively that it was delicious, but Paul tended to lose his appetite when he was worried or depressed. Right now he was both. What he needed right then was a few hours to himself, so he could have a snifter of brandy and lose himself in his melancholy thoughts. He needed to bring all of his brains to bear on what to do about John, but he could not do so while engaging in elegant chatter at his in-law’s dinner table. 

After dinner, Linda and Jody disappeared into the kitchen; they wanted to gossip without the menfolk around. So, shrugging, John Eastman gestured for Paul to follow him to his study. There, finally, Paul got his snifter of brandy, if not his privacy. 

“The tour’s going fantastically, I hear,” John said. “I’ve been looking at the financials, and they are very healthy.” He smiled at Paul and said, “It’s nice that Linda can stay with you on tour this time. I guess the kids are old enough now.” 

Paul nodded and said, “James is still pretty young, but Mary is looking after him so Linda can stay with me for a while. It’s a nice change for us.” 

John could tell there was something missing from Paul’s demeanor and tone. It then occurred to him what it was: enthusiasm, excitement, energy, and/or joy. Those were characteristics that he associated with his brother-in-law. Paul had been, for the most part, an optimistic, cheerful and positive person. “The tour must be exhausting,” John assayed. He decided that Paul was tired. After all, he was 50 years old and prancing around the stage as if he were 20, not to mention the traveling. 

Paul looked up. “No, it’s not bad. We have a lot of time off in between shows.” Again the voice was devoid of emotion. 

John was a bit worried. “How’s John doing?” He asked politely.

“He’s staying with Sean in our loft while we’re in New York.” It was easier for Paul to answer the question he wasn’t asked, than to answer the one he was asked. 

“Things okay with you two?” John wasn’t sure why he asked the question. It was just a strong hunch he had. 

Paul finally allowed his eyes to meet John’s. “Things are a bit strained just now,” he admitted. “But sometimes we just need to go to our separate corners and cool off for a bit.” Paul smiled to show that there was nothing to worry about.

But worry about it John Eastman did. Later that night, when he got into bed beside his wife, it was on his mind. He had no intention of saying anything about it, but Jody had no such scruples: “So Linda tells me that there’s a huge rift between Paul and John. They’re barely talking.” 

John looked alarmed. “Paul did say things were strained between them. He tried to downplay it.”

“But that is what Paul does - he waters down hard truths.” 

“I hope it isn’t serious. I can’t imagine having to go through all those lawsuits again. I’m pretty sure Paul would shoot himself before he had to.” John was remembering the horrible years during which Paul and John Lennon were at war. He had often been the lightening rod between the two, and had felt burnt to a crisp by the time it was done. He didn’t think he had another one of those in him. 

“Surely it wouldn’t be so complicated this time. They have separate finances now, don’t they?” Jody hadn’t even thought of this aspect of a potential split, and it caused a slight panic in her. She had remembered what her husband had been dragged through.

John sighed and lay back against the pillow. Before he leaned over to turn off the bedside lamp he said, “Well, perhaps there wouldn’t be as many financial wounds, but the emotional ones would be unspeakable…”

 

*****

 

The next day, Sean slept in very late, as teenagers do. John puttered around the loft for a while, trying to keep himself busy. The problem was he was oversexed. He hadn’t had any in over two weeks. John supposed he could go out and find a willing sex partner, but the effort it entailed, not to mention the difficulty of slipping it past Sean, was too daunting for him. Anyway, it wasn’t just that. He missed Paul - not just his body, but his presence. Just as he was acknowledging this dismal fact, the telephone rang. John sprang up hoping it was Paul. 

“John! I heard you were in town!” 

Although John usually was delighted when he heard from Jason, he had wanted it to be Paul. He rallied some spirit, and tried to respond in kind. “Jason! I was thinking of giving you a call a little later. You beat me to it!”

“So what are you guys up to tonight?” Jason asked excitedly. He had hoped to wangle an invitation to their loft for dinner. He was willing to call a caterer if need be, too. 

John felt his stomach turn at the simple innocent question. It felt like a knife. “Actually, it’s me and Sean right now,” John responded in as cheerful a voice as he could muster. “Linda’s in town too, so Paul is staying with her at her brother’s place.”

Jason was surprised by this, but didn’t know why. After all, Linda was half of Paul’s life. He had just gotten used to the idea of having John and Paul to himself (well, and Gerry, too) when they were in New York. “I see. So what are you doing?”

“Well, Jason, I’m hoping to see you and Gerry tonight, that’s what,” John chuckled. “So what time will you be over? I’m getting enthused now. I can actually try some recipes with meat in them!”

Jason laughed. “Your secret is safe with me, John. How about 7 p.m., with 8 p.m. for dinner?”

Jason’s call had given John the answer to the question: what the hell am I going to do with myself? He wrote a note for Sean and attached it to the fridge, and then called for his car. In the backseat of the car, he was scribbling down a grocery list from a recipe he’d found in a favorite cookbook. He would buy the ingredients, and spend the day chopping aromatics for a braised osso bucco, and preparing a sautéed parmesan and onion risotto. He’d even roast some broccolini, perhaps in a fig vinegar sauce. He’d find a fine Amarone, of the kind he had enjoyed during the Italian wine tasting forays of a few years earlier, and some fresh Italian bread. It would be a great evening with great friends. 

 

*****

 

The traffic on the drive down to Long Island was not as bad as they had feared, so they made good time. The Eastmans had encouraged Paul and Linda to accompany them down to their home in East Hampton for the weekend. (The tour was not starting again for four more days, at which time they were leaving for Montreal, and then to Salt Lake City.) Paul had been reluctantly dragged along. Before agreeing to leave he had tried to call John at the loft, but the first time the line was busy, and when he called back a half hour later, Sean had told him that John was out shopping and that apparently they were having some friends over for dinner. Paul had felt lost at hearing this. Part of him believed that John could not possibly function without him, and it was upsetting to find out that John was off cheerfully preparing for an evening of entertaining “friends”. He hoped it wasn’t Yoko and her crowd. With that disturbing thought, he had allowed himself to be persuaded to go along with the Eastmans’ plan.

Linda had noticed that Paul was drifting off into his own world a bit. She suspected he was missing John, big time. As she had given more thought to the incident in San Diego, she realized that her anger at John and her protectiveness towards Paul had been driven by more than just one right hook to the mouth. She had felt that John had been playing with Paul for some time, much like a cat plays with a mouse when it is bored. It would just be a matter of time before the cat pounced, of course, and Linda was quite worried about what would happen then. But it hadn’t escaped her notice that Paul had seemed lost and dull ever since the fight, and it was brought home to her once again that Paul needed John every bit as much as John had seemed to need Paul. What if John decided to go it alone? She knew that Paul would be devastated, and she could never give Paul what John gave him. She thought that the trip to Long Island for Paul would be good for him. Get him away from the city where John was, and perhaps he could get a better perspective on things. He needed a good long walk by himself down the beach, she thought, and she intended to make sure he got one. 

 

*****

 

Jason and Gerry arrived on John’s doorstep at precisely 7:00 p.m. As usual, they didn’t come empty-handed. They brought with them a newly discovered dessert wine, and a basket full of Jason’s fresh-baked ginger-sprinkled macaroons. John spied these as he unpacked the basket, and thought they’d go perfectly with the lemon sorbet he’d purchased. 

Sean deigned to come out of his room, where he had been pretending to practice guitar, but wherein he was actually fooling around on his computer. He greeted Jason and Gerry, who he had met a few times before, but quickly hightailed it back to his room as soon as it was polite to do so. John shook his head as his son made his escape, and grinned at Jason and Gerry. “He’d rather be dragged backwards through a bush than to have to spend time with old fogies like us,” he joked.

“The food smells heavenly, John,” Gerry said. John smiled his thanks.

“It’s weird to be here without Paul,” Jason chirped. He had no idea that he was walking on thin ice. “Will we be able to see him before you move on to your next stop?” 

John shrugged and grumbled, “Your guess is as good as mine.” As soon as he said this he regretted it. He softened his tone and said, “Paul left me a message this afternoon saying he was going to the ‘hamptons with his wife and her brother’s family for the weekend. Perhaps when he gets back we’ll be able to squeeze a visit in.” 

Jason and Gerry had both been taken aback by John’s first comment, and tried to be reassured by his further explanation. After a sumptuous meal, and Sean’s quick return to his bedroom, the three men settled with the dessert wine in the sitting area. For a while the conversation moved on to light topics, and then John again pulled out his plans for the remodel, excited to have Jason’s input. Gerry, meanwhile, looked on, barely interested. He realized how much he missed Paul’s company, especially at moments like these. He still remembered with unease the previous month’s visit they’d had with John and Paul - with Yoko’s unsettling intrusions, and the unpleasantness surrounding John’s ideas of buying a new apartment. Had those experiences been the harbinger of worse things to come for his two friends? He certainly hoped not. But it had been his understanding - given to him by John - that Linda did not tour with the two of them, and yet here she was doing exactly that! Oh, well, he thought, I’ll never get to the bottom of it, and it isn’t any of my business anyway. This did nothing to ameliorate the fact that he was incredibly bored without Paul there to balance out the two warbling fantasists at the other end of the room. He finally found an old New Yorker magazine, and began to search for an article he hadn’t read yet that was still topical. 

Bent over the cleared dining table, Jason had quite a few good points to make about the plans, and John wrote notes in the margins to remind himself to bring those issues up with his designer for the next draft of the plans. There was only one more month left to the North American tour, and they weren’t scheduled to go to Europe until the spring, so after the Christmas holidays he would be in a position to actually start the renovations on the apartment. As he rolled up the plans, Jason asked,

“Is Paul okay with this remodel?”

John first focused on replacing the plans in a cardboard cylinder, but then said, “Yes, I’ve shown him the plans, and he thinks they’re good. I’m sure he has no idea why I find renovating houses so interesting. Sometimes he looks at me as if I were crazy.” John’s laugh was genuine and so was the amused look on his face. In that moment at least, Jason thought, John was thinking fondly of Paul. 

“I think it was a good idea to abandon that new apartment idea,” Jason said. “We both got ahead of ourselves that night.” 

John looked at Jason with an uneasy gleam in his eye. “I still think I want to have one,” he admitted softly. “But if I do, I’ll have to do it on my own. There is no way Paul can do it, because of his family.”

Jason was surprised to hear this, but didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. “I suppose Paul staying in your flat is no worse than you staying in Paul’s loft, after all,” he suggested hopefully. 

John sighed. “I don’t know how it is all going to work out, Jason. Everything seems so…shaky…right now.”

Jason felt a deep wrench in his heart, but knew this was no time for him to become dramatic or emotional. “Oh? What’s wrong, John? Are there problems between you and Paul?” John nodded his head, but looked away because his eyes were filling with tears, and he didn’t want Jason to see them. But of course Jason did see them. He leaned closer to John, and put his hand on John’s forearm. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Jason’s voice had slipped down to a whisper. That was his mistake. If he’d spoken in a normal tone, Gerry would not have noticed it. 

“What’s going on over there?” Gerry asked, alarmed, as he noticed that John appeared to be on the verge of tears, and Jason was comforting him. 

“Gerry, come over here. Don’t shout at us from the sofa as if you were King George III.” Jason was scowling, but John had to chuckle at that remark despite his tears, and Gerry laughed and moved over to the table. He sat on the other side of John, and soon his hand was on John’s other forearm. 

John felt a little embarrassed, but these two men were the perfect shoulders to cry on if he couldn’t have Paul’s. He was afraid to speak, thinking that perhaps his voice would crack and he would give in and start crying. But he finally managed to say, “I hit him!” It was a whimper and a strangled cry at the same time.

Jason and Gerry both sat back in their chairs in surprise. “You hit him?” Jason asked. “Why? When?”

John swallowed hard in an attempt to get control over his emotions. “We were on tour. It was over two weeks ago. We had a fi … an argument … it was stupid. We both said things we shouldn’t have said. I reacted badly.”

Jason grappled with this information. “Was he hurt?”

“He had a busted lip, some swelling. I hit him in the mouth.” John’s words sounded alien to him, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was saying them. 

Gerry sat back fully in his chair. He was astonished. He and Jason lived in a rarefied world, he knew, where things like shouted arguments and flying fists played no part. Of course, they had friends who had been in relationships where there was some violence, but those friendships had soon fallen by the wayside. Intellectually, he realized that the rock ‘n roll world that John and Paul inhabited was far more rough and ready than his more cloistered one. Still, it was a surprise to him that these two men, who he thought of as so cultured and self-aware, could end up in a physical fight. “Did Paul hit back?” He finally asked.

John looked over at Gerry, and his face was quizzical. “No. Paul doesn’t hit. He just walks away.” 

Gerry and Jason both noted the present tense. The implication was that perhaps it was not uncommon for them to fight, and that Paul had refused on such occasions to be drawn into a physical melee. It certainly opened a new window into their relationship; an unwelcome one at that.

“Afterwards, what happened?” Jason asked, squeezing John’s forearm in a reassuring way as he did so.

“Paul turned to Linda. He asked her to stay. He says he isn’t mad, and he has been kind to me, but he won’t be with me. It’s like he’s afraid of me or something, but I don’t think that’s it… Oh, it’s a fucking mess.” John pulled his arms to an akimbo position, and rested his forehead in the palms of his hands. 

Jason’s mind was whirling with possibilities. “But you said he called you this afternoon?”

John’s head nodded from the safety of his palms. He then lifted his head up again and said. “It’s more than that. It’s like the whole thing about the apartment, and the Yoko thing, and then - when we were in L.A. - I kind of went crazy.”

“Crazy?” Jason asked. What now?

“Well, Linda and the kids were there, so I thought I’d spend time with some old friends from the ‘70s, old drinking buddies. And I went out and stayed out and got bloody drunk before a few concerts, and Paul was quite upset about that. Then he was going to fire this musician, but I had hired him, and we got into a stupid fight over that. That’s when I hit him. It was just one thing after the other.” 

This information all poured out so quickly that Gerry and Jason were having a hard time tracking it all, much less making sense of it. 

Gerry became a little impatient. “John, have you been going to therapy?” His voice sounded quite authoritarian.

John looked up guiltily and his silence was the answer.

“I’ve told you before, John, that you will never have a chance at a stable life if you don’t remain in therapy. When did you stop going?”

John said, “About seven months ago.”

“Why did you stop?” Jason asked, distressed to hear this. “You were doing so well with it!”

“That’s why!” John practically wailed this. “I was doing so well, that I thought I didn’t need it any more. I still usually took my meds, though.”

“Usually?” Gerry’s voice was exasperated now. “John, if you don’t take the meds regularly they don’t work! Surely your therapist told you that!” His voice had risen to a very heated level on this last pronouncement.

John felt like a naughty schoolboy. “I know, I know. I intend to go back to therapy once the tour is over,” John said, “and I’ve just started taking my meds regularly again.” 

“None of this ‘after the tour’ business! You need to start right away. You can always call your therapist on the phone, you know, if all else fails.” Gerry knew he sounded like a lecturing father, but sometimes he wanted to hit John up both sides of his head at once. “I advise you to do so immediately!”

Jason shushed Gerry. “Keep your voice down, Gerry. We can hear you. What you say makes sense, but the way you’re saying it is hurtful to John…”

“But what about what hurts Paul? How can Paul expect to live and work with a person who won’t be responsible about his mental illness?” Gerry was beginning to feel outrage at this point. How disappointing and childish it was for John to revert to his previous unhealthy habits. 

John actually was astonished by Gerry’s furious attack. He sat back in his chair and stared at Gerry, his mouth hanging open. He had never really allowed himself to fully accept Gerry’s point of view before - that he was mentally ill, and that this illness - if left untreated - was what was spoiling his life with Paul. 

“What’s going on out here?” Sean asked. He was hovering in the hallway looking concerned. “Dad, are you alright?”

Gerry had forgotten about Sean, and felt terribly guilty. Jason rushed in as usual to smooth the ruffled feathers. “Come in, Sean, join us at the table. We’re talking about what’s troubling your father.” 

John glared at Jason for his presumptuousness, but Sean readily followed Jason’s instructions. He sat across from John with his hands folded, waiting patiently to be filled in. John’s angry look melted to a helpless one, and Jason turned towards Sean.

“Your father has told us that there have been problems arising between him and Paul, and Gerry and I were suggesting that this might be caused by the fact that he has stopped taking care of his emotional needs.”

Sean looked at his Dad. “What ‘emotional needs’ are these, Dad?”

“They mean, I stopped going to therapy a while back, and they think that is why I’ve been behaving so oddly.” 

Sean had known his dad was going to therapy, and had welcomed the news, because his father was so much easier to get along with after he’d been in therapy for a while. “Well, Dad, if that’s what’s going on, I can hardly blame Paul for being upset. I know from my own experience that it’s hard to live with you when you’re not happy.” 

John, at 52, had not expected to be schooled by a 17 year old, but what Sean said sunk in, and it sunk in fast and hard. He nodded slowly but silently in accord with Sean’s comments and then sighed heavily. Everyone seemed to think he was at fault, and Paul was coming up smelling like roses again. Perhaps they were all right, but John knew - no, he felt more than he knew - that Paul was in a weird place, too, and he didn’t think all of Paul’s worries had to do with John’s mental health. But since John didn’t have a clue what it was, and Paul was a vault when it came to his emotions, perhaps this would be a mystery that was never solved. If he went back to therapy and took his Prozac religiously, and if he became the easier person to live with that everyone seemed to think he should be, then maybe he and Paul could be close again, and not feel so estranged. 

 

*****

 

The next morning Paul arose just as the sun started to rise. It was a cold morning - it was November after all. He dressed in warm clothes and wandered out of the house and on to the strand. The ocean was restless in the grey/pink light, and there was a tiny sliver of yellow drawn right across the horizon line that seemed to divide greyish ocean from pinkish sky. It was beautiful. Paul could tell that it was beautiful, and maybe that is what brought the tears unbidden to his eyes. He started to walk in an easterly direction - away from the continent and towards the cold Atlantic: fewer people to be met in that direction. He had plenty of things to look at if he so chose, but instead he looked at his feet, and the footprints he left in the sand. His hands were buried in his pockets, and he walked slowly but purposely, careful to avoid the tide as it rushed up the sand to meet him. 

John. How he missed John. Perhaps he just had to bite the bullet and ask Linda to leave, so he could tackle the problem head on. It obviously was something he and John could do only when they were alone. But if he did confront John, what would he ask for? What did he want? He could list a bunch of things he didn’t want, but John already knew what they were, and yet the fact that he didn’t like them hadn’t made John stop doing them. He didn’t want to make drastic changes in his living arrangements. He didn’t want to stir the public’s curiosity in their relationship any more than they already had with their songwriting. He didn’t want to get into useless arguments over replaceable musicians, which was - after all - only just a smokescreen for the real fight - which was for control. He didn’t want to fight for control. Why couldn’t they just live side-by-side, without having to jockey for control? Maybe that was something he wanted, that he could tell John. I don’t want fussing and fighting my friend… Paul had to chuckle to himself at his own predictability. Haven’t changed much over the years, have you mate? Paul asked himself.

On his return journey he met Linda who had come out of the house to meet him. They hugged for a long time, and Linda said,

“I’m thinking I should go home tomorrow, and let you sort things out with John. I’m glad I was there when it all came down, but it’s time for you two to figure this thing out.” Linda’s eyes were watching Paul’s as she spoke, and she did see the quick gleam of relief before Paul banished it completely. It was as she had thought: Paul was healed from this latest skirmish, and was ready to head back into the fray. She could not be his friend and yet stand in his way. She turned west and they started walking back down the strand towards the Eastmans’ home, arm in arm.

 

*****

 

John fidgeted as the elevator worked its crotchety way from the ground floor to apartment 17. That is where Yoko lived. Sean was beside him, and he was trying not to let his nerves show. His parents had not been alone together since he was about 6 or 7 years old, and he remembered the horrible screaming matches between them as their marriage ended. He didn’t really hold out much hope that they would get along any better now. The only thing in their favor, Sean thought, was that he had convinced his mother to meet John alone, without her coterie of hangers on and admirers. Sean felt that his father would feel uncomfortable and cornered in such a crowd. 

John could feel sweat in his hands, and he wiped his palms surreptitiously against his blue jeans. He had taken trouble with his appearance that night, because no one ever wants to meet a former spouse or lover looking like anything but his best. 

Sean knocked first, and then unlocked the door. He called in to the empty hall, “Mom! We’re here!” 

As John entered the hallway behind Sean, Yoko appeared at the other end. She was wearing a sheer black dress that looked more like a negligee, and she had some glittering eye make up on. Oh dear, John thought. She thinks she’s going to seduce me.


	43. Chapter 43

Paul and Linda kissed each other goodbye in the car at the airport. Then Paul walked her as far as he could before security barriers stopped him. He watched her sway her way over to the escalators, and then she disappeared from sight. Paul would feel better about this parting if he had been able to get a hold of John last night. He had called repeatedly to try to tell him that Linda was going home, and he thought it would be good if he moved back into the loft for the night before they left for Montreal. No one had answered the phone. He had tried again this afternoon, but again no answer.

Now he was alone at the airport in the limo, and wondering if he should go back to the Eastmans’ place, or if he should just boldly let himself in to the loft. It was, after all, his. Why he should be shy about doing so, he didn’t know. What if he walked in on John having an orgy, or fucking some woman? Or - worse - what if John didn’t want him to show up? Well, he was being stupid about the women. John had promised not to do that kind of thing in their bed, so he assumed that if John wasn’t picking up the phone it was because he wasn’t there. Sighing, Paul instructed the driver to take him to the loft. He may as well find out where he stood, sooner rather than later. 

Less than a half hour later, the car was pulling up to the front steps. He was out of the car into the lobby, and going up in the elevator in mere minutes. He felt foolish, but he knocked on the door before trying his key. If something was going on in there, he didn’t want to just burst in. But no one answered the knock or the doorbell, so he let himself in. 

The loft had that vacated feel to it. Paul knew immediately that no one was there, and hadn’t been there any time in the last few hours. He put his holdall down, and moved tentatively into the sitting room area, and then to the kitchenette. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, but when he opened the dishwasher he saw a few dirty dishes - enough for a few breakfasters. Feeling a bit like a spy, he headed down the hall. He passed Sean’s room, and saw that the bed had not been made. That made him smile. Typical teenage boy. He went into the master suite, and the bed looked rumpled, as though the covers had been thrown over the pillows carelessly before the occupant rushed off to some other pursuit. He smiled again. Typical John.

Paul looked at the bedside clock. It was 4 p.m., and the darkness was stealing in from due east, as the sun was setting due west. A certain dreary pall fell over the flat. For the first time Paul saw it with John’s eyes: the loft was dreary, dark, no natural light, like a hidden cave. It was the kind of place you crawled to when you were sheltering from the storm. But perhaps it wasn’t the kind of place you would want to live in on a regular basis. Sighing, Paul put his toiletries in the bathroom, but didn’t bother to unpack them. Tomorrow he’d be on a plane heading for Montreal, back on tour. Hopefully, John would be with him. At this point, he didn’t know what to expect. 

 

*****

 

John squirmed in his seat. What had possessed him to go see the Sunday matinee showing of Bram Stoker’s Dracula? He looked to his right and found his answer: Sean. Sean’s eyes were wide open as he shoveled handfuls of popcorn into his mouth. John chuckled. He sat back in his seat, and closed his eyes. He remembered the night before, when he’d first seen Yoko - looking like an apparition - at the end of that dark hallway in the apartment he used to call home. It had been a weird moment. He was glad he had done it. He now knew he was truly 100% over his Yoko enchantment. That must have been some kind of weird madness he’d suffered from, because now nothing about her was attractive to him. She had certainly pulled out all the stops, and had even sent some verbal shafts into his sore spots.

“So Sean’s staying with you on tour. Who’s staying with Paul?” She asked, her face a mask of false innocence.

“Linda,” John responded calmly. 

“That leaves you at a loose end, doesn’t it?” Yoko allowed her lacey robe to fall open, showing an indecent amount of leg.

“It’s nothing more than what I’m used to,” John said placidly. He definitely looked at the indecent length of leg (it would have been rude not to under the circumstances), but he wasn’t moved by it even one tiny iota. 

“So, what do you do with yourself when Paul is with Linda?” Yoko’s voice sounded objective, but John didn’t trust it.

“I’ve got plenty to do. People don’t have to be in each other’s pockets all the time in order for things to be right.” John decided he was through being interrogated. “So what have you been up to? Whom are you living with?”

“Oh, I do all right. I’ve had a series of lovers. Right now I’m with Sam again.” Yoko looked completely unbothered by John’s question.

Sam. John stirred uncomfortably again. John had worried that something weird had been going on behind his back with Sam, and before that with others. Back in the day, he hadn’t been so much concerned about her being with someone else, but that she was making a fool of him, doing it with industry folks in his own home and under his own nose. Back in the ‘70s he thought she was just blowing smoke up his ass, trying to get his attention. Now he wasn’t quite so sure. He doubted whether he had ever really satisfied her sexually; or, perhaps, his cheating on her had made her so vengeful she couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was both. But at least it was yesterday’s news.

Sean was speaking. He was explaining about how fun it was to play with the band. “Of course,” he said, “I have no idea what I’m doing, and they pretty much carry me, but I’m enjoying myself a lot.”

“Hopefully you’re learning something too,” John chimed in. 

“Well, one thing I’ve learned is that I’ve got a lot to learn!” Yoko and John both laughed genuinely at Sean’s pronouncement, and for a moment there was warmth that passed between them as they admired their son.

“Sean, why don’t you go make some green tea for us,” Yoko said lightly. A bit worried about leaving them alone, Sean reluctantly complied. 

“Well, we did one thing incredibly right,” John joked after Sean left the room. Yoko chuckled in agreement.

“Are you really happy in your life with Paul?” Yoko asked, her face unreadable.

“It’s not like I skip through life, Yoko. Of course we have good times and bad times, like everyone else. But I don’t think I could function without Paul in my life.”

Yoko had taken in what he said and then replied with a surprising comment. “You and Paul really have a thing together, don’t you?” Her expression and tone of voice was very objective and non-judgmental.

John was taken aback. He didn’t know what to think. Was this some kind of a trick? He forced him to smile, and said, “We have always had a ‘thing’. We have not always treated it with the respect it deserves, but it was always there. An unbreakable bond.” 

Yoko’s eyes met his, and he could see compassion in them. He blinked. Then Sean came in with a tray, carrying a pot of green tea and three Japanese teacups. He laid it out on the coffee table, and the three of them poured their cups. It was a bit like old times for John. He was beginning to feel comfortable. 

“You know, Yoko, I always liked your mind,” John said. Sean looked up at John in surprise, and then immediately looked at his mother. His mouth then slowly curved into a smile.

“Well, John,” Yoko said, her eyes sparkling with amusement, “I liked your mind too.” 

“Too bad we make each other crazy,” John added. Yoko giggled and then laughed out loud. It was a good moment for both of them. A healing moment. “And Yoko, you look hot in that getup,” John said. He wanted to acknowledge her effort at seducing him without indicating that he was interested in any shenanigans.

“Well, I didn’t get a rise out of you!” Yoko responded in kind.

“Oh! No!” Sean yelled. “Mom! Dad! Too much information!” His face was a study in horror and disgust, and it caused his parents to fall apart laughing.

“Let’s just agree to be friends, and be done with it,” John suggested after they stopped laughing. “No point in harboring any hard feelings.”

“Yeah. I’m not even sure why I made the effort,” Yoko admitted. “I think it was just my injured ego. I would have run screaming for the hills if you had responded.”

 

*****

 

Feeling anxious and uneasy, Paul tried to relax in the sitting room of the loft. It was now 7 p.m. He’d been there rambling around and ruminating on worst-case scenarios for three hours now. Every so often he thought he should leave immediately, before John got back and saw him all pathetic and sitting all alone, and then he would find that his feet felt like they were encased in concrete and he couldn’t move. So then he’d shoot up from his seat on the sofa and pace. He was chewing his finger again. It was a habit of his that he had tried (unsuccessfully) to break, although with a bit of concentrated effort on his part he had managed to reduce the amount of times he chewed on his finger. But where the fuck was John? What if he was back with Yoko? That could explain why Sean was missing too. They were all together, the little nuclear family, having a grand old time at the Dakota! Maybe I should call Jason and find out if John was at the Dakota. Maybe John had told Jason where he was going. No. No, I refuse to expose myself that way. I’ll just have to wait and find out. Round and round his distressing thoughts went, and he couldn’t stop the endless cycling. He hadn’t been this anxious and fucked up since … since the last time John threw him for a loop! Why did he let John get to him in this way? Paul had no answers. And he had too much pride and insecurity to ask any questions.

It was 7:20 p.m. when the phone rang. It startled Paul to the point where he literally jumped in his seat, and almost out of his skin. His heart racing, he headed for the phone. Irrationally, he thought it might be John; it didn’t occur to him that there would be no reason for John to call himself. Paul’s voice was breathy as he answered, “Yes?”

There was silence for a moment, a recovery, and then, “Paul? Is that you? This is Jason!” Paul’s heart dropped, because against all reason he had been hoping it would be John. But he summoned up his enthusiasm for a warm greeting.

“Jason, how are you?” He asked.

“I’m so glad you’re there! Gerry and I were just hoping we’d be able to see you before you left for your next stop.”

Paul was confused. “See me? You mean John, or me?”

Jason laughed. “We saw John a few nights ago. You were on Long Island with your wife.”

“Oh, I see,” Paul said, relieved for some reason that for at least one of the nights he was apart from John, Jason and Gerry were with him. 

“He said if you got back before you left, maybe we could all meet.” Jason began to feel that Paul was treading some hard water on the other end of the phone. “Is this a bad time?” He asked in a worried voice.

Paul forced himself to relax. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s just that John isn’t home right now.”

“Will he be home soon?” Jason asked, feeling his way.

“I don’t know. I just got here from dropping my wife off at the airport, and John and I haven’t had an opportunity to connect up yet.” 

Jason was relieved. It seemed his worst fears were off base. He said, “Well, Gerry and I would like to see you, anyway. Do you mind if we drop by for some drinks? We won’t stay long.” 

Paul felt a tremendous amount of relief flow through him. If Jason and Gerry came over, they could keep him occupied, and if they were there when John came home, it would be far less awkward, and make him feel far less vulnerable. “That would be cool, man. Can you come here? I don’t know when John will get back.” 

Jason said he and Gerry would be over in about 30 minutes, and hung up. Paul heaved a huge sigh, and poured himself a huge whiskey. He plopped down on the sofa and began to talk to himself again. There is an innocent explanation. John wouldn’t hit him in the face and then blame him for being upset about it, would he? It’s only human to be upset about it. He and John had been through so much together; a little thing like this would not throw them off the track, would it? Paul hoped the answer to this last question was ‘no’. He had clung to Linda in the aftermath of the fight, but it was mainly because he feared that John was turning on him again. But as the days and weeks went by, it seemed clear that John was truly sorry and there was no evidence that he was turning on Paul. So, maybe this was a storm in a teacup, as the expression went: much ado about nothing. 

John still had not arrived when Jason and Gerry showed up. They had brought with them a vegetarian casserole they had picked up at a favorite restaurant on their way over. “Just a bite to eat - not too heavy,” Jason apologized as he sat the container down, and started reaching for plates. Paul looked like death warmed over. Of course, Paul looking like death warmed over was still incredibly attractive. He seemed to have hollows under his huge cavernous eyes, and his cheekbones looked prominent, as though he hadn’t been eating. His skin was ivory - not pale bluish white like most pale people when they were weary and washed out. It oughta be a crime, Jason thought to himself as he dished out the casserole on three plates. 

Gerry, meanwhile, had given Paul a long, warm hug. He was happy to see Paul back in the loft, although he was a bit concerned at how tired and confused Paul seemed, and the fact that he was alone in the loft with no John in sight, and no apparent knowledge of where John was; this was cause for heightened concern.

While they ate, Jason gently quizzed Paul. “So you said you dropped Linda off at the airport?”

“Yes, she needed to get back to the kids,” Paul responded.

“And you’re off to where next?”

“Montreal. We need to leave tomorrow afternoon or evening by the latest. The concert is on Tuesday night.” Paul was staring at his food as he moved it around his plate, again periodically taking small bites. His appetite had not returned. 

“John says the tour is going well,” Jason said. Across the table, Gerry sighed. He was wishing Jason would stop fishing. 

“The tour is going well,” Paul said. He didn’t notice Gerry’s sigh. “Sold out nights every night. Very enthusiastic audiences.”

“That’s great,” Jason said. “You seem a bit tired.”

Gerry literally groaned, and leaned in towards Paul. “Paul, if this is annoying, just tell us to stuff it.” 

Paul laughed. “I’m okay. I can handle myself under pressure.” Now it was Jason and Gerry’s turn to laugh.

“The truth is,” Gerry said flatly, “is that John told us there was some…stress… in your relationship, and we’re both worried about you.” 

Paul looked up. “What did John say?”

“He said he had done some things he was sorry for, and he was afraid he had upset you,” Jason answered.

Paul blinked several times as he thought through what Jason had said. “We did have a bit of a falling out,” Paul admitted, “but it wasn’t the worst. Sometimes we just need a little space to figure out where we are.” Paul sounded calm and unhurried, notwithstanding the fact that his heart was beating hard in his chest. 

“We’re so relieved to hear that,” Jason said sincerely. “We love you both.” 

Paul smiled and said, “Well, when John gets back, we’ll find out where we are.” 

After they finished their dinner, they moved into the sitting area. Gerry and Jason did their best to keep a friendly repartee going. It wasn’t exactly heavy sledding, because Paul was always polite and willing to participate in a conversation, but Paul seemed very preoccupied, and Jason and Gerry began to feel de trop. They were shooting each other we need to find a graceful way out looks, but neither of them had the heart to be the one to make the break. When it got to be 10 p.m., Paul said, “I hate to keep you longer. Who knows when John will be back?” 

This gave Gerry and Jason permission to get up and make moves in the direction of the front door. Awkwardly the three men made their way to the door, and then hugged goodbye. As the door closed behind them, Jason and Gerry shared a kind of worried look. “He seems a shadow of himself without John, doesn’t he?” Jason asked softly a few moments later, as they stepped into a taxi.

 

*****

 

Paul turned away from the door, and allowed his brave front to slough off him. He went back into the sitting room and plopped down. Paul hadn’t been sure what to expect when he’d agreed to put Linda on the plane, but he hadn’t expected this. It was like being neither here nor there - a major letdown. He had expected to walk in to find John in the midst of misbehaving, or to walk in and be met with rapturous relief. That John was flat out gone and had stayed gone all day was worrisome, especially since his best friends - Jason and Gerry - were not with him. Paul began to really worry that John was with Yoko. Ever since he’d seen her again Paul had felt uneasy about her reappearance in their life. As he worried, he sat with his legs crossed at the knee, and it took awhile before he noticed that his upper leg was bouncing up and down at a fast pace. He forced himself to stop. He got up and headed for the bedroom. Maybe he should just go to bed. But it was only 10:30! Well, he was tired. He’d been through a lot in the last few weeks, with all of this John drama. But when he got to the bedroom, he found he couldn’t stand to be there. I have to get out of here, a stressed voice inside his head pleaded. Having received this panicked instruction, Paul grabbed his holdall and his coat and headed for the door. He still had time to get to the Eastmans’ apartment before it was too late, and so John wouldn’t know that he had hung around pathetically waiting for several hours. 

He actually made it out the door and down the hall, and was about to call the elevator, before a saner voice in his head instructed him to stop being ridiculous. Whatever had kept John from coming back to the loft, Paul might as well know what it is sooner or later. If he went to the Eastmans, he’d be up all night wondering if John was still out. So he retraced his steps, and went back to the bedroom and put his things down again. But he wasn’t going to climb into bed and look lonely and pathetic when John got back, so he went back to the sitting room and turned on the television. There were only late night movies and local news, but he flicked through the channels as he drank a second tall whiskey.

 

*****

 

It was just after 11 p.m. when John and Sean got in to the elevator. After the matinee they had gone to a hip restaurant for dinner. It was so hip and popular that it had taken them 45 minutes to get their meal, and the noise level had nearly deafened John, and that took some doing given his experience as a professional rock musician. After their meal, John agreed - after Sean’s extended remonstrance - to go to a trendy club, where they were playing some energetic hip hop music. John wished he liked it better than he did, but Sean was enthusiastic. John insisted upon leaving as the clock moved past 10:30 pm, because he and Sean had to be on a plane the next day to Montreal.

As the elevator crept up to the penthouse floor, Sean was enthusing over the club they’d gone to, and the hip hop artists they had seen there. John wasn’t really concentrating, because his heart was heavy. He really missed Paul. At the cinema, at the restaurant, and then at the club, he had to fight with himself not to sink into a depression because his mind kept linking back to the breach between Paul and him. Consequently, when he unlocked the door and Sean walked in first, he could hardly fathom it when Sean said, in a hushed voice, “Dad! Paul’s here! He’s asleep!”

John almost pushed Sean out of the way as he entered the hallway, closing the door as an afterthought. “Go on to your room, Sean,” he directed in a non-nonsense “dad voice” that Sean hadn’t heard from him in a long time. Without questioning it, he turned and immediately headed for his room, and quickly closed the door. For good measure, he put on earphones to listen to some music. God forbid he should have to hear the sounds of his father and Paul getting loose with each other! He abruptly cleared his mind of such disturbing thoughts, and began to change his clothes while bopping to the music.

John, meanwhile, could hardly believe it. There was Paul, sitting on the sofa holding the remote. His mouth was open a little because he was sound asleep. Even with his mouth hanging open, Paul still looked adorable. John removed his own shoes (as he always did in his homes), and softly approached Paul. He was able to extract the remote control from Paul’s hand without wakening him, and he turned off the TV, which was showing an old Hollywood western from the ‘30s. Then he stroked Paul’s cheek with a tender finger. 

It took a few seconds of John’s stroking, but suddenly Paul’s eyes flew open. Paul blinked several times as he took in his surroundings. For a moment he had forgotten where he was, but gradually it all came back to him, and he saw John’s face hovering in front of him and the beloved face finally came  
into focus. “John.” Paul said.

John smiled slightly and said, “Paul.” 

Paul shook himself awake and said, “I must have fallen asleep watching the telly.”

“You did, indeed,” John responded. He was wondering wildly where Linda was. He suddenly realized he could ask. “Where’s Linda?”

“She went back to London today. We both decided that would be for the best,” Paul said, as nonchalantly as he could.

“Oh? Well, that’s an interesting turn of events,” John said.

Paul did not respond. He wasn’t sure what he could possibly say that wouldn’t make him look like a supplicant. Somehow, he didn’t feel as though he should be the supplicant if John was the one who had started all this trouble between them. Before he could say anything, John spoke again.

“So, are you going to sleep on the sofa, or are you going to sleep with me?”

Paul couldn’t prevent the fugitive grin that flitted across his face. He said, eyes dancing with mischief, “This sofa isn’t that comfortable. I think I’ll opt for the bed.” 

John felt a thrum of victory run up his spine, but decided to play it cool. He grabbed one of Paul’s hands and pulled him up to his feet. He suddenly felt shy with Paul standing there in front of him. How absolutely ridiculous, John thought, I’m 52 years old. The idea that he could be shy with Paul after all the years they’d known each other was hard to fathom. 

Paul felt shy, too, because he was the one who had insisted upon the separation between them, and now he was suddenly caving on that decision. But, truly, he had run out of justifications for being upset about all that had happened. Didn’t John deserve the chance to show him that things would be different? This thought emboldened Paul to speak. “I was thinking we should talk about what happened, and see if we can work it out.”

John had to stifle a guffaw. “Babe, you can talk all you want. But meanwhile, I’m gonna be sucking your dick!” 

Paul’s eyes popped, and a low giggle escaped from his throat before he could stop it. “I can’t find a reason to complain about that,” he opined, as John grabbed his hand and assertively led him to the bedroom. Paul had a feeling that there was going to be some explosive, unpredictable sex in his future, and his cock sprung straight to attention. He really loved it when that happened.

John felt as though he might burst. It had been a long dry spell when it came to sex. He couldn’t drag Paul to the bedroom fast enough. He didn’t even flinch as he dragged Paul past Sean’s bedroom. His mind was already in the throes of sexual ecstasy. In fact, his mind’s eye imagined his face buried in Paul’s crotch, sucking - no inhaling - Paul’s engorged cock. He would never let it go! They’ll find our skeletal bodies weeks from now, with my mouth firmly attached to Paul’s penis!

Paul, meanwhile, was feeling a kind of relieved euphoria. He hadn’t screwed everything up by overthinking the fight they’d had. He was only too happy to be manhandled by an obviously insatiable John. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind him, Paul felt himself being pushed on to the mattress. He just decided to let go of his ego, and it was weird - maybe because of the two tall whiskeys - when he was pushed backwards against the mattress he felt he was falling through space and he had little excited bursts in his stomach. What he felt next was John’s excited, eager fingers impatiently trying to unbutton and unzip his pants. A beatific closed-mouth smile suddenly appeared on Paul’s face. He might as well have been in heaven. There was only a dim glow from two nightlights, and so Paul watched the bold shadows of John pulling his pants down as it was reflected on the ceiling. He also felt the cool air hitting his exposed skin. Between the warmth of John’s breath on his crotch area, and the cool area on the skin around it, Paul exulted. His skin burst out in goose bumps. A fugitive thought raced through his brain before it was banished: no one - not even Linda - could send him to these heights of physical ecstasy. No one. Ever. And he’d had hundreds of lovers. 

John had stripped Paul of his pants, and now he was eyeing Paul’s engorged penis. His heart was beating very fast. This was one of his most favorite sights. Without further ado he lowered his face down into Paul’s crotch and, grabbing Paul’s cock in one hand, opened his mouth wide and then pulled Paul’s penis as far down into his mouth as he could stand without retching. He could feel the saliva rushing to his mouth to coat the foreign object with a slightly slippery lubrication, and then John moved his mouth down to the root of Paul’s penis, and then slowly - ever so slowly - pulled it’s way up the shaft to the very tip. There, John’s tongue did a little dance around the sensitive opening at the tip of Paul’s cock, and then, just as Paul’s body was literally vibrating in reaction, he allowed his tongue to pull back, and then his mouth moved down, down, down Paul’s cock back to the base.

“Oh my fucking god!” Paul shouted. He wasn’t sure he liked it or was aggravated by the tease. “Oh god!”

John’s mouth curved in pleasure. He was certainly scratching where the man itched! Was there a better smell in the world than Paul’s crotch? Or Paul’s cum? John was fucking entranced by those smells. Pheromones! That was what it was! Paul’s pheromones just set John’s soul on fire. 

Paul loved the sensual feel of John’s tongue and mouth on his cock. John was extremely gifted when it came to going down. Maybe only another bloke could know how to suck a man off; objectively he was better than any woman who had done him, including Linda. Of course, other than John, Paul had no experience of men sucking him off, but John was ace. All these thoughts danced in and out his head as he allowed himself to float in a vapor of pleasure. He allowed his urges to increase inside him, decided not to micromanage them any longer, and let go of conscious thought. Paul really had few inhibitions about sex, and neither did John, and this was one solid thing they shared together.

John’s mouth moved up to the bottom end of Paul’s trail of hair that led up to his chest. John’s mouth and hands had wandered up and down that trail thousands of times over the 31 years they’d been lovers (albeit there had been a 12 year intermission), but he had never tired of it. How serendipitous that nature would have put a “follow this arrow” sign on Paul’s body, pointing down towards his crotch. It was fantastic, and incredibly sexy. Once John’s mouth had followed the well-loved trail, he found himself eyeball to eyeball with Paul. Paul’s eyes looked moist and…soft. It was a tender, giving kind of soft. John’s eyes watered at the sight. He would never tire of it. The man’s face had a million expressions, and John adored each and every once of them. This soft, tender, submissive expression was one of his favorites. 

“Hey,” John whispered softly. A flicker of affection crossed Paul’s face in reaction. “I’m a fucking screw up, I know it.” John’s voice sounded raw and cramped.

“Shhhh, stop,” Paul whispered, hugging John closer. “We’re a pair, that’s for sure.” 

John was able to chuckle through the threatening tears. “We deserve each other, I guess,” he finally was able to say.

“So?” Paul asked. His eyebrows were arched in exaggerated impatience.

“So, so what?” John asked, momentarily confused.

“You gonna get busy, or shall I?”

Within seconds they were both very busy indeed.

 

*****

 

Sean was surprised to wake up at noon and find that he was the first one out of bed. He looked down the hall to the master suite door, and it remained firmly shut. Were they in there, or did they go out for some reason? If they were in there, they were awfully quiet for so late in the day. Sean didn’t even want to think what they were up to in there. But, ultimately, he supposed since they were so old, they were probably just sleeping. Shrugging, he moved into the kitchenette and poured some of his father’s ubiquitous corn flakes for breakfast. As he chomped on the cereal he heard the door opening at the end of the hall, and a few moments later Paul was in the room, a terrycloth bathrobe cinched about his waist tightly. He was whistling and moving with a typically Paul-like cheerful energy.

“’Morning Sean!” He called, in an almost singsong way.

He’s awfully cheerful this morning, Sean thought to himself. Sean supposed that his dad and Paul had made up again. It was as if the two of them were living - as one person - on a roller coaster, wallowing in the lows and delighting in the highs. “Hey, Paul. Where’s Linda?” He asked.

“She’s gone back to London. We both suspect James needs some adult eyes on him.” Paul had at first put the coffee machine on, but then he eyed the cereal, and poured some out for himself, and then a second bowl, presumably for John. He then brought down two mugs and prepared them for the fresh coffee. Sean watched this all with a kind of jaded amusement. As long as he lived he would never understand how his father’s relationship with Paul worked. It was at once chaotic and stable. He didn’t quite know how to digest that dichotomy, but, since it wasn’t his life, he could shrug and let the conundrum go.

Just then John came in, wrapped up securely in one of his Japanese silk dressing gowns. He looked like a new man. Gone was the dragging posture and the intensely sad face, and back was the almost cocky version of his father: the father who came out to play whenever he was feeling strong and happy. Yup, Sean thought. They’ve definitely made it up.

John had been humming to himself ever since he woke up, and had watched Paul prowl around the bedroom naked, before he’d found his bathrobe in the back of the closet. It had been years since Paul had worn that bathrobe. John remembered it from their days in the early ‘80s, when the loft was their love nest. He guessed, as of last night at least, it was their love nest again. A smile spread on his face, and he couldn’t wipe it off. The smile would just have to stay there, and people would just have to wonder about it, because John had no desire to damp it down after the weeks of misery he had just endured.

Now he was seated at the table, chomping on corn flakes and seeing Paul’s scruffy haired head across the table. They had two hours before they had to leave for their flight to Montreal, so they were in no rush. John felt the goodwill flooding through him. Life was looking up again. Paul wasn’t hiding from him anymore, and whatever had caused him to move back into their cocoon, John didn’t care. He watched while Paul and Sean were joking with each other, giving each other grief. He felt that all was well with the world. He knew it was a high that could not last. He knew there would be dark moments ahead. He knew that he and Paul had a lot of work to do in their relationship to fix whatever it was that was broken. But John told himself he would no longer take Paul for granted. Just a brief whiff of what it would be like to lose him had straightened up John’s attitude for what he thought would be forever. 

Of course, forever is a theory, not a reality.


	44. Chapter 44

The elite hotel on Sherbourne Street had a penthouse suite that featured unrivaled views of the city of Montreal. It was early evening when John and Paul arrived and the skyline was already twinkling with thousands of multi-colored lights. Perhaps being so wealthy for so long had made them both a little jaded, because while of course they admired the view, they didn’t linger on the balcony. Paul had some business to do, and got on the phone with the business manager and began discussing financial matters, and that, of course, bored John blind. He went off to find Sean in his room on a lower floor, and suggested they go down to the hotel bar and have a few drinks together. 

They sat at a secluded table in a corner where no one would be likely to recognize John, and chose some chilled Labatt’s. After some light opening banter, John said,

“Paul and I have made it up.” John looked up from his beer to gauge Sean’s reaction.

“So I noticed,” Sean twinkled. But then his expression became more serious. “You never told me what was wrong in the first place.”

“We don’t really know what went wrong between us. I guess now we have to figure out what it was. I mean, I could point to a bunch of stupid things I did to piss him off, but then - why did I do those stupid things? And why didn’t Paul confront me earlier about them? We have this bad pattern we fall into sometimes, where I see how far I have to go to get Paul’s attention. You know, what do I have to do to get a rise out of him? But I think he believes he is being stoic and loyal to deal with my shit and pretend it doesn’t bother him, and then it will suddenly become too much and he shuts me out. Bam! From zero reaction to total rejection in 2 seconds flat! I don’t know why we can’t sit down like normal people and work these things out.” 

Sean was surprised by his father’s openness. He was also surprised that John was so self-aware. “But Dad,” Sean said, “’Normal people’ don’t sit down and work things out either. They blunder around in the dark too. That’s why the world is such a fucked up place.”

John looked up at his son with surprise. When did he become so cynical? John smiled. “I haven’t been a ‘normal’ person since I was 21. Perhaps I tend to romanticize ‘normal’ people’s lives.”

“Yeah, well, the main thing is that you know there is a problem, and you have a general idea of how things go wrong once the problem occurs, so it seems to me that you trace back to the start of the ‘pattern’, and figure out what is the triggering event.” 

Now John was staring with a kind of awe at his son. But then, upon some reflection … “I wish it was that easy, son,” John responded. “But if we knew what triggered these things, we wouldn’t do it.” 

Sean laughed. “I’m not too sure about that, Dad. You’re both pretty stubborn and headstrong. I think the answer is you go to therapy. Both of you. It isn’t going to work if only one of you goes, because the problem is in the dynamic between you, and it is that dynamic that needs to be adjusted.”

Now it was time for John to laugh. “Just what I’ve always wanted: a mensch for a son. The thing is, I have been going to counseling, and in fact I’ve arranged with my therapist to start having sessions an hour every few days while I’m on tour. But Paul doesn’t believe in therapy. He can’t talk about his problems with his closest friends, let alone a complete stranger. He has never gone to a therapist, and I’m convinced that he is secretly proud of the fact. There is no way he will agree to go.”

Sean took a deep breath and nodded in resigned agreement. “I see your point,” he said. “Paul is the toughest person I’ve ever known - I mean, the toughest mentally. I mean, things scare him just like they scare me, but he doesn’t let the fear stop him from taking the risk. I really admire that about him, but I can see where it could work against him at times.” 

“It works against us,” John corrected. “It impacts how we communicate. I’m not a fuckin’ delicate little flower who needs to be protected from everything. Paul thinks I’m emotionally fragile, and doesn’t confront me when he should.”

Sean stopped to parse his words carefully, because his father was emotionally fragile, and his moods could turn on a dime. Sean had grown up learning to tiptoe around his father’s mercurial moods. Therefore, his basic sympathy was with Paul, who alone in the world seemed most capable of dealing with his father’s moods. He finally spoke: “I think that is a conversation you need to have with Paul.”

John nodded in agreement, but Sean could see the doubt on his father’s face at the suggestion. It seemed unlikely that his father was going to risk starting another fight with Paul so soon after making up the last one. Sean had seen over the last few weeks - yet again - how critical Paul’s stability was to his father’s ability to function, and so he could sympathize with his father’s fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to Paul. Sean thought his father’s fears in this vein were unwarranted, because he believed pretty strongly that Paul would not stop loving his dad over a few ill chosen words or a stupid misunderstanding. Their bond was too strong for that.

 

*****

 

Up in the suite, Paul had finished his business dealings, and had called Linda in London to see how things were at home. It was about midnight her time, but she roused herself from sleep to have a long chat with her husband. 

“So, how’d it go?” Linda asked him after their initial greetings. She didn’t need to explain what she meant. 

“Well, we didn’t solve anything, if that is what you’re asking,” Paul admitted. “But we’re not mad at each other anymore. I don’t know who I’m fooling when I pretend that I can stay mad at John for long.”

Linda chuckled. But then the truth about Paul was that he did not have a resentful nature, and it took a whole lot for him to “stay mad” at anyone for any length of time. “So you just pretended like it didn’t happen, and now you’re going on as you did before?” Linda didn’t intend for her voice to sound sarcastic, but it did, a little. 

Paul heard the sarcasm, but figured it was deserved. “Yeah, pretty much, that’s what we do.” 

“I guess it’s easier than just sitting down and telling each other how you feel, and trying to find a better way of dealing with your issues.” Linda’s voice was artificially supportive. Her true criticism blared out of her words, however, as she had intended.

“You’re being harsh tonight,” Paul chuckled. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“I always get up on the wrong side of the bed when you’re not in it with me, baby.” Linda had allowed her voice to become comically seductive.

Paul laughed light-heartedly. It was good to have a friend in his life like Linda. He just didn’t know what he would do without her. 

“But seriously, Paul, this is ridiculous. You’re both in your fifties now. You can’t go on with these passive aggressive breakdowns every couple of years. It takes so much out of you both, and it also is upsetting to the whole family. You need to sit down with John and make him tell you why he does those crazy things. I mean, do you have any idea why he acts out like that?”

Linda was clearly in a tough love mood tonight, but Paul understood that she instinctively knew when he craved tough love, and that is why she was busting his balls. He was grateful for it, in a grudging kind of way. “John has always been like that, Lin. I mean, he gets bored with his life - and that includes me - and so he finds some other bright shiny object, and then when that lets him down, he comes back to my orbit. I have never understood it, but it is just one of the things I have to tolerate if I want John in my life.”

“Listen to yourself, Paul. You don’t ‘have to tolerate’ anything! The point of living is to grow, you know. John ought to be able to grow. In fact, in the last several years there were times I’ve thought for sure John had grown, and had left that behavior behind him, but just when I start to think it’s gone for good, he does it again. What’s that about? Do you ever give it any thought?”

Paul was silent. He was bemused. In truth, Paul had never really given it much thought. It happened. And then it would be over. There would be a weak apology, usually with a “but” attached to it, and no further explanation forthcoming from John - he would just be back, demanding Paul’s attention again. How many times had Paul been through it? Too many to remember, that’s for sure. In his deepest darkest heart Paul suspected that he had been deeply hurt by John’s hither-thither loyalties, but he also felt he had to bury that hurt and pretend it didn’t exist, because to admit that it hurt would leave him wide open to John’s derision. John wanted him to be strong and blasé about such betrayals of their friendship, and Paul had delivered. That deep dark echo in his soul told him the only reason John kept coming back to him was that he didn’t react with injured pride, and he was willing to pretend that everything could go back to normal. 

Linda felt Paul’s long deep silence from her end of the phone and realized she had gone far enough for one conversation. She ended it quickly by saying, “Oh well, it’s easy for me to point out the problems. It’s not my relationship. It’s always easy to see what other people are doing wrong.” She laughed at herself as she said this, and Paul chuckled too (half-heartedly, it seemed to Linda). They then began to talk about their children, and about Linda’s plans for the remaining month of the tour. John and Paul would be back in London a few weeks before the Christmas holidays, so Linda had a lot of holiday plans to work on in that interim.

 

*****

 

The car pulled up to Cavendish a bit later than they had expected, after a delay in their flight. It was just after teatime, and the gloomy December London weather hung heavily in the darkening sky. John and Paul were tired. They had been on stage less than 15 hours earlier, leaving the Vancouver venue in a private jet right after the concert ended. They’d briefly refueled in New York, dropping off Sean in the process. 

The last month had been yet another calm after yet another storm. John and Paul had not discussed the touchy subject of the contretemps in San Diego, even though both men had individually thought about it. It was too sore a spot, with too obscure a genesis, and so it was easier to just push it away and enjoy being together again. And enjoy it they had. As was their M.O. in past breaches that had healed over, in the wake of the bad patch they had become glued to each other 24/7. The members of their tour entourage were dumbfounded at how quickly the two men became one solid unit again. Sean was used to it, but the others really hadn’t ever witnessed one of those Exorcist-like moments, where John and Paul’s interactions had swung 180 degrees in an opposite direction, literally overnight. 

Paul stepped out of the car first, relieved to be back at Cavendish. This house would always be home for him, no matter wherever else he might live. He had lived a full adult life within it walls. Others might say he could afford bigger and better. In fact, John’s place was much bigger, and much better in terms of being trendy and upscale. But Cavendish suited him down to the ground, and he was always tremendously relieved when he returned to it from anywhere else.

John got out just long enough to say hello to Linda and James, who finally came to the front door. He noticed Linda had placed a holiday wreath on the front door. It was a bit haphazard and tacky in John’s opinion, but of course he said nothing. He was turning into a design snob, and didn’t realize it. Inside, holiday cards were strung on ribbons around the hearth, and a rather straggly looking fir tree was adorned with homemade ornaments. He hugged Linda and James in the hallway, agreed to come over in two hours for dinner, and then went back to the car, to be driven around the block to his house.

Mary and Stella dropped by at Cavendish an hour or so later to find their mother cooking and their father and James talking in a highly animated way around the kitchen table. Soon there was laughter, and loud joking, and scraping chairs, and through it all Linda was moving with economy around the kitchen, a sense of wellbeing flooding through her to have her family around her and all of them laughing and talking at once while she cooked for them. Soon Mary was next to her, taking over the vegetable chopping. When she looked at the whole picture, Linda decided, she had a really full and rewarding life. Yes, her oldest daughter was always going to be a worry, but they’d gotten through the scariest part with her. And yes, her husband had a whole other life with his male lover, but he was still the man for her, and the father for her children. She was very much luckier than most. 

When dinner was about to be served, Linda called John and told him it was ready. John felt a bit self-conscious about going over there for dinner to be surrounded by Paul’s children after the scene that had gone down in San Diego. But he shook off those twinges. He’d had to live through the aftermath of a number of embarrassing situations in his life so he’d gotten to the point where he just pushed himself through them. When he got to Cavendish, however, he felt a certain amount of coolness coming in his direction from Mary and Stella, and especially Stella. She was being polite and appropriate, but John missed her taking the piss out of him. He and Stella had developed a great relationship, with her giving him grief and pulling his chain, and him enjoying every moment of it. He felt, as the dinner progressed, that she had withdrawn emotionally from him. John knew he was hypersensitive, and that perhaps he was reading things into the situation, but there was something…off…about the way Stella was interacting with him. And Mary had a sympathetic expression on her face, but it was mixed with…what was it? ... ah, disappointment. She was disappointed in him. John’s heart fell.

Conversely, Linda was lovely to him. At one point she had even given his shoulder a supportive squeeze. He’d looked up at her and she had smiled at him in a sunny, uncomplicated way. And Paul, of course, was acting as if nothing was wrong. Usually, his children shouted over him at the dinner table, so you would have thought he’d notice that his daughters were unusually quiet, but no, he didn’t. He just seemed very pleased that they appeared to be listening to what he said! James seemed to be taking his lead from Paul, and acted as if nothing was wrong. It was a mixed bag, but John wanted everyone to love him unconditionally all the time, so of course he felt insecure about the girls’ reaction to him.

After dinner, John wanted to go back to his own home, and had resigned himself to the idea that Paul would be with Linda that night. The sooner he got out of what he felt was a less than welcoming environment, the better. He hugged Linda and Paul goodbye, and headed down the garden and the mews back to his house. He had only been back for a few minutes, making himself some chamomile tea to help calm down, when his back doorbell rang. He went to the door, and there stood Stella McCartney, shivering in the cold because she had dashed off impulsively without her overcoat.

“Stella! What are you doing here?” John was utterly surprised.

“I want to talk to you, and I don’t want my parents to have to hear what I have to say.” Her face was taut and she was clearly struggling with strong emotion.

John was a little afraid of her, but he opened the door for her to come in, and waved her towards the kitchen table. “I’m making some chamomile tea, do you want some too?”

“Sure,” she said, dragging a chair out and sitting down. She appeared to be rehearsing in her mind what she was going to say first.

John soon joined her, pushing across her steaming cup of comfort. Soon they regarded each other from across a table. John spoke first. “You wanted to talk to me in private, so here I am.” He tried a goofy smile, hoping it would soften Stella’s expression, but apparently the smile fell on blind eyes.

Stella cleared her throat. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I was going to do what my dad obviously prefers, which is to pretend like nothing actually happened.” She stopped for a moment to take a deep breath. The words escaping from her throat were vibrating in the air around her, and her heart was beating almost unbearably fast. Seldom did she find herself so overcome by anger. “But, I can’t do it. I can’t pretend you didn’t abuse and humiliate my father in front of his family and all of the people who work for him.”

“I didn’t actually do anything to your father in front of the family or people who work for us,” John said in a sharply defensive tone. He had intended to sit quietly and just take what she had to say, but clearly that plan had been unrealistic. It fell apart as soon as John felt himself being attacked. “What passed between your dad and me happened in private.”

Stella’s fist hit the table, and her voice rose to a shout: “His fucking cuts and bruises weren’t private!”

Silence reigned in the wake of Stella’s outburst. Both of them appeared to be surprised by the vehemence in Stella’s voice, and were sobered by it. 

John finally said, “I’m very ashamed of what I did, Stella. I can’t take it back, but I never intended to humiliate him.”

Stella’s expression was distrusting and resentful. She was angry with herself, because she could feel hot tears threatening, and she believed that if she allowed tears to fall it would be an unforgivable sign of weakness. She needed to find the right words to express herself. It took a few false starts. “I don’t….I can’t understand… Daddy is the gentlest person! He would never hurt a fly!” Here they came. The tears. They began to roll. “How could you even want to do that to him? Even if you’re angry - how could you do that? All he ever has tried to do is keep you happy, and keep us - our family - happy. Why isn’t that enough for you?” 

John sat back in his chair. He still felt threatened. Again, here he was being dressed up as the villain. “Because maybe it isn’t enough,” he finally said softly. 

Stella stared at him, her mouth open. That surprised her. Then her anger came back. “Right now what I feel about you is that you are some kind of vampire, sucking my Dad dry. So now he’s running out of blood, and you don’t want him anymore?” 

John winced in exasperation. “That’s a bit dramatic and over the top, isn’t it Stell? Your dad and I sometimes have conflicting goals, but it is perfectly normal in a partnership.”

Stella furiously wiped the tears off her face. They were drying already. “Hitting your partner isn’t perfectly normal! And what is it that you want from us, John? Do you want to usurp every inch of him, so there’s nothing left for us? Would that be ‘enough’ for you?” 

Stella’s plaintive despair hit John in his soft spot, while her raging accusations had missed. He put his arm across the table, and put his hand around Stella’s still-balled fist. She flinched a little, and started to retract, but John held her hand down firmly, and stared in Stella’s eyes until she allowed them to focus on him. “Stell, I’m so sorry that the trouble your dad and I are having is affecting your family. I’m not always as sensitive to that as I should be. But please believe that I don’t want to hurt your dad, or any of you.” 

Stella’s hurt and frustration wasn’t assuaged. She still felt angry and confused, and she also felt betrayed by John. She had loved and trusted him and thought of him as a member of her family. She understood there was a certain amount of drama in her father’s relationship with John, but she had never thought it could be this nasty again; she’d wanted to believe the nasty things that John had said and done to her father back when she was a baby were history. She also felt a loss - she had felt that John was her friend, and now she felt she had lost him. His simple apology, for whatever reason, didn’t scratch where she itched. “I see,” Stella said, her voice flat and her expression dead. “Well, that’s it then? We’re all supposed to go on as if nothing life-changing has happened?”

John began to realize that no matter how much he might want to minimize the fact that he had struck Paul in the face, he had no control over how other people felt about it. Stella was clearly taking it extremely seriously. And he suspected Mary felt the same, but was too kind and gentle to tell him. She would just go around being quietly disappointed in him. John didn’t like being held accountable for his actions, but this was a situation he couldn’t charm or bluster his way out of. “I don’t know what else to say,” John said, trying not to sound as if he thought he was the injured party. 

“Have you hit my father before?” Stella asked bluntly. 

“No - well - back when we were young, we once had a fight, but no - not since then.” John’s memory had been imprinted with the view that the time he hit Paul in India was a two-way physical fight, when it had not been. 

Stella was looking at him through squinty eyes. “What’s to stop you from hitting him again in the future?” She finally asked.

“The only thing that will stop me is me, I’m afraid. I went off my meds and stopped my therapy, and I reacted too strongly to some words that your dad and I exchanged. So, I’m back on my meds, and I’m seeing my therapist again, and I can only do my best not to act out like that again. I really don’t know what else you can expect of me. Your dad has forgiven me, and so has your mother.” 

Stella felt her heart rate lowering, her chest loosening up, and her breath coming easier. She sat back in her chair quietly and thought about what John had said. “I want to forgive you, John, because you’re a part of our family. But my first loyalty is to my dad.”

John allowed his face to soften into a warm smile. “I love him too, you know,” he said. “I loved him first, and longer.” 

Stella knew that John’s love for her father was a different kind of love than the kind she felt, but it was a point she was willing to cede to John in this painful tug-of-war conversation. “He loves you, John, that’s the more important fact. At least it is to me. I don’t want you to hit my father anymore. He can be maddening sometimes, even insufferable, and sometimes he is off in a kind of trance that can be annoying and thoughtless, and you have the right to get mad at him. Lord knows I do. But hitting him? I can’t excuse that, and you shouldn’t even try to excuse it - at least not to me.” 

“Fair enough,” John said. Although she had pushed almost every button in his reactive personality, John had a healthy respect for Stella’s intense loyalty towards her loved ones and her no-bullshit attitude. He sometimes wished that Paul allowed himself to be that brutally honest. It would make things a whole lot easier for them in the long run if he did, although, John admitted to himself, in the short run things would be hellish. Stella got up, suddenly fussing about the time. “They’ll be wondering where I went off to!” She cried, as she got up. 

“Stella, wait!” John ordered. She froze uncertainly in her steps. He walked down the hall to the closet, and found one of his heavy jackets. He brought it back to her. “Put this on, baby. Don’t want you to get sick.” 

This little piece of paternalism melted Stella’s big heart. She made a face at him, but allowed him to help her into his jacket. She then allowed him to pull her into a hug. He whispered in her ear, “I won’t hit him again, Stell, mainly ‘cuz I’m too afraid of you.” 

He could feel Stella’s back shake as she chuckled. She broke loose from him, and John followed her to the back door. As she started down the mews, she called back to him, “You’d better be afraid of me Lennon!” John did a double take. In that moment she looked and sounded exactly like Paul. His face was overcome with a fond smile.

 

*****

 

Here I am, sitting in the doghouse again, John mused as he waited anxiously in Fiona’s anteroom. He knew he was “in for it.” Fiona had been alarmed at how broken he had sounded on the phone when he called her from the tour begging for her help, and so she had treated him with kid gloves while talking to him from a distance. But John knew her well enough to know that there was going to be a price to pay for his stopping his therapy earlier, and most likely today - in their first in person meeting in eight months - would be the day he would have to pay it. And, sure enough, here he sat - eight minutes after his hour officially began - waiting. One minute for each month. Finally, Fiona was in the doorway. She had an expression on her face that resembled how a dog owner looks when the puppy has just peed on the floor. And John looked like the naughty puppy.

“Come on in, John,” she said. She waited until he sat down, looking nervous and guilty, before she said, with some satire in her eyes, “It’s been a long time.” 

John’s eyes reluctantly met hers, and then he mugged. “Yeah, my bad,” he joked. 

Despite herself, Fiona smiled. She had missed John - her most infuriating, frustrating, satisfying, interesting, and hilarious client. She had never been sanguine about his therapy, because John had quicksilver moods, and for every three steps forward, he would take two back. The important thing was, when he was in therapy, at least over time he was getting ahead, one step by one step. There was no point in throwing up her arms in frustration. She knew he had been through some blinding pain, and so was again receptive to finding a way to improve his approach to life.

“Ok, John, we last spoke a few days ago, and we were walking through all the precipitating events to the moment when you ‘lost it’, as you put it, and struck Paul. We last spoke about how you decided unilaterally to buy a new apartment in New York and sell the loft. Can you look back and describe the moment you first had that idea? What prompted it, can you remember?” 

John groaned and let his head fall into his hands. He hated going over this again and again. It was like Ground Hog’s Day, only things didn’t get better each time. They seemed to get worse. Each time he was forced to walk that terrain again, he saw yet another thing he had done to Paul that was insensitive or inconsiderate. 

“John?” Fiona prompted. 

Sighing, John leaned back on the sofa and prepared to walk through it again. “It was the loft, I guess. It was so dreary. I hadn’t been there in a long time, and I was so used to my house - all white, and bright, and full of color - and I suddenly wanted to have another remodeling project.” 

“That is understandable,” Fiona said, encouraging him with a nod to continue.

“It’s not something that interests Paul. He politely shows interest occasionally, but it isn’t his thing, you know?”

Fiona nodded again. It was a neutral nod. 

John was forcing himself to try to remember what was in his head that night. “It didn’t occur to me that he would be interested in it. I just didn’t think. And then Jason was there, and I knew Jason would be interested in it, so it just spilled out when I was talking to him.”

“When you talked to Jason about it, did you notice at all how Paul was reacting?” Fiona asked.

John looked confused. “No, because I was talking to Jason.”

“So you never looked over to check out how Paul was responding to what you said?”

“I don’t think so. Jason and I were just so excited. We do that to each other. We were talking a mile a minute…”

“Why do you think you didn’t ‘check in’ with Paul during that conversation? By that I mean, why do you think you didn’t find it necessary to make eye contact with him periodically while you were sharing this new idea with your friend? After all, the idea affected Paul as much as it affected you, didn’t it?”

John was silenced for a few moments. “I don’t know why,” John finally admitted. He was truly flummoxed by the question. 

“Let’s unpack that a little. Can you think of any reason why you wouldn’t have included Paul in on the conversation? It doesn’t have to be what happened - just throw out some possibilities for us to examine.”

This proposal had thrown John for a loop. “I told you - it was just me being excited talking to Jason.”

“Pretend it is someone else we’re talking about. What are some reasons why a person might excitedly discuss for the first time how he is going to sell his home and buy a new one to someone else in front of the person who shares that home with him?”

“Look, Fiona, I know it was insensitive and thoughtless. I got that. It was what it was, and I can’t change it.”

“You’ve said that a lot as we’ve examined these little issues you’ve been having with Paul. That it just happened, and you can’t change it.” Fiona’s voice was neutral, and there was no accusation in her expression.

“Well, that’s true.” John responded.

“As far as it goes, you’re right. But it keeps happening, right? Isn’t that why you came back to your therapy? To try to make sure it doesn’t keep happening?” 

“Yes,” John admitted.

“Then you’re going to have to dig deep, John. Nothing about this is going to be easy.” 

John blinked several times as he caught up with his whirring brain. “My son told me he thought it was a dynamic between me and Paul. That something triggers some patterns that lead to these breakdowns in communication.”

“Your son sounds very wise,” Fiona smiled.

“It’s fucking scary, is what it is,” John admitted, chuckling. “But he also said that he didn’t think therapy would work unless Paul went too.”

Fiona had pinpointed that issue long before, and agreed that the two men really needed couple’s therapy. She had heard that some rock groups even took a therapist on tour with them, to keep them from killing each other, she guessed. What little she knew about Paul told her he would see therapy as an admission of weakness, and thus a failure. “What do you think Paul would say if you asked him to come to therapy with you?”

John rolled his eyes. “He might come if he thought it was to talk about my issues, although if it was for him to talk about his - not so much.” 

“This might be a safe place for you to ask him to go to therapy with you, though, don’t you think?”

John brightened at the thought. “Yeah, you could break it to him instead of me.” His eyes lit up.

Fiona laughed while she shook her head. “John, John … No, you would ask him. But I would be sitting here to help you negotiate his reaction. That is - if it’s what you want. Do you want him to go to therapy with you?”

John had never given it much thought because the whole idea of joint therapy had seemed impossible from his standpoint. He doubted Paul would ever agree to it. So he asked himself for the first time, ‘Do I want to go to therapy with Paul?’ John wasn’t entirely sure. You never knew what therapy could stir up. It could just as easily lead to an irrevocable break with Paul, as it could to a closer, stronger relationship. “I guess I have to think about that a bit,” John finally answered.

 

*****

 

It was a few days before Christmas, and John had been lying around Cavendish all day long, spending time with the entire McCartney family. He and Stella were on talking terms again, although she wasn’t quite as forthcoming in affection as she had been before. She must have said something to Mary about their meeting, because Mary was her usual sweet and comforting self to him. James was just James. Fifteen years old, and sprawled on the floor with the controls to his video games. Occasionally, Paul joined him down there playing too. He acted just like a 15 year-old sometimes, and John watched it with love. He knew he had to do anything that was necessary to fix whatever was wrong between Paul and him, so he had decided to ask Paul to go to a therapy session with him.

After the girls had left, and Linda had chased James upstairs, Paul got up off the floor, cleared away the detritus from his activities with James, and then plopped down next to John on the sofa. He noticed for the first time that John was watching him closely, his eyes following him intently. 

“Hey, mate!” Paul said cheerily. “What’s up?” He reached his whiskey glass out to John’s, and John clinked glasses with him.

“I have something I need to ask of you, and I’ve been nervous about bringing it up.” John said this in as nonthreateningly as possible.

“Oh?” Paul looked alarmed. The words ‘What now?’ seemed to pop up in a cloud over Paul’s head, and John had to keep from smirking.

“Yeah. It’s a serious one.” 

“And?” Paul asked.

“In my therapy I’m trying to walk though the crap I pulled on you while we were on tour, you know, starting with the whole apartment thing, and then the stuff with Harry, and then… San Diego…”

Paul listened, but his eyes were wide and his heart was pounding. John looked so nervous and serious. He hoped it wasn’t going to be something unsettling and disruptive. “Yeah?”

“Well, my therapist thought it might be very helpful for me if you came with me to a session to talk about it.” John let it come out in a rush. He was holding his breath while he awaited Paul’s response.

Paul became utterly still. “What would be the reason for that?” He finally asked, confused. He’d never been to therapy, and so couldn’t imagine what he would be needed for.

“She thinks it will help me, and I’m asking you to do this for me.” John’s eyes were pleading now. He watched Paul’s huge dark green eyes and tried to read something there, but the eyes were opaque. A long silence followed. 

“Well, if it means that much to you…”

“It does,” John said quickly and firmly.

“It’s just the one time, right?” Paul asked.

“That’s what I’m asking,” John prevaricated.

“Okay, then.”


	45. Chapter 45

Fiona was nervous. When she had suggested that John should bring Paul to a therapy session, she hadn’t really given much thought to how intimidating the reality might be. A couple’s therapy session with John Lennon and Paul McCartney! How on earth was she supposed to deal with that? Handling John alone had been a tricky proposition, and now she had double downed on that trickiness. She had been frankly surprised when John had called her to say that Paul had agreed to come. John’s reaction when she’d asked him if he wanted the couple’s therapy had convinced her that he would not ask Paul to go. And she had grave doubts that Paul would agree to go, even if John asked him. Yet, there was his voice on her answering phone:

“…He thinks it is for this one time only, and it is only because he thinks he is helping me. He is doing it as a favor to me.” John had warned her of all of Paul’s conditions so she would help him keep his cover story intact when Paul showed up in her office. 

It was about time, and she heard the buzz in the anteroom, which meant they had just arrived. She felt like a girl about to go out on a blind date as she looked around her office, and fluffed some pillows. She then approached the door. As she started to open it, she heard the tail end of a sentence from John.

“…sit down, Pud, relax, it’s no big deal…”

When the door was opened completely she saw John perched on the sofa and Paul standing by the window, his hands in his pockets, rattling his keys. His head snapped around and saw her, and it was a few seconds before he masked his clear anxiety about being there. She smiled warmly at him and put out her hand.

“Paul, hello,” she said. “Thanks for agreeing to come. John and I feel it will be very helpful to our work.” 

Paul nodded quietly, shook her hand with warmth, and followed John into the office. John sat down in his usual place on the right side of the sofa, and Paul stood around as if he didn’t know what to do next. Fiona saw John pat the sofa cushion to the left of him, and Paul took the cue and sat down there. He really doesn’t want to be here, Fiona thought to herself. She knew she couldn’t tell him to relax, because whenever you told someone that, they immediately tensed up even more. So she just smiled warmly at him again. “I usually start these sessions by recapping what we did the last time,” she told Paul calmly. He was wide-eyed and leaning forward, forearms on thighs, fidgeting with his hands. But he nodded slightly in response to her comment. “So John, last time we were trying to understand what might have triggered your desire to buy your own apartment, and why you didn’t first raise that idea with Paul.”

Paul cringed. Man, this was personal. He didn’t know what he’d thought John was talking about when he went to therapy sessions, but when he didn’t have to listen to it he didn’t have to know how painfully private it all was. He felt himself blushing. This…stranger…was talking about their private issues! He kept his mouth shut, and looked down at his nervous hands.

“Yeah, Paul, Fiona was asking me why I raised the subject with Jason right in front of you, and didn’t even try to make eye contact with you while I was doing it.” John met Paul’s eyes and tried - through ESP - to urge Paul to say something. Paul didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. So John continued. “I told her I thought it was because I was excited and so was Jason, and I got carried away. It was thoughtless.”

Paul looked at John and then at Fiona. They both sat there staring at him as if they expected him to do or say something. He shook his head and put his hands out as if to say, ‘what do I do next?’ 

Fiona asked, “What were you thinking while John was talking to your friend Jason about this idea of a brand new apartment?”

Paul’s face closed. “Why does that matter - what I thought?”

“Because John wants to know. It will help him grasp the consequences of what he did.” Fiona’s voice was patient and soft.

“He just made a mistake, is all. He got carried away, like he said. Why make such a to do about it? I’m over it.” Paul didn’t understand why John was still worrying about this bullshit long after everything else that went down. To Paul, after being hit in the face, that apartment idea had lost its importance. 

“What was there to ‘get over’?” Fiona asked.

“Wha - well - I don’t understand. I thought this was about John’s therapy.” Paul was trying to remain polite, but he was beginning to feel as though he had been lured there under false pretenses. At that moment, John reached out and squeezed his knee. He smiled at Paul when their eyes met. Paul calmed down. “So, okay, it hurt my feelings a little. I got over it. It’s water under the bridge.” 

“John, why do you think Paul’s feelings were hurt?”

John almost smiled at Fiona at her skillful handling of the difficult moment, but didn’t do so because he didn’t want Paul to get wise to the game. “It was a private decision to make, and it wasn’t just my decision to make, and I excluded him. I get why he was hurt. If he’d done it to me, I would have been hurt too.” Like if he was going to fire the son of a friend of mine without consulting me first. John sat back and was surprised by that thought. Where the hell did that come from? He looked at Paul with surprise in his eyes, and Paul noted it. The subtle change in Paul’s eyes and expression seemed to ask John, What? What have you just thought? John allowed his face to relax and the signal he sent back, silently, was I’ll tell you later.

Fiona was strangely dissatisfied by this interaction. John was holding back, and Paul was completely uncooperative. She tried something else. “John, do you still want to buy a new apartment in New York?”

John looked at her in a panic. She wasn’t supposed to tell Paul that! Now he would have to lie or tell Paul the truth! Fuck! Why didn’t he listen to his doubts about dragging Paul to this session? John noted that Paul was watching him, and he realized he had been quiet for an unseemly amount of time. He cleared his throat. “Uh, well, we’ve agreed to remodel the loft first…”

That got Paul’s attention. “’First’?” 

Fiona thought she might be able to see the triggering pattern right before her eyes in the next few moments. 

“Yeah, see Paul, maybe I’ll like the loft after it’s remodeled, but I still kind of like the idea of having an apartment in New York which is less…”

“…Dark and gloomy?” Paul finished.

John was surprised by Paul’s interruption. “Yeah. It kind of gets me down. There is no life or light in it.”

Paul nodded. “I noticed that when we were in New York…you know, that night…” He stopped. He looked over to Fiona. For a moment he had forgotten she was there. He said no more.

“Yeah, that night. So, you noticed what I noticed?”

“I did, yeah. It’s served its purpose. I agree with you that it is time to move on from there, if that is what you want to do. Why bother remodeling it, when someone else may want to do it their way?” 

Fiona sat back. This had certainly surprised her. She had been prepared for Paul to withdraw, and John to become frustrated. John, too, sat back. 

“Well, Paul, I thought the issue was that you felt a new apartment - a more high profile one - would lead to too much public exposure.” John was feeling as though Paul was playing bait and switch with him.

Paul sighed. “Well, you can buy the new apartment with your own money; why not? I won’t be able to stay there overnight, of course. Doormen in those flashy buildings leak like sieves.” 

John suddenly wasn’t so sure he wanted an apartment all by himself if Paul couldn’t stay there overnight. He looked to Fiona with a look of desperation that appealed to her empathy.

“What do you think will happen if the doormen say you stay there overnight?” Fiona asked Paul, trying to act as if she were a clueless innocent.

Paul looked at her as if she were crazy. Was she serious? “I have a wife and I have children. You have to know what the press would do with information like that.”

“But don’t friends stay overnight at each other’s homes?” Fiona asked, pretending ignorance.

“Normal people do, but we can’t - not publicly. It’s a given, and we have to live with it.” Paul’s voice was businesslike and unflinching. The tough Paul was finding his legs in this session, and was coming alive. Fiona was starting to take the real measure of the man. Paul turned to John and added, “I understand your desire to want a place like that. I don’t want to stand in your way. You should do what your heart tells you to do.” 

John looked bewildered. What did he want?

Fiona bravely took the next step, knowing it was a long way down if she put her foot wrong. “So John, maybe you can explain to Paul your desire to spend time in New York by yourself.”

“Fiona!” John barked. He was furious with her. 

“You wanted my help with this, John, and this is where it leads.” Fiona did not rear up in fright when John shouted at her, and this gave her a certain amount of credibility in Paul’s eyes. 

Paul said, “John, is it true? Do you want to spend more time alone? Is that what’s bothering you? Is that why I’m here?” 

John was still bewildered at the turn events had taken. He looked helplessly at Paul.

“If that’s what you want, John, of course you should have it.” Paul’s voice was empathetic, and there was not a drop of anger or resentment in his voice or on his face. 

Now John began to fear that this was all easy for Paul to hear because he wanted his freedom! His heart sped up, and he began to breath heavily. Fiona noticed.

“John? What’s going on with you? What are you feeling right now?” 

He turned back to her and she saw he was fighting back tears. “It sounds like he’s okay with me being alone, without him.” He said. 

“Yes, it does,” Fiona said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I guess…” John didn’t look like he wanted it now. 

Fiona pushed a little further. “Do you have other conflicting emotions about it?” She was urging him with her eyes to speak up, but John was having a hard time being open with her in front of Paul. Bringing Paul here had been a disaster, he was thinking. “Do you wonder if Paul’s willingness to allow you this time alone has some ulterior motive?” She clarified.

“Like what?” Paul asked with irritation.

“Well, maybe he worries that you want time alone from him, too,” Fiona suggested.

Paul was now out of his depth. What the hell was going on? He looked at John, but John was staring at his hands. “This is too confusing for me,” Paul finally said. “I give up.”

“What are you giving up on?” Fiona asked.

That woman was starting to irritate Paul with all of her insinuating questions. A pot-stirrer, that’s what she was! “The con-ver-sa-tion,” Paul said in long syllables as if speaking to a 4-year old. 

“I can see you’re frustrated…” Fiona started.

“I’m not your patient,” Paul said in a snippy voice. “John is. And it seems to me he is in much worse shape emotionally now than when he walked in here.” 

“That’s what happens in therapy,” Fiona said in soft response. “It gets worse before it gets better.”

“And what if it never gets better? All you did in that case was make it worse.” Paul’s voice was sure of itself. He looked supremely confident. This was a side of Paul she’d only heard about. Certainly she’d never seen it acted out in front of her. She could definitely see the backbone that John Lennon so relied upon. 

“Paul, it’s true, what she says.” John turned to Paul in a beseeching way. “This is what I go through in every session. It’s why it is hard for me to go sometimes. What did you think I was doing here all this time? Do you begin to see why it is so difficult for me?”

Paul softened his affect, and reached out and grabbed John’s hand. “Just tell me what you want, John. You’re making me crazy. Do you want your own apartment and time to be alone? Or don’t you? Whatever you want, I want you to have it. But I can’t deal with all of this, ‘you don’t love me if you give me what I ask for’ crap!” 

Wonders never cease, Fiona thought. Paul’s response could not have been better if she’d written it herself. 

John chuckled, and started wiping his eyes with a tissue he had surreptitiously pulled from the box sitting on the table next to him. “I want to do it, but it scares me. I’m afraid it will put a strain on our relationship.” 

Fiona held her breath. She watched Paul and waited. She hoped his response would put John’s restless mind at ease.

“Well,” Paul said, “why don’t you try it? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep doing it, right? I mean, what is the downside of giving it a try?” 

Fiona almost jumped up and yelled ‘yes!’ the way football fans did when their team got a goal. She restrained herself and said,

“John, I think that is a very good point. Don’t you?”

John nodded. “Okay. Okay. Let’s do that then.” He heaved a big sigh, and sat back. He felt a tremendous release in the area of his neck and shoulders. The issue had been raised, and it hadn’t resulted in disaster, and it had turned out how he thought he wanted it to. He smiled at Paul, who was still holding his hand, and he squeezed Paul’s hand while shooting him a grateful smile. Paul squeezed and smiled back.

Fiona knew she would have to be the one to interrupt this kumbaya moment. “John, I believe you had something to ask Paul during this session.”

John looked at her pleadingly. He wanted it to end. He couldn’t bear another intense conversation such as the one that had finally just ended. 

“What is it, John?” Paul asked. He was thinking he’d have to get through this next request in order to get out of this office and away from this woman. He never wanted to come here again. 

John said, “Well, Paul, I was hoping we could…” John stopped. He looked at Fiona for help, but she just gave him an encouraging smile. “I was thinking maybe we could come together to a few more sessions…”

Paul dropped John’s hand and stood up. He had not been expecting this. “I’m not into this, John!” He declared. “I don’t want therapy!” 

John sank back in his seat and was sorry he had brought it up. Fiona came to his rescue.

“John has a point, though, don’t you think Paul? Look, you’ve been here not even an hour and you have already resolved a major issue in your relationship, and you did it without any hurt feelings. He feels there are other issues between you, and in order for him to get better - to grow as a person - he wants to work them out with you. Isn’t that right, John?”

John nodded and looked at Paul with hope in his eyes.

Paul sighed and sat down again. “Look. Of course I want John to ‘get better’, whatever that means. Personally, I love him the way he is. But I don’t see why if he has issues with me, he can’t just tell me.”

“John?” Fiona prompted. 

John said, “I don’t want us to go on repeating the same stupid behavior we’ve repeated since we were teenagers, Paul. I’ve tried to fix it all on my own, but it obviously hasn’t worked. Can’t you spare a few more hours of your time to come to these sessions with me?” 

Paul felt trapped. John was asking him for a few hours of his time. This hour had been agonizing for him, and now he was expected to repeat this several more times? He allowed his eyes to meet John’s, and what he saw there melted him. “If you really need me to be here, I’ll be here.” 

Fiona felt both relieved and triumphant. She hid that reaction extremely well, as her voice came out in a businesslike manner. “So, next time, I want to talk about what happened while you were in Los Angeles.”

Honestly, John thought, the woman never knew when to give it a rest!

 

*****

 

John hadn’t given much thought to what it would be like to drive home in a car, with Paul at the wheel, after the therapy session. He was actually shy and could not think of anything to say. He sat quietly in the front passenger seat as Paul maneuvered his way out of the parking lot and on to the busy London street. After Paul had made his turns and lane changes, he was able to sit back and relax a bit. 

“Well, John, that was something,” Paul said.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” John figured Paul was upset about being dragged into his craziness. 

“Why couldn’t you just tell me that stuff? Why did we have to go through all that?” Paul didn’t sound angry. He just sounded mystified. 

“We haven’t exactly been communicating well these past few months,” John answered. He did feel guilty, and then he felt angry that he felt guilty. Communication was a two-way street, after all. 

“I thought we’d put all that ugliness behind us. I didn’t realize you were still upset about it.” Paul was watching traffic, but he was listening intently for John’s response. 

“That’s our problem, I think. We don’t ever talk about how we got into the mess after we’re out of it.” John’s voice was starting to sound defensive. 

Paul thought about that for a moment. “Hmmm. Linda said something like that to me, too.”

“Like what?” John asked, surprised by Paul’s rational response.

“She said we just pretended like bad stuff didn’t happen, and we didn’t sit down and talk to each other frankly about our problems.” Paul executed a quick right turn, and then a left, and now they were on Circus Drive. 

“Well, what do you think about that?” John asked.

“I guess I thought that we both liked it that way. You know, why stir up bad thoughts after you’re over it?” Another car suddenly cut them off, and then came to a complete stop at a red light. Paul had to screech on the brakes to avoid a crash. 

“Fucking assholes!” John shouted at the car in front of them. Paul laughed. No point in getting mad at cars in traffic. But it was a nice diversion from their present conversation. They completed the last few minutes of the drive in a companionable silence. 

They hadn’t finished the conversation. As usual.

 

*****

 

“So, here we are again,” Paul said in a goofy chirpy voice, as he and John found themselves on the sofa facing Fiona again. Fiona couldn’t help a little giggle. Truly, the man was adorable if he put his mind to it.

“So, how has the past three days gone?”

“They’re gone,” John pointed out snidely. “And we’re still here. So we didn’t kill each other.”

“I’d say that’s a good start,” Paul opined, as he looked at his fingernails.

So they’d built up their defenses, Fiona thought to herself. But soon they’d come tumbling down. “Los Angeles. John, you told me that you and Paul encountered some difficulties while you were in Los Angeles on your tour.”

“I told you,” John emphasized, staring angrily at Fiona, “that I had gone out drinking with some old friends and had behaved like an asshole.” 

Fiona spared a quick glance over at Paul. The maddening man was staring at his fingernails again, with a bland look on his face. She then cast her eyes back at John. She began to understand in that moment what John was up against. Paul was a real stonewall against conflict and strong emotion. He had come to this session fully prepared to defend himself against her intrusive questions. She wouldn’t be catching him by surprise on this visit.

“Yes, that is what you told me. But isn’t it natural for you to want to go out drinking with your old friends?” She asked.

“Yeah, that was okay, but I shouldn’t have gotten so blotto drunk.” 

Paul snickered from his side of the sofa, but he didn’t look up from his fingernails. That interested Fiona.

“You snickered at that, Paul,” Fiona commented. John hadn’t heard it and turned to look at Paul. 

“I didn’t snicker. I chuckled.” Paul’s eyes looked up from his fingers, but there was little warmth or amusement there. There was suspicion and distrust. He really didn’t like her very much, Fiona could tell. Fiona decided not to gainsay him.

“So why did you chuckle? What did you find funny?”

Paul tamped down his rising irritation. This was all stupid. Meaningless. A waste of his valuable time. He also thought it was cruel to drag John through all this shit again. And, Paul thought, John had it wrong. It wasn’t that he got blotto drunk that had pissed him off. It’s that he had rushed off in the night without even telling Paul what he had planned. Just like he had left the restaurant with Harry and never said a word. He had excluded him from yet more decisions! But he said none of this. Instead, he said, “It was funny. How he said it. ‘Blotto drunk’. Funny.” This was like being at school and the teacher had caught him giggling at a friend’s antics. So now he had to explain himself in front of the class? And just like when he was a schoolboy caught in a teacher’s web, he had lied. 

“I see,” Fiona said. “I thought perhaps you didn’t agree with something John had said.”

John was surprised by Fiona’s observation. He butted in. “No, he was clear about it. We had a show the next night, and he was angry because it was irresponsible of me.” 

Paul felt a little guilty. Here he was harboring negative feelings about John, and then John came rushing in to his defense. He stirred in his seat, and tried to make himself more comfortable. Fiona noticed Paul’s movements and knew immediately that she was right. 

“I can understand why that would upset you, Paul,” Fiona said softly. 

“Again: I got over it.” He said. Paul now looked like a recalcitrant child. Fiona smiled a little. At least he was a cute recalcitrant child.

“So John, how many nights did you go out and get drunk with your friends while you were in LA?” 

John squirmed in his seat. There was something off about this session. He felt the angry vibes coming off Paul, and couldn’t tell if Paul was mad at him or at Fiona or at both. John had apparently forgotten all about his own oppositional behavior in his first several therapy sessions.

“I think it was three nights,” John muttered.

“Three?” Fiona repeated the number, but there was an emphasis there that John felt was unnecessary. “Paul, it must have been difficult for you to be thinking of the concerts, and not knowing if you could rely on John to show up and be in shape to perform.” 

Paul glared at Fiona openly now. Then he looked away. “John showed up. He did his best. We got through it.” 

Fiona turned to John. “What do you think about that? How Paul might have felt?”

“I know how he felt, I don’t have to guess. He was pissed, and he was worried, and he was stressed out.” 

“And he was hurt?” Fiona added this last comment. In the corner of her eye she could see a slight flinch from Paul.

John thought about it. “Yeah, I guess he would be. Paul? Were you hurt?”

Paul sighed. “It hurt, I guess, because we’re partners, and we rely on each other. I need to know I can rely on you.”

John nodded, surprised that Paul had finally said something relevant. “Yeah, you told me that,” he encouraged. But Paul said nothing more. Instead, he looked stumped.

“I think,” Fiona suggested, “that Paul would like to have some kind of reassurance that he can rely on you in the future, John.” Her voice was quiet. It was almost inaudible to John and Paul who were staring at each other. Strangely, Paul did not deny Fiona’s suggestion. He kept staring at John, his eyes searching for some kind of reassurance in John’s eyes.

“You can rely on me, Pud, I may have fucked up, but I showed up, didn’t I?”

“Do you feel you can rely on John, Paul?”

“Yes, of course!” Paul declared angrily.

“In every situation?”

Paul’s hesitation was very slight. “Yes.” It sounded far less convincing than his earlier declaration. John, hypersensitive, heard it.

“You don’t rely on me, do you Paul?” John’s expression was a mixture of “I knew it” and “how could you?” Paul hated to see it.

“In what situations don’t you rely on John, Paul?” Fiona asked, her voice without a trace of censure or judgment.

Paul tore his eyes away from John’s. He wanted to leave but he couldn’t do so now without hurting John even more. He figured he had to say something. “Sometimes…sometimes you let me down. A little.” 

Fiona thought the words “a little” were sweet. The man was trying to soften the blow. Minimizing again. 

John forced himself not to get angry. This was what was commonly called A Breakthrough. Paul was going to tell him how he felt about something. Amazing! “I let you down when I got drunk in L.A., didn’t I?”

Paul shrugged, as if he could make the whole messy situation disappear. “The drinking wasn’t the issue, John,” Paul finally said. He had to throw them a fucking bone so he could get out of that claustrophobic room! 

“If not the drinking - what?” John asked.

Paul felt the resentment rising up in his throat - the resentment and the fear he had felt as he stood in the hallway in the rental house after John had basically asked him to leave the room while he made his plans with Harry over the telephone. Paul had pushed that resentment so far down he was surprised it had found it’s way up again. His voice was tight, but he knew they were both looking at him, expecting him to say something. John and Fiona. In that moment he felt they were ganging up on him, making him talk about things he had no desire to talk about. 

“You just make your plans, you don’t tell me, and I have no idea what is going on. I don’t know why you do that.” 

John swallowed this. He figured this was part of the truth, but not the deepest or the ugliest part. It was a start, though. He looked to Fiona for guidance.

“Let’s look at it from Paul’s point of view,” Fiona said objectively. “The apartment idea in New York, your plans to go out with your friends, your failure to tell Paul where you were going on nights you had to perform … they add up.”

John looked down at his feet. He shook his head in what looked like confusion. He looked up, displaying an angry face, and said, “I’ve apologized a million times! And anyway - Paul you did the same thing to me! You were ready to fire that kid without talking to me!”

Oh, so now we’re getting to it, Fiona thought. She knew she had to step in and defuse the situation immediately. Fiona said, “John, please lower your voice. These are painful subjects, but we shouldn’t make them worse by shouting.” 

John turned to her accusingly. “We were getting along fine before we came here. It’s like you’re picking me apart. I’m tired of being treated like the bad guy all the time. What about him?”

Throughout this exchange, Paul had pulled away from John, and was leaning up at the very edge of the sofa’s opposite corner. He was staring at John with a mixture of shock and pain. This was not turning out the way Paul thought it would.

“What about Paul? John, I mentioned that I was just trying to look at it from Paul’s point of view. So let me know what your point of view is.” Fiona was leaning in, and somehow this caused John to hold her eyes.

“He withholds from me all the time. All kinds of things. Business stuff. Band stuff. Family stuff. His fucking feelings…”

Paul was feeling unfairly attacked. John hated business and band work! He refused to participate! And he got very upset if Paul went on about his family! 

Fiona, meanwhile, had heard the only example that mattered. “What feelings do you think Paul withholds from you, John?” She asked softly.

Paul turned to Fiona quickly, and then turned back to John. Despite himself, he was fascinated by these revelations. They were hurtful, but they seemed to come from a forbidden place, and thus were compelling. 

John began to weep. It was soft at first, but then it was deep sobs. Paul was shaken by this, and moved close to John, putting his arm around him, and hugging him. His hand ran up and down John’s arm. Slowly, John began to calm down. 

Fiona waited patiently, and watched Paul’s tender ministrations. How many couple’s therapy sessions had she facilitated where, when one of the spouses was reduced to tears, the other stayed firmly on his side of the sofa, and stared with injured indignation at his crying spouse? Paul may have a tough exterior, but he was clearly a marshmallow on the inside. He was actually quite nurturing. 

“I’m sorry,” John finally was able to say, as he wiped his face with more tissues. “I don’t know where that came from.” 

“It’s me, isn’t it Johnny? It’s something I’ve done.” Paul looked as though he had been swallowed by grief. He was leaning forward, so his face was near John’s. 

“No, babe, it’s something you haven’t done.”


	46. Chapter 46

The ride home this time was in silence. Both men were thoroughly exhausted emotionally, and so stared vacantly out the car windshield as Paul drove them home from Fiona’s. It wasn’t that they were upset with each other, or even at themselves, but they were raw and empty. Paul drove like an automaton, and he stopped at John’s front door. John climbed out, looked at Paul blankly for a moment, and then disappeared inside his house. They spoke not a word, but Paul had nodded slightly in response. Paul then drove around the block and back to Cavendish. 

It was the day before Christmas. What a great way to spend Christmas Eve Day, Paul thought sardonically. I’m never going back there again. He could hear his family laughing and joking in the kitchen. He supposed they were doing the Christmas baking, an annual tradition on Christmas Eve Day. Somehow, he wasn’t ready to put on his happy face and join them. He also did not want to talk or be talked at anymore. Uncharacteristically, he headed straight upstairs, all the way to the top room on the attic floor. His music room - the one he had shared with John back in the ‘60s. He locked the door, and flopped down on the sofa. His head was sore, and he didn’t want to think. Instead, he spread out on the sofa - it was fairly uncomfortable, but he found a sweet spot - and then he fell deeply asleep. 

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, John had dragged himself into his front entry hall. He stood there in the silence and saw the magnificence he had wrought. But this late afternoon, it all felt almost as dull and gloomy as the New York loft. He moved towards the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He then headed for his sitting room, and settled on the sofa. As he sipped his juice, he played idly with the daily newspaper before casting it aside impatiently. Today’s session had been as draining as anything he’d ever been through. And Paul. Poor Paul looked like a zombie all the way home. One thing John knew for sure: after what happened at the end of the session, Paul was never going to go back to therapy again. He didn’t need Paul to tell him that. He just knew. 

As far as John was concerned, although he was sorry it was so emotionally wrenching for Paul, he at least was grateful to have that heavy burden off his back. He’d carried it for years. Paul had looked so betrayed, though. John wasn’t sure if it was because he’d said what he’d said, or if it was because he’d said it in front of someone else. With his luck, it was no doubt both. He wondered what Paul would do next. Would he lick his wounds, and then pretend that none of it ever happened? What will I do if he does that? Or would he be hurt, and close up and pull away from him again? John wished he could talk to someone (other than his bloodsucking therapist) about this. It would have to be someone who really knew Paul. And, truthfully, Paul didn’t let people get close to him. People only ever saw the bits of Paul that he wanted them to see. The only other person close to Paul was Linda, and for a litany of reasons John could not see himself confiding in her.

It was Christmas Eve, and tonight would be the family party, and tomorrow would be the aftermath. It was bad timing for him to unleash those angry words. He should have thought of that before he opened his big mouth, but then - he hadn’t expected any of that old stuff to come out of him until it did. It suited John, though, to put off doing anything about it. It was that accountability thing that John disliked so much. So it wasn’t much of a sacrifice for him to have to wait a few days before broaching the subject with Paul. By then he would know how Paul had digested today’s disclosures, and their conversation would be more useful. With this established, he finally relaxed in his seat, and he reached for the remote control. 

 

*****

 

Linda and her kids were cleaning up after their bake-athon. There were - arrayed in deliciously smelling groups - pies, and scones, and buns, and cookies. There were also flour, and sugar, and crumbs, and sprinkles all over the counters and floor. James had been more of a moral support to the cooking crew than he was an actual help, but now Linda put him to work with a broom. She and the three girls concentrated on the counters. Even Heather had come down from Scotland to stay for a few days. 

“So, Mary, is your boyfriend coming to our New Year's Party next week?” Linda asked, as she put some elbow grease into the AGA-top.

“He wants to, but he’s scared of Dad. I didn’t have the heart to tell him John would be here too.” Everyone laughed at that image. 

“And Stella?” Laura asked. Her eyebrows danced on her forehead. She knew Stella was very secretive about her new boyfriend.

“I think I’ll protect him from this crazy family,” Stella said crisply. “Anyway, he says he has his own crazy family expecting him home, so he’s driving up to Norfolk this afternoon and won't be back until after the New Year.” 

Darn, Linda thought. She had hoped to meet Stella’s latest. She wondered who Stella was trying to protect her boyfriend from - Paul or her? What she didn’t know was that Stella was protecting her boyfriend from the reality of her family. She didn’t want him to know about her father and John. Not that she would ever tell her parents that. She wouldn’t drag a guy into her family’s situation until she was for sure certain that she was going to at least live with the guy. 

“Well, thanks everyone for helping me out. I think we’re done!” Linda declared, as she cast her eye over the kitchen, and seeing it looking sparkly clean. 

“Mom, let’s watch A Christmas Story together!” Mary suggested. “We haven’t done that in a long while.” 

Heather murmured in agreement and James cried “Yeah!”

“I’ll make the popcorn,” Mary bribed.

Linda was pleased. They all wanted to cuddle up and watch a childhood favorite with her tonight. Her heart literally throbbed, like in the cartoons. “Great! I’m going to take a quick shower and change clothes first, because I feel as though I have flour in every crease,” she said. The others agreed that cleaning up and getting ready for a cozy evening sounded good, and then scattered to their various rooms (Mary and Stella were also staying overnight) to get ready. Meanwhile, Linda wondered where Paul was. He had gone somewhere with John, and apparently they hadn’t gotten back. She hoped he wasn’t over at John’s, losing track of time and spoiling the family’s Christmas Eve plans. After the movie, they would of course open presents. Clucking to herself, she made her way up to the master bedroom. She decided she’d call over to John’s to see if Paul was there.

John answered the phone on the third ring. He was deep into the cliffhanger end of some action film. He had tried to watch the more contemplative films he preferred, but his brain kept repeating what had happened earlier in the day, so he chose something loud and mindless to watch instead. He gave thought to letting the phone ring, but maybe it was Paul? “Hello?”

“John, it’s Linda.”

“Hey, Linda.”

“Is Paul there?”

John was silent for a few strategic moments. “No. He dropped me off here ninety minutes ago or so.”

Linda was silent now. “Where’d he go?”

“I thought he was going home.” John was a bit worried now. Paul had not been in a good place when he’d driven away. Where had he gone? It wasn’t like him at all to disappear like this. Especially on Christmas Eve! “Are you sure he’s not home?”

“I’m sitting in our bedroom, John. Where else could he be? And why wouldn’t he have joined us in the kitchen when he got back? We were in there cooking for hours.” 

John felt he should probably tell her what had happened, but didn’t have the courage. He also didn’t want to ruin her Christmas party. “What about the music room?” John had a sudden thought. “He always goes to a piano when he’s…” John stopped short, but not short enough.

“When he’s what, John?” Linda’s voice was sharp. Good lord, what had John done to Paul now? 

“Well, the session today was a little rough on us.” John admitted slowly.

Linda was confused. The only kind of ‘session’ she could think of was a recording session. “I didn’t know you were recording again. Why are you doing it today?”

John suddenly realized Linda had no idea where Paul had gone that afternoon. If Paul hadn’t told her, he wasn’t going to! He decided to ignore the question. She could ask Paul, and Paul could tell her. “Try the music room, and if he’s not there, call me back. Then we can start to worry.”

Linda knew that John was holding something back, but in that moment she was more worried about her husband. She headed up the stairs to the music room, and found that it was locked. This alarmed her for some reason. She banged on the door, and shouted, “Paul!”

Paul awoke with a start. “What?” came out of his mouth unbidden.

Linda heard it and relief rushed over every inch of her body. “Open the door! I had no idea you were home!” Her voice sounded a bit angry and irritated.

Paul pulled himself up to a sitting position, and his hand massaged his temple. “I’m…yes, I’m coming…a minute…” Paul wasn’t used to napping in the late afternoon, and he felt very disoriented. He also had a dull, thumping headache. He pushed himself up off the sofa. It was pitch black now. When he’d come in, it had been dusk. He struggled to find the light switch and the door, and then remembered to unlock the door. When the door swung open he saw Linda standing there, looking extremely worried.

“What on earth?” She asked, shocked at Paul’s appearance. “Are you ill?” She asked, her voice dropping in register, and clothed in sympathy. 

“No…just a headache…I fell asleep.” Paul looked discombobulated. Linda put a motherly hand up to Paul’s forehead to feel its temperature. It seemed normal to her. “How long was I asleep?” Paul asked groggily. 

“I don’t know. When did you get home?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s 6:00. We’re going to watch a movie, and then we’ll have our family party.” 

Paul nodded, and followed Linda down the stairs and into their master bedroom. When the door was closed behind them, Linda asked,

“What’s going on, Paul? I had to call John to find out you’ve been home for at least ninety minutes. He said something about a ‘rough session’. I didn’t even know you were recording!” Linda had conflicting emotions. She felt both angry and worried. 

Paul sat on the edge of the bed. His brain had finally cleared from the strange anxiety dream he’d been stuck in when Linda had awakened him by banging on the door. Already the dream had disappeared in to the deep recesses of his brain from whence it had come. “It wasn’t a recording session, Lin,” Paul said. His voice had a dull tone to it. “I didn’t tell you about it, because I was only doing it as a favor to John.”

“Doing what?”

“He asked me to go to a few of his therapy sessions with him, to help him work through some issues he has with me.”

“Issues he has with you?” Linda was dumbfounded. She couldn’t believe that Paul would have gone to a therapy session even if his life depended on it. 

“Yeah. I guess he felt stuck in his therapy, and I suppose I was meant to be the prod that would break the logjam.” Paul snickered after he made his comment.

“You went to a therapy session?” Linda hadn’t intended her voice to sound so shocked.

Paul chuckled again. “It’s a laugh, isn’t it? Me ‘talking about my feelings’.” 

Linda sat down next to Paul, and leaned in to see his face. She was not happy with what she saw there. “Paul, what happened?” 

Paul straightened up and took a good look at his wife. She was worried, and he didn’t want her to be worried. He smiled, and put his arm around her. “I’m okay. I just feel tired. It’s John’s therapy, and I can’t talk about it.” He removed his arm and stood up. He offered her his hand, so he could pull her up to her feet. “Let’s go down and watch this movie.”

Linda was frustrated because she knew Paul was withholding important information from her, but she’d been married to him long enough to know there was no point in poking at him about it. If and when he was ready to share it with her, he would. He had grasped her hand, and so together they went downstairs. The kids had already put the video in the machine, and had cued up the menu. They looked cute in their pjs, and covered in lap blankets. It brought back some warm and wonderful memories. Paul felt a spark of hope and relief. His family would always be there for him, no matter what, and they would not judge him for who he was. They would not expect him to be someone he was not. 

“Do you want me to invite John over to join us for the movie?” Linda asked quietly. 

Paul didn’t look at her when he said, softly, “No.”

 

*****

 

It was 8 p.m. and John knew the family was about to have a light dinner and open their presents. He was always invited to attend this traditional family party, but he wondered if this time he shouldn’t go. He knew he had left Linda with some serious questions. If Paul had already answered them, then he would probably be persona non grata at a family time like this. If Paul hadn’t answered them, then Linda would no doubt hone in on him and try to get him to spill. It would be extremely uncomfortable either way. Perhaps he should develop a cough. He didn’t really want to spend Christmas Eve alone, but he didn’t want to spoil everyone else’s time. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone. He hoped that anyone else other than Paul would answer the phone. The odds were on his side, given the size of Paul’s family.

“Hello?” 

It was James. That was the best possible scenario. “Hey James, it’s John.” John remembered to cough heavily before saying, “I’m not feeling very well. I feel a cold coming on. I don’t want to infect you all, and I really need to climb into bed. Can you apologize for my absence to your parents?”

“Sure thing, John.” James said, eager to get back to the sideboard, which was groaning with all kinds of fun non-nutritional foods: his mother’s annual holiday treat. He was so eager to eat, that he forgot to mention John’s phone call to his parents. 

“Where’s John?” Linda wondered out loud about a half hour later. “He knows to get here by 8:00, and it’s already 8:30.” 

“Oh!” James cried. “I forgot! He called to say he was catching a cold and staying home.” 

Linda looked at Paul immediately, but Paul appeared not to be paying attention. She smiled at James. She went to the kitchen and pulled a container out of the freezer. Putting a large pot on the AGA, she emptied the frozen container’s contents into the pot, and began to warm it up. It was her old Jewish grandmother Stella’s chicken soup recipe, with Linda’s secret vegetable broth substituted for the chicken. It was what she always fed her family when they were sick with a cold. Mary came in and found her.

“What’re you doing in here? Shouldn’t we start opening presents?” She asked.

“John is catching a cold. I want to bring him some soup, and his present from the family. He shouldn’t have to spend Christmas Eve alone and feeling bad.” Linda had said ‘bad’ instead of ‘ill’ because she had a suspicion John was staying away because of what happened in the therapy session with Paul. But if she brought over some soup and a present, she would have an excuse to beard him in his den - without witnesses. 

Mary smiled at her mother. She was such a trooper. Mary doubted she would ever be as strong and loving as her mother. She intended to give it her best shot, but her mother was a lot to live up to. “I’ll hold the fort down here. We can wait until you’re back to open presents.” 

Linda smiled warmly at her beautiful daughter. Her eyes were so like Paul’s, as was her ivory complexion and luxurious dark hair. “You can break out the eggnog, and James can have one with some brandy in it.” 

A bit later, Linda had ladled the fragrant soup into a thermos, and had collected the present the family had decided upon for John: it was a handmade quilt, which everyone had worked on in some way, beautifully wrapped in some handmade paper. Perfect gift for a man with a “cold”, Linda chuckled to herself. Paul was still sitting at the end of the sofa staring into the fire as Linda walked through. She didn’t see any reason why she should disturb him to tell him where she was going. It would only unsettle his evening. She slipped out the French door, and headed down the garden with her thermos and the big, soft package.

Paul was staring at the fire through his glass. It was a beautiful Waterford cut crystal club glass, and colors of red, blue, yellow and green seemed to sparkle along with the golden liquid by the light of the fire. He cast his eyes up to see the colored lights on the tree blinking at him through a few strands of sad-looking tinsel. He liked the tree like this - homespun and makeshift. It reminded him of his childhoods back in Liverpool. 

He had assiduously refused to think back on what had happened at the session that afternoon. Just the thought of being in that room (without even allowing any of the details to broach his conscious mind) sent a humiliated red blush through the pores of his face. He had never felt so exposed, so naked and vulnerable, in his entire life. He could not forgive the person who had put him in that compromising position, nor would he ever return to the place where it had happened. That was easy to decide. But what would he do about John? He started on his third whiskey.

 

*****

 

Linda stood on the buzzer for a good long 20 seconds. The quick 5-second buzzers had not brought John to the door. What if he had called in sick to her place and then went somewhere else? If so - what a dick! Just as that thought raced across her mind, the backdoor opened.

“Linda! Why are you leaning on the fucking buzzer? It takes me a little while to get from my bedroom to the backdoor!”

“I’ve brought you some soup and your present,” Linda said cheerfully, “but it seems as though you are feeling better, based on the sound of your voice.” Her eyes danced with mischief.

John knew he’d been punked. “Come in, Linda,” he said wryly, letting her follow him to the kitchen. “I’ll pour out that soup into bowls.”

“I’ve already eaten. The soup is for you.” 

John eagerly poured out the soup. He was starving, truth to tell. As he dug in (boy, it was good. Best soup he’d ever tasted) he looked up at Linda. “You came here to say something. It seems to be a habit with you McCartney women.”

“What are you talking about?” Linda asked.

John laughed. He remembered too late that Stella hadn’t wanted her parents to know about their little tet a tet less than 2 weeks earlier. “Nothing. So let’s have it.” 

“Why aren’t you coming over to celebrate the holiday with us? You always have before.”

“I just felt like staying in tonight.” John looked back down at his soup.

“Would it have anything to do with the therapy session you had today?” Linda was staring at John’s face to see if he would react. His reaction was to still his spoon halfway to his mouth and to stare at her wordlessly for several seconds.

“So Paul told you about that?” He asked casually.

“He did.”

“Then you know why I’m not there tonight.” John was not about to be used as a stool pigeon. 

Linda sighed. “John, I’m worried about Paul. He’s acting so distant, and without affect. Kind of like a…a…”

“Zombie?” John asked without thinking. He hadn’t meant to do that.

“What’s going on, John? He didn’t tell me what happened at the session, but it seems to have been really bad.”

“Linda, only Paul would have thought it was that bad. Anyone else would have found it stressful and challenging, but they wouldn’t have been torn up about it.”

“John, why would Paul be ‘torn up’ by a simple therapy session which was meant to help you?” Linda’s eyes were burning on John’s face. She could only see half of his face in the darkened kitchen, with only the light from the stove shining on them. 

“Look, I don’t feel comfortable telling you what happened. Paul should tell you.”

“He won’t tell me because he says it is your therapy and therefore it is confidential.” Linda’s eyes were now pleading with him. John had to close his heart.

He sighed heavily. “That man,” he mumbled under his breath. Linda was still staring at him. “It will be okay, Linda. He just needs some time to digest what happened. It’s nothing world ending. I’ve had days like this after therapy sessions. They can be emotionally draining, and cause a lot of internal upheaval. He’ll explain it to you when he’s ready. If you want to talk about it with me after he does, I’ll be here. Beyond that, I can’t tell you.”

“Paul didn’t agree to go to therapy for himself, John. He told me he went for you. Why should he be drained by your therapy session?” Linda was looking like an angry mother tiger again. 

“It is my therapy, but the subject of the session was the problems we’ve been having in our relationship. Naturally, that implicated his emotions, too.” John tried to make it sound obvious.

“Naturally,” Linda opined. “If you dragged him there under false pretenses and then sicced your therapist on him, I’ll find out and I’ll have your fucking head!” The chair scraped as Linda pushed it back and got up. “Everything is justified if it helps you, isn’t that how you see it?”

Linda headed angrily for the door. She felt tears sliding down her cheeks, and she didn’t want John to see her crying. In that moment she hated the man!

“Linda! You’ve got it wrong!” John yelled out the backdoor as Linda headed down the alley towards the garden gate. 

 

*****

 

Linda made it back to the house within 15 minutes of her departure. Her heart was racing, and she wanted to break something. However, it was Christmas Eve and her children were waiting to open their presents. She stopped briefly in the garden to gather her composure, and then she let herself in and joined her family in the sitting room.

“Where’d you disappear to?” Paul asked her. He was smiling at her. That was a good sign. 

“I took John some soup and his family gift. He’s coming down with a cold.”

Paul’s smile froze on his face. “A cold?” He asked.

“Yes - I just wanted him to be comfortable before we sat down and did our gift exchange.” 

“That was kind of you, Lin,” Paul said softly. He put his hand out to her, and she walked over and took her seat beside him, curling her feet under her. Paul laughed and said, “OK you heathens, go ahead and start ripping away.” 

The kids hooted at their father, and set about distributing gifts to each other. The next 45 minutes featured lots of laughter and giddiness and hugs and kisses, with sincere “thank you’s” bouncing around the room. Paul willed himself to be in the moment, and for the most part he succeeded. He occasionally flashed back to the afternoon’s experience, but he forced himself to block it out and refocus on the faces of his loved ones. He was sorry John was not there, but it was for the best. It was too soon for him to see John. He honestly didn’t know what he would do or say the first time he saw him again. He wasn’t sure he could look John in the eye again. Why hadn’t they just peeled his skin off? It would have been far less painful to him. No! He had to concentrate on James. 

James was unwrapping the box that held the note that told him to look in the hall closet. James dropped everything and went to the hall closet. Paul and Linda exchanged a fond, excited smile. They waited for James’s reaction. James opened the closet door, and was at first puzzled. He saw only a bunch of coats hanging there. He pushed the coats to the sides, and there he saw it - it was a brand new surfboard! “Mom! Dad!” he shouted with joy. It was the exact one he’d been pining for. In the sitting room, out of sight of the closet, Paul and Linda laughed together over their son’s gleeful reaction. A moment later, he was coming in the room, with the surfboard under his arm. 

“Be careful with that thing, James,” Paul chuckled. “Don’t knock your sisters out.” 

Linda snuggled even closer to Paul’s side. He was certainly trying tonight. She could tell there was something missing in him. With Paul there had always been a pilot light gleaming, but right now she could not sense the pilot light. He had to work at being in the moment, but at least he was doing it. She appreciated it. Sooner or later she’d worm the truth out of him, and then she would find a way to bind up his wounds. After that, she’d flatten John Lennon!

 

*****

 

After Linda had left, John paced around the kitchen for a while. He was furious with himself for going against his better instincts and asking Paul to come to the sessions. Linda was right. It had been selfish of him. What if Paul wanted to live surrounded by layers of protection? Why was that so wrong? What was this need of his to tear the layers away and leave Paul naked? It was about then that he noticed the package sitting, forgotten and abandoned, on the kitchen table. Linda had brought it. There was a homemade card scotch-taped to the front. Of course it was homemade, John thought to himself with a fond chuckle. Apparently, so was the paper. There was no end to Linda’s talents it seemed. He carefully unwrapped the paper, trying not to tear it. Beneath the paper was some soft tissue paper, and then he unwrapped it. Out of it he unfolded a beautiful king-sized quilt in reds, yellows and blues. Just like his home décor. There were hundreds of squares and some had writing on them - each of the family members had written a quote or a joke on one that was meaningful to them. Linda had even collected squares from Sean and Julian. It was incredibly thoughtful and heartwarming. It made him feel even worse than he already did for upsetting Paul and Linda. He hadn’t meant for things to unfold the way they did, but he was the one who had set everything in motion.

Sadly, he climbed the stairs, carrying the quilt, and got in his bed, wrapping the quilt around him. There had been several squares from Paul, and one of them had brought tears to his eyes. Paul had written out a verse in his distinctive printing from one of his lyrics sets from 1965.

Someday when we're dreaming  
Deep in love, not a lot to say  
Then we will remember  
Things we said today

 

*****

 

It was Christmas morning, and Fiona was relaxing on her parents’ sofa in the sitting room of their Esher home, which was still covered with leftover bits of wrapping paper and ribbon from the night before. It was a neat semi-detached in a strictly middle class neighborhood. She had grown up there, and every item in the house was familiar to her. She knew she should relax and let things go, but she couldn’t. She had just been doing her job. But although neither John nor Paul had said anything to her, she had the bad feeling as they left that things had gone awry. She was worried about Paul. She had made some wrong assumptions about him. She wished she could call him to see how he was doing, but she didn’t have his phone number, and it was Christmas! She would have to wait a few days and see if John called her back. She hoped that John hadn’t been scared away for good, although she suspected Paul had.

 

*****

 

Christmas morning, Paul had gotten up early and had taken a jog around the neighborhood to Regent’s Park and then back, and was now building a fire in the sitting room fireplace. He’d turned on the tree lights because he needed the faux cheer they brought. During his jog he had spent the entire time thinking about what he was going to do about John. It was not possible for him to think of cutting John out of his life. And it isn’t John’s fault, really, that I am such a disappointing human being. 

The smell of breakfast was coming from the kitchen, and that steadied Paul a little. He headed in Linda’s direction. She looked up when she saw him, and bestowed upon him a bright morning smile. She went to him and gave him a hug. 

Paul said, “I’m going to clean up after my run. Can you call John and see if he wants to eat breakfast with us?”

Linda was quietly astonished. “You want me to call John?” She asked. 

Paul turned back to look at her, and his eyebrows went up. “Yes, of course. It’s Christmas. Even if he is sick, he needs a little company.” 

Linda nodded. These two would drive anyone to drink! Sighing, she picked up the phone. She wondered if John would even speak to her after the way she had behaved the other night. In the cold light of day, she couldn’t really believe that John would do anything deliberately to hurt Paul. But this not-knowing-what-happened thing was really upsetting her. 

Fifteen minutes later, John straggled into the kitchen looking like he hadn’t slept. He plopped in his chair and watched Linda as she moved around the room. The food smelled great, and he was glad to be there. Linda was awfully quiet, though.

“You have it kind of wrong,” John finally said. 

Linda didn’t turn to look at John as she responded. “I kind of came to that conclusion on my own. But I don’t understand the mystery. Why can’t you just tell me what happened, and then we can deal with it?”

“What are you talking about?” It was Paul’s voice. He was standing in the kitchen door.


	47. Chapter 47

“Paul!” Linda cried as she jumped. She hadn’t intended for him to walk in while she was cross-examining John about what the heck was going on. 

John turned around in his seat to face Paul. Paul was looking at him, not at Linda. Paul gave him a brief smile and a wink. So. It was going to be let’s pretend nothing happened apparently. John was game, and tremendously relieved. He smiled back warmly. 

Paul came in and sat at the table. He pretended that he hadn’t noticed that Linda had not responded to his question. He already knew what they had been talking about, and had no desire to open that can of worms. So he smiled at Linda too and said in a chirpy voice, “So what’s for breakfast?” 

Foiled again, Linda grumpily plopped a plate in front of John and then a plate in front of Paul. “So you two are going to leave me in the dark, is that it?” She asked, as she took her place.

John laughed, and Paul said, “Lin, it’s fine. I had a bad day yesterday, but today is a new day.”

“You sound like a fucking Hallmark Card,” Linda grumbled.

John and Paul both laughed this time. And it was a refreshing kind of laugh.

The breakfast progressed as if nothing had been wrong the day before. Linda was not pleased about this, but until she got Paul alone again, she doubted if she would find out what was going on. 

After breakfast, John went back to his house. Paul waited a few hours until Linda was busy in the kitchen making James his lunch, and talking to him about cleaning his room. James had, of course, slept in quite late on this non-school day. Paul stuck his head in to the kitchen and said, “I’m just going to drop by John’s for a short bit.” He then hurried through the garden and down the mews. 

John opened the door almost immediately, because he had noticed Paul coming down the alley while looking out the kitchen window, as he rinsed out his coffee cup. “Paul!” He said. He held his arms out. Paul allowed himself to be hugged. John whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry, babe, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“I know, I know,” Paul whispered back. 

The two men pulled apart, and awkwardly went into the sitting room. Paul sat in an easy chair rather than next to John on the sofa. John noticed it, was a bit hurt by it, but he was grateful that Paul was there. “Are you okay?” John asked him, his face looking hopeful.

“Sure, sure,” Paul said. He had found his strong outer armor, and had firmly pushed the embarrassing disclosures and behavior of a day ago back in to a dark closet in this mind. 

“Paul, this is me. You can’t possibly be okay. It was intense.”

“It was,” Paul admitted. There was a 30 second silence. “I’m never going back there,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. John heard it. He had known it was true. But he still felt terribly disappointed, notwithstanding this knowledge. Some tiny part of him had hoped that Paul would be strong enough to face his own issues. 

“You really should give it a chance, Paul. We found out a lot about each other in just two sessions …” John started.

“I don’t trust that woman at all,” Paul said flatly. “While we were there, I felt it was you and her against me. I don’t like it when people try to pit one of us against the other. It reminds me of how it was before…” 

“Paul, she wasn’t pitting us against each other. She was asking pointed questions of both of us.”

“You signed up for that. I didn’t. I went there to help you, not to become a target.”

John paused as he allowed his errant thoughts to catch up with his reason. He rarely did that, but right then, at that moment, it seemed very important to him. “Paul. Nothing you did was unusual. She’s a therapist. She sees people break down all the time.”

Paul’s eyes met John’s, and John saw some bitterness in Paul’s eyes, and his heart sank. “I’m not a fucking monkey in an experiment. I don’t like being manipulated like that.”

“How can I make you see? Those feelings came out of you! I didn’t make them come out, and neither did Fiona. It’s what happens in therapy. You let down your guard, and the truth comes out. It is supposed to help make you better.”

“I didn’t feel as though I needed to be made ‘better’, John. You and Fiona think I’m some kind of head case, don’t you?”

John balled his fists and slowly let them relax. He couldn’t lose his temper. It would all end badly if he did that. “Don’t be ridiculous. Fiona doesn’t think anything. She doesn’t jump to conclusions. She asks questions that kind of force you to probe your own thoughts and motives.” John coached his voice to sound calm and normal, but the beseeching tone was not lost on Paul. 

Paul relaxed. John really believed in this stuff, but it wasn’t for him. “I may have overreacted,” Paul said, smiling sheepishly. “Let’s just agree to disagree about therapy. I’m happy it works for you, although it seems agonizing. But it’s not me…”

John nodded. He waited a few seconds before he said, “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No.” Paul’s response was firm and uncompromising.

John’s feelings were hurt, but he dared not show it. “Okay,” he said, “but if you change your mind, I’d like to talk with you about it.” 

Paul wished it had never happened. He had never wanted John to see him that weak. And the fact that it had happened in front of a complete stranger … that only made it all the more excruciating. He cast a goofy smile John’s way. “It was just one more giant bump on the highway I call life.” 

John, despite himself, had to laugh. When Paul decided to be cute and charming, John became a willing victim. He decided to give it up for the time being. Paul was doing pretty well, given it had been less than 24 hours. There was no saying he wouldn’t slowly be persuaded to see that letting go like that was a good thing, not a bad or a scary thing.

 

*****

 

It was five days after Christmas, and John was seated in Fiona’s office, staring wistfully out of the window. It was early afternoon, but it seemed later than that because the sky was lowering. “Yeah,” John finally said in answer to Fiona’s question. “Paul is back in his shell again, and it is refortified.” John turned back to Fiona and saw her concerned eyes. “He isn’t much of a fan of yours.” John gave her a weak smile.

Fiona was not surprised. He would have transferred his self-hatred on to her. It was classic. “At least he is not blaming you,” Fiona said in a neutral voice.

John’s expression had a touch of despair in it. “I’m not so sure. He is holding himself back, and he is showing me less of himself than he did before I brought him here. I’m really sorry I brought him here. It was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have told him it was only about me. I should have told him the whole truth, and then he would never have come.”

“John, you know from your own experience that it was three steps forward, two steps back. Paul needs time to digest what happened. He might surprise you.”

“Well, your scenario about Paul suddenly seeing the light would surprise me very much,” John said. His expression showed a slight lack of faith in her, and Fiona knew that it was possible that John would hold it against her eventually, since she had encouraged him to bring Paul to the sessions. 

“Give it time, John,” Fiona said softly. “Do you want to move forward and talk about San Diego?”

John couldn’t believe that Fiona could dismiss this debacle and expect him to go back to his tedious recanting of his litany of failures over the last few months. But his outraged face did not move Fiona’s determined expression, and gradually John felt himself calming down. What the hell? He was paying her a fortune each hour. He might as well get something out of it, right?

 

*****

 

Paul was at his desk at McLen at One Soho. Business folk were talking to him and he could swear it sounded like the chorus from that old song, “Yakety Yak, don’t talk back…” He periodically keyed in to what they were saying, and he managed to stay abreast of it all, but only because he was very smart and he had heard it all before. It was a late Tuesday afternoon, on January 5th, 1993. Things between him and Linda were a bit weak, because she wanted him to tell her what had happened at that therapy session. She thought he was protecting John from some horrible revelation, but he had tried to assure her that John had nothing to do with it. He didn’t want to tell her he had been reduced to soundless blubbering. It was an image he had to immediately strip from his brain. No way did he want Linda to know that about him. It was humiliating enough that John had seen him like that. And that…stranger… It had been his worst nightmare come to real life. He had lost total control in front of other people and it had scared the fucking shit out of him…

“Paul?” 

Paul jumped at the sound. He shook himself back to the present, and saw that all half dozen of his advisors were staring at him with worried expressions on their faces. He coughed and then laughed. “Burning the candle on too many ends,” he said, and everyone laughed. 

“I was saying,” the accountant said, “that John has expressed interest in a Park Avenue apartment. It is a penthouse and quite expensive.”

“So?” Paul asked.

“He said you’d green-lighted the expense.”

“I did.”

The accountant cleared his throat. “It’s several millions,” he said.

“John can afford it, can’t he?”

“Yessss...” The accountant was confused. Paul had been curiously distant from this financial transaction, and John more active in it. The accountant didn’t have a lot of respect for or faith in Lennon’s financial nous, so he had hoped that Paul would bring common sense to the whole transaction.

“How are we going to structure the purchase?” Paul asked. He was only tangentially interested. Lately, he felt as if he was seeing and hearing things through a heavy coating of cotton. 

“The interest is deductible in the U.S.,” the accountant said. “So, I’d advise an 80% mortgage. It will help with the tax hit.” 

“Do it,” Paul said. He had given up worrying about John alone in New York. John had told him that Yoko was not a threat, and there was always Jason and Gerry to keep an eye on him. Paul would miss having John around all the time, but he was a generous soul and didn’t want John to deny himself any pleasure. Not on his account, anyway. That Paul would desperately miss him, and worry that John would find someone else was entirely beside the point.

Paul’s business team had long since gotten used to the fact that Paul conducted John’s business and financial matters. They’d figured out on their own that John was hopeless at and bored by such topics, and it made sense to them that John’s creative partner would also be his business partner, and would step in and handle these matters. Only a few of them knew the truth about John and Paul’s relationship, and a handful of the others had guessed. The rest were left to wonder, but they had worked so long for both men they had stopped caring either way. They had decided it didn’t have any bearing on their employment or income, so they were happy to give the sticky subject a wide berth. 

“Anything else?” Paul asked. The general consensus was ‘no’, so they all filed out of his office. Paul turned again to the window. It was raining outside, of course. It was such a dreary time of year. He felt very weary. The weight of those old memories was too heavy, and sometimes he just felt like putting it down. He wished he could say what he felt to John. He wished he could say, “Don’t go. Don’t go off on your own adventure, leaving me behind.” He didn’t dare think about that. John wanted and needed his freedom, so that was what he should have. Time would tell if he would come back. But Paul didn’t hold out much hope. John is very unlikely to come back to me, after witnessing how truly pathetic and weak I am.

 

*****

 

John was conflicted about leaving for New York the next day. On the one hand, he looked forward to seeing Jason and Gerry, and staying with them while they helped him oversee the remodeling of his new apartment. It was mid- January 1993, and the short escrow on the magnificent 3000 square foot penthouse apartment had just closed. It had been purchased from an estate, and one look at it would tell you that the former occupants had been very old. Everything that wouldn’t take a wood panel surface was covered in garish flowered wallpaper. And the drapes … they were heavy velvet, filled with dust and grime. John was itching to get started on transforming the place, and did look forward to working with Jason and the decorator on the project.

On the other hand, he didn’t like leaving Paul alone with Linda after the whole therapy session debacle. Paul had said and done a lot of things to convince him all was well, but John was very uneasy. He had given Paul’s breakdown in Fiona’s office a lot of thought, and he had talked about it with Fiona a little, and he had begun to take on board how that would have felt to Paul. Paul needed to maintain control. He could not bear to lose control in front of other people. He had not been ready, and he had not been willing to reveal his weakness to other people. This would have been the worst possible exposure in Paul’s eyes. John hadn’t expected that to happen, and he certainly hadn’t hoped or planned for it, but John felt bad that he had set the forces in motion that led to it happening. 

Still, if he stayed here in London it would he a half-life, because Paul was just skipping across the lake like a stone thrown by a child. There wasn’t any depth or substance to what he was bringing to their relationship at the moment. It seemed to him that maybe Paul needed a break from him in order to find his way through the demons that had been set loose on that woebegone afternoon in Fiona’s office. 

John stirred suddenly as he thought of Fiona. He looked at the clock and saw that it was time to leave for his last in-person session before leaving for New York. He rang for his driver, and then pulled on his coat and headed for the front door. 

 

*****

 

“So, you’re off to New York?” Fiona asked. 

“Tomorrow,” John said. “But I’ll call you every Tuesday and Thursday at 2 p.m., as per usual.” 

“How is Paul?” Fiona’s face exposed her concern and even a little guilt.

“He’s closed up like a clam, like I said last time, and the time before.”

“No sign of acceptance?” Fiona asked. She knew it was not very professional to ask this question, but she had felt extremely worried and guilty about Paul for over a month now, and nothing she had heard thus far had set her mind at ease.

“It was wrong of me to bring him here. He just wasn’t ready for this kind of thing. He may never be.” John saw what he interpreted as anguish on Fiona’s face. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t know him like I do. I always knew that this kind of thing wasn’t for him, but I dragged him here anyway.”

“You were attempting to get to the bottom of the negative patterns in your relationship, were you not?”

“Yes,” John responded.

“So your motives were 100% genuine. And I still have some hope that Paul will understand the significance of what happened that day.” 

“What other lost causes do you believe in?” John wisecracked. 

“Well, you - for starters,” Fiona said. There was a momentary silence and then John and Fiona both started laughing. It felt good. “What are you going to do while you’re in New York?”

“I’ll be staying with my friends Jason and Gerry in the Dakota while the apartment is being remodeled.”

“Isn’t that where Yoko lives?”

“Don’t get any ideas, Fiona. It’s over between Yoko and me. We’ve decided to be friends, and have buried the hatchet. I suspect she and I might spend some time together in that way - as friends. But mainly, I’m looking forward to establishing a kind of other life in New York. Somewhere I can be me, without anyone else defining me.” 

“Well, it is a brave departure, and I’m excited for you.” Fiona meant it. She thought that this time on his own was very important for his emotional growth. She didn’t want John’s bond with Paul to be broken, but if it was necessary for that to happen so that John could grow beyond his neuroses, then so be it. It would be up to Paul to decide whether he’d deal with the issues that could destroy their relationship if left unattended.

 

*****

 

John and Paul weren’t the only ones who had endured a gloomy winter. In Friar Park, George Harrison was stretched out on a long, velvet couch deep in thought. He had just got back from a very depressing meeting in London with his business and finance managers. Somehow the deluge outside seemed to tell the story: it poured when it rained. He had a lot to think about. 

“George? Why are you lying here in the dark?” Olivia came in, and turned on a lamp against the dark afternoon’s gloom. 

“The accountants couldn’t have been clearer about our financial condition,” he grumbled. 

“It isn’t as bad as all that,” Olivia comforted. “It will take longer than we hoped it would, but over time we’ll climb out of this hole.”

“Well, they’ll have to pry Friar Park out of my cold, dead hands,” George grumbled. “I’d like to see them try to evict an ex-Beatle from his home!”

Olivia didn’t say what she was thinking. Her jaundiced view of the types of people who were high-risk investors was that no amount of bad publicity bothered them. Maybe well known and publicly owned institutions like banks and investment houses could be swayed by such things, but it was unlikely that the few dozen ultra rich men who owned the entities who had their tentacles around George’s assets would be. Still, George needed his illusions in order to get through the day. 

“You can always do a new album, or a new tour,” Olivia suggested. “That will infuse some extra cash.”

George sighed. He hated performing, and he hated putting his work out for critics. In October, he’d performed with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty and Neil Young at Madison Square Garden in a Dylan tribute concert. It had been a kind of last hurrah for some of the remaining members of the Traveling Wilburys. They had wanted to tour, but George could not bear the idea. The 1974 tour had been so traumatizing, not to mention the Beatles tours, where he had always felt like a sitting duck target. George knew that he didn’t have whatever it took to hold an audience in his thrall for a 3 hour period, which was the length of time audiences expected for rock shows. Surrounded by other stars like Dylan, Petty and Orbison was one thing, but on his own…no. And to make decent money on a tour you really couldn’t be spreading the take between six stars and various other band members. It wasn’t sufficiently lucrative for George to expose himself in that way. He realized that Olivia was still waiting for him to say something.

“I don’t want to tour ever again. I’m just not into it. I can’t and I won’t do it.”

Olivia nodded sympathetically. She knew they would be all right. The income stream from the Beatles and George’s solo work was slowly paying off the taxes and the creditors, and there was enough for them to live on more than comfortably. She knew what bothered George was not impending bankruptcy, but rather the fact that Paul and John were so obscenely rich. His resentment of that fact was eating him up inside, and Olivia wished that he would follow his own religious beliefs and put that poison behind him.

George, meanwhile, had been chewing over the details he’d learned from the forensic accountants who had been working steadily over the past eight months, trying to trace his money and assets. It had been bewildering and infuriating to hear the lengths to which his former manager Denis O’Brien had gone to steal from him and to keep it secret. It had been earlier that day, high up in a glass conference room overlooking the financial center of London. He had been surrounded by accountants, managers and lawyers again - his least favorite kind of people. At one point George had thought they were a necessary evil. Now he was learning in detail that no, they were just evil.

After the usual openers, George’s new manager had signaled to the lawyer he’d hired to begin his presentation. The lawyer did so in as non-judgmental a voice as he could muster. “Of course, investing in films is more of a hobby than an investment,” the lawyer said, and cleared this throat. “Most films make much more to make than they ever recoup, and for small independent companies it only takes one or two flops to crater the business. This was an extremely risky use of your capital, and a canny manager would have diversified your portfolio and limited the percentage of your investment in the film industry. Of course, as always happens in that industry, Hand Made Films experienced a series of financial disappointments after its successes. For example, Shanghai Surprise, the Madonna vehicle, cost £10 million to make and took in less than half that at the box office; The Raggedy Rawney flopped; and finally Checking Out grossed less than 3% of its costs. For any independent film company, that would be ruinous.” The lawyer had tried to hurry through this litany of failures. He was certain that it was painful for his client to hear. For this reason, the lawyer allowed a polite silence to pass before he started up again. 

“I must say that Mr. O'Brien did a masterful job of minimizing the resulting public damage to your reputation and that of the company, and so the company remained open. However, at that time you retained the forensic accountants arrayed around you today to investigate your financial affairs, and those of Mr. O’Brien. As you know, they determined that all of the companies in which you owned a primary take were on the verge of bankruptcy. For years, Mr. O’Brien had been cross-collateralizing the various assets in the limited companies to finance the Hand Made feature films. As a result, you were liable for 100% of the losses - Mr. O’Brien’s assets were not at risk - and yet you had the rights to only 50% of the profits. Because of this, all of your properties and your stake in Apple were on the line, because all were collateralized by liens in favor of your Hand Made Films creditors. We at least now know what most of these entities are, how much is owed, and who it is owed to. We have negotiated payback plans for them. We still have more investigation to do, of course, to find out where O’Brien has hidden the money. He claims it is all gone, but we obviously are not going to take his word for it. Thus far, unfortunately, all of the wells we’ve turned up have been dry.” The lawyer managed to display a sympathetic expression as he finished the sad saga. 

George had been speechless, and Olivia’s grip on his hand had been so strong it hurt. “When you put it that way it sounds like an utter disaster,” George had said.

One of the forensic accountants had answered George’s questions. “It does indeed. Those of us who handle financial matters for others always despair of individuals who take advantage of the trust of their clients. There are standards and practices in this business, and each of us owes to our clients a duty of fidelity and absolute honesty.”

The bromide was lost on the caustic George, who was thinking to himself that no one should be trusted. All of the people he had trusted over the years had let him down in one way or the other.

The manager cleared his throat. “If you are careful with your income, we can pay off your back taxes and the bad debts in a seven to ten year period, while holding sufficient funds back to pay your living expenses and building up some new, conservative, investments. I would advise that this time we put you in perfectly legal and transparent investments with a solid rate of return. You will not see the same amount of profits that you saw in the mid-eighties, but it will all be above board, taxed properly, and after a good ten to fifteen years, if you are careful with your expenses, you could consider yourself to be set for life.”

“Ten to fifteen years!” George had bleated. He hadn’t thought that it would take that long.

“Well, of course, we could liquidate everything and be done with it all at once, but then you would be starting fresh. But my understanding was that you didn’t want to liquidate your real estate holdings.”

Friar Park. No, that was not possible. “I don’t understand why it will take so long. I get substantial revenue from my royalties!” George looked like a petulant child at that moment, but it was nothing that the manager had not seen before in other artists who’d never taken the time to learn about finance.

“Yes, if it weren’t for your healthy revenues, you wouldn’t have the option to pay down the debt over time; you would have had to liquidate.”

George had been struck silent by this horrible truth. So, it would be ten to fifteen years before he was completely in the black again. Still - he had a beautiful home in England and a beautiful estate in Hawaii, he didn’t have to downsize his life… he was better off than he would have been if he had waited longer to pull the plug on Denis. 

“What if George brings in extra income from new projects?” Olivia had asked hopefully.

“Well, of course, that would only make the situation better,” the manager said. “Do you have any projects in mind, George?”

“I’m always working on some new music, but I haven’t got anything at the end of the pipeline just now. Even if I started now, it would take years to get it to production.” George had a recalcitrant expression on his face. He wasn’t going to rush about trying to grub up fast money. It was so undignified, and an ex-Beatle shouldn’t have to do that.

“There is another possibility, of course…” The manager raised the subject warily. He had been shot down many times when he’d mentioned it before, however tangentially. George was extremely bitter about his ex-band mates.

“Yes?” Asked Olivia hopefully. Even George looked up with what could pass for hope in his eyes.

“We could open negotiations with the other Beatles to participate in The Anthology project. The projections for that enterprise are both lucrative and solid. It is a conservative assessment that your participation will result in the clearing of all the debt you owe, with a nice sum left over to start your new investment strategy. In this scenario, you could be very wealthy indeed in less than five years.” 

Olivia had looked to George. She had tried to keep a neutral expression on her face, because she knew how bitter George was about John and Paul. George’s eyes had flickered, but he hadn’t said “no”. Instead, he said, 

“So is that it? Are we done here?”

“Yes,” the manager said. 

“Well, go ahead with the long-term plan,” George instructed. “I’ll give The Anthology thing some thought, although frankly I’d rather put my eye out.”

After George and Olivia had left, the manager turned to the lawyer and said, “Well, that didn’t sound too promising.”

 

*****

 

John had the driver pull the car into Cavendish’s front drive. He had stopped there to say goodbye to Paul, and to Paul’s family of course. He was on his way to Heathrow to get on a plane that would take him to New York, where a driver would meet him and take him to Jason and Gerry’s. John was scared, and he also knew if he didn’t have Jason and Gerry waiting for him at the other end of the trip he wouldn’t have been able to get on the plane at all. His return flight was in two months, so he’d have a month to get ready to go back on tour. John was bringing the rolled up blueprints for the apartment remodel with him on to the plane, and he looked forward to marking them up and writing ideas in the margins. It gave him pleasure to see the thing taking shape out of his own imagination. It was a bit like writing a song, but much more technical, time-consuming, detail-oriented and complicated. John had discovered that he enjoyed the process very much.

Paul was in the sitting room and heard the car arriving. He had been frozen in his seat on the sofa for almost an hour now, holding up the London Times but not really reading it. His coffee had long since gone cold. His mind was a blaze of pain and possibilities. He was not the type of person to sit and do nothing, especially when things weren’t going well, so he’d already lined up a solo project to work on in John’s absence. It was only two months, of course, and they had been apart for at least half that amount of time a number of times before, so Paul knew he would survive. He also had Linda and his kids, so it wasn’t as if he was being left alone on a desert island to rot in the unrelenting hot sun. 

He forced himself to his feet, and headed for the front door. By the time he got there, John was through it. The two men quietly fell into a tight hug. No words were exchanged. John smelled Paul’s neck, and Paul had John’s hair in his hand. They moved apart in silence just as Linda emerged from the back of the house. 

“John! So you’re really leaving us?” Her eyes were warm but perhaps a little too eager in their excitement. 

John noticed this, and felt a tug to stay. The insecure part of him was thinking he ought not to leave Paul to his own devices like this, but then almost immediately his more rational side pointed out that Paul would be with Linda, and Linda wouldn’t let him stray. In fact, John was the lucky one, he realized with a sense of unbidden joy. He could go to New York and do whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted and then return to Paul and pick up where he’d left off, whereas Paul was stuck with a ball and chain no matter what: either Linda or John. Those were Paul’s only two choices. John almost felt sorry for him, having to stay behind while John went off on his great adventure. 

“Have a great time, John,” Paul said quietly. Paul’s eyes were serious, but there was a soft smile around his mouth. 

“You too, mate. I’ll see you both soon. And you know how to get me on the phone - I’ll be at Jason and Gerry’s.” 

A moment later, John was in the car, and the car was heading out of the gate. Paul and Linda watched it go, and Linda said, “I wonder how soon he’ll be calling over here begging for you to join him.” 

Paul looked at her and laughed, although the laugh was a little bitter. “I won’t take that bet, Lin. I think it is a loser.”


	48. Chapter 48

The party was in a reconverted loft in the Bowery. Attending were all the lights and shadows of the New York art and stage worlds as well as counter-culture literati. It was closing in on 1 a.m., but no one seemed to be tired or ready to throw in the towel. There was laughter, low-lit lamps, and the smell of pot wafting across the room. John was seated in a much-too-soft puffy sofa, and next to him was a much-younger half-naked ingénue type who was trying to quote her poetry to him. She was quite the morsel, John thought, and he was more than willing to have her believe in his divinity. (At least for a day or two.)

“John, it’s been so long!” It was a long, thin socialite who had once been a “revolutionary” back in 1971. She was one of the upper class American debutantes who had been attracted to the Students for a Democratic Society, and other radical political groups. She had once sat at the feet of John Lennon in a room with Andy Warhol and other counter-culture “revolutionaries” in the early ‘70s. She wasn’t quite as juicy and ripe as she had been in 1971, John thought. But then, he was not the young buck of 31 either. He decided it would be best to look at her with fuzzy focus.

“Hello, luv, we knew each other when, didn’t we?” John’s voice had a kind of playful irreverence.

“We had a moment in the back room, once,” the 42-year old temptress whispered.

“Oh, dear. Only a moment? I would have thought I’d have been good for at least five moments back then.” John’s face looked comically put out. The woman started giggling, and John laughed out loud. He could find the woman’s flirty manner appealing, if he squinted his eyes enough.

“Yoko was there, if you remember. She had her eye on you, like a hawk,” the woman simpered.

“Oh, you are so tactful. What you mean to say is that Yoko pulled the rug out from under any woman who so much as glanced at me.” John felt as though he was purveying the truth. It wasn’t the truth, of course, since Yoko had sat by and heard him shagging other women in adjacent rooms, with everyone knowing about it. John did have a tendency to forget how badly he had treated Yoko in the early ‘70s in New York. Of course, she had made up for it in the years that followed…

“This time there is no Yoko in sight…” the socialite flirted. She waited a coy moment and then added, “…but perhaps… Paul?”

John’s head snapped when she added that codicil. It was a classic double take. He then laughed. “Oh, good one,” he joked.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. The rumors are just too ridiculous. The idea of you - having gay sex! And especially with Paul McCartney!” The socialite giggled uncontrollably for a few moments. “I have a number of girlfriends who were bedded by him in the ‘60s. Sadly, I never met him. That whole silly rumor is quite entertaining, really.” After an alcohol-aided cascade of giggles, the socialite sat down on a hassock next to John’s chair.

John was taken aback by the woman’s little speech. He was absurdly irritated that she should find it so unbelievable that the fabled Paul McCartney would have sex with him! It was a contrary feeling; he should be pleased that this person at least did not believe all the rumors, but on the other hand, he really didn’t like the idea of people laughing at the idea of Paul as his lover. It was, well, insulting in an odd sort of way. John sighed internally. He knew that he was a contrary soul. He wanted one thing, but not to the exclusion of the other. “Well…dear,” John said, “I am sure that Paul and I are very grateful for your belief in our transcendent masculinity.”

The socialite keened. There was no other word for it - “keened.” She hadn’t been flirted with quite so assiduously in ten years. It wasn’t an attractive sound, but she, of course, did not hear it. John heard it, but was horny enough to overlook it. He was thinking that she was holding up quite well. It had been four weeks since he had left London - since he had last had sex with Paul - and he decided tonight would be a great night to remedy his sexlessness. It wasn’t ideal, of course, but with the lights very much dimmed, and with his glasses off, he might be able to believe his mount was a bloomin’ filly. His eyes moved to a squint again.

The woman leaned in and whispered in John’s ear, “I haven’t any panties on.”

John cringed a little at the image, but was able to shore up his stiff upper lip. “So, are you suggesting that I should take advantage of the fact?” John asked her in sotto voce.

“I wouldn’t kick up a fuss,” she whispered back.

“Have you staked out a suitable rendez-vous locale?” John asked, a little louder. His eyes were dancing with mischief - the kind that indicated that a great deal of fun was in store for any takers, although there might be a little smidge of cruelty to be suffered in the process.

“There are three bedrooms in the back of this loft,” she pointed out with as flat a tone of voice as she could muster. “I’m sure one of them must be available, don’t you?”

“Why don’t you go find out, love, and if what you say is true, I’ll be right behind you,” John’s attitude was far from kind. He was letting the woman do all the heavy lifting, and requiring her to come back like a messenger-girl to tell him if the coast was clear. It was a deeply ambivalent attitude, but the poor woman was so besotted she did not find it offensive. She scurried off to do a little recce. John shook his head as she disappeared. The woman was in want of a little self-respect. John began to have second thoughts of bedding her. Anyone who had so little care for her own self-respect at her age must not be a good lay. In fact, as soon as she had disappeared from view, John looked around for new entertainment.

The young emaciated woman who had been reading him her (bad) poetry was still seated on his other side. She had lapsed into a depressed pout, and was fiddling with her hands. John noticed the opening, and barged right in.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself for the last ten minutes, little one?” He asked in a husky, intimate voice.

“I thought you had something going with that old woman,” she pouted.

“Oooh!” John cried. “The cruelty of youth! And the arrogance! One day you, too, shall be our age, and you will be lucky to look as good as our friend does now.”

“Well, you’re okay for someone your age. And I could understand if you prefer someone of your own age...” The girl’s forehead was so knitted together that it was almost painful to look at.

“Now you’re being extremely cruel to refer to my advanced years,” John mocked. “I’d be more upset with you, but I worry about my heart. At my age you know.”

The young girl looked at John with shock and concern. She had never considered what her young nubile body might do to his aged constitution. She began to reconsider her options. Yes, he was a huge rock star, very famous, and very rich. But, he was getting on in age, and perhaps he’d have a hard time ‘doing the deed.’ Her enthusiasm about making another notch in her belt was beginning to dampen. Before she could make up her mind, however, the older woman had returned.

“There’s a room at the end of the hall,” she said seductively to John, “and it has our name on it.”

“Our name? Your name’s John, too?” John asked playfully, as he got up and allowed himself to be led by the hand down the hall. As he left he saw the frustrated disappointment on the face of the young thin girl. You snooze, you lose, girl, he thought to himself.

When they got to the room, John pulled a few pot smokes out of his pocket and then removed his jacket and dropped it on the bedside chair. The woman started to undress. John was a little irritated by this. He wanted a quickie, and getting naked was definitely not necessary. He, himself, had no intention of taking his clothes off. Instead, he unzipped this pants and then lay down on the bed. “I’m feeling like gettin’ blown tonight, baby,” John told the woman as he took, savored, and finally exhaled a huge puff of pot.

The woman was only too happy to oblige. To be able to service John Lennon not just once but twice in a lifetime was an unbelievable stroke of luck. Her friends were not going to believe this! 

John lay back against the pillow with one hand behind his head while the other operated the pot, and he stared at the ceiling. He then closed his eyes and focused on his nether region, as the woman went to work. He liked it this way, because he could neither see nor smell her. This way he could imagine it was anyone sucking on his balls. He just wanted the physical release without the emotional attachment. Emotional attachments were too complicated. He already had all the complications he wanted in his life. The past month had not been as stressful as he had feared; while he did miss Paul, of course he did, it wasn’t crippling. He and Jason had been very wrapped up in the apartment and it’s remodeling. In addition, after hours, John had been hooking up with old New York friends, and some new ones. He could tell that Jason and Gerry did not approve, especially because they suspected (accurately) that he had been doing various drugs with these “friends”.

John had been calling Fiona two times a week like clockwork, but he hadn’t been entirely honest with her. From her, he had found out that Paul had not contacted her. This had hardened John’s heart. It seemed to him that Paul could step out of his comfort zone and seek counseling for the sake of their relationship, even if it was difficult. After all, John had been going through gut-wrenching therapy for years now. And Paul couldn’t even hack a third session! If Paul really loved him, he would have gone back to find out why he was so afraid to be his authentic self.

John forced his mind back to his blowjob. But he felt ... nothing. The woman was working overtime, but she was getting no response from him. He would have to concentrate in order to get his orgasm. He closed his eyes tight and imagined a dark tousled head hovering over his crotch. Never mind that the woman he was with had bleached blond hair, in John’s mind the hair was dark. And the hands holding his cock were far stronger, more sensual in his imagination. Ahhh ... there I go! John felt the thrill building up in his crotch. Even from 5000 fucking miles away, Paul could still get a rise out of him - in both good and bad ways.

John knew he had to help the lady out since she had been so obliging, so he went down and did what he could. It didn’t take long, because by then she was vibrating with desire, and John really was a master of oral sex. John left the room before she even got off the bed, much less put on her clothes. He moved into the main loft living area again where several zonked out party guests were lying about. He was done for the night, so he headed straight for the front door. He wandered down via the elevator to the lobby level, and asked the doorman to call a cab for him. This took all of 3 minutes. Soon, he was on his way back to the Dakota. It was 2 a.m., and this was John’s fifth night in a row coming back to Gerry and Jason’s deep in the early morning hours. 

 

*****

 

Paul was in his music room, studiously playing chords. It was frustrating trying to compose classical music when you didn’t read or write music. Yes, he could record himself playing the chords, and yes, he could give that recording to Carl Davis and George Martin and ask them for advice about reducing the music to written music sheets, but the problem was no matter how hard he tried to explain to them, something was lost in the translation. What would come out of the orchestra, following the sheet music, would not be what he heard in his head. At least when he performed his own music he could come closer to the sound he heard in his head! Paul could hear the soaring melodies, the heavenly harmonies, and the flights of euphoric instruments in his head. If only he could find a way to translate to others what he could hear.

Paul had been frankly surprised at how peaceful he had felt for the past month, since John had left for New York. Perhaps Paul would not have felt so peaceful if he didn’t speak to John every few days. John sounded good, and was always cheerful and full of excitement over the progress on his apartment. For his part, Paul was beginning to understand how stressful life with John could be. With John at arm’s length he and his family could breathe. Paul did miss John in many ways - as a creative partner, as a sexual partner, and as a friend. But since he believed (hoped?) this was just an intermission, Paul was actually squeezing out a little enjoyment out of the relatively stress-free break.

Paul had buried the very distressing memory of the second session with John and his therapist. He never wanted to think about that again. How unfair it was for John to trick him into those sessions, pretending they were about John’s issues, while they both concentrated their efforts on him, instead. Paul never allowed himself to remember the details of how that session ended. It was humiliating, and had stripped him of all sense of control. Paul was not entirely self-aware. In fact, there were large swaths of his inner motivations of which he was completely unaware. But the part of him that was self-aware felt that John had - on a very basic level - betrayed him by luring him to therapy under false pretenses. And Paul could not help believing that John’s long-time therapist was totally on John’s side - not his. No doubt the two of them had plotted to drag him in and then surround him with a litany of his - Paul’s - failures, and how he was responsible for the problems in their relationship. It was a very John-like thing to do. John had always used his extreme personal charisma to draw people to him, and then manipulate them to perpetuate his own self-interests. Paul had often been the victim of this tendency: Stu Sutcliffe, Brian Epstein, Allen Klein, Yoko Ono, Jann Wenner ... There was always someone John had used as a weapon against Paul. Now add to that list, Fiona...

Of course, Paul didn’t take that thought to the next step. He didn’t follow that thought to the cold conclusion that John might not be a loyal friend to him. Paul was intensely loyal to John, but John had not always been a loyal friend to Paul. Paul had never allowed himself to think those words, because he had always excused John’s bad behavior - he had blamed it on John’s childhood. So whatever nasty, horrible thing John did to him became something that Paul went out of his way to find a way to forgive. It was far easier for Paul to tell himself that John was just “getting at him” through these other people (even if it was usually in the most humiliating way possible) and then forgive him. Paul never asked himself the hard questions. 

 

*****

 

“John, I love having you here, you know that,” Jason started. They were sitting at the breakfast room table in Jason and Gerry’s Dakota flat. It was after noon, but John had just awakened.

“Aa-oh! This isn’t starting well,” John commented cheerfully, as he took a huge mouthful of cornflakes.

“Very funny, John. Now can we talk like adults for a moment?” Jason’s face was stern and not at all amused.

John sobered up, but was still thinking irreverent thoughts.

“You’ve been here for four weeks, and for at least two-thirds of the nights you have been here, you have been out way past midnight.”

“I’m a grown adult. I’m not married. I have the right.” John was looking petulant now, all amusement banished from his indignant face.

“You’re also 52 years old with what Gerry and I thought was a 12 year-old committed relationship!” Jason had reached his last ounce of patience, and it was beginning to run out.

“Paul is married, and has a family. Somehow I have to squeeze my own life into the time when we are apart,” John said snidely.

“You’re the one who left England to strike off on your own. Is this your way of trying to end your relationship with Paul without sitting down and doing it honestly and directly?” Jason’s expression and tone had none of the hallmarks of his usual diplomatic presentation. “If so, why can’t you do it with more kindness?”

John stared at Jason. “I’m not trying to end my relationship. I need more time to myself. Is that a fucking crime? Before, everyone was telling me that I clung too much to Paul and ought to get a life of my own. It seems I can’t win, no matter what I do.”

“Will all due respect John,” Jerry said firmly, “you are willfully misunderstanding me.”

John glared at Jason. For the first time ever, John was truly angry with Jason. But Jason didn’t care.

“You’re behaving in a very self-destructive way, John,” Jason said, his voice dropping a bit and his face adopting a more sympathetic expression. “I love you very much. Outside of Gerry, I think you are my closest friend - I mean, on an emotional level. I hate to see you blaspheming your relationship with Paul in this way, and engaging in such risky behavior.”

“It isn’t blasphemy just because I like women, Jason, although I don’t expect you to understand that.” John’s voice was sharp and hurtful.

Jason sucked in air at the insult. He willed himself not to respond in kind. He reminded himself internally that this was John’s M.O. When he felt attacked he went on the attack. No point in succumbing to it. In a way he believed he was fighting for his friend’s soul. “I have to ask this, John. Gerry and I aren’t users. Are you doing drugs in our home?”

John’s mouth slammed shut, and in a different situation it would have been funny to see. Instead, Jason saw the truth. Yes, John had been doing drugs in Jason’s home. John said, “I’m not using here, Jason, I know you don’t approve.”

Jason stared at him in silence for several seconds before saying, “I’m glad to hear it. I would hate to think you were abusing our hospitality in that way. Gerry is a lawyer. He could lose his license. This is not like your world. We live in the real world, where there are serious consequences for violating the law.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you Jason,” John said slowly. “I’m a fuck up, I know it, but I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“So there is nothing illegal in your room?” Jason demanded.

John lied. “No.”

“Well, if that is not the truth, I want it to be the truth within the next hour. I will studiously ignore the sound of the toilet flushing.” Jason’s expression was firm and shrewd.

“Jason - it’s the truth! I’m just going out and having fun without having to answer to anyone, for the first time in my fucking life! I can’t help that I happen to be 52! A bloke needs to feel free!”

Jason shook his head back and forth, very slowly. He felt very bad about the trap John had fallen into. The illusion that “freedom” was defined by how many laws you can break and as late at night as possible. It was a childish, puerile view of freedom, and Jason was disappointed in John for believing in it. “Well, John, I have enjoyed the time we have spent working on your apartment, but I am not happy about the late nights. Do you see an end in sight for the late nights?”

John sighed. “You’re not my mother, Jason. I always come home, and I take cabs. What harm am I doing anyone?”

“You mean, besides to yourself?” Jason asked.

“Jason, I love you, but you’re skating on thin ice.”

“Ooooh! I’m scared of you John!” Jason responded sarcastically, his fingers wiggling in front of his face in feigned distress. “We’ve known each other too long to play these stupid poseur games, John. Just talk to me straight. I want to see my friend John again.”

John saw the beseeching look in Jason’s face, and thought seriously about dropping his mask. If he did that, though, he would have to conform his behavior to that of which Jason and Gerry would approve. John wasn’t sure he wanted to be hemmed in that way just yet. Still, he couldn’t tell Jason that. “I know, Jay, just give me a little more time and space. There’s something in me that’s clawing to get out.”

Jason watched John’s face for several seconds, while John looked down into his morning coffee. Finally he said, “John - I know you’re in pain. Isn’t your therapy helpful at all?”

“It doesn’t seem to work very well from long distance,” John admitted.

“Maybe you should see someone here in New York and check in only periodically with Fiona. She probably knows someone she can refer you to while you’re here.” Jason stopped, but even after a 30 second wait, John did not respond. “This could be a valuable time for you to learn about who you are - just John - by yourself. But if you spend the whole time either drunk, high, or asleep, it will have been a wasted opportunity.”

John wanted out of the uncomfortable conversation so he nodded with Jason, as if he agreed 100%. In truth, he only agreed 70%. There was still 30% of him who needed to act out some more.

 

*****

 

It had been five days since John had been reachable by phone. Usually John rang Paul at 10 p.m. London time, but when two nights went by without a call, Paul called John at Jason and Gerry’s. One call went to the answer phone machine, one time Gerry answered and they had a nice chat but John had been out with friends, and the next time Jason had answered, and John was out with friends again.

“What’s going on with John?” Paul finally found the urgency to ask.

Jason knew that Paul had to be desperately worried to break down and ask the question. His heart went out to Paul. He didn’t want to upset Paul any more than he already was. “He and I spend a few hours a day at the apartment, to make sure the work is coming along, and then he spends some time with the decorator. He enjoys going out at night with his friends.”

“So I noticed,” Paul responded. Jason could hear the laugh coming down the line, but it seemed hollow. “Who are these ‘friends’, by the way?” Paul asked, as casually as possible. He was now very worried about John. John had to be carefully watched on a night out. He drank too much, or did too many drugs, or got caught in compromising situations with the wrong kind of women...or even men, Paul reminded himself, when a truly unwanted vision of Nigel swam through his memory.

Jason felt sad. “I have no idea. He doesn’t bring them here,” he said, “and that is a good thing. They all appear to do too many drugs, drink too much alcohol, and have too much stranger sex.” 

Jason could hear Paul sighing heavily on the other end of the phone. “This isn’t going to end well,” is all Paul said however.

“I’ve done my best. I’ve tried to talk to him...”

“Jason, don’t feel guilty. It isn’t your fault. When John goes into the gutter like this, it is almost impossible to pull him out of it until he is good and ready to be saved.”

“Paul, he is just confused. He is trying to figure out who he is.”

“He’s 52, Jason. If he doesn’t know who he is by now, it ain’t gonna happen.” Paul’s voice was flat and businesslike. After an uncomfortable silence, Paul said, “Is it bad enough that you think I need to come and put a stop to it?”

Jason knew that if Paul came there might be a very unpleasant encounter. He wasn’t sure who would come out the victor, but he figured they’d both get pretty bloodied in the process. Right now, his sympathy was with Paul. Jason was surprised to feel that way, since he loved John so much, but Paul was being so... manly, and together. He was like a younger and prettier Gerry. Jason felt a little twitch in his nether region. He cleared his throat and said, “I think it is still okay. He did tell me he needed to blow off a little more steam, and then he would settle down.”

“That’ll be the day,” Paul sang down the line.

Jason giggled. Yes, it was giggle. After knowing Paul as long as he did, he realized that he had finally fallen completely under his spell. The man was like bottled joy and sex combined, and Jason could feel his head turning.

“You know, Jason,” Paul said in a low throaty voice. “I would have flown there already if it weren’t for you and Gerry. You’re good friends to him, and I really appreciate it.”

Was he trying to arouse me? Jason wondered. “Well, Paul, I’m doing my best. But it is difficult to reach him.”

“You are, you know,” Paul said comfortingly. “He won’t show it to you, but it will weigh on his mind. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and all will be well.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jason said doubtfully.

“And don’t be afraid to call me if you think I need to fly out there.”

“Of course. I will. So far, it is a bit bumpy, but we’re not out of control.”

Paul laughed. “That’s the problem with Johnny, you know,” he said, his voice echoing with fondness, “you’re under control right up to the moment when you’re not! I always enjoyed that feeling of eminent danger. I must be perverse.”

You can be perverse in my bed anytime you want, Jason joked to himself. John had better look out or he will lose the best thing he - or anyone else - ever had.

 

*****

 

John was in the back room of a particularly depressing club. The walls were painted black, but even though they were black you could see the grime on the walls. The waitress had been giving him the eye all night long, but John wasn’t interested. He wanted some mano a mano action, and in this dive there was none to be had. He’d only had three drinks, and hadn’t imbibed any drugs, so John felt he had sufficient wherewithal to find another club. A club that could cater to what he really needed. It had been six weeks without. John didn’t expect to find a man who could match Paul’s charms, but he really did want to get fucked up the ass. It had been too long. Of course, this time he would make sure that the man who hit the spot was appropriately covered with a condom, and it would be a one-night stand. Having made this decision, John got up and left a few disappointed ladies at his table. He didn’t pay the bill. He never had before, so why start now? He always assumed there was someone who would pay for him. It had been that way since 1963, so he had forgotten what it was like to have to pay his own way.

John had done a little research about gay pick-up bars in New York. He knew a lot about it from when he was prowling in the mid ‘70s. Nothing had come of it, but only because John had never been able to take the leap and actually do anything with the men with whom he flirted. Some inner voice had warned him that it was a terribly slippery slope that ended up with his face front and center on every tabloid in the world: “John Lennon Caught with Gay Prossie!!!!” John had no desire to go there, so he figured he’d have to keep his identity on the down-low. It was easier these days, so long as he stuck with the really young ones. Anyone in the 21 to 25 year age group would probably have no idea who he was, so he could literally be an anonymous fuck in the night. That is why he had done his research, and found the perfect young, trendy club. It was, surprisingly, in the less-than-trendy mid-Manhattan area. Not where you would expect to find the hottest and trendiest gay club in Manhattan.

When he entered the joint, he saw a room full of highly developed (in the muscular sense only) young men jumping up and down to some head-banging music while neon lights flashed all around him. Oh, god, not this kind of shit again, John thought to himself as he assayed the scene. Been here, done that. John shrugged and forced himself to brighten up, because he didn’t want his potential servicers to realize he was cynical about how they derived pleasure. He needed to appear copasetic with their vibe in order to find the right lay. He edged over to the bar, and insinuated himself into a good corner, near to where the bartender did his business. The bartender was bald, had tattoos up and down his arms that could be seen due to his sleeveless shirt. He had one tattoo on his left cheek - of a skull and bones.

Bit dramatic, John thought to himself, forcing the quirky upturn on his upper lift to straighten out. Don’t want to piss off the guy with the skull and bones tattoo on his face! A snicker came out of John’s throat, notwithstanding his efforts to restrain his amused reaction.

“Something funny?” The Brooklynite behind the bar asked, his voice sounding a little aggrieved.

John swiveled his barstool around and then grinned in a stupid way at the bartender. “Only in my tiny little mind,” he responded, causing the bartender to smirk. “I want a White Russian. You know how to do that?” John challenged.

“You like the layers separated?” The bartender asked, his face a study in restrained arrogance.

“You my man,” John joked. The bartender grinned at him, and it was a disarming smile.

“One honest-to-god White Russian, coming up!” The bartender began his ministrations, and John swiveled around to watch the men dancing on the floor.

It was kind of fun to sit there and go eenie meanie minie moe with a room full of young, fit, gorgeous men. He began studying them one by one. The one that jumped out at him right away looked to be in his early twenties. He was wearing a graphite grey t-shirt that was about 2 sizes too small for his heaving and defined chest muscles. John had never been attracted to jock-types. His eyes moved on. The next one caught his eye because the young man was jumping up every few seconds, and seemed to sail briefly over the crowd, in time to the music. He was Hispanic, clearly, but had huge dark brown liquid eyes...not unlike...well, there was a possibility. His eye continued to move over the floor. The bodies parted briefly, and John caught sight of a beauty sitting at a table exactly opposite from him on the other side of the dance floor. Their eyes had met briefly before the dancers blocked the view again. John decided to make his move. When the bartender handed him his drink, he got up and approached his target slowly, from an oblique angle, much like a jungle cat. But his eyes never left the young man as he made his approach.

The boy looked to be about 22 or so. Not much older than Paul had been when he had first encouraged Paul to fuck him. The boy also had dark hair and dark eyes with very white skin. The boy was slim, and his legs were crossed, with the upper leg bouncing to the music. This caused John’s cock to start revving up. Yes, the boy so far was a good substitute for a young Paul McCartney: a Paul who wasn’t world-weary and wise to his (John’s) tricks. Still young, and capable of hero-worship. That’s exactly what John needed at that moment in his life. Soon he was within striking distance of his target. The young man was sitting with what looked to be a friend. They were not paying attention to each other, but instead were scanning the dance floor, as if they were searching for prey. John smiled. Who’s the prey then?

“Hey, is this a free seat?” John’s voice was studiously deep, and his face a study in irony. His eyes were on the one boy - the one who reminded him (a little bit) of Paul. John hoped the boy wouldn’t disappoint, because he really wanted a hard cock up his ass tonight.

The young beauty looked up and saw an older man who was thin, with sinuous arms and hands. He also saw a pair of very unpredictable eyes behind a pair of granny glasses. He could tell the man was rich because of the well-manicured hands and the expensive jeans and sweater. Rich was good. And the man was at least slender and slight. This was an obvious sub, and one that probably was willing to show gratitude for some naughty pleasures. He looked meaningfully at his table companion who winked and got up to leave.

“I’m off to dance,” the other boy said, smiling nervously at John as he quickly disappeared. John had a free go-ahead. He pulled out the chair nearest to his target and sat down.

“Hello, young one,” John said, “I’m...Fred...what’s your name?” John didn’t know what caused him to pull out his father’s name, but it was the first thing that had occurred to him in the heat of the moment. He settled himself in the chair.

“I’m Brad,” the young man said easily. This older guy was going to be an easy mark.

“Would you like a drink, Brad?” John asked.

“Please.”

“Your pleasure?” John asked.

The boy thought furiously. He didn’t want to name a drink that was too lower class. He couldn’t think of anything. “Surprise me,” the boy said. “I trust you.”

John thought, he’s a fool to trust a complete stranger, but he made an imperious signal to a waiter, and the waiter came immediately. John put a $50 bill on the waiter’s tray. “My friend would like a White Russian to go with mine.” To John, it was worth actually paying the bill and flashing the money if there was a fuck at the other end of it for him.

“So, Brad, what do you do for a living?”

Brad didn’t do anything for a living, but he didn’t want to say as much. He thought furiously. I seduce rich older men and let them pay for my every whim didn’t sound too good when developing a new john. “I have an office job,” he lied. “You know - nine to five. Booo-rrrring!”

“No wonder you come here nights,” John said, laughing. “I’d rather die than work in an office.”

“So what do you do?” Brad asked.

“I’m an artist,” John responded promptly. In that exact moment, he had decided that he was going to go back to his original intended career - art. John had always believed that if he just could have had the right combination of timing, resources and inspiration, he would have been a brilliant artist. (When he had this reverie he never included the truly magic ingredients: diligent study and hard work.)

“What kind of art?” Brad asked, resting his chin in his hand, his eyes burning with interest and promise.

This was fun! John could be anyone or anything he wanted in this anonymous encounter. “Sculptor,” he said. Of course, John had never sculpted anything in his life. But it sounded very romantic.

“I’ve always wanted to be an artist’s model,” Brad teased, his eyes full of invitation.

“Ahhh, but can you dish it out as well as take it?” John asked cryptically.

Brad was thrilled. He was going to be the dom this time! How fantastic! Usually he had to let the flaccid old men fuck him, and it took them hours to perform. Brad let his eyes harden, and his voice deepen. “I have a desire right now to drill someone hard until they’re nailed to the mattress.”

John thought to himself, well, that sounds interesting...


	49. Chapter 49

The streetlights looked yellowish and garish as John and Brad spilled out of the club on to a New York sidewalk. It was close to 2 a.m. John hailed a cab, and soon they were headed through the night to a discreet hotel. Brad had explained that his crash pad was too crowded, and John had no intention of bringing him back to Jason and Gerry’s. Thinking of the latter, John felt guilty, but not guilty enough to stop what he was doing.

The hotel was on a less traveled alley near 42nd Street, and it catered to a high-end gay prostitution crowd. Brad had come up with the name and address of the hotel, and John had been only too happy to go there. It was a place where he wasn’t known and wouldn’t be recognized. That was the only way John could handle what would happen next.

Brad was actually very excited about this encounter. The man was British and Brad had never had a British lover before. Why it should make a difference, Brad didn’t know, but it did. Variety was, after all, the spice of life. In addition, there was something incredibly cool about this old dude. It was hard to put a finger on it, but in no way did the dude seem knowable. There was a certain element of danger about him - perhaps the bloke had a terrible temper. Brad hoped not too terrible a temper. In one previous relationship he’d been kept by a wealthy married man, who used to take out his anger about having to kowtow to his rich wife on Brad. For the year they’d been together, Brad had lived in luxury in the man’s secret pied a terre, so he had put up with it, but he wasn’t really looking for another experience like that. The pied a terre, yes, but the temper, no. Still, Brad warned himself about getting ahead of events. The iffy-ness about this particular old dude made Brad feel as though maybe the man was only interested in a one-night stand. If that were the case, Brad might not even get paid for his trouble. It was the nature of the life he led that he had to accept that he’d give away freebies occasionally on the off chance that he would hook a big fish.

Meanwhile, John was tingling with excitement. He was not drunk. He had promised Paul he wouldn’t do it with blokes if he were drunk. And he had also promised to use condoms. The condoms were in his pocket. He had come to the gay club prepared. This would be a night with manageable risk - it was the best kind of adventure, really: to plan for contingencies but remain open for surprises. He’d already figured out that the boy was none too smart. He had little charm and no conversation. All he really had were looks, and a relatively pleasant voice. John was fine with that. He wasn’t looking for a lover, and he wasn’t looking for a friend. He wanted someone to fuck him, he wanted it to be as anonymous as possible, and then he wanted to walk away unscathed without having to look back. This kid seemed up for it, and so the stars appeared to be aligned.

John had never deliberately done a one-nighter with a man before. He had often thought about it, back in the ‘70s, but had never found the courage to put himself at risk that way. So, when they strolled into their rented room, John felt a little at a loss. He knew what he would have done with a woman on a one-nighter. He had had literally hundreds of those in his lifetime. But he had already signaled to this young man that he wanted to be the sub, so he was in the uncomfortable position of having to wait until Brad made the first move. 

Brad found himself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Fred was very acerbic. He had a sharp tongue. Brad was afraid of sounding stupid in front of him. He had gotten the idea Fred wanted to be dominated, but there was nothing about the man standing in front of him that seemed submissive. Rather, he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching him, one eyebrow arched, and his eyes seemed to be saying, ‘So, young man, what have you got?’ This was unnerving in the extreme. 

A long 15 or 20 seconds had passed before John took the reins. “Look. Relax. You want to give it to me, and I want to get it. Why don’t you get us some whiskey out of the mini-bar, and I’ll get undressed?”

Brad nodded numbly. How odd that he felt like the sub in the situation. He’d never met a sub who was so domineering before. It confused him, and put him off his game. But, armed with some concrete instructions, Brad went to the mini bar and pulled out some whiskey. There were two glasses on top of the bar, and a container for ice. “Do you want me to get some ice?” Brad shouted in John’s direction.

“Englishmen don’t put ice in their whiskey,” John responded from the bedroom area, “it’s a terrible waste of good alcohol.” 

Brad was glad. He hadn’t wanted to go wandering around looking for the hotel ice machine. He was growing a huge boner. This man excited him. Tremendously. He was so charismatic, and such a contradiction in terms. He wasn’t all dom and he wasn’t all sub. What the hell was he? The various odd elements of the man’s character added up to a very strong attraction, and Brad was hoping that Fred was looking for more than a one-night stand. Maybe if I fuck him really good, he’ll come back for more, Brad told himself. It had been years since he’d felt this kind of honest excitement about impending sex.

John meanwhile had methodically stripped himself of his clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on a chair. He had breathed into the cup of his hands to make sure his breath was okay (he had been sucking on a mint since they’d left the club), and then even smelled under his armpits. Yup, I’m good to go, John thought. He didn’t care about such things with women, but this would be the only man John had had real sex with other than Paul, (if you didn’t count Nigel, which John didn’t), so John was a bit nervous and insecure. He didn’t want the young bloke to know it, so he had managed to keep an insouciant air about him thus far. John had every intention of keeping it that way. He pulled back the covers, and climbed in. Only the lamp on his side of the bed was on - John intended to turn it off once they got busy, because he didn’t actually want to see the boy - or have the boy see him - during the sex act. Thus, he wanted to be in control of the one light source in the room. 

After pouring the whiskeys, Brad went in to the bathroom and rinsed out his mouth. He stared at himself in the mirror, telling himself that he was going to put his all into this fuck. He knew this hotel had lubricants and sex aides in the medicine cabinet, so he opened it up and looked for the right stuff. He chose a few tubes, intending to ask Fred which he preferred, and then pulled out a couple of poppers. These items would be added to the bill, along with the whiskeys, but Fred would be paying for it, after all. At the last moment, after he had removed his clothes, he had the mischievous idea of tying a towel around his waist. Brad had found that previous sex partners had found it fun to do the unveiling by pulling off the towel. This might appeal to the dom in Fred, Brad thought. No point in leaving any part of the man’s needs unsatisfied. Brad placed the various ointments in a little pull-strap bag that was provided for the purpose, and then, with that dangling on his wrist, he grabbed the two whiskey glasses and, sucking in his stomach and then exhaling some stale breath, headed for the bedroom. Fred was propped up on the right side of the bed, glasses on but otherwise apparently naked under the covers, reading a magazine. He looked up as Fred entered.

“What took you so long?” John asked. “I’ve been reduced to reading the fucking ‘Downtown Events’. You’d think they’d have some porn lying around in a place like this, wouldn’t you?”

Brad chuckled nervously. He began to wonder just how much sexual experience Fred had, and whether he - Brad - was in over his head. He handed John his whiskey.

“What’ve you got there?” John asked - pointing at the little bag. 

Brad smiled nervously, and opened the bag, spilling its contents out on to the mattress for Fred to see. 

“Ahhh...you think of everything, Brad,” John said. 

“Actually, the hotel provides these things...” Brad said shyly.

“For a price, you mean,” John said, his eyes dancing with mischief. He picked up the two tubes of lubrication. “Why two?” John asked. “Are you that prolific?”

Brad blushed a little. This man was incredibly unpredictable and he was beginning to wonder how on earth he was going to dominate him. “I thought you’d like to choose one...they have different scents.”

“How thoughtful of you,” John said, “so I’m to pick my poison?” One of them had a sandalwood scent, and the other was citrusy. John could feel his asshole puckering at the thought of citrus. “I’ll go with this one,” he said, handing the sandalwood tube to Brad. “Oh, and poppers! I haven’t used those in ages,” he said. He remembered the time he and Paul had tried them...then he forced that memory out of his mind. “Poppers are dangerous for men my age, you know,” John said in his best snarky tone. “I might have a heart attack. What would you do then?” 

Brad felt his cock shrinking. The man was scaring the shit out of him. “If you don’t want to...”

John chuckled. “I’m just teasing you, Brad. Of course I’d like to try them. But it really shouldn’t matter what I want, should it? After all, you’re the one in control, right?” John’s eyes were now dancing with a kind of malicious amusement. This was far more fun that even he could have imagined. 

Brad had a sickly smile on his face as he cleared the lube and poppers off the bed, and placed them on the bedside table. He stood there awkwardly for a few seconds until Fred said,

“Are you going to take that towel off so I can see what I’m in for?” John made that face of his where his eyebrows jiggled and his lips spread out in a wicked closed-mouth smile. 

Brad laughed at that, and pulled the towel off with a flourish. Thankfully, he still had something of a hard-on left. It wasn’t as big as he had when he walked in the room, but Brad felt confident that it would soon be sufficient to give Fred the ride of his life. Fred reached over to his bedside table and then held it up, showing it to Brad. Condom. Fred was a safe-sex kind of guy, and Brad was very relieved about that. Sometimes his hookups would refuse to wear them, and it would be up to Brad to decide if they were worth the risk.

“You want some help with that?” John asked lazily, as Brad freed the condom from its wrapper. He was starting to be a little fond of Brad, who had turned out not to be the kind of cruising shark he had expected. The boy was actually shy and uncertain. Still, it wasn’t what John wanted or needed at that moment. What he wanted and needed was a man who would throw him down on the bed, and then move on top of him. The man’s head would lower to his, and his mouth would be forced open and a hard tongue would intrude... John could actually smell that man...oh crap, I’m thinking about Paul again, John thought, brushing that memory aside.

“Sure,” Brad simpered. 

John flinched a little at the sound. But he cheerfully patted the mattress next to him and said, “Climb in, Brad, I won’t bite.” John let a campy few seconds pass before he added, “Unless you want me to.” 

Brad chuckled sincerely this time, and hopped in the bed next to John. Without ceremony, John reached out and grabbed Brad’s erect penis. Brad felt the contact so strongly that a huge sigh escaped him and his cock grew larger in split seconds. 

“Ummmm, that’s what I’m talking about,” John purred as he felt the huge cock. It was bigger than Paul’s, and had that youthful strength to it. Without a second thought, John went down on Brad. He knew he was good at blow jobs - Paul had told him so many times and in many ways - and so he was going to show this young whippersnapper how it’s done. As John began his ministrations, Brad began to groan with pleasure. For several minutes there was only the sound of Brad’s groans and John’s slurping, until John felt it was time for the foreplay to end. He pulled his head away, and sat back on his heels, staring with lust and invitation at Brad. John then proceeded to expertly place the condom on Brad.

Feeling much more confidant now, Brad picked up the lube and John held out the palm of his hand. “I’ll do you, and you do me,” John said in a low, sexy voice. Brad smiled as he squirted some lube out into John’s hand, and then his eyes rolled back in his head as John started stroking him expertly as he applied the lube over the condom. When John had finished, Brad finally rose up and pushed John back against his pillows. 

“My turn,” Brad said in a raspy whisper that actually surprised John, in a sexy way. 

Finally, John sighed. Finally, some relief. He reached out his arm and shut the light off. With all due respect to Brad, he wanted the privacy the dark provided in order to enjoy this fuck. He didn’t want it to be about him and Brad. He just wanted an anonymous fuck. 

Brad was disappointed when Fred turned off the light. He was actually feeling this interaction - it wasn’t automatic for him. And he had been looking forward to seeing Fred’s eyes cover over with wet submission to him. Now he would have to imagine it instead. On the other hand, having the lights out freed him from Fred’s curiously sharp and sardonic eyes. Brad could become the imperious dom for Fred if he didn’t have to look into those eyes. With that, he let the thought become the action.

John was taken by surprise when Brad started touching him, and then climbed on top of him. For a moment he wanted to object - he didn’t want some strange man on top of him! But then Brad grabbed his thighs and pushed them up until his legs were in the air and his ass was exposed. A thrill went down John’s spine. Male stranger sex was far more exhilarating than he had thought! Now Brad was busy smearing his asshole with lube, and his greedy fingers were scissoring around inside him. John felt this with discomfort. Brad’s fingers were bigger and clumsier than Paul’s beautiful, gentle long fingers; and Paul’s physical actions were always so graceful and nuanced. Oh, well, he wanted to get manhandled, and he was getting what he wanted, wasn’t he? 

Brad’s erection was beginning to throb now. He was feeling a bit embarrassed about his earlier shyness and now wanted to make up for it with a thunderously aggressive fuck. He quickly withdrew his impatient fingers from Fred’s anus, not concerned at all that Fred might not yet be ready, and then he used all his youthful strength to plunge his cock deep into Fred’s rectum in one harsh thrust. 

“Ouuu...!” John howled. The howl was not one of pleasure but of pain. Yes, it had been six weeks since the last time he’d been fucked, but Paul had never hurt him in this way! 

Brad took the howl as encouragement and began pumping and thrusting hard as deep as he could go. It was certainly exciting him. He could hear Fred’s oohs and ahhs and so he kept pumping.

John wasn’t oohing and ahhing. The sounds that were erupting from him involuntarily were all sounds of distress and pain. He felt as though he were being raped. He had thought he wanted to be fucked hard, but the only experience he’d ever had with being fucked hard was with Paul, who had a way of seeming masterful without actually hurting him physically. John realized too late that perhaps he had romanticized the idea of being harshly fucked by a complete stranger. It was going on too long. Why couldn’t Brad cum already? But no, Brad seemed to be on some kind of mission...

Fred is never gonna forget this fuck, Brad was thinking, he will definitely come back for more. I can hold off for a few more minutes, until Fred cums. With this thought in mind, Brad pulled almost all the way out...

John’s body shuddered in relief. Thank God. It was almost over. Then he could drag his shattered body home and never see this bloke again. But even as John was finishing this thought, Brad forced himself back up John’s rectum harder and further than before.

“NOOOO!” John screamed. “Stooopppp!!!” The pain was excruciating, and so was the humiliation of it all. To be treated so crudely and without respect from some little nobody in his twenties...

Ah, he really likes it, he wants some more. He’s about to cum, Brad was thinking. They never meant it when they asked him to stop. He grabbed Fred’s cock and began roughly jerking it while he simultaneously thrust himself into Fred. 

John was beyond sound at this point; his fucking eyes were watering up in pain! He could feel the hot, salty, humiliating tears running down his face. The worst thing of all was that his cock was responding to the rough handling, and he could feel an orgasm coming. The last thing on earth John wanted was to have an orgasm while he was being raped! What would that say about him? 

There was a loud slapping sound in the room as Brad pelvis slammed against John’s raw ass. Brad was out of his mind with sexual urgency now, and he could feel the tingles starting deep in his prostate...

John hated and was humiliated by the slapping sound. He’s treating me like a female prossie... John found some strength in his arms and began to push Brad away.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Brad growled loudly, “you’re not in charge here bitch...” He focused more on Fred’s dick, and his fist began to pump up and down in time with his dick. He stopped briefly to lean over to grab the poppers. He expertly dealt with the packaging, and he brought the little brown bottle up to John’s right nostril. With the other hand he John’s left nostril closed. “Inhale it, cunt,” Brad demanded. John did as he was told, wanting to cut to the chase. As soon as he did so he felt incredibly woozy, but then his ass seemed to open up magically for a few seconds, and the pain cloud lifted for a few seconds until...

“No, no, no, nooooooo....” The raw sounds escaped from John’s throat as he tried to hold back the orgasm, but the jism escaped anyway. It cascaded out of him like hot lava, leaving a sticky trail of shame all over his stomach and pelvis. 

Brad continued to pump his fist on Fred’s dick a bit longer, as he slowed down his cock a bit. “Now it’s my turn to cum,” he whispered heavily into Fred’s ear. He then sat back a little, closer to his heels, and began to unleash a withering series of punishing thrusts until he finally felt the urges starting to overcome him, starting at the tips of his toes. 

John was just hanging on now. Just praying for it to be over. Those last few thrusts - John felt as if maybe his anus had been split. There were dried tears all over his face, and his two fists were grabbing on to crumbled sheets. Please cum, please cum and be done with it, please...

“Argargargh!” The sound that erupted from Brad’s throat as his orgasm overpowered him sounded primal. It was the victorious young lion that had beaten the silverback in a fight, and now the crown was his. The old king would have to slink off and die in ignominy. 

John heard and felt every syllable of it, and knew what it meant. He felt his own cum running down between his legs, where it made a small taunting cool puddle under his ass. He had been thoroughly possessed, and now he was less of a man than he’d been before. 

 

*****

 

Linda and Paul were at George and Judy Martin’s house for dinner. They were having an intimate meal, just the four of them, and the subjects had been normal: music, children, and the indignities of aging... Paul was thriving in this environment, where he knew who he was and the people around him accepted him as such. No one was clawing at him for more.

As the four of them wandered into the sitting room from the dining room, George asked Paul in a low voice,

“So where’s John? And how’s he doing?”

It had been two months since John had left for New York, and the day of his original planned return had already passed. John had postponed his return. “He’s in New York visiting with some friends of ours,” Paul said in as cheerful a voice as he could muster. “And he’s working on redecorating his new apartment there.”

Martin was a little surprised. He had somehow accrued the idea that John and Paul were rarely apart. He hoped there was nothing wrong, but Paul seemed pretty cheerful tonight. But then, Paul’s outward moods could be deceiving. “When’s he coming back?” he asked.

Paul didn’t like to prevaricate to his old friend George Martin, but he also didn’t want to reveal to anyone how deep the breach was between John and him. “I think he plans to stay until the apartment is done. You haven’t seen John in the midst of a redecorating scheme, so you have no idea how fanatical he gets about it.” Paul chuckled with what he thought passed for fond amusement in order to put George’s worries to rest. 

The four of them found comfortable places on the sofas and chairs, and George poured them his newest favorite aperitif, B&B’s Benedictine. As they sipped, George started up an earlier conversation again. “I love what you’re doing with that piece, Paul. Thanks for the tape. What are your plans for it?”

“I don’t know!” Paul declared in a goofy voice, garnering laughs from his audience. 

“Do you want to present it to the public?” George asked delicately. He knew that Paul was always wary of releasing any of his solo projects to the public because the press had always been so unfairly cruel to him about them. 

“It’s not ready yet,” was Paul’s cryptic reply.

“No, not yet, but soon,” George said, his eyes unwavering on Paul’s. “Do you want me to work on some orchestrations with you?”

Paul felt relief that George had offered. He knew that George was trying hard to retire, and he hadn’t wanted to drag George into another one of his probably-to-be-disrespected solo projects. 

“Well, I have Monday and Wednesday afternoons available. How about we meet here for a few weeks and see what we can do?” George was holding up his snifter in salut to the idea, and Paul raised his in return. It was a deal.

Linda chattered on the drive home, but Paul wasn’t really listening. He missed John so terribly, but there was no one he could talk to about it. There was no person he felt free to unload his feelings about John on. Why would anyone be interested in his problems, anyway? Everyone had their own problems, and the last thing they needed was for him - a very lucky and very rich man - to unload his problems on them! And, in truth, it wasn’t exclusively an altruistic impulse. He didn’t want to see the look in others’ eyes - that look that implied that he, Paul, was too weak a person to handle his own problems. He would find that to be too painfully humiliating. Linda, of course, was his only real close friend. She was the only one who had seen him at his absolute worst, and still loved and respected him. Everyone else had admired him but only so long as he was admirable. So long as he was the resilient, unemotional, strong silent type who joked at life’s troubles and went whistling on his way. Paul had figured out by now that he had created this conundrum for himself by always forcing himself to appear in control. The one time in his life when he’d let his emotional problems get the best of him - in late 1968, early 1969 - he had paid for it big time for years. In truth, he was still paying for it. He knew what was said about him behind his back - comments about how he had behaved during Let It Be and the White Album. Everyone knew that he had acted badly during those months, but no one knew why. No one had given him credit for the many years prior to and after that, when he had always acted as a total professional in the studio and with his band mates. No, they had pegged him for an egotistical martinet, and that is how he would be depicted in the fan literature and biographies for all time. With that experience and knowledge hovering in the background as motivation, Paul had good reason not to want to allow his emotions to get the better of him ever again.

John was clearly avoiding him. They had spoken on the phone, maybe once a week, for the last month or so, but John always sounded so distant and bored. John spent more time on the phone with his therapist than he did with Paul. Paul felt it at the core of his being: John was through with him. He had seen Paul’s deeply weak inner core at that fucking therapy session, and could not respect him any more. Paul had always known that John wanted only strength from him. If that were so, why had John worked so assiduously to tear him down? Why couldn’t John have just accepted him the way he presented himself if he wasn’t going to like the truth? As often happened when Paul had these thoughts, he felt the world closing in on him. More than once in the last few weeks Paul had asked himself what he would do when John finally said the words to him: “I’m not coming back.” Paul tried to see himself going on, being Paul the Family Man again, working at his solo music projects and being crucified for it if he dared to release them publicly. He tried to see himself going on a tour on his own again - Linda would surely come with him, but which one of them would the band choose? They’d probably choose John, because everyone always did. It didn’t matter how mean or cruel or neglectful John could be, people always forgave him for it, and loved him the most. 

No, Paul would have to scrap the band and start from scratch all on his own again. At least their finances were separate this time, but they did have McLen Productions. They each had a 50% share. Still, Paul could reopen MPL and work his solo projects through that, and John could open his own production company for his solo projects. The legal and financial problems would be fewer and far less painful than when their original partnership broke up. But the press! Oh my god the rock press, Paul thought yet again, for perhaps the hundredth time. They would literally crucify him. There was no other word for it. They would all excitedly chase after John, and leave him behind in the dust, surrounded by scorn. And would John seek to seduce them by telling them all about their relationship in one-sided insulting detail - all about how the mighty Paul McCartney had been a sobbing mess on a therapist’s sofa? John had been almost that mean to him in the past, after all. It wasn’t such a flyer to think he might do so again. John could never allow himself to be seen as the one who was the loser-supplicant, so clearly he would cast Paul in that unenviable role with the press.

There were times when Paul wondered what he was good for. His kids were all grown, except for James. He knew he had to be a father to his son, and he would of course do what was expected of him. Didn’t he always? But until James was grown Paul feared that he would just be marking the time. Linda loved him, but she had learned to be independent over the last decade, due to her frequent separations from him while he was with John. Paul had begun to sense that he got on Linda’s nerves a bit; he was underfoot in the house, and she wanted to see him up and at it. But what was “it”? That was the part Linda couldn’t understand. To her, it was easy, because she believed him to be a genius. She believed him to be so talented that of course he would succeed if he would only just keep working. She didn’t know about Paul’s deep recesses of self-doubt, and his fear that while he had a certain gift, maybe it wasn’t one that could be appreciated any more. She had never given the critics any credit, because she had known in her bones that Paul was a genius, so their little “carve ups” had been ignorant and shallow. Paul had never been anywhere near that sure about it all. He was very quick to believe all criticism, and very skeptical about any praise. 

Throughout these extremely painful and circuitous ruminations, Paul never thought about therapy. It was the furthest thing from his mind, because he blamed therapy for destroying the last vestige of respect that John had for him. 

 

*****

 

John had been very quiet for the past two weeks. Whereas before Jason and Gerry had worried about John’s false gregariousness and reckless night life, now they were worried about his dark silences and refusal to go out. It had happened very suddenly. He had just stopped going out. At first, Jason was relieved. Paul had been right: John had actually listened to him, and over time had decided to back away from the nightlife. But then it began to feel as though John was hiding in their home. He wasn’t there each night because it is what he wanted to do because it made him happy, but because he was hiding from something bad out there on the streets. He felt foolish raising the subject though, because what could he say? Yes, I know I told you not to have so many late nights out, but I didn’t mean you had to give them up entirely... It had finally occurred to Jason what Paul had known all along: John didn’t do moderation. He swung from one extreme to the other, and never considered the peaceful middle as a possible life choice.

What’s worse was that Jason was convinced that John was doing drugs. John certainly started drinking early, and kept up until he collapsed in his room, but alcohol was something Jason could understand and deal with. He feared that sometimes when John shut himself up in his room he was doing some kind of drug, and he quaked at the idea of what that might be. There was something so ... sneaky and secretive ... about John’s behavior these days. And then John didn’t appear to be calling Fiona as regularly as he had done before. In the last two weeks, maybe he’d spoken to her two times. Jason had been afraid to bring it up with Gerry, who had a very strict and censorious view of illegal substance use (especially in his own home!), but he knew he couldn’t keep this suspicion from Gerry long. If he were right, then it would become obvious at some point, because John would become sloppier and sloppier over time if he were using. Better Gerry heard it from him, Jason, first, than to figure it out on his own once John had gone too far down that road. 

Perhaps things were now bad enough that he should call Paul. Jason was reluctant to do so, because he wasn’t at all clear at what state that relationship was in. John didn’t seem to call Paul any more. Paul would call about once a week, and John would talk to him, but never for very long. John wasn’t showing the excitement he used to show when Paul called him. Something bad was happening there... No, it would have to be Gerry. He hoped Gerry wouldn’t overreact and go all caveman on him, charging into John’s room to confront him, and flushing all of the drugs down the toilet. Jason knew that John would leave their apartment in a rage if that happened, and then there would be no one looking after him who had his best interests at heart. John had to remain with them so they could monitor his behavior. It was a terrible responsibility, and he had begun to develop a huge amount of respect and admiration for Paul as a result. How had Paul managed this herculean task of being John’s rock for the better part of the last 35 years? And what on earth did Paul get out of it? Jason felt that every attempt he had made to help John when he was in one of his moods only brought derision and sarcasm from John in return. If John behaved the same way towards Paul, what was the ‘up’ side that Paul got out of having to put up with such conduct for so long? To Jason, it was an ever-growing mystery.

 

*****

 

John walked through the rooms of his new apartment and tried to feel something other than despair. The original hardwood floors featured inlay designs and had been sanded and then polished to their original luster. Now they were covered with protective plastic and tarps. The walls were all primed a bright white, and the windows had been squeegeed clean to the point where they squeaked if you pulled a finger across them. Walls had been removed in order to make 8 huge rooms and 3 baths out of the original smaller 12 rooms and 4 baths. The master bath was now the size of two of the original bathrooms. The bathrooms were roughed out, but the fixtures had not been installed yet. Nor had any design elements been added. It was truly a clean slate, and John willed himself to think creatively about the space, but his brain was so numb he couldn’t go there.

“Oh, there you are John,” the decorator said, “I’m sorry I’m a bit late, but I got stuck in traffic.” John’s decorator was a very stylish and slightly flamboyant gay man who called himself Chas. No last name, of course, just “Chas.” John associated that nickname with upper class toffs who’d gone to British prep schools, but he decided not to make fun of it, because every human being was entitled to his little pomposities. He’d learned that from Timothy. Of course, John’s attitude would have been very much different if Chas hadn’t been an extraordinarily talented designer who shared most if not all of John’s aesthetic sensibilities. 

Chas began to lay out the plans on the makeshift work table in the middle of the largest living space. There was an industrial lamp hovering next to it, and Chas turned it on. It was starting to get a bit dark outside. 

John always felt his nerves acting up around dusk. It was a kind of anxious fear - like being in an audience watching a horror film when the finding-dead-body music started. The lamplight seemed to set his nerves at rest a bit. It wouldn’t be long until there was honest-to-god dark outside, and that would cause the neither-here-nor-there anxiety to quieten. Brushing these thoughts away, John stepped up close to the worktable and peered down at the plans. 

“I’ve made those adjustments to the master suite you asked for,” Chas said. He had been surprised when John had asked for duplicate closet and dresser space. Was John planning on sharing the space with someone? If so, that person’s tastes or opinions had not been consulted, as far as Chas could tell. It had stirred his curiosity because of course he had heard the rumors about John and his writing partner, Paul McCartney. 

Meanwhile, John was checking out the new drawings for the master suite. He was wondering if Paul would ever stay there with him. It seemed unlikely. Paul had already told him they couldn’t live there together, not even for a weekend, because of the apartment’s prominence, and the fact that the doormen gossiped. Still, there had been a fugitive hope that someday Paul’s view would soften, and they would be able to share that room together. Why did such a time seem so far away, and so bloody unlikely? He could feel Paul drifting away from him as if he - Paul - was on a raft, and the ocean was pulling him in a different direction. John shook himself to dispel the gloomy thoughts and said, “It looks good. But I’m not a fan of the red.”

“Really? I thought you said you liked red.” Chas had of course figured out John’s taste by handing him paint chips, and seeing which ones caught John’s attention the most. 

“I do. But I have a lot of red in my London home, and I’m thinking I’d like to do something different here. Maybe some blues...” Blue, he knew, was Paul’s favorite color. 

“Well, let me bring you some paint and fabric samples, and we can see what appeals to you most.” 

John smiled faintly at Chas, and nodded. While he showed interest in the remaining sketches, Chas could feel that John’s enthusiasm for the project had waned in the last few weeks. He hoped it wasn’t going to be one of those situations where the client lost interest in the project and decided to sell the property before it was finished. That had happened before to Chas, and while he had gotten paid for the work he had done, he hadn’t been able to finish his artistic vision. That was extremely frustrating to an artist.

Finally, they were done, and Chas and John both headed for the door at the same time. John was feeling melancholy, and didn’t want to go straight back to Jason and Gerry’s and bury himself in his room. “You want to stop by the Plaza and get a drink?” He asked spontaneously.

Chas lit up. He had never been asked to do anything personal with John before. “Sure!” He said. 

Less than 10 minutes’ walk away, they entered the Plaza’s hallowed doors and found their way to the bar. John chose a table way in the back and Chas understood why. At least four people had stopped them on their short walk to ask for an autograph, and John had very charmingly complied. But no doubt he just wanted a little anonymity and privacy right now. As they settled in their chairs, and after they’d given their orders, Chas asked,

“Do you get out much?” It was an innocent question, a simple conversation-opener.

“I used to, but I got burned,” John answered cryptically. “So - here’s to our project!” He toasted, holding his recently delivered drink aloft. 

Chas, mystified by John’s comment, nonetheless lifted his drink too. “Yes - to your home in the sky!”


	50. Chapter 50

John’s comment about being burned by the nightlife of New York was like a hand grenade dropped into a sedate tea party. Chas stared at John for a long time, trying to see if John was teasing him. But John’s eyes held not even a hint in humor in them. Chas wondered if he should ask what happened, but then quickly decided he didn’t know John well at all, and it was presumptuous of him to even consider doing so. He gave a faint chuckle and then said, “From here on in, the choices we make will pretty much be final. Oh, we can change the paint colors, but mainly, we’ve got to nail our final design down so we can get started.” 

John was disappointed Chas didn’t probe. On the one hand he didn’t want to spill out his pain to someone he barely knew, but on the other hand, he needed to spill out his pain to someone. The moment had passed, and John turned to the design questions Chas was posing. He did his best to care about the answers, but the pleasure was gone from the enterprise now. John actually felt as though he was fragmenting inside. 

Later, during the cab drive back to Jason and Gerry’s, John felt bits of his outer edifice falling off bit by bit. He didn’t want his inner pain to show on his face, but soon he would not be able to hide it anymore. He probably should talk to Jason, but Jason had warned him that he shouldn’t party so hard, and he had ignored him. Gerry would just yell at him for doing stupid shit again, like he did the last time John had gone off the rails. And Paul...

Although he was sitting in the taxi, John groaned involuntarily, and hid his face in his hands. What could he ever say to Paul? He had completely betrayed Paul’s trust in him, and had cheapened what they’d shared together. Now he believed that he could never allow Paul to fuck him again. It had been two weeks, and his anus still hadn’t healed. He’d been rubbing an ointment on it, and it still was incredibly painful. The idea of ever allowing something to go up his butt again filled him with disgust and fear. He had been arrogant to stroll into the cruising life and think that he could hack it. He had no idea what went on between homosexual cruisers, obviously, and he never should have ventured into that club. The phrase "not ready for prime time" ran through his brain.

It was painful to remember, that night. After Brad had finally had his orgasm and had withdrawn from inside him, John had felt as though he was melted into the mattress. His legs had fallen down, once Brad let go, like two pieces of dead meat. The cold sticky spot under his ass was like a taunting reminder of how he had ejaculated even while he was being raped. John thought of it as a rape. Yes, he had “asked for it”, but he had no idea what a real rough fuck was like, and Brad didn’t acknowledge his cries of pain, or his begging to stop. He had just kept pounding away. John winced as he thought of that humiliating slapping sound. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to fuck anyone else, either. That slapping sound would haunt him forever, he feared. 

Brad had fallen to the side, exhausted, pleased with his performance. “Want some pot?” he asked, as he turned on the bedside lamp and searched through his belongings there. 

John forced himself to put on a brave face. He didn’t want this punk to know how shattered he was inside. “No,” he said abruptly. “I just want to get the fuck out of here.” John got up, grabbing for his pants and slipping them on quickly. He didn’t want to be naked in front of Brad. He stood up and reached for his t-shirt, and pulled it over his head. He didn’t see Brad’s face - he didn’t see the confusion and disappointment. 

Brad had thought he had performed magnificently, and Fred acted like it was just another fuck: it was done, and now it was time to leave. As cynical as Brad was, given his background, he felt hurt by Fred’s sudden rejection. What else could he have done to make an impression on the man? 

“I’ll pay the bill on my way out,” John said without looking at Brad. “Thanks for the shag.” He pulled $200 worth of twenties out of his pocket and dumped it on the dresser. He needed the remaining cash for the cab. With that, John pulled his jacket on and headed for the door. He didn’t even turn his head as he left the room, and allowed the door to slam behind him. He took the stairs down the four flights of stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. He was afraid that Brad would follow him out and try to engage him if he waited for the elevator. John took the stairs two at a time, and made it to the check out desk in no time. The lone attendant looked pretty jaded. It was very high class but still a no-tell hotel and the business was 24-hours per day. In fact, the busy hours were after midnight. John handed over his credit card. He certainly didn’t have any more cash to spare. The man absent-mindedly ran the card through the machine, and John signed the slip. He had kept his baseball cap down over his forehead, and then left the lobby. A dangerous looking bouncer-type sat on a stool outside the hotel, and he agreed to call a cab, and John gave him a $20 bill: anything to get away from this place as quickly as possible. 

The taxi came to an abrupt stop, and John’s mind snapped back from that other, far more surrealistic taxi ride of two weeks earlier. He was in front of the Dakota. As he stepped out, he looked up to the top of the building, with its gothic black spires intersecting the dark grey night. It felt very medieval on that dark late April night. The wind was blustering, and it felt almost like Halloween in spirit. Shrugging, John pulled his coat closer around him, and headed through the arched opening to the elevators, and he almost pushed the button for the floor he used to push when he lived here with Yoko; he quickly self-corrected, and pushed the button for Jason and Gerry’s floor instead.

John could smell the food before he even entered the apartment. It smelled like a great stew of some kind. He unlocked the door, and went down the hallway, and into the sitting room. Gerry was (of course) seated in his easy chair reading the Wall Street Journal, and Jason was (of course) banging around in the kitchen. The scene was cozy and domestic and let loose a feeling of envy in John. He had always wanted this life for Paul and him, and never had managed to satisfy that dream - because Paul had been too cowardly to go for it. As it was, Paul would always find his cozy, domestic center at Cavendish, with Linda.

“John!” Gerry said cheerfully, as he finally noticed John’s presence. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

Jason came in, having heard Gerry’s greeting. “John, so glad you’re back. The Yankee pot roast is ready, and the potatoes are perfect. Go clean up, and I’m putting dinner on the table right now.”

Obediently, John turned and went to his guest suite, and removed his jacket. He washed his hands, and splashed warm refreshing water on his face. It was his desire to wash all the pain off his face, so no one could see it. He had begun to understand what drove Paul to his secrets. If you have truly painful memories, why on earth would you want anyone else to find out about them? Again he felt a pang that he had dragged Paul - unwarned - into the therapy session. He had stripped Paul of his ability to hold back his demons, and now he could really understand why Paul had wanted to keep things private. John felt ashamed. Paul’s old secrets must be as agonizingly humiliating as John’s own new one, and now - only too late - John could understand. 

 

*****

 

Paul’s legs were frozen. They were stuck as if in cement, and no matter what he tried to do he couldn’t make them run away. He was clawing at the ground, grunting, and his heart was beating unbearably hard. Something dark and faceless was chasing him, and he had to get away. In his sleep, his legs were actually wind-milling, and Linda awoke with alarm and shook her husband awake. This was the tenth bad nightmare Paul had experienced over the last several weeks. She wished she knew what the hell was going on. She feared he was living out some terrible scenario with John in his mind. John had been surprisingly absent from Paul’s life for 10 weeks now.

“Paul! Wake up! You’re having another nightmare!” Linda said, as she finally met his open eyes. Those eyes seemed to clear suddenly, and then they closed. Paul’s hand covered his eyes, and he rubbed them. 

Paul forced himself to sit up, as Linda turned on the bedside lamp. He leaned over and breathed heavily as he trained his heart to slow down. Paul was feeling very scared and vulnerable at that moment. What he wanted more than anything was to have John’s strong arms around him. But that kind of comfort was in his past. He turned to look at Linda, whose face was covered with concern. “Lin...” he started. He felt he should tell her, or tell somebody. She had loved him through some of his weakest moments, so maybe she would still love him if she knew the truth about him. 

“Yes, love?” Linda asked. She was holding her breath, and hoping he would confide in her. 

“I think John has left me again.” Paul’s voice sounded cracked. 

Linda’s heart ached for him. “Why do you think that, baby?” She asked softly.

“He doesn’t really talk to me anymore. He feels miles away; I can’t connect with him emotionally anymore. He doesn’t want to come back.” Paul’s words rushed out of him, one after the other. “It’s like how it was in 1968, when he cut me off and drifted away. He’d found someone else and wanted to live a different life.”

Linda’s hand was rubbing up and down Paul’s spine, and her face was deeply sympathetic. 

Paul continued. “I think maybe he’s back with Yoko, or he’s found someone else, and he hasn’t found the nerve to tell me yet.” 

“What does Jason say?” Linda asked. She should have felt relieved, but she didn’t. Her heart felt as though it were in a vise.

“I haven’t asked him. He hasn’t volunteered. I think he’s afraid to tell me, and I know I’m afraid to hear it.” Paul’s voice caught in his throat, and Linda cried in distress. She put her arms around him and tried shushing him gently. Several minutes went by before Paul moved free of Linda’s sheltering arms, and wiped his face dry. 

“You should go to New York and talk to him,” Linda said firmly. “Either you’re not right, in which case all this suffering is for nothing. Or you are right, and you might as well hear the truth from his mouth, and then you will know for sure. It will hurt, but you can at least start putting your life back together. You’ve got a tour to get back to, in Europe, in a few weeks.”

Paul heard what Linda had said. Was he strong enough to face the rejection he knew he would receive at John’s hands? And how would they be able to finish the tour under those circumstances? Paul felt he would be able to do the professional thing - but John? He acted out when he was ‘done’ with something. Could Paul bear to look John in the face while John - again - told him that he had no further use for him? It was like reliving one of your worst nightmares. He turned to Linda and said “I told him I wouldn’t bother him as long as he wanted to be in New York on his own. I promised.”

“Things are a bit different now, Paul, and it has been over 2 months. I think you have kept your promise. But you can’t continue to go on like this - you’re making yourself sick! And in a few weeks you have to go back on tour!”

Paul could see the sense in Linda’s words. He did want to see John again, even if it was just to hear John end it. At least it would feel final if it came out of John’s mouth, so long as he could see and feel his presence again. It was something Paul longed for, even if he believed it would result in rejection and pain. He was feeling rejected and full of pain anyway, wasn’t he? He might as well hear the truth from the horse’s mouth. So to speak. And the tour? They would have to decide whether to tough it out for 6 weeks, or go their separate ways and cancel the tour. Paul had never canceled a gig before, so even the thought of it gave him a truly bad feeling. But John...once he was done, he was done.

 

*****

 

Jason and John were bundled up while sitting in the Adirondack chairs on Jason and Gerry’s patio. They were drinking hot chocolate, and enjoying the bright blue sky and the crisp spring weather. Soon, the weather would be mild enough to sit without the blankets and sweaters. 

“John, what’s bothering you?” Jason asked suddenly. They had sat there in a companionable silence for 5 minutes, so Jason’s voice surprised John.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“You were going out every night, and coming in at 3 and 4 in the morning. You were holed up in your room, and I believed you were doing drugs. Now you come back by 6 p.m. every day, and I have no clue what you’re doing when you go early to bed. What’s bothering you?”

“You told me yourself that it was self-destructive to go out late nights, and party with such pointless people. So I followed your advice. Now you think something is wrong again?”

Jason had expected this argument, but had also decided he wasn’t going to let it stop him. “Yeah, I said that, but I don’t see any happiness or joy in you anymore, John. The kind you brought home when you were staying out nights was phony and desperate, but now there is not even phony happiness. What is bothering you, John? Are you missing Paul?”

John winced internally with the mention of Paul’s name. But Jason had given him an easy excuse to get out of the conversation. “Yes, I do miss him.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Jason asked. “He always has to call you now.”

“He only calls me as a duty, you know,” John told Jason. “He is probably enjoying his time alone with his family, and he is thinking ahead a few weeks to our tour.”

Jason had talked to Paul a few times and didn’t buy that for a moment. “Paul is not enjoying his time without you, John, and if you took the time to really speak to him you would know that for yourself.”

John wondered if (hoped that?) Jason was telling the truth. “How do you know?” He asked.

“I’ve spoken to Paul a few times. He is very worried about you, but won’t say so. He is hurt that you don’t call him. I can tell.”

“But he didn’t say so...” John sneered.

“That’s not an attractive tone of voice, John, I’m telling you a painful truth. You should at least pay it some respect.” Jason turned away and took another sip of his hot chocolate. He was very disappointed in John at that moment.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” John said sincerely. “I’m very touchy right now.”

“So what’s happened, John? What’s going on?” Jason took the opportunity John had handed him.

“I really don’t want to talk about it. But I will call Paul. That’s a good idea. I’d like to hear his voice.” John decided if he gave Jason some kind of victory, he would back away from the prying.

Jason took John’s acquiescence as a victory and decided he’d said enough. “Want a refill?” He asked gesturing to his empty cup.

“That would be grand,” John chuckled.

 

*****

 

It was 7 p.m., and John sat by the telephone in Gerry’s study. He was working up the nerve to dial Paul’s number. He really did want to hear Paul’s voice. He wanted the liquid comfort of it to wrap around him, and smother his deep fears in their infancy. He picked up the receiver and then punched in Paul’s number. The phone rang four times, and John was about to give up when James answered the phone. 

“Hey James. It’s John,” he said.

“John! It’s been ages! When are you coming home?” James’s voice was so innocent and completely guileless. He had actually thought of John as someone who was part of his family. This tugged at John’s heart.

“I’m coming along on my project. Maybe soon,” John said. “Look, is your dad home? I’d like to speak to him.”

“Dad’s not here,” James said.

“Oh?” John was shaken by that answer. “Where is he?”

“Don’t know. Mom dropped him at the airport a few hours ago. Not sure where he’s off to. I didn’t ask.” Parents’ non-child-related activities were irrelevant to the average 15 year-old and James was no different in this way. 

“Airport.” John repeated the word, at a loss for words. “Is your mom there?”

“She went out to dinner with Stella and Mary. I was invited, but I’m in the middle of a movie.”

“Did I interrupt you?”

“Well, I’ve got it on pause...”

John laughed. “Go back to your movie, and tell your mother I called,” John chuckled, and then he hung up. Where the fuck did Paul go without Linda? For the first time in 10 weeks he began to wonder what Paul might have been up to in his absence. What if he’d connected up with someone else? Geesh! He’d never thought of that! But then, it isn’t like Linda would willingly drop him off at the airport in that event, would she? On the other hand, she had often dropped Paul off on his trips to come see him, so why not some other...bloke? John’s jealous mind began to fester. If I could go off and try some other bloke, what’s to say Paul wouldn’t do it? John made himself stop. It was ridiculous. If Paul was off somewhere without Linda it was because Linda needed to stay home with James, and Paul had business to conduct somewhere. It had to be business. John reassured himself with these thoughts, and reluctantly left the comfort of Gerry’s den. He wandered into the sitting room, and sat down and settled in to one of the sofas. Jason looked up from the other sofa and had a question mark on his face.

John saw it and said, “Not home.” Jason nodded and gave John a sympathetic smile over the disappointment. He was glad that John had followed through and made the call, though. 

“There’s a play called Shimmer on American Playhouse tonight,” Jason said. “Gerry and I were going to watch it. Do you want to watch it too?” 

John shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He was actually glad to have something to occupy his mind and keep him from crawling into his bed and taking sleeping pills to deaden the pain. 

The play was good, John could tell, but he was having a hard time concentrating. He had taken a sleeping pill about half way through the play, and now his lids were heavy. There were only moments left in the play when the doorbell rang. It was nearly 11 p.m.

“Who could that be?” Jason asked with irritation. 

“I’ll get it,” Gerry said, heading for the door. The last time they’d had an unannounced visitor at night it had been Yoko Ono. Gerry was hoping this wasn’t a return visit. He threw open the door and was shocked to see Paul McCartney standing there, with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Hi, Gerry,” Paul said shyly. “Sorry to barge in without warning.” He looked sheepish. Gerry was relieved and also happy to see him. Maybe he would take John home, and he and Jason could relax again. They’d spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about John’s mental health lately. 

“Come in! John!” Gerry shouted down the hall.

Paul stepped in, and put his bag down. John, followed closely by Jason, came down the hall, and soon they saw who was standing there.

“Paul!” Jason cried with happiness. “What a great surprise!”

Paul didn’t really hear Jason. His eyes were meeting John’s and searching them intently. John was staring back, and then silently moved until he had wrapped his arms around Paul’s waist. Paul hugged him back. 

Quietly, Gerry grabbed Jason’s arm, and gently urged him to follow him back to the sitting room, so as to leave John and Paul alone. 

The two men remained in each other’s arms for a good two minutes. Slowly, they pulled back from each other, but their foreheads rested together. “I’m sorry I barged in,” Paul said in a rough, low voice.

“I’m so glad you did,” John responded in a nearly matching rough, low voice. 

“I felt as though I was losing you,” Paul said softly. The sound of his voice was heart breaking.

John cried, “I thought the same about you!” 

Paul pulled John back into his arms, and nestled his face into the side of John’s neck. He took a huge whiff of John’s scent and felt like he was home, at last. He could not feel whole without John in his life - that was painfully clear to Paul. 

Again, they broke apart. They each heaved a deep sigh. Paul chuckled a little, and then so did John. 

“We’re too old for all this drama,” Paul said in between chuckles. 

“So true,” John laughed. “Man, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he added. “I’ve been missing you.” 

“Then why didn’t you call me?” Paul asked. His voice was not angry or judgmental. It was just mystified. 

John sighed. “I’d made such a stink about being on my own,” he said. Now his hands were rubbing Paul’s chest, up and down his chest. He couldn’t believe he was there, and just his physical presence made John feel better. “It felt stupid to call and beg for you to join me.”

Paul felt his heart running over. He wasn’t going to be kicked to the curb. Could it be possible John didn’t despise him for his weaknesses? This was a revolutionary thought for Paul. “It’s not stupid, Johnny,” Paul whispered. “It’s what friends are for. You know I would come if I thought you needed me.”

John’s hands went up to Paul’s face, and cupped his cheeks. He stared at the beloved face. “I’m glad you came,” he repeated. 

“Aaaa-hem!” A fairly loud and phony throat clearing came from the other end of the hall. Jason was standing there smiling. “Why don’t you both come in here and sit down. I’ll fix us something to snack on, and we can have some drinks.” 

John and Paul smiled at Jason, and headed down the hall, John grabbed Paul’s hand, and held it as they headed in to the sitting room. He then sat down very close to Paul on the sofa. He didn’t want Paul out of his eyesight or away from his touch. 

While Paul was glad of this sudden loving treatment, it bewildered him somewhat. It didn’t fit with the cold silence he’d felt from John for the last 9 weeks. And then there were the concerns about the completion of the tour. He knew he’d have to figure that all out, but he decided he was going to worry about it later, and enjoy this warmth coming from John for the time being. In fact, John was snuggling in to his side, and Paul put his arm around him, and pulled him a little closer. He leaned over and kissed John on his forehead. He felt his heart slowly reducing its beat to a peaceful, calm pace. He hadn’t felt so calm in months. It may have even been over a year since he felt so safe, calm and secure.

“This is a lovely surprise, Paul,” Jason said, as he laid out some ratatouille, cheeses, red grapes and crackers. He poured out a light pinot noir, and they all immediately took turns hovering over the plates. All that emotion had worked up some fierce appetites. 

“I’m really sorry I just sprung myself on you all,” Paul said politely. “It was a spur of the moment thing; if I stopped to think about it, I might not have come.”

“We’re delighted you are here,” Gerry said firmly. “We’ve missed seeing you.”

John felt this was some kind of indictment of him, but he was so relieved to be cuddling up against Paul’s side, with Paul’s arm over his shoulder, that he couldn’t get upset. He didn’t say anything, but he squeezed Paul around his waist to let him know how glad he was to see him.

After about 45 minutes, Paul stirred. John had been drifting off to sleep. “I think we should go to bed now,” he told Jason and Gerry, who agreed that they should all turn in. They all headed down the hallway, Gerry checking the front door locks on the way down the hall towards the bedrooms, and John and Paul peeling off first at the guest room suite. Paul had collected his bag as they’d moved down the hall, and dragged it into the guest suite. John turned to face Paul as soon as the door closed behind them. He held his arms out again, and Paul allowed himself to be drawn in. 

John whispered in Paul’s ear, “So glad you’re here with me, baby. I missed you so fucking much.”

Paul felt a burning sensation in his loins. The feel and smell and sound of John were overloading his senses. He whispered into John’s ear, “I’m so glad to be here, to see you too...Let’s get in the bed.” Paul let his eyebrows pop up and down lasciviously. He chuckled, but was surprised by John’s nervous laugh and evasive eyes. Usually John was hotter to trot than he was - especially after any time apart. “No?” Paul asked, stopping himself short. “You don’t want to?”

“Shit, yeah, I want to go to bed. But...” John stalled for a few moments. It was totally not ‘him’ to say he didn’t want to have sex. “I’m really tired tonight, I took a sleeping pill, and...”

“Not up to it, are you old man?” Paul laughed, feeling better to find out it was something so simple. “Well, what if I do all the work?”

John smiled. “If it involves your mouth on my cock, I’m okay. Otherwise, I’d just as soon snuggle...”

“I can do that,” Paul said cheerfully. “But first you have to get in the fucking bed!” 

John whooped as he dove into the bed. He could keep his secret at bay tonight at least. Paul laughed and started ripping off his clothes. He started whistling a burlesque tune, whirled each piece of clothing in turn over his head like a stripper, and then let them go, so they flew all over the room. John took this in and laughed with delight. There was no one like Paul to brighten up the proceedings!

In their adjacent bedroom, Gerry and Jason - sitting up in bed and reading - looked at each other with amused expressions. “There they go again,” Gerry said, causing Jason to burst into giggles, which he tried unsuccessfully to smother.

 

*****

 

The next morning both men slept late. For Paul it was unusual, for John not so much. Paul had been so stressed out and worried for weeks, and had not slept well, so he had fallen asleep in John’s arms the night before and slept like a log. He had worked hard to satisfy John, but it had taken a surprisingly long time for John to cum. It was very uncharacteristic, so John really must have been tired, Paul thought. By the time John finally gave it up, Paul’s mouth and jaw were sore. After that, John had given him a hand job, and they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Now he was out like a light.

John awoke first. He stirred slowly, because his head was in a fog, but he gradually became aware of his surroundings, and then felt Paul by his side. He felt a huge wave of relief flow over him. It was the first time in 9 weeks he hadn’t awakened and wondered, “where is Paul and what is he doing?” This morning, he knew the answer. Paul was right next to him, and he was sleeping like a baby. John turned on to his side as gently as possible, not wanting to awaken Paul. He rested the side of his head in his palm, and stared at Paul’s sleeping face. The mouth was open a little bit, in a slight “o” shape, and his eyebrows were raised a bit. He looked zonked out. John smiled. Paul had gone above and beyond the night before, and John had managed to feel sexual again, even though it took a lot of time, and an effort of will to not picture himself with Brad. He had been so afraid that Brad had ruined him for enjoying blowjobs, and he was fairly certain he had been ruined for ass jobs. Maybe that wouldn't happen; maybe these feelings of reluctance would wear off with time. But how was he going to explain this to Paul?

Almost as if he had heard his name being invoked, Paul’s eyes flew open. They stared first at the ceiling, and then swiveled to the right, and soon his eyes were meeting John’s. As soon as they did Paul’s face melted with affection, and this unspoken, involuntary reaction brought tears to John’s eyes. There was no way to fake that reaction, John knew. For whatever reason, no matter what a miserable fuck he was and how much he didn’t deserve it, Paul really loved him. 

“’Morning, Johnny,” Paul said, his voice a little raspy. 

“’Morning love,” John responded.

“What time is it?” Paul asked.

John looked over Paul’s shoulder to the bedside clock. “It’s almost noon.”

“No! That means it’s like almost 5 p.m. for me! How could I have slept so long?” Paul looked really unsettled by this news, but John was not surprised by how long Paul had slept.

“You worked overtime last night, babe,” John laughed as he reached over and stroked the side of Paul’s face gently. “I’m amazed your mouth and throat even work!”

“I’ve got superpowers,” Paul declared with a ludicrous expression on his face.

John was chuckling. “No argument here.” 

Gradually, they managed to climb out of the bed and then Paul turned on the shower. “You gonna come with?” He yelled to John over the sound of the rushing water.

John said, “yes!” before he remembered he was awkward about sex. He hoped Paul was interested in some playful fun in the shower while getting clean, instead of anything more X-rated. Just the thought of being penetrated made John’s ass pucker. 

John reluctantly joined Paul in the shower, and Paul said, “I’ll wash your hair, if you get mine.”

“Done,” John said. And so they did.

Paul was feeling frisky, but he was getting a weird vibe off John. While he was massaging John’s head full of shampoo, he was leaning up against his back, and he felt his cock growing big as it rubbed against John’s bum. His soapy hands wandered downwards from the head, to the shoulders, down the back, and to the waist. Paul’s arms circled John’s waist and he leaned his chest flat against John’s back. He began butterfly kisses on John’s neck and shoulders. 

John began to feel very anxious. He knew he should feel aroused, but the tension he felt was spoiling everything. He was afraid that Paul would want to have sex with him, and his body was not ready for that. But if Paul insisted, he knew he was going to go through with it. Surely, if they had sex, it would feel fine, and he would get over that whole “rape” thing. He would just have to suck it up. 

But Paul felt John’s slight withdrawal, and it halted his seductive moves. This was weird. It had happened last night, and again this morning. John must still be angry with me, and he just can’t find the words to tell me. Maybe he has found someone else? Paul suddenly felt his arousal shrinking, and he pushed himself away from John abruptly. “We’re unforgivably late, John. We should get dressed and go apologize to our hosts.” Having said this, Paul pushed open the shower door, and then reached for towels. He handed one to John, and then began to dry himself off as he walked into the bedroom.

John was left standing in the shower and holding the towel. What was that all about? John wondered. I hope he couldn’t tell that I’m feeling squeamish about sex. He didn’t want to ask what was wrong, because Paul might then ask him what was going on, and John didn’t want to have that conversation. So he followed Paul into the bedroom where Paul was already dressing. John began to dress too, but he felt awkward. Should he say something to break the ice? “Are you hungry, Paul? I’m starving! I need to eat to get my strength back!” John hoped this comment would explain his reluctance to get hinky in the shower.

“Yes, I’m a bit peckish,” Paul said as he pulled a t-shirt over his head. He was trying hard to hide his worried hurt feelings. He was just too sensitive. He was insecure about John’s love, after what had happened between them for almost a year. Paul was disappointed because last night, when he first saw John’s face when he arrived, he thought that John wanted him as much as he wanted John. But it was early days. Maybe John really was just tired. 

The two men straggled into the sitting room to find Gerry in his chair (reading), and Jason making notes in a journal. 

“They finally emerge!” Jason hooted, causing John and Paul to chuckle sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, Jason, I don’t know why I was so exhausted. It’s shamefully late in British time.” Paul’s face was sincerely apologetic and contrite. Jason’s heart melted at the sight.

“I have no excuse,” John said cheerfully. “I’m just bloody lazy.” 

 

*****

 

The day had been relaxing, and Jason had made them a great vegetarian dinner. The four men had gathered around the sitting room talking about politics, plays, music and social gossip until almost midnight, before Jason admitted he was exhausted. 

“Some of us got up in the morning, and we’re tired,” Jason archly announced. 

Paul stood up and looked worriedly at John. He wasn’t sure whether John even wanted to go to bed with him. 

John smiled in a kind of tentative way. He was trying to reassure Paul. They walked to the bedroom in an awkward silence. 

What excuse will I use now? John asked himself. I could go down on him, and maybe I can make him cum, and then he won’t need to fuck or be fucked. John decided this was the go-to plan, and realized he had to take the whip hand to make sure things went smoothly. So as soon as Paul was in the room, John pushed him on to the bed.

Paul’s eyes lit up with delight. So he was wrong about John! John roughly unzipped Paul’s trousers, and then started pulling them off. John went directly for Paul’s cock, and as soon as John’s mouth touched the tip of his penis, Paul uttered a prolonged moan that acted as encouragement for John. 

John was doing his best to get Paul to orgasm, but just as he was about to finish him up. Paul pulled John’s head up. “No!” He said rashly, “I need to do it...” 

John was bitterly disappointed. His plan had failed. He had to go through with it now, because the alternative would be to tell Paul he didn’t want to be fucked. He obediently turned on his back, and bent his knees. He decided he was going to grit his teeth, hold his breath, and force himself to pretend to enjoy what was coming next.

Paul was already slicking up his cock with lube, and there was no stopping him. Paul’s lube-covered hand moved towards John’s anus, but as soon as his hand brushed against the sensitive skin next to John’s anus, John jumped and yelped in pain. 

Paul pulled back as if burned and sat on his heels. He looked at John in shock and said, “What?”


	51. Chapter 51

Paul sat back on his heels and stared wordlessly at John for a few seconds. John’s arm was covering his eyes. One painful thought had occurred to Paul at that moment. John is only faking his attraction to me; I was right all along - he no longer wants me. Paul’s arousal died completely, and he moved over until he was sitting next to the still recumbent John on the bed. Paul searched his mind for something to say that wouldn’t sound pathetic or weak. Several silent moments went by.

“Paul?” John’s voice was plaintive. He still had the arm over his eyes.

“Did I hurt you in some way?” Paul managed to ask, still feeling rejected but trying to get past that.

“I’m very sore down there,” John said.

Paul sat silently for a few moments, digesting this information. Why on earth would he be sore down there? It didn’t seem to Paul that there could be too many innocent explanations. Of course, he had heard that hemorrhoids were very painful... Well, only one way to find out: “Why? What’s happened?” 

John moaned a little to himself, although Paul didn’t really hear it. Still, there was nothing for it but for John to tell the truth. “I had this ... encounter ... a few weeks ago, and I got hurt pretty bad.” 

Paul was struggling with John’s sentence. It made sense, in that it contained all English words put in the proper order, but Paul couldn’t make sense of it. “’Encounter’?” Paul finally asked, realizing at last that this was the word that had made the sentence difficult to understand.

John swallowed hard. Suddenly his mouth had gone dry. 

“You know, we had this deal...” John started. He cleared this throat. “...That I could see other people when we are apart.”

The penny dropped for Paul, and he suddenly felt a little sick in his stomach. If John had ‘seen’ another person and had ended up with a sore asshole, it was unlikely to have been a woman. Of course, there were sex toys that a woman might have accidently misused...

John felt Paul’s silence (incorrectly) as a rebuke. He became a little defensive. “I followed the rules...”

“’Rules?’” Paul repeated. He was still in a state of confusion. At this moment he only seemed able to repeat words.

“I wore a condom, it was at a hotel, and it was a one-night stand.” John’s voice sounded quick and defensive, but the arm still across his eyes was kind of a dead giveaway that he was ashamed of what he had to say.

Paul didn’t know any other thing to do but to ask the billion-dollar question about the one part of the rules John had left out. “And it was a woman?”

John heard the hope in Paul’s voice, and his heart fell. But again, whenever John started to feel guilt coming his way he always had to find a new target for it; John’s guilt was sort of like a heat-seeking missile. “I don’t remember you requiring it to be a woman - you only said you preferred it not to be a woman because of the whole publicity thing. You left it up to me.” 

The worse thing was, Paul was not surprised. That was the most amazing thing. As he sat there, he was not at all surprised. Of course John would remember the ‘rules’ that way. For John to remember them otherwise would mean he’d have to resist temptation. The ability to resist temptation was just not in the list of John’s personality traits. Lots of emotions were racing through Paul’s head, but only two words came out: “I see.” 

John’s arm came down off his eyes, and he allowed himself to get a little angry. “’I see’? That’s all you have to say? I was hurt by this man, and all you can say is, ‘I see’?”

“He hurt you?” Paul asked. Somehow that information hadn’t yet percolated in Paul’s brain. “Did he do it against your will?” Paul’s feelings were whirling out of control now, but the dominant one was rage: Who had dared to hurt John in this way? 

“Yes!” John declared.

“John! Oh my god, John! Why didn’t you tell me? How did this happen? Who is this person?” Paul had turned towards John, and although still sitting down, he was now leaning over John in a comforting and protective manner.

John took Paul’s response as full forgiveness for his “encounter”, so of course he didn’t guard his tongue as he answered Paul’s question. “He wouldn’t stop when it started to hurt! I asked him to stop, and he just kept fucking me!” There was outrage in John’s voice.

“Wait a...so you agreed to have sex with this bloke?” Paul was now backing off his earlier immediate protective reaction.

“Yes! I told you that. It was a hookup in a club, and we went to this hotel...”

Paul’s eyes closed, and he felt himself withdrawing back into a kind of shell. “Who was this bloke, John?” Paul’s voice sounded blank.

“His name was Brad. I don’t know anything else about him.”

Paul couldn’t believe his ears. How could John be so stupidly reckless? That bloke could have kidnapped him, killed him, or mutilated him, and he might still blackmail him! And John didn’t even know where to track the guy down! And what if the guy had some kind of disease? How could John know if the condom would work? 

“I’m not surprised you got hurt in this ‘encounter’, John. You picked up a complete stranger in a club!” Paul’s voice was censorious. 

“You don’t even care that I’m injured?” John’s voice actually held a drop of outrage in it.

Paul prayed to himself, Lord give me the strength... Then he said, “Of course I care. What did the doctor say about it? How were you injured?” 

John was not satisfied with Paul’s calm, logical voice. He had hoped for a slightly more dramatic reaction. “I haven’t been to a doctor,” John admitted.

“John! What the...! You mean you’ve been walking around...how many weeks?” Paul’s voice was plenty worried now, which caused John to feel a little better.

“Two weeks,” John answered.

“...For two weeks and you haven’t done anything about it? What if it is some kind of serious injury?”

John hadn’t allowed himself to think that. In fact, he hadn’t done very much thinking at all for the past 2 weeks. He had just been wandering around in a self-pitying daze. His eyes filled with tears. Soon he began to sob softly. 

Paul moved back into comforting, protective mode, and lay down next to John, and pulled him into his arms. “Johnny, what on earth am I going to do with you?” He whispered this, but there was love and affection in his voice, along with the obvious irritation and disappointment. 

“I was so scared,” John said under his voice. “He could have done anything to me; I was helpless.” 

Paul began to rub John’s back and made soft, comforting sounds. 

“It really hurts - not just on the outside, but really bad on the inside,” John confessed. “It felt like rape to me.”

Paul flinched at the word ‘rape’. He could be mad at John for betraying his trust again, and for doing something so stupidly reckless, and for not taking care of himself afterwards. But what would be the point? It wouldn’t change anything, and he’d still have to deal with the fallout. John was his friend, and he didn’t want to compound the injuries John had sustained by visiting upon the man a whole load of anger and guilt. So of course he did the ‘Paul’ thing. “Tomorrow, we’re going to the doctor.” 

“I don’t have a doctor here!” John whined.

“We can ask Gerry and Jason for a reference,” Paul suggested. “Or I can ask John and Jody.” 

“No! They’ll want to know why!”

Paul was a little exasperated. He couldn’t help himself. “Well, what about Dr. Sid?” Paul had remembered John’s close relationship with his doctor from the cancer ordeal.

John was silent for a moment, and then pointed out, “But he’s in England.” 

“Yes, which is where we can be tomorrow, and we can make an appointment for the day after. Would you prefer to go to Dr. Sid?”

John felt tremendous relief course through him. “Yes, I would. But my apartment...”

“John - please! The fucking apartment will still be there!”

“We’re back on tour in 2 weeks, and I still have so much to do...” John petered out, eventually figuring out he was putting his foot in it again.

“This is the thing John. You’re either going back to England with me tomorrow, and we’re going to see Dr. Sid, or we’re going to get a reference and see a doctor here in New York tomorrow. Which one is it going to be?” Paul’s voice was firm, and John recognized the tone. John never won an argument with Paul whenever Paul reverted to that voice.

“I’d rather see Dr. Sid,” John finally accepted, in a rather childlike voice.

“So, tomorrow morning I’ll make our air reservations, and I can get Linda to make an appointment with Dr. Sid for the day after.”

“Don’t tell Linda! Promise me! I don’t want her to know!” John was panic-stricken at the idea. It would of course be humiliating for John if Linda knew, but John also believed that Linda would be beyond outrage if she knew what he had done, and he didn’t want to face the Wrath of Linda. 

“I’ll just say you need a check up before we go back on tour for the insurance, which happens to be true. I actually had mine last week, coincidentally.” Paul’s calm voice settled John. “Now, let’s try to get a few hours’ sleep, and we can sort things out a bit more tomorrow.” 

 

*****

 

The next morning, Jason and Gerry were pleasantly surprised to learn that Paul was taking John back to England. They figured this was just what the doctor ordered for John - to be with Paul. Hopefully, Paul would be able to figure out what was wrong with John, and get him back into therapy and on the right track. So, it was with a lot of happy tears and hidden giddiness that Jason waved John off on his way.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Gerry said, “Let’s not make babysitting John a habit, okay?” Jason couldn’t even disagree with Gerry, and that was a sad commentary.

 

*****

 

Linda was amazed when she’d received Paul’s call. While she had expected Paul to be back with John in advance of the European leg of their tour, she hadn’t expected Paul to be on his way back to England only a little over 30 hours after he had left. Still, she was glad the whole John thing turned out to be just another one of John’s red herring desertions. She had picked up the phone, and dialed Dr. Sid’s number and made the appointment for John.

Later, she had gone to pick them up at the airport. Part of this was habit, but the other part was curiosity. But nothing unusual was said in the car back to the house. Linda had asked if everything was okay, and John had said from the backseat, “Yes”, and Paul had said something about both of them getting anxious about the tour. 

She had dropped John at Cavendish, and Paul had surprised her by getting out too. “I’ll come home in an hour or so,” he told her as he kissed her through the car window. He then followed John into his house. Now she sat at the kitchen table waiting for Paul to come over and explain what the hell was going on. It had been a little over an hour, and while Paul had never been the most time-conscious of husbands, he rarely had made a specific promise and not kept it. Just as she had this thought, she heard Paul approaching through the dining room. 

“Hey, baby, there’s hot water for tea on the aga,” She said casually, trying to hide her rampant curiosity. 

Paul grabbed a teacup, and did the usual ministrations to it, and then sat down across the kitchen table from Linda. “That was a quick trip, wasn’t it?” Paul asked her, his eyes dancing with understated amusement. 

“So, don’t just sit there. Tell me what happened! It’s killing me!” Linda’s curiosity got the best of her.

Paul laughed with affection. “It’s no big mystery. It’s just the usual John and Paul nonsense,” he chuckled. “I thought he was through with me, and he thought I was through with him, and both of us too stupid or too proud to pick up the phone and be the first one to say it.” 

Linda smiled. Paul was being very charming and funny, but Linda had seen the naked pain in his face when she had kissed him goodbye at the airport just the other day. “What was John up to? I know you thought he was going out a lot, and maybe doing drugs.” 

Paul sighed, and a more serious expression came over his face. “Yeah, well... I’m pretty sure he was whooping it up, that’s for sure. I haven’t really got into the weeds yet about the drug use. Hopefully his therapist will talk sense to him.” 

“I really don’t want him to be doing serious drugs around James,” Linda said firmly. “I’m assuming you’re making that clear to him?”

Paul felt a little defensive for John, but managed to overcome that feeling because he agreed with Linda about protecting James. “I get what you’re saying. I’m not wanting him to do drugs other than pot at all, but it is something his therapist will have to help with, because if I tell him to stop he’ll just do it more to show me who's boss.” Paul chuckled a bit at his own comment. 

Linda shook her head. “You’re both mental, you know that, don’t you?” 

Paul laughed and squeezed Linda’s hand. “I think that eventually I’m going to have to break down and go back to that therapist with John,” he said in a low voice, and then he held his breath as he awaited Linda’s response to this revelation.

Linda was surprised, but managed to hide it. “Well, Paul, if you’re sure that will be okay for you. Last time...”

“Last time I let it get to me. This time it will be all about John. For whatever reason, he needs me to be there with him, and I shouldn’t have shut that down. But I really don’t want to start until after the tour ends. I don’t think it is something we can do long distance.” Paul looked and sounded like a man who had decided to turn himself into the police. He obviously didn’t want to do it, but had come to the conclusion that there was no other option available to him. 

Linda hoped that this whole therapy thing would end well for Paul.

 

*****

 

“So, John. What are you doing here?” Dr. Sid was leaning against a cabinet, with his arms crossed, regarding John, who was sitting on the examination table. 

“Just need a check up,” John muttered. He was struggling with an inner voice that wanted to get up and scram. 

“And I didn’t even have to call you endlessly for several months to persuade you to come in? Somehow I’m finding that hard to believe.” Sid had a smart-ass expression on his face.

“I don’t know why I bother with you, Sid. Your bedside manner sucks.” 

“You’ve said that before, if I recall correctly. But you still haven’t said. Why. You’re. Here.”

John sighed heavily. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Of course it is,” Sid deadpanned. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” 

“Having to do with my ass.” John continued, while trying to make light of it so he wouldn’t be overcome with humiliation.

“So you finally did get a sex toy stuck up there, did ya? Or is it a gerbil?”

“Haha, very funny, Sid. No, I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I shoved a gerbil up there.”

“That’s what Richard Gere said, I understand...”

“It’s not a gerbil,” John chuckled.

“Well, if it’s not a gerbil, it has to be something less embarrassing, right? So what’s wrong with your ass, John?” His voice was not unkind. 

“Well, it happened during sex,” John admitted.

Sid knew about John and Paul’s relationship, but surely (he thought) they were very familiar with each other’s sexual limits after all this time. “So what happened?”

“The bloke who was fucking me got out of control, and I got hurt.” 

The bloke? Sid would have thought John and Paul had broken up, if he hadn’t seen Paul in the waiting room just moments earlier. “John, just tell me the whole story. This 20 questions thing is fun, but I haven’t got all day.” Sid was keeping it light in order to make John’s disclosures easier on him.

“I was in New York on my own for a few weeks. I had a one-night stand. The sex got out of hand, and I’ve been sore ever since. I mean, really sore.”

“Describe the soreness.”

“It feels like an ache deep inside, and it really hurts.”

“Have you had any rectal bleeding?”

“No. Well, maybe a few traces of blood in my crap, but I thought it was because the BMs were so painful...” John said. 

Sid felt terrible. How horrible for Paul! Did Paul have any idea why John had come to his office? If so, why on earth would he come with him? Sid was straight, but he could analogize to his wife. If she’d done something like that, he’d have let her go by herself to the fucking doctor’s office! Sid signed heavily. There was a lot in John to admire, but there was a lot to despair of, as well. “Did your...partner...wear a condom I hope?”

“Yes. But he came inside me, and I’m a little worried that maybe the condom failed?” John’s face expressed genuine worry. “Could I have a STD?”

“Well, we’ll do some tests for sexually transmitted diseases before you go, just to be sure,” Sid said. Then he snapped on some surgical gloves. “Ok, John, let me take a look.”

Reluctantly, John got up from the table and unzipped his pants, turned around, and pulled his pants down. He leaned over the examination table.

“You’ll need to spread them further than that,” Sid said.

John painfully complied. He was already anticipating the pain. Consequently, he was biting his lip, holding his breath, and coaching himself not to jump to the high heaven when he felt the first touch. This did not escape Sid’s notice.

A few moments later Sid said, “Okay. I do see redness, and a few abrasions around your anal sphincter. But it is clear to me that it is too tender for me to examine you further without at least local anesthesia.” With that pronouncement, Sid stood upright again.

John did the same and quickly re-zipped his pants. He turned around to face Sid again, his face worried. “What’s wrong, Doc?” He asked, his voice tremulous. 

Sid felt bad. John didn’t call him ‘doc’ often, so he must really be scared. Sid smiled. “It’s probably just sore. There may be an interior tear or infection, and so it will require an anoscope to check it out.”

“What’s an anoscope?” John asked.

“Oh,” Sid said expansively, allowing a ‘mad scientist’ look to come over his face, “you would know it as an ‘anal probe.’”

John chuckled at Sid’s face. But then: “Will it hurt?” 

“I will make arrangements for you with a gastroenterologist, and you will be anesthetized, so you won’t feel a thing. But you will have to drink a boatload of yukky tasting bowel cleanser tonight.” 

“Are you sure this is necessary?” John asked. He wasn’t liking the sound of these plans. 

“John, the thing is, if you only had bruises and abrasions, you’d be a little raw on the outside, but it should have healed in 2 weeks if there wasn’t something else going on. And you shouldn’t have the kind of soreness inside that you tell me about. I’m thinking it may be an infection, and if I’m right, you will need medication.” Sid also worried it might be a tear in the anal tissue - a fissure. “So, can I have my assistant set you up for a procedure tomorrow?” Sid had turned his back to John and was washing his hands.

John looked worried. “Can you ask Paul to come in here?” He asked. This was a sincere request; there was nothing of the tough guy about John any more. 

“Sure. I’ll get him.” Sid walked down the hall towards the waiting room. He felt awkward. Talk about fissures! He felt as though he had been a witness to a personal fissure in the two men’s relationship. He opened the door and gestured Paul in.

“What’s up?” Paul asked, as the door closed behind him. “Is he okay?” 

“He needs a procedure in order to see what is going on inside. He is in far too much pain for me to do a rectal exam right now.”

Paul looked worried. “John is kind of a wimp when it comes to pain. I guess I was hoping he was dramatizing the whole thing.” 

Sid chuckled. “I know what you mean, but I believe he is genuinely in internal pain.”

“What could it be?” Paul asked. “That is, if you can tell me.”

“I’ve got John’s medical waiver for you, so yes, I can talk to you. Let me just say that there are a few possibilities, since I don’t see a hemorrhoid from the visual inspection. It could still be a hemorrhoid, but unlikely. But there is no serious rectal bleeding. We’ll need a stool sample, by the way, and I’m going to take some blood for tests. But I am thinking it could be an infection in the rectum, or perhaps a tear in the anal liner.”

“Good God!” Paul responded. “From a dry fuck you can tear your anus?” He couldn’t believe it. 

So Paul did know about John’s extracurricular activities. But he seemed pretty sanguine about it, if Sid did think so himself. “The answer to your question is: yes. Anyway, John wanted to talk to you about the procedure. He’s waiting for you.” Sid watched as Paul entered the examining room. He would never understand those two as long as he lived. Shaking his head, he wandered over to the nurse’s station to give her instructions about the blood and stool tests.

Meanwhile, Paul entered the examining room, and saw a dejected John swinging his legs from the height of the examining table. He looked up as Paul closed the door.

“Hey, Paul,” John said in a dull voice. He looked worried and guilty. 

“John...Sid says you want to talk to me?” Paul moved towards John, and stood directly in front of him, his hands on John’s shoulders.

“They want to shove an anal probe up my ass!” John declared with indignation.

Paul couldn’t help it; he laughed. And then he laughed some more. “I’m sure it won’t be nearly as invasive as the stuff you’ve had shoved up there before,” he quipped, his eyes dancing with mischief. 

“Yeah, yeah,” John half-chuckled, acknowledging the hit in remarkably good humor. “So what do you think? Should I do it?”

“Of course you should, you daft ass! You won’t feel a thing; you’ll be out of it.” 

“He said I’d have to drink some nasty drink tonight,” John grumbled.

“Sorry ‘bout that mate, but don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” 

John looked up sharply to see Paul’s face. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?” John asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, I guess I am,” Paul said evenly. “If I’d done this, wouldn’t you be pissed?” 

John blinked several times and then sat there in silence with this unwelcome truth for a few seconds before saying, “So is this going to be a ‘thing’ between us forever?” 

Paul sighed. “I doubt it. You’ve said it to me before - I can’t stay mad at you.” Paul removed his hands from John’s shoulders, and brought one of his hands up in order to examine his fingernails. “But the main thing right now is to get you better. Then we can deal with the aftermath.” 

John felt anxious, and he hated feeling anxious. And part of him was feeling like Paul had pulled a bait and switch on him. In the past, Paul had never been this matter-of-fact about John’s various stupid mistakes. He’d just brushed them off as if they didn’t even touch him. Of course, as he had these thoughts, John didn’t point out to himself that he had been clamoring for Paul to be honest with him about his feelings. No doubt it would take Fiona to point that out to him - but that would be later. 

“So let’s tell Dr. Sid to set you up, okay?” Paul asked. John nodded his assent, and Paul went down the hall to talk to Sid’s assistant.

 

*****

 

The procedure went without a hitch, of course, and Paul waited in a private staff meeting room inside the clinic so that he wouldn’t be the sinecure of all eyes in the busy waiting room. John had been fit in as an emergency case. Of course, the night before Paul had listened to John’s endless complaints about not being able to eat or drink, and then to his endless dry vomits each time he took a drink of the gross liquid he’d been given. In a way, Paul was pleased about the nasty liquid and the anal probe. Serves him right, he’d told himself several times. Of course, he was smart enough not to say that out loud. 

Dr. Sid had come to the clinic to consult with the doctor who had conducted the rectal exam under a local. She had thoroughly briefed Dr. Sid on the results before Paul was invited in to her office. John was too high on the valium they had given him to participate in the meeting, and was instead sleeping off the drugs on a cot in the recovery room.

“There are a few fissures in the anal canal,” the doctor explained to Paul. “There is also some redness. I see no signs of any infection.”

“So what’s the treatment?” Paul asked.

“Time, mainly,” she answered. The woman was East Indian, and had a beautifully precise delivery. “80% of fissures fix themselves within 6 weeks or so. Mainly, we try to relieve the symptoms with stool softeners and diet.” The doctor handed Paul a list of instructions. “The one remaining issue is that once a patient has suffered from fissures, the likelihood of recurrence is increased to about 70%.”

Paul wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. He looked to Dr. Sid who winked at him. That wink told him that Dr. Sid would explain it all to him later. And indeed, as they left the clinic, Sid said, “No anal sex, Paul. Not for weeks. Not until it entirely heals.”

Paul had expected this, although it was kind of embarrassing to have Dr. Sid talk to him about it so openly. He hid his embarrassment and said, “I don’t think that will be a problem. John shrieks at the very thought of it...”

Sid laughed. “I’ll bet he does. What a pussy!” 

Paul then went to get John. He had managed to put his clothes on, but his shirt buttons were all wrong. Paul undid the buttons and then buttoned them properly. John was way too happy for a man who’d just had a probe up his butt. He was also a little too affectionate. Too affectionate, because they were in quasi-public, with only curtains to separate them from the other inhabitants, with the risk that a nurse might suddenly yank the curtain aside and come barging in. 

Despite all this, Paul managed to get the artificially happy, good-natured John into the car park, where the limousine driver was waiting for them. Soon they were on their way back to John’s house. Halfway there, John turned to Paul and was trying to give him kisses. “I looovvvve you Paaauuul...” he drawled.

“I love you too, John,” Paul said in a low voice, looking nervously towards the front of the car. He had put up the glass barrier, and theoretically the driver shouldn’t be able to hear anything they said. But Paul was overly cautious by nature. 

“Give me a kissss, baabeee,” John begged, making kissing sounds in the air around him.

“When we get home, I’ll kiss you all you like,” Paul said, trying to divert John with his flip cell phone. There was a game on it, and Paul turned it on. John grabbed the phone and began clumsily pushing buttons. Paul smiled. It reminded him of when his children were babies. Just hand them a watch, or some car keys, and the babies would entertain themselves for several minutes at a time. 

It was just as they were driving up the mews to John’s back door that John said, “I’m such a fuck up, aren’t I?” Now his eyes were filled with tears. The drug-enhanced emotions were making a 180-degree turn, apparently. 

Paul didn’t answer, he just helped John out of the car, thanked the driver and waved him off, and then unlocked the back door, while leading in and setting him at the kitchen table. He then went back and locked the kitchen door. Now all he had to do was get John comfortable on the sitting room sofa. After he tucked a blanket around John, he sat down on the edge of the sofa and said, “Can I get you anything, John?”

“Just sit here with me, Paul. Tell me you don’t hate me.” Now tears were rolling down John’s cheeks. 

Paul smiled, and softly wiped the tears away, off John’s face. “I don’t hate you, Johnny. I could never hate you.” He kissed John on his forehead, and a beatific smile covered John’s face. John closed his eyes, and within moments was sound asleep.


	52. Chapter 52

John was relaxing at his home, and Paul was waiting on him hand and foot because of John’s soreness. John occasionally (but only very occasionally) felt twinges of guilt. If he hadn’t insisted upon “cruising”, which was just a short way of saying “cheating on steroids,” he would not be in the position of having to be nursed, and Paul - the victim of the “cruising” - wouldn’t have to be caring for him so assiduously. The fact that perhaps he was exaggerating his level of suffering of course didn’t penetrate John’s thoughts. However, the irony of it all wasn’t wasted on John. Lately his guilty conscience had been intruding on him at inopportune moments. It would say in a very sinister voice: You are not a worthy friend to Paul. What’s worse, in a week they had to restart their tour, beginning in London. Because of his healing wounds, John was going to find performing - not to mention the traveling that would follow after the London show - very uncomfortable.

If there had been one thing he had learned over the last several months, it was that Paul was his best friend. Paul had his back. No matter what happened - no matter how John had betrayed him in tiny and great ways - Paul was there to right the boat afterwards. Clearly, John had one true friend - just the one. So why was he so suspicious of Paul’s motives? Ninety-nine percent of the time the two men had known each other Paul had acted in concert with John’s interests. Of course, there was that time in 1969 - 1971 when Paul had fought John tooth and nail over their financial interests, but other than that John could not think of a single instance where Paul had put his own interests before John’s. In truth, if one were 100% honest, even then Paul had John’s best interests at heart, seeing as how Paul knew that Klein was a crook and an incompetent.

The true weight of what had happened to him on that reckless “cruise” with Brad had begun to fall in on John. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking! What was wrong with him? Something in his head was really fucked up. He knew he had to enlist Fiona’s help in figuring it out. John had taken Paul’s love and respect for granted for so long, he had convinced himself that there would never be an end to that love and respect. But now, as he allowed himself to stew in his deep insecurities, he had begun to wonder if he kept up his self-destructive behavior, would he discover exactly where the boundary of Paul’s love and respect ended? And if it did, John knew with full certainty that it would be his own fucking fault. John told himself in that moment that he was not going to push Paul to be someone he wasn’t, and he wasn’t going to act out in self-destructive ways to force Paul to give more of himself and to force him to reduce his time with his family more than what was reasonable. In that moment, John swore a sacred oath to himself that he would clean up his act. Of course, John had made many such promises in the past. Only time would tell if this one would stick.

Paul, of course, was oblivious to all of John’s angst, and even if he had known about John’s promise he wouldn’t have trusted it as far as he could throw it. Anyway, Paul had his own angst to worry about. While he told himself that his main concern was John’s recovery, it hadn’t escaped his notice that John was probably overdoing his misery at this point. In the past, Paul had never allowed himself to be overly jealous of John when it came to sex. Paul hadn’t felt he had a sole possessory interest in John as a lover, right from the start. But some new ugly thought inside his mind was like a worm, turning. It was natural for two men in their twenties not to be sexually exclusive, but maybe that model did not work for men in their fifties. And of course, Paul could get very jealous very quickly if anyone tried to move in on John on a creative level. In any case, whatever the reason, Paul was having trouble this time not holding a grudge about this latest stunt of John’s. He had tried to convince himself that the episode was another one of John’s self-destructive ideas gone typically awry, but still - relentlessly - the worm turned. Paul thought of himself, to his conscious mind at least, as “selfless” when it came to John. He didn’t know that this was a fault of his; nor until recently did he know that maybe there were other, darker feelings buried deep within him. He had early on defined himself as John’s knight in shining armor, and a good amount of his sense of self-worth was bound up in this image. He had always felt - from the very first moment they met - that being John’s friend was not going to be a smooth sail. He had worked consistently over all these years to prove to John that he could be trusted, but John had either failed to notice, or did not value Paul’s loyalty, so it was the endless case of puppy chasing tail. Paul had actually finally begun to wonder how far he would allow himself to be pushed into the role of hopeless, bumbling trigger of John’s sense of guilt and pain.

All of these thoughts had begun to intrude after that last therapy session with Fiona months earlier. John’s comments at the therapy session had taken Paul completely by surprise. Paul had recently begun to allow himself to think about that moment in 30-second installments. Any longer than that and he’d start feeling anxious again. The thought would come into focus in his mind, as if he were adjusting a lens to a photo subject, clicking the shot, and then pushing that moment into the back of his mind. Maybe later he’d take the photo out and look at it again.

“Paul!!!”

Good lord, Paul thought, jumping at the sound. He sounds like an elephant in heat. But he got up from the kitchen chair where he’d been having a quiet cup of tea, and followed the bellowing into the sitting room, where John was ensconced on the sofa like the queen of Sheba. “You rang, sir?” Paul razzed, in a deeply obsequious accent.

“I’m hungry. Do we have any of that lasagna left over - the one Linda brought over yesterday?”

“Yes, sir, I believe we do,” Paul trumpeted, as he stood there like an upper class butler.

“Shut the fuck up Jeeves, just bring me my food.” John responded jokingly. Paul laughed as he turned to leave, but John halted him with a second thought. “Actually, Paul, I think you would have made a fantastic butler in one of those aristocratic households. Think of all those people you’d get to boss around! You’d have that house spinning on a dime, and you’d probably be bedding the lady of the house on the side!”

Paul shook his head in bemusement as he went in to the kitchen to warm up the lasagna. He wasn’t quite sure why John couldn’t do this himself. After all, Dr. Sid had said it was a self-healing injury, and would get better very quickly. He had even suggested that John move around regularly. It wasn’t that Paul begrudged John the time and effort; but maybe John was enjoying this recovery a little too much. He decided to set the lasagna out on the table, and John would have to move his butt into the kitchen to eat. There was, after all, a specially designed cushion on John’s kitchen chair. It looked kind of like a misshapen donut. John ought to put it to use at least once before he didn’t need it anymore.

“John - the food’s ready!” Paul shouted.

“So - where the fuck is it?”

Paul had to hold back the belly laugh. After he regained control, he responded cheerfully, “It’s on the kitchen table - waiting for you!”

“Paul! I don’t want to get up. It hurts!”

Stifling another laugh, Paul went into the sitting room. “Here, I’ll help you get up, but once you’re up you’re on your own,” he said.

“Is this your way of saying you aren’t going to wait on me anymore?” John grumbled, as he slowly moved his legs towards the side of the sofa. In truth, he really wasn’t that sore anymore. He guessed his days of wine and roses were over.

“No, this is my way of saying that the food is on the table in the kitchen,” Paul laughed, as he took John’s hands and pulled him to a standing position. “Now you’ll have to walk on your own, because I’m not gonna do the fireman’s carry.”

“Ooooh, but that sounds heavenly, darlin’,” John lisped.

“See ya in the kitchen, John. Speed up a bit, because the food is gettin’ cold,” Paul allowed his ass to sway as he sashayed back into the kitchen.

Well if that ass isn’t motivation, what the hell is? John decided, as he began to walk stiffly in Paul’s direction.

 

*****

 

The band had been excited to see each other again when they’d met for rehearsals. Even John eventually showed up for 2 hours on the last day of rehearsal. He seemed to be moving awkwardly, but no one wanted to ask him what was up. Of course, this polite silence was broken when awkward Brandon suddenly asked, “Did you break your hip or something?”

“My hip?” John asked. What a random question!

“Yeah, old people break their hips. My granddad...”

“Oh no, he’s not,” John groaned. He turned to his side and said, “Paul, stop him...” John was looking disgusted, but Paul and the rest of the band were falling around laughing.

“What?” Brandon asked. He didn’t see what was so funny. He had asked a perfectly rational question.

“No, Brandon, I haven’t broken my fucking hip,” John growled. “And I’m not old enough to be your fucking grandfather...” John had to speak loudly to be heard over the howls of laughter coming from the other band members.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Brandon grumbled. “You’re moving weird, is all.”

John’s eyebrows flew up his forehead and almost off his head. He again turned to Paul, who had thus far managed to control most of the peals of laughter that were begging to be released. John’s look said it all: deal with this asshole, now, or I’ll kill him!

Paul wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t thought to himself, you’re the one who insisted on having Brandon in the band, but he allowed that told-you-so moment to pass and said, “Brandon, it isn’t polite to point stuff out like that to your elders. It makes them feel self-conscious. Didn’t your mum teach you that?” This of course caused the other band members to laugh more, although they were making unsuccessful attempts to smother the noises coming out of their mouths.

“Ok, so what’s wrong with him then?” Brandon asked Paul.

“Him? ... Him?” John was amazed at the boy’s brazenness. Now even he was laughing. “Listen, boy, I’d shut up if I were you. Any moment now I’m coming for your throat.”

A few minutes later, John left, dragging Paul with him. Brandon turned to the other band members and said, “I still don’t know why he is walking funny.”

“And you’re never going to know, Brandon, because it isn’t any of your business,” Robbie said.

“Aren’t you curious?” Brandon asked.

“No,” Robbie said. “Now, you and I need to work on that transition leading into Eleanor Rigby again.”

In the car on the way home, John said, “Everyone can see I can barely walk.”

“You’re exaggerating. It’s just like a little limp. You should tell people you pulled your shin. It’s no big deal.” Paul was concentrating more on driving than he was on what John was saying. It was rush hour.

“But if I can’t help limping around in rehearsal, what will it be like on stage?”

“Take something for the pain, and then the adrenalin will kick in and you will forget all about it,” Paul said, frowning at yet another red light.

“Until it’s over, at which time I will be in agony...”

Paul finally looked away from the traffic for a short moment and over to John, his eyes alight with mischief. “Oh well, John, if you’re in agony, I guess I’ll just have to employ some extreme measures to make you feel better.”

“You’re too good to me,” John responded flatly, crossing his arms in petulance, and Paul chortled. 

 

*****

 

Paul had wandered over to Cavendish after making John comfortable on his throne... er ...sofa again. John had whined a little too much. Paul had collected liquids, plumped pillows, adjusted the television so John could see it better without having to turn his head, and set out a tray full of snacks before John had given him permission to go see his wife. “Only 30 minutes Paul!” was the last thing that rang in Paul’s ears as he headed for the back door.

Yeah, right. I’ll come back when I’m good and ready, Paul told himself firmly. The man had always been needy, but now he was a monster of need. Paul was going on home to Cavendish to get taken care of himself a little bit, before having to return to the lion’s den.

“Well, hello stranger,” Linda, chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, said in a smoky voice as Paul walked in, her smile (she couldn’t help it) a little wicked. “So your master let you free for an hour?”

“Ha ha, funny. Very funny. And no, it’s only 30 minutes, thank you very much.” Paul’s downtrodden expression was too funny, and Linda bent over in deep laughter.

“He’s really putting you through your paces, Paul,” she finally was able to say between giggles. “I’ve never seen you work so hard!”

“That’s not fair, Lin,” Paul laughed. “You didn’t know me when Brian Epstein was putting us through our paces.”

The phone rang, and Paul moved to answer it.

“Paul, it’s Neil.”

“Neil! What’s up man?”

“Today I heard from George Harrison’s new manager.”

“Oh?”

“You’re not going to believe this. George is considering changing his mind about The Anthology.”

Paul’s eyes rolled up in his head and he sighed heavily. “So what - he is considering changing his mind, or he has changed his mind?”

Neil felt the wind come right out of him. He’d thought it was great news. “I thought the fact that he was thinking about it was good news.”

“So George is considering reconsidering. Fine. Let me know when he has finally decided. I really don’t have time for his drama right now. I’ve got a full-on melodrama going on down the alley with John already.”

“What is up with John right now?”

“He’s having some man troubles, Neil, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh.” That was frank, Neil thought. He really didn’t know what else to say. “You mean, the kind of stuff that happens to men when they get older?”

Paul decided to lie. “Yeah. So let’s keep it on the down-low, shall we?”

“Of course! Well, anyway, I’ll let you know when I have an answer from George.”

Paul laughed. “Sorry to rain on your parade, Neil, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

“So what was that all about?” Linda asked, although she had kind of figured it out from just Paul’s end of the conversation.

“It was Neil. It seems his Majesty, King George, is considering reconsidering doing the Anthology. I am sure he will release periodic news releases to provide us with the status of his ruminations.”

“That’s unusually sharp for you, Paul. You usually make excuses for George’s bad behavior.”

“That’s my problem generally, luv. I make excuses for just about everybody’s bad behavior. You’d think once in a while they’d return the favor.”

Linda stopped her chopping and turned to face Paul. “That is one of the most honest and mature things you’ve ever said to me. I’m glad to hear you have realized this.”

Paul hadn’t meant to say anything honest and mature. It had just slipped out by accident. “Realize what?” He asked.

Linda put her hand on her hip, and leaned against her other arm, which was on the kitchen counter. “You’re going to stand there and act like you didn’t just say that you let your close ‘friends’ take total advantage of you?”

Paul had noticed the way she had said ‘friends’ - as if she didn’t believe they were really his friends. “What friends are you talking about, Linda?” He asked, his face clouding over.

“Well, let’s start with John, shall we? He treats you like shit, and then just when you’re about to walk away he begs you to come back, and treats you well, and then as soon as he gets comfortable again - just when you’re happy again - he treats you like shit again!” Linda hadn’t expected this indictment to come out, but she had withheld it for so long. She had just gotten to the point where she couldn’t stand to watch it anymore.

“Lin, my relationship with John is private, just like yours with me. I don’t talk about us to him, and I don’t think I should talk about him with you.”

“Well, that’s just stupid. If you want to vent about me to John, knock yourself out! But if I have something I have to say about anyone - John, George, whoever - then I’m going to say it, and you’re my husband and you should hear me out.”

Paul was taken aback by this outburst. To him, it seemed to come from out of nowhere without any warning whatsoever. “You sound mad at me, Lin. Are you upset about all the time I’ve spent with John?”

Linda’s eyes grew twice their size and she stared at him with a stupefied expression. “Yeah!” She said. “What happened to the 50/50 deal? He isn’t happy unless he has you at his beck and call all the time, Paul. If he treated you right, I might be able to understand why you put up with it, but since at least 50% of the time he is actively cruel to you, I’m having difficulty with it.”

Paul moved back to the kitchen table and sat down. His mouth hung open a little in a kind of stunned surprise. Linda watched this closely. It was unusual for Paul to walk towards an argument instead of away from it. She forced herself to calm down, and walked to the kitchen table and sat down too. She folded her hands in front of her on the table, leveled a firm but encouraging look at him, and waited.

Paul was nervous. He let his fingers tap rhythmically on the table before he finally found it possible to say anything. “Lin, I think I need to tell you something.” 

 

*****

 

The crowd was excited and there was a lot of chatter. Music was blaring and people were drinking. It was the Lennon & McCartney concert, and everyone who was anyone in England was there. It didn’t matter if they really weren’t into the music, although most of them were. It had to do with being seen attending the hottest concert of the year. Paparazzi shots of celebrities arriving and/or leaving would be published in the tabloids, and this was a guaranteed free publicity opportunity.

Linda was backstage in the green room with her children. They were excited and excitable. But she was putting on a front for her family. What Paul had told her the previous week had left her feeling gutted for him. She also had a fugitive feeling of sadness for John. What an impossible situation they all had found themselves in. She knew the situation they’d been in for over a decade had been difficult, at times almost unbearable, but she hadn’t really understood or appreciated the backstory: the painful ... stuff ... that had been going on between John and Paul long before she had ever laid eyes on either of them. It made her look at her own relationship with Paul in an entirely different light - a light that she didn’t particularly like. It was a lot for her to digest - not on Paul’s behalf, but on her own.

Backstage and amongst the crowd, Paul kept shooting Linda nervous glances. What had gotten into him? Why had he told her about what happened? Of course, he hadn’t told her everything that had happened - he had left out most of the drama and all of the waterworks - but he had told her enough that she was giving him concerned glances whenever she thought he wouldn’t notice. He had thought he could expose the painful memories to her because she had known all of his other painful secrets, and had loved him through them regardless of how bad they’d made him look and feel. But Paul began to worry that it was poor judgment to have shared this information - about John and him - with her. Paul wished he could concentrate on the upcoming performance, but he had a lot on his mind. In addition to his worries about Linda, John was behaving like a dying swan. For the love of God John had been far braver about the chemotherapy than he’d been about this self-healing injury. He was paranoid that everyone would know the nature of his injury just by looking at him. Paul had a hard time not making a face whenever John went on about it. Like that was the first place people’s mind went: not to, John’s hurt his leg, John’s hurt his hip, John’s got some arthritis acting up. No, according to John, they would go straight to: John has a handful of anal fissures due to a mammoth, out-of-control, fuck up the ass by a gay cruiser. What rubbish!

“Paul!”

Oh lord, there he goes again... Paul suppressed a moan and then turned and headed towards John, who was standing in front of a mirror scrutinizing his makeup.

Paul stood behind John in the mirror, and instead of responding to him, he just raised his eyebrows in inquiry. 

“Do I look drained to you, Paul? I think I look kind of grey, or yellow...”

“Which one is it, John - grey or yellow?” Paul appeared to be studying John’s complexion closely in the mirror as he said this.

John turned to look at him sharply. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Well, grey doesn’t look anything like yellow, does it? It has to be one or the other, right?” Paul’s logical side came out at the most annoying (for John) moments.

John turned back to the mirror. “Yeah, I guess...I think I look grey.”

“John, you look fine. The makeup couldn’t be pinker - anymore pink and you’d look like a fuckin’ lolly!”

John laughed in spite of himself. “You’re a tonic, McCharmly. I guess I’ll keep you around for a while.”

For whatever reason John’s snarky comment didn’t feel right to Paul. As Paul turned away he muttered under his breath, “Assuming I stay around...”

John heard it, and his hands froze in mid air just as he had been about to adjust his hair. He turned to watch Paul walking away. What did he mean by that? He was probably just joking, John told himself. But his confidence had been badly shaken. What had happened to his promise not to take Paul for granted any longer? That promise had barely lived long enough for him to repeat it once out loud.

Soon they were walking on stage in their insouciant, cocky way, but by now the audience was wise to their method of starting their shows...by just walking out without fanfare and then playing the first song, which in tonight’s line-up was the vamp song from Seven Levels, We Knew it Would Be Like This. It had turned out to be the third number one song off the album.

While he sang, John kept catching Paul’s eyes and smiling into them. He’s awfully flirtatious tonight, Paul was thinking as he smiled back and approached John’s microphone to lean in and share it with him. He could feel John’s breath on his face, and Paul had a hard time concentrating on the harmonies and words. John was definitely flirting with him. Heavily. It was in John’s eyes. There was almost a moony kind of look in them, like he was crushing on the very sight of Paul. What’s he up to? Paul wondered. But it was intriguing, and irresistible, and sexually exciting. It was like when they were young, in the clubs, when they played and sang together but all the while they were doing it only for each other. The audience and the other band members had been mere surplusage. They had been entirely unnecessary to the thrill and challenge the two men had shared, matching each other chord for chord and note for note, all the while with eyes snapping, and mouths curving. Linda had asked him, after he’d told her what had happened in the therapy session, why did he put up with John? What did he get out of John that was so special that he continued to behave in such a self-abnegating way? But tonight, with the lights blinding him, and the sound deafening him there was one clear focus: John could make him feel like he was the only special creature on the earth. Who wouldn’t want to feel like that? Even if only every once in a while, and for just moments at a time, it was like being on the top of the world.

The night seemed to fly by, and Paul felt as though he were on a cloud in rock ‘n roll heaven. The harmonies, the timing, the phrasing - he and John were on fire tonight. Paul began to think he might even get an orgasm out of this before the night was gone. There were all kinds of ways they could enjoy each other sexually without involving John’s backside. They were creative, weren’t they?

John, meanwhile, was relieved to see those liquid looks on Paul’s face. Honestly, sometimes he was so like a bright beacon - with those choirboy looks, and wet hazel eyes. Paul still could look unearthly, even now as a man only a month away from his 51st birthday. John had felt himself near a precipice there for a moment, when Paul had made that comment about not staying around, but judging by the smiles and body language coming from Paul tonight, he’d been able to pull them both back from the edge. He’d give Paul the blowjob to end all blowjobs tonight, and he’d get Paul safely back into his orbit again. It was too bad he’d have to give up all the lounging around and being waited upon, not to mention having Paul around all the time, but it wasn’t worth losing Paul over.

John got in the limo with Paul, Linda and James and they headed back to Cavendish. Mary and Stella were going on to nightclubs with their boyfriends, apparently. When they got to Cavendish, Paul got out to walk Linda to the door. They cuddled in the foyer for a few moments before Paul said, “I’ll drop by in the morning to see how you’re doing.” Linda kissed him goodbye, and watched him climb back in the car with John. 

 

*****

 

The car drove around the block and soon John and Paul were piling out. They’d both left immediately after the show, and felt sweaty, with their clothes sticking to them, and so with few words they made their way upstairs, and Paul started the shower. John started peeling his clothes off, looking forward to a little bit of foreplay in the shower. It was the first night he could even think about sex of any kind without making a prune face. Paul had been very patient ever since they returned from New York, but John thought he surely must need some physical affection. If I don’t do it, he’ll turn to Linda...

John slipped into the shower behind Paul, and immediately moved to hug him around his waist from behind. Paul was quite happy with the situation, but he was a bit worried, too. “John, you don’t have to do this. I can take care of my own needs, you know. I’m a big boy now.”

John laughed. “You certainly are!” He leered, as he manhandled Paul’s engorged cock.

Paul laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant you don’t have to do this if it is going to be hard for you.”

“Oh, it is certainly going to be hard for me,” John leered again.

With that Paul threw up his hands, laughed, and said, “I give up!”

“I’ve been waiting to hear those words to come out of your mouth for years, baby,” John leered for a third time.

“Good grief, John, have you been suddenly taken over by the soul of Groucho Marx?” But Paul was laughing, and he was also growing, and John was quite pleased with that. With that, Paul turned around and held John in his arms, and the chuckles died away as passion grew. But Paul’s kisses were gentle, and were placed in sweet places, like John’s forehead and the side of his neck. John melted under these ministrations. Because he was so relaxed, with the hot water flowing down his back, and Paul’s strong arms around him he almost didn’t hear the words Paul whispered in his ear:

“I’m so sorry, babe. I’m sorry about before.” 

 

*****

 

James was making some noise upstairs. Linda could swear James was part gorilla, the way he stomped around, and dropped things, banged on things, even when just moving around his bedroom late at night. But Linda was glad of it after she came downstairs to make herself comfortable for the night. She didn’t want to feel lonely tonight, so she looked through her favorite chick flicks and chose one for the night’s entertainment. Paul had stayed with her the previous night, and had paid for it big time. John must have called over to Cavendish four or five times between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. until he finally, mercifully, must have fallen asleep and so Paul and Linda were finally left alone. In the kitchen, she made herself some herbal tea, and then settled in the comfy sofa in the sitting room to watch her film. But before she hit the start button, she had a lot to think about. She needed to walk through the stuff that Paul had told her the other day when he was in a weak place, because she hadn’t really experienced a free moment since it happened. Paul hadn’t mentioned it to her since then, and seemed to want to pretend it hadn’t happened. She thought back to that conversation:

“Lin, I think I need to tell you something,” he had said. Linda had waited patiently until he found a way to start. “It’s about that day when John and I went to see his therapist. I came back exhausted, remember?”

“Yes, I do,” Linda said. That’s an understatement.

“It got really personal. I’d never had my personal business trotted out like that to be examined and judged in front of a complete stranger. It was awful.”

“Was there anything you got out of it that was positive?” Linda asked.

Paul thought about that. “The first session wasn’t too bad. We solved one of John’s issues.”

“What issue was this?”

“That he wanted to buy the apartment in New York, and spend more time alone there.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted to do it?” Linda asked, trying not to sound too skeptical.

Paul had to think about that too. “Something about learning how to live just by himself.”

“Well, that turned out well, didn’t it? He came back with a leg injury.” Linda couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t one of John’s biggest fans at the moment.

Paul looked down at his hands and said in a low voice, “It wasn’t a leg injury.”

Linda was surprised. “Oh - I just assumed...”

“No,” Paul said softly, shaking his head. Linda stared at him expectantly, and Paul was torn. He felt it would be a terrible betrayal of John to tell Linda. John had made him promise. He decided on keeping his promise to John. “It’s one of those guy things that happens when you get older. I’ll probably be there in a few years myself,” he added with a laugh, as a cover.

Linda smiled. “That has to be an ego blow,” she said. “No wonder he is so secretive about it. But - the whole New York thing - is that still on? Is he going to go back there when the tour is over?”

Paul shook his head and raised his shoulders in a ‘search me’ gesture. “I don’t know.” He looked both sad and irritated.

“So what happened in the second therapy session that was so bad?” Linda asked, almost in a whisper.

“Fiona - the therapist - was talking about how I needed to be able to rely on John, we were talking about that, how John had behaved when we were on the American tour, and John became very upset and kind of turned on me.”

“Turned on you?”

“I asked him what I’d done, and he said it was something I hadn’t done.”

Linda was spellbound. She was also speechless. What hadn’t Paul done for John? From her perspective, he’d done everything for that ungrateful wretch! “What more could you have possibly done for him, Paul? You are always there for him...”

“It wasn’t about us now. It was about when we were young. Before I ever met you.” Paul’s voice was low, and he was watching his hands. Somehow Linda understood that he could tell her about it so long as he didn’t actually look at her.

“O...kaaayy...” Linda said, preparing herself.

Paul heaved a huge sigh. “He said I broke his heart because I was a coward, and the whole time we were together in those years I would never talk to him about it. He said I just shut all mention of it down, and acted like a cold fish.”


	53. Chapter 53

John had done his usual superlative job with his mouth, and Paul was fully sated. He was lying back against the pillows, feeling as if he were floating. He was always so contented when lying next to John after sex. And John seemed to feel the same way. Usually. But not tonight.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question, Paul?” John’s voice pierced the dark.

“Of course not,” Paul said. And at that moment if John had asked for the moon, Paul thought he would have found a way to give it to him.

“Why won’t you consider going to therapy with me again? You said you’re sorry...”

Paul’s heart fell. He feared he had interfered with a hornet’s nest when that soft apology escaped his lips. Now, of course, the damn was leaking, and John was chiseling away on it to create a permanent crack. John wanted the disclosures and apologies to pour down on him, like water.

“John...” he started.

“I’ve been dying to talk to you about it, but you’re so...intimidating...” The words were pouring out of John’s mouth.

“Intimidating?” Paul asked. That surprised him. He’d never ever thought of himself as intimidating. How could he be intimidating with a face like his? 

“Not mean intimidating. But strong, silent intimidating. Like not even a laser could pierce your inner core.”

Paul knew what he wanted to say. But if he said it, more trouble would follow. Sometimes it was easier to be ... well ... strong and silent. Instead, he decided to execute a series of strategic oblique maneuvers. “What do you want to know, John? What specifically do you want to know?” His voice was not angry, but it did sound a little irritated. Somehow the fact that it was dark, and they were lying in each other’s arms made it seem less threatening to Paul.

“When I told you how it felt to me back then, you broke down but you didn’t tell me what made you break down. I would like to know why.”

Paul was silent for at least a minute. He really did not want to have this conversation, because he believed it would get out of control very quickly, and it might go off in a damaging direction. 

“Paul?” John asked. For a moment he thought that Paul had fallen asleep, and he was about to become angry.

“Yeah, I heard,” Paul said softly. “I’m just not good at putting my feelings into words. They just get all jumbled together, and I’m not sure how to separate them out.”

“Well, just say them the way they come, jumbled or not,” John urged gently, running his open palm sensuously over Paul’s chest.

Paul knew he was being played, and in the dark the edges of his lips turned up in an amused smile. But he was quiet.

“What went through your mind when you started crying? I was just telling you how it felt to me; it was just my opinion of what went on. I thought you would tell me where I was wrong, or how it felt to you.” In response, John felt Paul heave a huge sigh. 

“It was all too much, is all. What you said. It hurt so much to hear it. I don’t like to talk about things until I figure out what I’m feeling.” 

“So, you’ve had time to think about it. What have you concluded? It’s been over three months, now.” John’s voice was not aggressive. It was soft and encouraging.

“That’s just it. I don’t know. I don’t know how to respond to what you said. I can only say I don’t remember it that way. It felt different to me than it did to you. You and I must not have been on the same page, and so it makes me wonder - what else did we misunderstand? What else did we get wrong?” 

His was a disembodied voice in the night, in a pitch that was uncharacteristically low and husky. John struggled to recognize it. “What do you remember if it is different from me?” John whispered.

Paul’s voice suddenly shifted into anxiety and frustration. “John - it’s late, I’m exhausted. I can’t talk about this right now. It’s too upsetting just as I’m trying to fall asleep.” 

John began to object, but then decided that it would be counterproductive to do that. He fell backwards on his pillow, and grabbed Paul’s hand, bringing it up to his mouth and kissing it. “Okay, baby, let’s go to sleep.” Paul squeezed his hand back in response.

 

*****

 

It was two days after the London concert, and Paul was doing paperwork in his office at McLen when the phone rang. His accountant was with him, explaining the various expenses, as Paul one by one signed the checks. Since he was going to be on the road for the next six weeks, he decided he should get ahead on some of the business issues. 

“Hello?” Paul asked the telephone receiver. It was the manager. He needed to talk to Paul in private, immediately. Paul asked the accountant to leave and to close the door on his way out. Once he was alone, Paul asked “What is it Frank?” 

“The PR Rep just had a heads up call from the New York Daily News. They wanted a comment from John Lennon.”

Paul’s heart almost stopped in his chest. Now what? “Yesss?” Paul heard himself hiss. 

“They tell us that John’s credit card was used at a New York hotel which caters to a high class gay clientele back in March. They claim to have a photograph of the signed slip.”

Paul’s heart thumped again. But then: “If that had happened, we should have a record of it on John’s credit card statement, right?” His heart was beating heavily, but he felt that there was at least a chance that this was a false rumor. 

The manager was quiet for a moment. “Well, I can’t ask the accountant that question. But you can.” 

Paul felt cold all over. “I’ll call you back, Frank, when I know more.”

“So what should I tell the P.R. Rep to say?”

“Well, he should stall for as long as possible. I’ve got the accountant right outside my office, but he will need to go back to his office and research...”

“Ok. But Paul...I would like us to get out in front of this story if we can, so we need this asap.”

“Understood.” Paul then hung up and stared blankly at the wall in front of him. Oh shit, he thought. This must be the night John went ‘cruising.’ Shaking heavily, Paul made his way to his office door. The accountant was waiting in the anteroom, flirting with the secretary. “Seymour, can we talk for a moment?” Paul asked.

Seymour went back into Paul’s office, but apparently Paul didn’t expect him to sit down. 

Paul met him, standing, just inside the door. His voice was low and engaging. “I need you to do me a quick favor,” Paul said, his hand on Seymour’s shoulder. He was oozing smooth charm.

“Of course.” Seymour was wondering what the hell was going on, but knew better than to ask.

“I need you to get me a copy of all John’s credit card statements from when he was in New York. I need them immediately.” Paul’s voice was not urgent; it was just businesslike, firm. 

“Very well,” the accountant said. “We haven’t finished our other business though...”

“I’m not really into it any more,” Paul said. “You can send me the rest while I’m on tour. But I need that information right away. Can you leave now and get this done as soon as possible?”

Seymour reassured Paul that he would do so immediately and then departed. Paul was left standing in his office, frozen in a lonely kind of shock. 

 

*****

 

Paul knew he had to warn John about the tabloid story, even if it turned out not to be true. The story might be published at any moment. But part of him wanted to wait until he knew the truth before he approached John. However, the accountant had found no credit card statements at all for the time that John was in New York. This had left Paul stumped. He felt he could soften the blow that way. One reason why Paul thought the story might not be true was that he had arranged to have credit cards with fake names on them (approved in advance by the credit company) for both John and himself. So, if it were true, why was John using a credit card with his own name on it? If the rumor turned out to be true, he would have to confiscate that card and then do an investigation to find out who had been stupid enough to give John a credit card with his own fucking name on it, and then he’d fire that idiot! 

Sighing heavily, he pushed himself up off the sofa, and said to Linda, “I’m going to John’s.”

Linda looked up from her magazine. “When will you be back?”

“Tomorrow, to finish packing before John and I leave for Paris,” Paul said firmly. Paul knew that he would have to stay with John all night, after he told him about the gossip he was about to face. He hoped Linda would understand.

Linda decided not to be upset that her husband was abandoning her on the night before he left on a two-month tour. She had seen a lot of Paul in the last several months, and since Paul had been so distracted ever since he got back from the office, she assumed there was an issue that Paul needed to resolve with John. Consequently, she simply shrugged and said, “Say hi for me,” and went back to her magazine.

Paul, hands in pockets and walking slowly, reluctantly made his way down the mews to John’s back door. He fumbled for his key, and then let himself in. He always announced himself as he went in to John’s kitchen by shouting, “John - I’m here!” It wasn’t as if he suspected that John was doing it with someone else, but it seemed rude to just barge in on a person without warning him first. This night, he followed suit.

John was in the sitting room, and was glad to hear Paul’s voice. “In here!” he shouted. The television was on, but it was background noise more than anything else. He had been busy looking at the updated plans for the New York apartment. He happily pushed them aside to make room for Paul. 

Paul plopped down on the sofa next to John, and leaned over to kiss John hello. Then he said, “How’s the project going?” 

John said, “It’s coming. There are so many details, you have no idea.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Paul said in a shamelessly cheerful voice.

John shook his head with a knowing amusement, and asked, “To what do I owe this visit? I thought this would be Linda’s night.”

Paul laughed and said, “It sounds so mechanical when you say that: ‘Linda’s night.’”

“Well, we are leaving for Paris tomorrow,” John pointed out reasonably. 

“Actually,” Paul said, his tone changing from casual to serious in an instant, “I got a call from Frank while I was at the office today. He was giving us a kind of warning about something a tabloid in America says it is going to publish soon.”

John was still. He knew this was harder for Paul than it was for him, if this was a renewal of the gossip about Paul and him. His raised eyebrows encouraged Paul to continue.

“The paper said they had a photo of a credit card receipt used at a...well, the establishment was described as having a ‘high class gay clientele’... and allegedly the credit card had your name on it, and the signature purports to be yours.” Paul let the news out in a steady flow, not wanting the suspense to linger too long. He had been watching John’s face closely, and he knew instantly, from the look in John’s eyes, that the story was true. 

“Oh.” That was all John could manage at the moment. 

“My first question is, do you have a credit card with your own name on it?” Paul’s voice was gentle.

“Yes,” John whispered.

“Where did you get it?” 

“I applied for one on my own when I was in New York. Jason showed me how. It’s an American card,” John said.

“Don’t you have the ones I gave you, that have a fake name on them?”

John did not want to tell Paul that the reason he’d gotten a new credit card was that he didn’t want Paul or his accountant’s staff to know what he was getting up to in New York. John hadn’t thought to use a fake name. Of course, he’d never made any such arrangements before, and didn’t know the nuances. “I can’t remember where those cards are,” John said instead, lying lamely.

“Well, you should have mentioned this to me. If they’re lost, the issuer has to block the account, and reissue the card with a new account number.” Paul felt as though he were talking to a kindergartner. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” John said, looking very small and insecure.

“Not to worry. I’ll cancel them tomorrow, and we’ll get new ones reissued. Why don’t you give me the one you got in New York, and I’ll have a new one reissued with a pseudonym. See, the reason we have fake names on them is so that the tabloids can’t track our expenses and activities. They’re meant to protect our privacy and to keep unscrupulous clerks from stealing our account numbers and ripping us off.” 

“That makes sense,” John said, “Sorry Paul.” 

“We’ll live,” Paul smiled. He knew he had to go on to the second line of inquiry, but he was stalling a little. “Anyway, the second question I have: is it true? Did you use your credit card in such a hotel?”

John looked like a very guilty puppy at the moment, and Paul’s heart went out to him. “I ran out of cash, because I gave it all to that bloke who...” John’s voice petered out.

“The card was used the night that man hurt you?” Paul asked softly.

John shook his head yes, but was staring at his hands.

“I see. By the way - the credit card account - where did you tell the bank to send your statements? The accountant doesn’t have them, and doesn’t know about this account.”

“Statements?” John asked. He had no clue what that meant.

“When you use your card, the credit card company keeps track of it, and then, each month, sends you a bill - called a ‘statement’- which lists all the charges, and tells you how much you have to pay.”

John blinked several times and tried to think. “The only address I put down was Jason and Gerry’s,” he said.

Paul closed his eyes. Crap. That meant that all the statements were piling up in New York, and none of the bills had ever been paid. He would have to call Gerry and ask him to send all the bills to the accountant, and get the bills paid ASAP: one more thing to worry about. But it was not the worst thing he had to worry about.

“So, John, we have to decide what to tell our PR Rep about this, if anything.” 

John nodded numbly. 

Paul had given it a great deal of thought and had a recommendation. “I suggest we decline to comment, and say we never comment on tabloid stories, period. That way we’re not denying it, but we’re not admitting it. What do you think, John?”

“Sounds about right,” John mumbled. Truly, he was deeply embarrassed and ashamed that it had come to this. Now people at McLen would probably know about what he had done. 

Paul was reading John’s face and body language, and so put his arm around John’s shoulders, while leaning his face down until his forehead touched John’s. He said softly, “John, it’s spilt milk. We’ll just wipe it up and move on. In a week it will be yesterday’s news. Don’t worry about it.” Paul knew that of course John would worry about it; he, Paul, would also worry about it. But it was just one more of those ‘oh-no’ moments associated with being famous, and Paul had long since come to terms with the pitfalls of fame. You simply had to hold your head up, and keep moving. 

To that end, Paul sat back and spoke in a louder, more normal tone of voice. “So, John, what can I do to help keep this off your mind tonight?”

John was now able to laugh and say, “I do have a few ideas.”

 

*****

 

The next day they were in Amsterdam, preparing for their second concert of the European tour. Paul had been on the phone numerous times, hunkered over in various corners and speaking in a hushed voice. John assumed that he was dealing with the aftermath of the whole credit card debacle. He had no idea why it was taking so much time, however. Little did he understand that all of his credit card accounts had to be closed, and new ones reissued with a pseudonym, and bills had to gathered up and quickly paid, and press representatives and the management team had to be briefed and consulted, and Linda and the children had to be warned, and so did Sean and Julian ... Paul just stepped in and took care of all this as if it were his lot in life (as it was), because John did not understand the repercussions that could flow from a single error in judgment. But if Paul had tried to tell him what all he had to do, John would have felt upset and guilty, to be followed quickly thereafter with anger over having to feel upset and guilty. 

No sooner did Paul finally peel himself away from the telephone, than it was time to leave for sound check. Because John was still feeling residual guilt over the whole credit card nightmare, he decided it would be best to show up for sound check too, in a show of solidarity with Paul. And Paul was grateful to have John’s company. It was always more fun having John around. Consequently, sound check went well, and Paul always felt so much younger, freer, and happier when he was on a stage playing music with other musicians. It was his favorite thing in the world, bar none. John saw Paul’s mood lift as if it were a dark cloak coming off him, drawn by a string from above. This made John’s heart sing, because a happy, confident Paul was John’s favorite thing in the world, bar none.

During rehearsals in London in the past week, Paul had persuaded John to practice an old Everly Brothers song called ‘Devoted to You’ in order to practice their close harmony. It required both of them to sing in perfect two-part harmony throughout the entire 2 ½ minute song. They had added this song to their sound check repertoire, and when they began to sing it that day, neither John nor Paul noticed that the entire stadium had come to a complete halt. The roadies had stopped working, the managers had come out of their cubbyholes, the security personnel were transfixed, and even the band members stood reverently by, because John and Paul were accompanying themselves on acoustic guitars and thus didn’t need their services. Neither John nor Paul noticed this had happened, because they were entirely wrapped up in each other’s eyes and mouths, as they watched for signals to know how to set each note in perfect harmony. There was also deep affection showing in their eyes as they sang the simple words of the song, but neither man knew how beautiful the sound nor how touching the picture they made for those lucky souls who were there. 

 

Darling, you can count on me  
‘Til the sun dries up the sea  
Until then I’ll always be  
Devoted to you

I’ll be yours through endless time  
I’ll adore your charms sublime  
Guess by now you know that I’m  
Devoted to you

I’ll never hurt you  
I’ll never lie  
I’ll never be untrue  
I’ll never give you reason to cry  
I’d be unhappy if you were blue

Through the years my love will grow  
Like a river it will flow  
It can’t die because I’m so  
Devoted to you

 

When the song came to a close, there was a hush for several seconds until John and Paul seemed to come out of a trance, and at which time everyone went immediately back to work. No one applauded. Somehow, what they had just witnessed was too personal for that. Clapping would have been crass under the circumstances. They all just felt privileged to have been there. 

After sound check, John and Paul lingered in the backstage dressing room with band members and laughed and talked about their tour memories. They were in great spirits, and the band could tell they were going to have a fantastic show. 

Soon they were strolling on to the stage to tumultuous applause. Paul always felt it was a miracle that people were still applauding for him after all these years, and John always felt tremendously relieved for the same reason. Still, you couldn’t tell this by their nonchalant and supremely confident joint presence. They stood there in the spotlight like a single unit with two parts acknowledging the applause with relaxed smiles. All that followed that night was magical. Maybe the gods were giving them this night to compensate them for what was to come.

 

*****

 

The shit storm hit the next day. John and Paul had awakened, lunched, and had gotten on a plane to fly to Berlin for their next show. While they were on the plane, the New York Daily News hit the newsstands. Within moments the press agencies had picked up the top story and were sending it electronically to all of their associated news outlets. 

Consequently, by the time the plane landed, there was a huge crowd of clamoring reporters, cameras, and photographers waiting for them. Before they could deplane, however, their tour manager Timothy (who had preceded them to Berlin) rushed on to the plane. John and Paul were surprised to see him, especially because he looked very distressed, as if his hair was on fire. 

“What is it?” Paul asked, worried.

“The story’s out. The press is out in force. They’re going to be shouting questions to you about it. I’ve arranged for you both to be escorted to an employee corridor, and then to your car. Your press agent told me to tell you to just smile and wave, and pretend you don’t hear what they’re saying.”

“Oh, we’re good at that,” John joked half-heartedly. His heart, however, was beating like crazy.

“Thanks, Timothy,” Paul said softly. 

Robbie, their lead guitarist, having overheard what Timothy said, turned to Paul. “What story is this?”

John blushed and turned away, pretending to be organizing his travel bag. 

Paul said, “You’ll find out soon enough; it’s tabloid crap. We’re not commenting on it.”

“Okay,” Robbie said, worrying that it was something serious having to do with the band or the tour. But he would just have to wait and find out what it was, clearly.

John and Paul left the plane first. Sure enough, they were soon engulfed in a sea of airport security guards, and all around them were shouting reporters and flashing cameras. They gamely smiled and waved and were soon rushed into an anteroom, and later led down several long service hallways until they came out on a runway, where their car was waiting. Then they were whisked away.

Once the car was en route, John turned to Paul and said drily, “I didn’t have to pretend not to hear what they said. I didn’t hear a single word.”

Paul chuckled and said, “Yeah, it just sounded like this great deafening roar. The sound of dozens of reporters screaming the same question at us in different languages all at once.” 

John chuckled too, and nestled in more closely to Paul’s side. He needed Paul’s strength and calm right then, and Paul was providing it to him - in spades. John was thinking about the radio interview he and Paul were scheduled to have the next day before sound check. He didn’t want to go. Maybe they could come up with some excuse to cancel it. He was doubtful that Paul would be willing to cancel it. Paul didn’t cancel anything. They’d have to hospitalize the man to keep him from going on stage if he were puking his guts out, and maybe even then they might have to tie him to his hospital bed! John knew that Paul believed that allowing personal feelings or physical illnesses to interfere with work obligations was unprofessional, and Paul was nothing if not professional. Still, maybe if John asked him to cancel the interview after they had sex he would be successful. Paul always had a hard time saying ‘no’ to him after they’d had sex. 

Paul, too, was thinking of the radio interview. He always thought ahead. But his thoughts were rotating around the question: how do we handle it? It had never occurred to him that they would cancel it, if for no other reason than to avoid the interview would be to encourage the rumors. You had to face these things down, preferably with amused patience and humor. He would have to brainstorm with John over clever jokes to make about the situation, and have them at the ready when the inevitable questions were asked. They’d just have to laugh their way through it, like they’d done so many times before. 

 

*****

 

The headlines were competing with each other to see which one could be the most lurid:

 

John Lennon Caught in Gay Hotel!

John Lennon Pays for Gay Sex!

Where Was Paul, John?

Will Lennon & McCartney Split Up Over Gay Scandal?

John Lennon - Trolling for Gay Sex?

 

“Good heavens,” Frank muttered to himself as he worked his way through the pile of tabloids. “Trolling? That’s a bit harsh.” He told himself out loud. This was just terrible. How was he going to sugarcoat this for his clients? He doubted anything but the truth would work. He eventually hit upon the solution. He had flown to Berlin to be with his clients, so he grabbed the newspapers, put them under his arm, and went to John and Paul’s suite. 

Paul answered the door. He was wearing a striped blue and white terrycloth bathrobe, and his hair was wet. Obviously, just out of the shower. He also had a phone to his ear and looked to be in crisis handling mode. Paul nodded to Frank and gestured for him to come in, and went back to his phone conversation.

“Yes, I know John...Believe me, we’re getting hit from all sides...We’re just declining to comment... But it doesn’t matter if it is true or not, we’re just not commenting...Wait - Frank is here, I’ve got to talk to him and I’ll call you back.” He hung up.  
“That was John Eastman,” Paul said. “He’s getting inundated with press calls.”

Frank nodded sympathetically. “Me, too.”

Paul chuckled in a weary kind of way. “Poor you.”

“I brought what I’ve collected thus far,” Frank said, dumping the newspapers on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Where’s John?” He asked, looking around.

“John’s asleep. This is all too much for him,” Paul said.

“We have a radio interview tomorrow,” the manager said. “Do you want me to cancel it?” 

“That’s the worse thing we could do! Before he fell asleep, John asked me if we could cancel, but to do so would be to act as if we are afraid to face the press. We’re just going to have to tough our way through it.” Paul sat down, and began to flip through the newspapers, making disgusted faces at the various headlines. “It never ceases to amaze me how low these blokes will stoop,” Paul grumbled. 

“Indeed,” Frank said. “So what are you going to tell the reporters?”

“I told John to use that wicked sense of humor of his. He was a little dubious, but I know him. When the moment comes, the right asshole remark will just fly out of his mouth, and we’ll all be cracking our ribs laughing at it. That, by itself, will get rid of the legitimate press, and then the rest of ‘em will eventually get bored and go on to the next story.”

Frank was watching Paul’s face as he made these comments. He had always liked and respected Paul, although he feared him a little too because he was a perfectionist and extremely direct in his management style. But Frank had never had as much respect for Paul as he did in that moment. This had to be hard for him. Frank knew about the credit card account, and he knew the rumor was true. He also had long since accepted that John and Paul were lovers. How horrible for Paul to have to clean up this mess for John, after John had so blatantly cheated on him - especially in such a tawdry way. And yet, Paul was calm, assertive, objective and determined to protect John from himself. It seemed almost...well...selfless, and Frank doubted that he could ever love someone enough to be this strong and true to a lover who had cheated on him. Paul was clearly loyal to John, all the way to the very sinews of his soul.

“What can I do to help?” Frank finally asked.

Paul smiled warmly at Frank. “It will be okay, trust me. I’ve been through shit storms like this so many times, I’ve lost count - it always seems worse when you’re in it. Later, you wonder why you were so upset. The main thing I need is for you to act like this is just a ridiculous annoyance, no matter who you are dealing with, and especially with the people who work for us.”

“Ok, Paul, I’ll be going now.” Frank got up and picked up the newspapers. “I don’t see why John should have to see these, do you?”

“Most definitely not,” Paul agreed gratefully.

 

*****

 

Just outside Liverpool, Mike McCartney was scanning the newspaper headline with poorly masked disgust. Fucking Lennon, he thought to himself. How dare he humiliate Paul in this way? Maybe now his brother would be able to pull himself away from that toxic relationship. 

In the year that had passed since the night Linda had told him that John was Paul’s lover, Mike had little by little forgiven his brother for his weakness, but had built John up as the sole villain. John had preyed on Paul’s weakness. Mike remembered how Paul had been bullied as a kid when he had gained all that weight suddenly. In fact, Mike had been cruel about it himself, and he regretted it. There had been times, in their childhood, when Paul had seemed a bit...well, tentative and, maybe a little...effeminate. Mike shook his head as that word passed through his mind. Not effeminate - just soft. Paul had never been physically brave, and avoided fighting. Bullies had found that worthy of their ridicule for a time. It was hard on Paul, Mike knew, since before he gained the weight he had been extremely popular, and the girls loved him. And after he lost the weight, he was popular and the girls loved him again. But after he lost the weight, Paul had also lost something else. He had lost a big chunk of his self-esteem, and it seemed to Mike that Paul had become too eager to please others, to be liked and accepted by them. 

Given that background, Mike had begun to believe that the teenage John Lennon was the worst possible friend for the 15 year-old Paul - recently bereaved of his mother, very unsure of himself, and only just starting to shed the weight. And then there was John, with his caustic wit, sharp eyes and sharp tongue. Paul had idolized John in those days. How much of himself did Paul sacrifice to that friendship? Clearly, far more than Mike thought was good for him. Even if Paul had taken this wrong road, he was Mike’s brother, and Mike worried that he was in pain now, with yet another one of John’s humiliating betrayals. It was the kind of thing that a man would have a hard time admitting to his wife, so Linda could not be of much help to him at a time like this. Mike began to think that maybe he should reach out to his brother to see if he needed a strong shoulder to cry on. And maybe he could persuade his brother to leave that relationship behind, and go back to his real family fulltime.


	54. Chapter 54

John and Paul arrived at the Berlin radio station 15 minutes early. It was early enough to greet the host and prepare, but not early enough to entertain tricky off-the-record questions or comments. The radio interviewer was a bit of a loose cannon, but he was the most popular DJ in Berlin at the time. The booking was looking a bit like a bad mistake at the moment due to the rampant gossip, but nothing could be done about it now. Humor was their only effective weapon. Almost as soon as they relaxed in their chairs, they were on the air. The DJ spoke English, and the interview was in English. Later, it would be translated into German. 

“So, John, we’re so grateful you could tear yourself away from your other, obviously more important, activities to join us today,” the DJ declared into the microphone. 

John felt his Irish rising up in his throat, but managed to dress his face in a snarky smile. “I had no choice, Hans. My credit card was declined,” he huffed in mock anger. The engineers and the DJ laughed, as did Paul. 

Paul thought, Attaboy Johnny! We’re off to a great start!

“So neither one of you has answered questions about this whole gay hotel thing,” the DJ blundered on.

“We don’t like answering stupid questions,” John said calmly. “We had our fill back in the ‘60s.” 

Paul asked, seemingly apropos of nothing, “I wonder what a gay hotel looks like? I mean - as opposed to a straight one?” 

As the studio engineers laughed, the DJ tried again. “So is it true - have you been cruising for gay hookers in New York, John?”

John drawled, “Only very unsuccessfully.” This was true, in fact. His only ‘cruise’ activity had ended very badly indeed.

“Paul - do you get jealous over John’s sexploits?”

“Only if he leaves me out,” Paul said chirpily. 

The DJ was satisfied with what he’d got so far, and he only had 7 minutes left, so after a brief break, he knew he had to promote the night’s concert. That was the quid pro quo for John and Paul agreeing to the interview. “So what do you have in store for us all tonight at the concert?”

“No gay hookers,” John immediately interjected. Again, everyone laughed. 

Paul said, “Yeah, regrettably, that’s frowned upon. No, we’re just going to do our show. We’re going to have a party. I’m really looking forward to it.”

The DJ continued on, bravely. “The concert is a full sellout. In fact, every concert on your tour is a complete sellout. How does it feel to still be so successful after 30 years?” 

“It feels good,” Paul said simply.

“Yeah, relieved. I’m relieved,” John adds.

“John and I fear every time we announce a tour, that this will be the time when ‘the bubble is burst’, as they used to tell us back when we were in the Beatles. It is like an amazing surprise - a miracle even - every time we’re told the tickets have sold.” Paul was leaning forward with a pleasant, unconcerned look on his face, as if nothing that had happened during the interview had fazed him whatsoever. This emboldened the DJ again.

“One of the rumors buzzing around is that the two of you might split up because of John’s gay cruising.”

Paul laughed. “Oh - I’m used to that. It’s no big deal.” John could be heard giggling in the background. 

“You both seem to be amused by all of this gossip. It doesn’t seem to bother you at all,” the DJ said.

John said, “You can’t take any of this gossip seriously. It would drive you crazy if you did.”

“We’re used to this stuff,” Paul added. “I’m still dealing with people who swear that I’m dead. I’m always having to apologize to people who hate my music: ‘Sorry, luv, I’m not dead yet, and there’s more where that came from.’ How weird is that? We just have to laugh it off and get on with what we love to do - make music and perform it for our fans.”

 

*****

 

Frank was filled with admiration. After he directed the driver to drive them to their hotel (“I hope it’s a straight hotel,” Paul had quipped) he turned to them and said, “You two were magnificent. Perfect! You made everyone look like idiots to believe such gossip.” 

“Some will believe it no matter what I say, some would never have believed it, even if I admitted it, but the ones who were wondering are probably going to stop wondering,” John mused. 

Paul looked sharply at John. He was in complete agreement with John’s assessment, but was surprised by John’s maturity in realizing this undeniable and unavoidable truth. When John met his eyes, Paul smiled at him warmly to let him know he was proud. Paul was very proud of John. He had been superb. All those assholes that wanted to humiliate John could stuff it up their own stinking backsides now!

 

*****

 

“Gute nacht, Berlin,” John oozed into the microphone. The audience went wild. He and Paul had just finished their first three songs to loud enthusiasm. They had both noticed a suspiciously large number of gay-friendly signs in the audience tonight, and were quietly amused by it. It seemed that the gay-hate rumors had backfired, at least with respect to the people who actually bought their music and concert tickets. “So, I’ve got a very important question to ask,” John went on.

Paul looked up from his frets in surprise. John was going off the script. His eyebrows rose up in anticipatory alarm. 

“I want to know where’s the best high class gay hotel in Berlin,” John asked loudly into the mic. Loud cheers, jeers and proffered shouted advice came from the audience for a prolonged period. As the noise died down a little, John added with perfect timing, “No reason ... just curious.” Now the audience was laughing hysterically. Paul was chuckling, his face alive with delight. There was a reason why Paul loved that man!

 

*****

 

They were lounging in bed, and it was very dark in the hotel room. There was an after-sex glow between them, and none of their problems seemed worthy of worrying over at the moment. 

“Babe, thank you,” John suddenly said.

“Well, you’re welcome,” Paul responded with an unseen wink, “But it is really my pleasure. I should be thanking you.”

John chuckled. “I don’t mean for the sex, I meant for today.”

“You didn’t enjoy the sex?” Paul asked with a playful pout in his voice.

“Be serious. I couldn’t have survived this crap without you. You’re fucking amazing. I really don’t deserve you.” John’s voice sounded sincere. 

“What specifically are you thanking me for?” Paul asked softly.

“You’re always there for me, and you give me the strength to face shit that I could not face otherwise.” 

“We’re partners. That’s what partners do.” Paul’s voice was sincere.

John was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “I haven’t been a good partner to you, Paul. Not for the last little while. I think I’m going through some kind of middle-aged crazy thing, where I long for my youth. But when I think about my youth, I can only remember the stress, the fear, the drugs, and how it ended with us. Why would I want to relive all that?”

“Maybe you don’t want to repeat the past. Maybe you want to do it over, but with all fun this time,” Paul suggested, as he held John’s hand in both of his, and stroked the double-jointed fingers with affection.

“Maybe,” John said.

“I can remember the fun, though,” Paul said. “I remember mainly the good things. I’m sorry you don’t remember it that way, too.” 

“I told you what the ‘60s were like for me,” John said, gingerly approaching That Issue again. “The older I got, the more I felt like I was trapped in a phony life, and that I would only ever have a phony life.”

Paul knew where John was headed with this. He didn’t want to go there, but he wasn’t going to be obstructive this time. John needed him right now, and Paul had never let John down when he was needed. Paul finally thought of a way to respond. “It was only phony if you look at it through the eyes of other people.”

John’s heart skipped a beat. It seemed as though Paul was willing to engage - at least up to a point. He said, “What do you mean?”

“What we felt - you and me, by ourselves - that wasn’t phony. It was just what we had to show to the world that was phony.” 

“Yeah, sooo,” John said, perplexed with where Paul was going with it and wanting him to expand his explanation.

“It hurt me to hear you talk about it that way - as if it were something I didn’t experience or value. I thought you knew how it was for me. I would have done almost anything for you.” Paul’s voice was still strong; John could tell that he wasn’t emotionally affected yet. 

“But not anything,” John retorted.

Paul heard John’s reproach and accepted the blow. “No. No, you’re right. Not anything.”

“I guess I’ve never got over that,” John said softly. 

“It was asking the impossible of me,” Paul responded. He felt his eyes filling with tears.

“Not so impossible. It was possible. You just couldn’t face the consequences.” John’s words sounded harsh, but his voice was kind.

“Could you, John? What if I had said ‘yes’?” Paul’s voice had a catch in it, and there was also some pain, John could tell. Now they were getting to it. But he was stumped by the question. It was a surprisingly critical question - rare for Paul. 

“I see your point,” John finally admitted. “I was scared shitless too. But I was willing to take the risk, and you weren’t.”

Paul had to admit the truth of this. But it was more complicated than that. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to be a social pariah - humiliating his family, and destroying his career. That fear would have been shameful in John’s eyes, but forgivable. But John knew the full truth. He knew that it was also because Paul loved women, and wanted to be married and have children. That was an urge within Paul that had been - at age 26 at least - stronger than his desire to be with John. This was the betrayal that John had blurted out that day in Fiona’s office: the one that had pulled all that ugly guilt out of the back of Paul’s mind, leaving him in emotional shreds. It was an undeniable truth. And, from John's point of view, Paul had compounded this betrayal by favoring his wife and children after they reconciled their relationship in the ‘80s.

It was a journey back in time in Paul’s mind. He lapsed into a deep silence for a long time. He was thinking of the pain he had experienced when he had told John he could not go along with the idea of a life together - a life without a wife and children. John had been anguished by it, and Paul had felt sick. He had developed ulcers in the months that followed. He had gained weight, stopped grooming himself, broke up with Jane, gave up his hopes and dreams, developed insomnia, and had to sit back and watch John deliberately hurting him through all of those antics with Yoko. What could Paul do about it? He had rejected John’s plans for the future, so he had nothing he could say to counter John’s extravagant declarations of love for the strange Japanese artist, or his upper thrusts in the form of forcing Allen Klein down his throat. It had always been an impossible choice for Paul, and he had struggled with it ever since the first time John touched him sexually, and set loose those forbidden feelings: the feelings that caused confusion and exultation all at once.

The silence was beginning to make John uncomfortable. It seemed as though he had lost Paul to his reverie. “Paul?” He asked, prodding Paul’s hands with his own.

Paul brought his mind back from the past. He knew what he had to say. “I’m sorry, John. But I was young, and I made the best decisions I could under the circumstances. I never wanted to hurt you.” 

John said, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but you did. And I will always know that you didn’t love me as much as I loved you. And I still believe it’s true. If you had to choose, I believe you would still choose Linda and your children.” 

Now the tears were making a silent journey down Paul’s cheeks. He felt the warmth of them, and tasted the salt when they reached his lips. The tears came because there were no words, no excuses. At least the tears were more dignified than choking sobs. “I guess I never could accept that you saw it as such a betrayal. I would never have hurt you. I mean - I made a choice that hurt you, but that’s not why I made the choice. I hoped that you would see the difference, but you didn’t.” Paul stopped when a huge sob escaped his throat. He throat seemed to close up on him, and then the sound that came out was louder, harsher. “You hated me. You tortured me for years! You tried to sabotage my career - you very nearly did! You spit all over me in public!” Paul’s voice had risen, and was now a mixture of anger and sobs. He didn’t want the sobs, and he didn’t want the anger, but they came anyway, and there was nothing Paul could do to stop them. “You humiliated me... and the thing was, I hurt you unintentionally and privately, but you hurt me back intentionally and publicly - over and over! What kind of love is that, John?” 

John was silent at what he had unleashed. This was Paul without armor. It was seriously intense. He didn’t want to say or do anything to discourage Paul from his download.

“I think you still hate me on some level,” Paul said. He had calmed himself down somewhat, and now his voice was low and raw. 

“I don’t! I don’t hate you! I never did!” John responded.

“Not consciously, John. I don’t think you hate me consciously. But the things you do. You are still hurting me, and it is often humiliating. At what point are you going to forgive me, John? Will you ever forgive me? Or will I have to go on paying for that choice forever? Tell me now - we may as well have the truth!” Paul sat up and turned on the bedside light. He was suddenly blazing with his buried anger - which was suddenly not buried anymore - and he wanted the light in the room to be as bright as his anger. 

John blinked at the light, and sat up too. He was now seriously worried. He should have known that what Paul had in him was volcanic, but somehow he couldn’t believe he would ever see that part of Paul. He couldn’t believe that Paul had a deep buried anger in real life; he could only believe it in the cold, analytical part of his brain that never saw the light of day. Now he was faced with it, and he had not one clue of how to handle it. His strongest urge was to calm Paul down, but then if he did that it would be calling forth the ‘strong, silent’ Paul that he had railed against for so long. John spoke calmly as he framed his response. “If I haven’t forgiven you it is not a conscious effort to keep it alive. I have always expected people to betray me, and when you did, it scarred me. I can’t seem to get it behind me, although I have tried to, and I really want to. Why do you think I go to therapy? Why do you think I’m so fucked up?” 

At that moment, Paul was not interested in hearing John use his childhood as a defense to the way he had behaved. At some point, John would have to accept responsibility for his conduct without blaming it on his parents. “At this moment I don’t give a flying fig why you’re so fucked up! You just use me like a punching bag! Have a bad day? Punch Paul! Are you lonely, sad, scared, angry, bored? Punch Paul! I’m not a fuckin’ punching bag John!”

John was impressed with the strength of Paul’s anger. He also was hollowed out with a kind of dazed surprise. “I don’t think you’re a punching bag,” John said weakly.

“No? How would you define how you treat me, then?” Paul was glaring at him through unfamiliar eyes. It gave John a bit of a chill. And now he was starting to feel sorry for himself.

“I know I’m a fuck up, Paul,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Don’t give me that self-pity bullshit!” Paul demanded. “Just tell me - why do you treat me so badly? Is it because of that one decision I made? Is that it? Because if you can’t forgive me for that after all this time, then maybe we should go our separate ways. I’m tired of always feeling guilty!” 

John primarily heard “...maybe we should go our separate ways...” and cried out - “No!”

Paul, delivered of his anger, allowed his head to fall in his hands, and he covered his face. He wasn’t crying; he was just trying to block out what he knew would be the consequences for losing his temper so completely. Now John would come after him, and he’d end up being at fault again.

Instead, John tentatively touched Paul on his back, and allowed his hand to massage his shoulder. “I don’t want us to go our separate ways,” he whispered.

From underneath his hands, Paul said, “Then why did you go away to New York? What was that all about?” 

John didn’t know the answer to that. What he had really wanted was for Paul to come with him. He had wanted the past to vanish clear back to June 1968, and for Paul to pick him instead of a wife and children. He wanted to live openly with Paul and not have to lie about it, or to hide their love away. But he knew he could never have that, and it continuously frustrated him. Over time, he had become deeply angry about it, but afraid to express it - most likely out of fear of losing Paul. But in his secret heart, he had blamed Paul. So Paul was right - he hadn’t forgiven him. Not completely. He had been so guilty about his own behavior in the ‘70s that he had forgotten (or had he buried?) how devastated he had been when Paul had chosen to love and live with someone else. How long had that rejection lurked around in the background whenever he was making terrible decisions? He looked over to Paul, who had put his hands down and his head up, and was watching him now. 

“In my mind, the New York thing - I think I was reliving the time I asked you to live with me, and you said no. And you were saying no again.” John’s words were delivered in a flat voice - no anger, no self-pity.

Paul nodded his head gently. “So is there no hope for us?” He asked. “Can we never put our past behind us?”

John responded quickly, strongly. “Of course there is hope for us. Just talking about it will start to make it better. I really appreciate you doing this for me, babe. I know how hard it is for you, and how much it costs. Maybe from now on it will be a little easier for you to tell me how you feel.”

Paul digested this comment, and then asked softly, “Do you really feel better after the things I said to you?” He was incredulous, incapable of believing that John had found those wrenching disclosures anything but upsetting. 

“What you told me is not nearly as bad as what I imagined you felt, Paul. It’s the hard truth, but at least I can deal with it. Wondering and imagining is much worse.” Now John was rubbing Paul’s back with the palm of his left hand. His right hand reached over, and grasped Paul’s. “I love you, Paul. It’s scary how much I love you. I want to be a better partner to you, but you have to help me by telling me how to do that. Come on luv, turn off the light, and let’s hold each other. Let’s just go to sleep, and it will be better in the morning.” 

Paul chuckled and joked, “Now who sounds like a fuckin’ Hallmark card?”

 

*****

 

Linda was relaxing in the sitting room when the telephone rang. She was a bit peeved, because she was enjoying the quiet in the home, with James at school. She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hello, Linda.” 

Linda realized at once that it was Mike McCartney. “Mike!” She cried. It was very surprising. She hadn’t spoken to or seen him in a year. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner,” he said shyly. “But I had to call to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing okay,” Linda said, mystified. 

“Paul’s on tour, and you didn’t go with him?” Mike asked. Did Linda hear a little censure in his voice? 

“No - touring is his thing. I actually prefer to stay home and hang with the kids.” In truth, she did. She missed Paul, and sometimes worried that he was drifting away, but she had never loved touring the way Paul had loved it. At one point - in the ‘80s - they had almost fallen out over it.

Mike cleared his throat. “How’s he doing?” He asked.

Linda smiled into the receiver, glad that Mike could not see her. “I’m sure he would love to hear from you, Mike. He has missed you.” 

“I’m worried about the asinine mess John has gotten himself into. How could he do that to Paul?” Mike’s voice was definitely censorious. Linda stiffened a little. It dawned on her he was calling to - what? Crow? 

“Paul tells me it’s all crap. It’s just more of that ridiculous made up tabloid trash.” Linda’s voice was firm.

Mike had not expected this. “But John is queer. He convinced Paul...”

Linda cut him off. “Mike, listen to yourself. You might as well have been from another century. And you know Paul - do you really think anyone could talk him into doing something so...extreme...if he didn’t want to do it?”

“Maybe not now, Linda, but when he was young. Just after our mother died. He was very vulnerable. That is when he met John. I think John persuaded him to be queer with him when they were very young, so now he is kind of stuck with it.” 

Linda was aggravated. She was pissed that Mike would wait a year, and then call her up and continue with his hateful opinions. “Mike, Paul loves John. He’s had ample opportunity to walk away, but he won’t because he wants to be with him.”

“How can you defend this?” Mike asked. “It’s a betrayal of your marriage.” 

Linda sighed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t felt that way herself from time to time, but God strike her dead if she ever admitted it to anyone else! She could be mad at Paul, but no one else could. “Mike,” she said as patiently as she could, “Paul came to me and gave me a choice. He would be only with me, or he would be with both of us. He gave me the choice. I decided to let him have both of us, because he loves both of us, and because I want him to be happy that was the choice I made. So it wasn’t a betrayal. And I know that if I ever said to him that I wanted him to leave John - I believe that he would. If I’m okay with their relationship, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be.” Linda wasn’t really convinced that what she said was true, but it was possibly true, and she needed Mike to get over his idiotic prejudices.

Mike was quiet for a while. “Are you sure Paul’s okay? John really knew how to hurt him back in the day. Sometimes I thought he was going out of his way to hurt Paul.”

Linda’s heart softened. Despite everything, Mike still loved and worried about his brother. “Call him, Mike. Ask him how he is. Talk to him. I know he would be so relieved and grateful to hear from you.” 

Mike said tentatively, “How would I get hold of him?”

Linda gave him the phone number for the manager’s assistant. “She can find Paul wherever he is,” she said softly. “When you’re ready to call Paul, just ask her.” 

 

*****

 

John and Paul were performing in Warsaw this trip. Neither John nor Paul had ever been there, and it wasn't even four years yet after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were staying in the magnificent turn of the century splendor of the grandest hotel in Warsaw, located on the royal route and looking like a grande dame. As they checked in they were looking forward to going out on the town and seeing the old city. They were also very excited about this concert, and wanted to do something special.

“Let’s do ‘Devoted to You,’ John suggested. “We can use it as a concert closer. We’ve gotten real good at it, with all the practice at sound check.” John had been so committed to rebuilding his relationship with Paul that he had been attending all the sound checks, and paying full attention when he’d done so. 

“Do you think that’s wise, with all the rumors floating around just now?” Paul asked. He couldn’t help himself. John fell silent, and then Paul realized what he’d said. He saw John’s disappointed face and smiled easily. “Sorry, mate. It’s a kneejerk reaction with me, isn’t it?” 

John laughed. 

“So ‘Devoted to You’ to end the concert it is,” Paul said confidently. “This is going to be a great show; I can feel it in my bones.” 

“So let’s go out on the town,” John suggested, his eyes sparking with mischief and enthusiasm. Such looks from John were irresistible to Paul, and he laughed and declared,

“You’re on!”

After they’d cleaned up and were satisfied with their sartorial choices, John and Paul got into the elaborate elevator, and found themselves in the even more elaborate lobby. They strode over to their driver, who was seated in the lobby in his dramatic long black coat with endless rows of buttons, and John tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Andrej, snap to!” 

The driver started and popped up. “Yes sir!” 

John laughed and Paul said, “Don’t let John scare you, Andrej, his bark is worse than his bite.”

“And Paul should know,” John joked, plying Paul with the sight of Groucho Marx eyebrows. Paul appreciated the joke, but Andrej was clueless. 

They clambered into Andrej’s limo, and John asked him, “Where are the naughtiest clubs in Warsaw?” 

Paul thought, sounds like fun.

“What is ‘naughtiest’?” Andrej asked. 

John studied Andrej closely. There was something loose about his mouth. John’s gaydar went off, and instead he asked, “What clubs do you go to?” 

Andrej looked uncomfortable. He didn’t want to take these two famous men to the clubs he frequented. He sputtered a little and then said, “You should go to a higher class club. I’m too poor to go to those.”

“Oh, we see tons of upscale clubs. We want some local dives, don’t we Paul?” John was leaning over the seat in front of him so he could see Andrej’s face.

“Yes, John. Dives are good,” Paul said from the backseat, long-suffering. 

“So - Andrej. Take us to your favorite joint! Now!”

Although he was dubious, Andrej headed for a club he knew of in one of the gay areas of town. The club had drag shows, and the atmosphere was straight-friendly and there was no cruising. Andrej thought this was as wholesome a dive as he could think of, not having ever visited the straight clubs, so knowing nothing about them. Lots of the straight tourists from the West visited this club to taste the nightlife. It was safe.

John and Paul popped out of the car and stared up at the neon lights. “This looks more like a supper club than a dive,” John commented.

“Well, let’s go in. You can’t tell a book by its cover,” Paul suggested. 

There was no doorman, but a transvestite dressed like a house madam greeted them at the bottom of the stairs as they descended. They were shown to a table, and were immediately clucked over by various staff members. John and Paul had of course taken care to disguise themselves somewhat. Paul had slicked back his hair and wore a pair of fake horn-rimmed glasses with his tweed overcoat. John had parted his hair down the middle, and then slicked it to either side. He wore his granny glasses, and had a scarf tied around his neck. He had been very satisfied that he looked nothing like himself (except the nose of course, but nothing to be done about that). And Paul - Paul looked like a baby-faced bicycle-riding piano teacher. 

The floorshow began, and the blue and pink lights flared up as the floor lights went down. Soon there was a parade of 6 chorus girls, each more elaborately dressed than the next, but the costumes would not have withstood close scrutiny. They were all men of course, but some of them were pretty fantastic looking.

“That one has good legs,” John pointed out objectively to Paul. 

“They go on forever,” Paul agreed. 

The performers were singing Willkommen from Cabaret. They were singing to recorded music, and the recorded music had been played so often it had a kind of warped sound. John and Paul looked at each other and winced. The show finally ended - thankfully before John and Paul had gone deaf. They then could focus on the tables around them, and the wait staff. There were straight couples and gay couples, and transvestites. In a place like this, Paul thought, a bloke with both a wife and a male lover could almost feel normal. 

The waiter brought them their dinner - it had “only” been a 30-minute wait. They had ordered a huge platter of vegetable pierogis, and a side order of red pickled cabbage with sour cream. They dug in with relish, every so often taking pulls off their bottles of Polish beer. 

“This is delicious, John,” Paul managed to blurt out in between mouthfuls of the little crescents of cooked dough stuffed with delicately cooked vegetables. 

“Ummm, hmmm,” John agreed, smacking his lips and licking his fingers.

A mincing man came over and, without a word, slipped in to the empty chair between them. His mannerisms were studiously effeminate. He smiled lasciviously at Paul. “Hello.” He said. 

John’s mouth was full, but his eyes met Paul’s and they danced merrily. Paul made a ‘who me?’ expression and then turned to the man politely. “Hello,” Paul said. “Is there something we can do for you?” Paul was expecting to be asked for an autograph. He thought that maybe they’d been recognized.

“I am much interested in a, what you call a ‘threesome.’” Despite his feminine airs, the man was short, a bit dumpy, with spiky reddish hair. He clearly was an overly optimistic person. 

“A threesome with who?” John asked, interrupting the connection the man was trying to establish with Paul.

“Well, I would prefer just your friend here,” the man said with a heavy Polish accent, “but I see that you are his lover. I think perhaps I must offer myself to you too.” 

John pretended to be insulted, but he was actually tremendously amused. “How very flattering,” he said sarcastically. 

Paul laughed. “What is your name?” He asked the man politely. 

The man brightened up. It appeared as though he was making headway! “My name is Ludvic, and yours is?”

Paul’s eyes quickly met John’s and they exchanged a look that expressed, ‘this guy is a treasure.’

John answered, “My name is Herbert, and this is Lance.”

Lance? Paul thought to himself, and had to stifle a laugh.

“Like Sir Lancelot?” Ludvic asked. “But this is perfect!”

“You can’t make this shit up,” John said to Paul in a flat voice, and with that Paul couldn’t help it and laughed out loud.

“Ludvic, I’m sorry, but Herbert and I are not interested. We do appreciate your offer, but we shouldn’t waste your valuable time any longer.” Paul’s charm was oozing out of every pore, and Ludvic was overcome with obvious disappointment. Ludvic sat there registering his rejection for a few moments until Paul said gently, “Herb and I are leaving now. We hope you have a nice evening.”

John threw his napkin down and got up, and Paul followed suit. They left as quickly as they could, and poured out on to the slick sidewalk. They both took in a deep breath of the night air and allowed the laughter to wear itself out in the safety of the empty street.

“So - Lance - what’s say we go back to the straight hotel and have some gay sex?” John asked expansively.


	55. Chapter 55

Back in the hotel suite after their mildly disappointing and slightly middle-class foray into Warsaw’s seedy nightlife, John and Paul made themselves at home. John poured out a pair of whiskeys, while Paul disappeared into the bathroom. He was in there for a fairly long time. 

“Paul? Are you okay in there?” John finally shouted from his comfy spot stretched out on the bed. He was waiting impatiently - stark naked - for his lover’s appearance. Suddenly the bathroom door flew open, and Paul was revealed in the aperture, clothed only in a white towel. He had washed his hair, and he had tweaked the wet ends into little spikes all over his head. He crossed his arms, leaned against the doorjamb, and a loopy sleezy-sexy look came over his face.

John barked with laughter. 

“Hello, Herbert. I am Ludvic.” Paul mimed a Polish accent. “So happy we lost that Lance person.” 

“Ludvic, get your ass over here. I want to rip that towel off you.” John’s voice vibrated with sexual menace. He was so sexually excited that he didn’t even remember that Brad had once offered him the same opportunity to rip off a white towel. From John’s subconscious position, there was no comparison between the two images. The one he was looking at now was pure gold. 

Paul literally sashayed over to the bed, letting his hips gyrate in a feminizing way like Ludvic would have done. When he got to the side of the bed, he started to say something, but before he could frame a word, John had grabbed ahold of the towel and ripped it away. Paul literally felt his knees knocking together in surprise at the unexpected cool air. Next thing he knew, John had grabbed his arm and yanked him on to the bed. Soon, John was climbing on top of him. 

“I’m gonna fuck you for hours,” he growled in Paul’s ear. 

This of course was exciting for Paul to hear, although he knew that “hours” usually translated into “minutes” at their age. Still, it was the thought that counted... “Ooomph!” The sound escaped from Paul’s throat when John suddenly grabbed his legs and pushed them up. Apparently John wasn’t in to foreplay tonight. That was okay with Paul. He enjoyed sex no matter how it played out, so he was wide open to John’s intrusions, both emotionally and physically. 

John was amazed at the power of his sexual attraction. Strange, after all these years that no one and no other thing could arouse him like Paul. At that moment he felt his arousal was an engine revving too high. He could barely contain his urges and desires. If he could have fucked Paul in the mouth and in the ass simultaneously, he would have. Unfortunately, he only had one dick. He decided to choose Paul’s ass, because he was feeling very caveman right now. His hands were grabby on Paul’s ass, and soon his fingers were probing inside his anus. He could feel Paul squirming underneath him, and hear Paul’s guttural grunts and groans. These things excited John, and urged him on. He placed the tip of his cock against Paul and pushed his way in. The lube helped, but Paul was very tight tonight. It had been a while since John had done the fucking, and this was no doubt the reason why Paul was so taut. But this, too, was exciting for John. The extreme tightness made him groan loudly. 

“You’re tighter than a virgin, babe,” John whispered huskily. “It’s making me crazy.”

Paul took this to be an instruction to relax a bit, so he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing until he heard John’s victorious grunt and felt his victorious dick enter further into him. He continued to breath heavily as he waited for the tightness to feel right for him. John was breathing heavily and had started thrusting hungrily, and was well on his way to the rutting stage. ‘Hours’ looked out of the question at this point, Paul chuckled to himself. John was too far gone. Paul, himself, was starting to feel the tightening deep inside his pelvis that presaged an orgasm, as every few seconds John brushed against his prostate gland. One of the great things about having a long-time lover was that John knew the erogenous zones and the topography of Paul’s body so well, there was never wasted effort or irritating near misses.

Moments later, both men were in the same rhythm and the strokes came evenly and were hitting Paul exactly where he wanted it again and again and again. The huffing, and grunts, and periodic cries were a symphony of arousing sounds to counterpoint their physical efforts. When the moment came for John’s orgasm, it pushed Paul over the edge. Although having an orgasm while being fucked up the ass was a tricky proposition, Paul’s imagination combined with John’s ardor had merged to create the perfect storm of erotic sensations, and the orgasm ran through him, leaving scorched earth wherever it went.

“Whoa!” John howled, and then flopped over on his back. He was thoroughly exhausted. 

Paul allowed his legs to come down (he had been holding his knees near the end), and felt complete release in his pelvic area. He sighed deeply. That was fantastic, he told himself. 

John’s forearm had flopped over his eyes as he schooled his breath to go back to normal, or as close to normal as possible given such an extreme physical effort. As his heart stopped racing he was able to take his other hand and reach over and find Paul’s. “You’re the best fuck ever,” he said as he squeezed Paul’s hand. The sound coming from Paul’s throat sounded a lot like a purr. John heard this, and smiled victoriously in the dark. He had come, he had seen, and he had conquered his lover. He felt extremely territorial, and somehow this had given him back some of his confidence he had lost during the incident with Brad. In that moment he also felt that he could not bear to be separated from Paul ever again. No more living the wild life in New York - that had certainly been a bust. But even as he thought this, he knew that it was easy for him to feel this way when he had Paul to himself, when they were on tour. It would be a whole other issue when they were back in London. The triangle-thing had lost all of its charm (to the extent it had ever had charm), and having to live a lie had also lost its dubious charm. 

Paul, meanwhile, was just exhausted and wanted to fall asleep. There was that troubling thought in his mind periodically popping up and demanding attention, but tonight he was just going to (coining a phrase) “let it be.”

 

*****

 

A week later, John and Paul were in Rome, preparing for two concerts on subsequent nights. On their last tour visit to Rome, bedlam had ensued, so this time they both hoped they would be able to enjoy the city together. To start off, John arranged for the hotel staff to set up and serve a late brunch on the stone balcony off of their suite. Paul had been working out in the hotel gym. Such a busy little beaver, John thought fondly to himself. Always up to something constructive. When Paul got back, and after he showered, he was delighted to see the incredible meal set out on the buffet tables. Just as they sat down to eat, though, the telephone rang. Reflexively, Paul got up to answer.

“Babe, let it ring. Whoever it is can wait until we finish eating.” John said this softly, looking up from his newspaper. Paul sat down again, but looked anxious. John laughed when he saw this and said, “Oh, go ahead, Paul.”

Paul went to answer the phone and was immediately glad he did. 

“Paul! Is that you? This is Mike.”

“Mike!” Paul shouted in to the phone in response. His voice sounded surprised but joyful. “How on earth did you find me?” He asked.

“Linda gave me your manager’s assistant’s number,” Mike said. 

“I’m so glad you called! It’s been at least a year since we talked, right?” Paul’s voice did not sound angry or judgmental, Mike was glad to hear. 

“Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry about that,” Mike said.

“Me, too,” Paul quickly added, wanting badly to patch up his relationship with his brother. 

“I wanted to see how you’re doing. You’ve been through a lot recently,” Mike said.

Paul was wondering how Mike could possibly know that. Had Linda said something to him? He said, “What do you mean?”

“This whole episode with John. What on earth is he up to?” Mike managed to withhold most of his anger from his voice.

Paul felt himself stiffen. It didn’t sound like Mike’s attitude about John had softened in the past year. “What episode is this?” Paul asked, coaching himself not to overreact.

“This business about going to a gay brothel in New York, and using his credit card while doing so,” Mike responded, a little annoyed that Paul was pretending that this hadn’t happened, or that it wasn’t important.

Paul sighed. He was at another one of those tricky crossroads he only found himself near because of John. He had already led Linda to believe there was no truth to the rumors, and now he had to do the same with Mike. A little voice in Paul’s mind felt angry about this dilemma; John shouldn’t behave in ways that left him in a position where he had to lie to his other loved ones. It was bad enough that they both had to lie to the world. But it was what it was. “Mike, didn’t you read our responses to that rumor?”

“I read your jokes - very funny. But you never denied the rumors. You forget I grew up with the two of you, and I know how you handle this kind of stuff.” Mike’s voice was firm. “It’s true, isn’t it?” His tone was more demand than query. 

“Mike...” Paul’s voice deepened in warning, but Mike cut him off.

“This is me; your brother. You can’t fool me. That man went off with some queer prostitute, and dragged his name - and therefore yours - through the mud. And what about disease? Had you thought about that?” Mike was just warming up.

“Mike, you’re jumping to conclusions. Not even the tabloids said anything about a brothel, and there is no disease.”

“How do you know? Did you require him to get tested? If you don’t care about your own health - what about Linda’s? And you lied to her about the whole thing, because she claims it is untrue gossip.”

“Mike, you’re out of line now...”

“Someone has to tell you how it is! You’re obviously not telling yourself these truths. I wouldn’t be your brother if I didn’t put your interests first before John’s!” 

“Why do our interests have to be different?” Paul demanded angrily.

John’s voice, shouted from the balcony, was overheard. “Paul! What’s going on? The food is getting cold!” 

Paul put his hand over the receiver and shouted back, “One moment! I’ll be there in a moment!” He then turned back to his conversation with Mike. “You act as if John is an active enemy of mine, but he’s not. You’re walking on thin ice, here, Mike. I want our relationship back, I really do. But not at John’s expense.” Paul’s voice had regained some confidence and authority, even if Paul was faking it somewhat. 

Mike took a deep breath. He realized he had gone too far, too fast. He couldn’t help it though; he had been holding these pressing thoughts in abeyance for too long. He fiercely loved his brother, and didn’t like to see him getting squeezed like this for things that John had done. But if he came on too strong, Paul wouldn’t listen to him at all. “Paul, I’m sorry if I’m so upset, but I can’t help it. I hate to see you being hurt or taken advantage of.” 

Paul was about to deny that he was hurt, or that he had been taken advantage of, but he couldn’t do it. In fact, he had been hurt, and he had been taken advantage of, by anyone’s measure. Sure, John had apologized for the mess and thanked him for cleaning it up, but there was no real assurance that he wouldn’t do something equally stupid or worse again. This was a pattern of John’s now, not just a couple of errant events: Do something disloyal and stupid, get in trouble, let Paul fix it, apologize and express eternal love, but the eternal love lasts only until the next fit of boredom sets in. Paul had just allowed himself to be dragged into this pattern, and had done nothing to put an end to it, most probably because he feared that if he put his foot down John would leave him. And, if John left him, he might turn against him again, and trash him to their mutual friends and the press, just as he had done before. In the end, was he acting for John, or for himself? 

“Mike, okay, we got off on the wrong foot. But I’m cranky. I’ve got to eat. Let me think about what you said, and I’ll call you back in a few weeks when the tour is over and we can discuss it again.”

A moment later he was strolling out on to the balcony. John looked up from the newspaper and said, “That took a long time. What was it about?”

“It was my brother,” Paul said.

“Mike? How great!” John declared. But then he took a second look at Paul’s body language and said in a lower, more cautious voice, “Or was it?”

“At least he’s talking to me again,” Paul said bravely, offering up a smile. “That’s a start.”

“I’m glad for you,” John said, although he felt worried too. Obviously, Mike hadn’t accepted his relationship with Paul yet, and apparently was still willing to be outspoken about it. John’s insecurity niggled at him. Could Mike drive a wedge between him and Paul? He had given Mike some new ammunition to use against him with Paul - that was true - although Paul had seemed to take the news of his cruising with no anger or jealousy. And what was up with that, anyway? Why hadn’t he been upset? Any normal person would have been at least irritated, if not towering with rage. Paul was far more subdued as he ate his food, John noted, although he did not want to ask why. The last thing he wanted to know was what poison Mike had spewed. Maybe it would start a problem where presently one did not exist. 

 

*****

 

The concerts in Rome had been fantastic, and John and Paul and the band were invited to a crazy after-show party by the promoters in a 5-star restaurant in the oldest part of Rome after the second concert was over. The entire restaurant had been dedicated to this party, and each table had a Jeroboam of Amarone, the Italian red wine. Everything was over the top, including the seafood pastas coming out from the kitchen one after the other in steaming heaps for each table, not to mention the osso bucco hunks nesting in huge platters of risotto. John was in heaven, but Paul felt slightly sick. He didn’t want to be rude to his hosts, but how could they not have gotten the memo about his vegetarian beliefs?

Paul poked through the food and found some grilled vegetables, and then spooned some risotto on to his plate. He was starving and he was trying to ignore the fact that the veal juice probably had soaked into the rice. He looked over to the head table and saw John under the overhead red lamp. He was being feted on either side by Italian businessmen, and in front of him was a plate piled with seafood pasta and veal. Paul blinked several times, hoping to chase away the image that had flashed in his brain of a voracious King Henry VIII about to dig into a pig’s head, while sycophants laughed around him. After he blinked, the vision disappeared and it was just John being John again, surrounded by adoring fans. In spite of himself, Paul had to smile. What an infuriating, challenging, utterly enchanting human being John was. And how hard it was for Paul to tell the man what he wanted - no, needed - from him. 

Sighing, Paul turned away and went to get some more vegetables and to pour himself some more wine from the nearest of several cut crystal carafes. After he’d finished eating, he took his wine glass and wandered out to the covered terrace, and saw that everyone was well on the way to being completely blotto. There was a staggeringly beautiful view of nighttime Rome laid out before him. He stood right in front of the railing and looked out over the city. The thoughts came unbidden to his mind. 

I deserve better. I deserve to be treated with respect, and I shouldn’t have to lie to people I love in order to protect John. I shouldn’t have to take it on the chin and smile and pretend like it didn’t cut my heart out that John felt it was okay to pull some young buck the moment my back was turned. If I’m the one he turns to when he’s hurt and lost, why aren’t I the one he wants to be with when things are going fine? Mike is right. John endangered his own health, my health, and Linda’s health with his latest antics. It’s like I’m some kind of substance addict, and John is my substance. 

“’ello?” The voice was soft and velvety and very Italian. Paul turned to see a very voluptuous woman, black flowing hair reaching down to her waist, black eyes crackling and popping with mischief and mystery, and breasts practically bursting out of her emerald green silk blouse. 

“Hello,” Paul said, smiling politely in response. He held out his hand. “I’m Paul.”

As she took his hand, the woman threw her head back and the laugh was throaty and sensual. “I know who you are,” she said, with a heavy Italian accent. “But you do not know me. I am Margherita.” 

Paul knew trouble when he saw it. He leaned back against the railing, and crossed his arms across his chest as if warding off evil spirits. His wine glass was balancing on the railing. “Margherita. That’s a lovely name.”

“It means, ‘pearl’,” she said in her deep voice.

“What do you do for a living, Margherita?” Paul asked smoothly. He was willing to play the game for the first little while, but he knew his boundaries, and he always respected them. 

“I am editor,” she said. “I work for Vogue Italia. I just wanted to say how meraviglioso was your show.” Margherita’s hands were kind of fat and chunky, although well manicured, and were cluttered with huge vulgar rings. Paul was not impressed, since he was an aficionado of beautiful hands like Linda’s and his mother’s and John’s...

“That sounds like a very interesting job,” Paul said politely while picking up his wine glass and taking a seductive sip. Of course, he didn’t think that it was seductive; it was just his normal way of accidentally seducing people wherever he went, and he rarely meant anything by it. Not that everyone understood this - many of them took it to heart. 

“Not so interesting as yours,” Margherita responded, moving closer to Paul. Some might say, ‘uncomfortably’ close to Paul. Paul was one of those who found it uncomfortable. He felt that now it had gone a little too far. Subtly, he allowed his hand holding his wine glass to make a little room between him and the woman, and he backed up a few inches. 

Across the room, John had suddenly become aware that Paul was not near him and he hadn’t seen Paul in some time. He looked around the room, and couldn’t find him. He stood up, excusing himself from his hosts, and moved into the middle of the room. He studiously surveyed every segment of the room. Finally, he thought he spied Paul out on the terrace. He began to move in that direction, trying to look nonchalant in case anyone was watching. He moved to the French doors that opened onto the terrace, and pretended to be just chillin’ there, sipping a glass of wine. When he finally allowed himself to look closer, he saw Paul with a gorgeous, womanly creature standing very close to Paul. He watched as one of her fingers ran itself down Paul’s chest.

Well, that’s enough of that, John thought angrily. He pushed through the opening and on to the terrace, making a beeline straight for Paul. He marched right up to Paul, and pushed himself rather obviously between Paul and the woman. “So who’s this then, Paul?” John asked in a fake friendly voice.

Paul was at first surprised by John’s timely intervention, and then amused. “This is Margherita,” Paul said, mimicking the woman’s extravagant Italian pronunciation.

Margherita was a little pissed off by John’s rude interruption at the exact moment when she was going in for the kill. Now she suddenly found herself faced with a very possessive John Lennon. So the rumors are true, she thought to herself. Paul really is bisexual. Instead of turning her off, this only turned her on more. “’ello, John,” Margherita breathed heavily. Maybe a threesome? She wondered hopefully. Truthfully, John was attractive, too. 

John snaked his hand behind Paul’s back, and squeezed Paul’s waist possessively. He turned a lowering brow to Margherita and his body language clearly was warning her off. “Hello,” he responded. He then turned to Paul. “I’ve been looking all over for you; why’d you disappear?” 

“I had to get away from the overwhelming smell of meat and shellfish,” Paul said honestly. “So I came out here.” 

John wanted to hit himself in the forehead and yelp “d’oh!” like Homer Simpson. He should have realized that the platters of food would have seemed like the results of torture experiments to Paul, with his sensibilities about living creatures. “Oh, Paul, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that...”

Paul smiled, but inside he was thinking, no, he didn’t think. He never thinks. Out loud he said, “I’m tired. Shall we go back to the hotel?”

John was relieved to hear this. Margherita, however, was not relieved. She felt thwarted, and only just managed to smile politely at the two men as they said their goodbyes and turned to go. She did think that if John hadn’t interrupted her, she might have got through to Paul. Anyway, that is what she told herself, and - later - anyone else who would listen.

Paul insisted upon saying goodnight to their hosts, and then the two of them disentangled themselves from the crowds, and climbed into the car that took them back to their hotel. There were tourists in the lobby who were excited to see Lennon and McCartney, and the two men signed several autographs, and posed for a few photographs, before going up in the elevator to their suite. 

As they undressed, John said, his voice filled with amusement, “I thought that woman was going to eat you alive.” 

“I think I can hold my own,” Paul responded as he sat down to remove his shoes and socks. 

“She looked like a black widow,” John continued. “She was going to drink your blood.”

“Actually, she was going to do nothing of the sort, because I wouldn’t have let her.” Paul was irritated, and he couldn’t help but allow this to show in his voice.

John stopped in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt. “And why wouldn’t you have let her?”

“Because some people live up to the promises they make to their lovers,” Paul said darkly.

“I was just teasing,” John said, a little miffed by Paul’s attitude. “Why are you so pissed?”

“I’m not pissed.”

“You are.” John was standing with hands on hips facing Paul now. “What’s bugging you?” 

“What’s ‘bugging’ me?” Paul asked. His voice had gone up into the higher registers. “Nothing’s ‘bugging’ me!” Paul’s face looked almost comical when he was angry. There was always a darkly stormy look directly contradicted by his angelic features. 

“Okay, okay, so let it out. What have I done now?” John was angry now, and feeling pretty impatient. He had no desire to play word games at that time of the early morning, especially after a very enervating concert performance. 

“You mean, other than paying some twat to fuck you? You mean, other than expecting me to swallow that without batting a fucking eyelash? You mean - other than that?” Paul’s voice had risen to shouting, which was extremely unusual for him. “Maybe you could have brought back some fucking disease, and infected me! Did you ever think about that? And what if that guy had killed you? He was a complete stranger! And it’s only a matter of time before he sells his fucking story to the tabloid! Did you even think of that?”

John was stunned. It had been over a month since he’d returned from America, and Paul had hadn’t expressed real anger towards him over what he had done: impatience, perhaps, and a little irritation over taking such a risk, but not anger. John stood there, blinking, as Paul seethed.

“You’re so fucking selfish, John! How do you think it feels to be me - always picking up the fucking messy pieces! With people snickering at me or pitying me behind my back? And what about all your crazy schemes? A penthouse in New York, and never mind I can never stay there with you, you go ahead anyway! What message am I to take from that? And I’m the villain because I refuse to voluntarily subject my family to the worst consequences of my choices? Do you spare even a moment to give a shit about my family - the thing that means so much to me? And what if I didn’t want to put up with this shit anymore? What would you do then? Do you think there is anyone else in this whole fucking world who would handle it better than I do?” Once Paul had started, the verbal vomitus was never-ending. “You love me yes, you love me no, you love me yes, you love me no ... I never know what the fuck you’re going to do next! Maybe you find that kind of chaos fun to live with, but it’s ripping me up inside!”

John had gone beyond ‘stunned’ to ‘astounded’. Paul had used the word ‘fuck’ at least six times in the last few seconds, not to mention the word ‘shit’. Paul rarely used swear words, even in anger, and especially not those ones. He was clearly spitting mad. And for Paul to be so wordy when he was mad was unheard of! Not for Paul verbal harangues. No, storming out of the room slamming successive doors behind him or banging loud unmelodious chords on a piano were Paul’s usual methods of expressing extreme anger. 

The room had become silent as John digested Paul’s tirade. John was still standing there, his hands suspended in the frozen act of unbuttoning his shirt. Paul had delivered himself of the worst of the fury that had been quietly building up force with him over the past year, and had sunk down on to the side of the bed, where he stared at his shaking hands.

“Wow,” John finally was able to say. “How long have you felt this way, Paul?” John’s voice was not angry or defensive. But it did contain a note of self-pity that grated on Paul.

“I could ask you why you haven’t put yourself in my place and wondered what it must feel like,” Paul responded back with a lower, less angry voice. But it was a voice that was clearly not going to give in to John’s tendency to turn every negative emotional episode into an examination of his own hurt feelings.

John finally noticed that his hands were still holding the button, and he dropped them while he turned and sat on the other side of the bed, his back to Paul’s. He honestly did not know what to say. His mind was roiling with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it was a relief to hear Paul unload like that. Hadn’t he been trying to get Paul to do so? On the other hand, it was awful to hear such ugly truths about one’s self. On still another hand, had he permanently damaged his relationship with Paul? Or, on the other hand, did this venting of anger mean they could work to build a more authentic relationship? At this point, John realized he had collected too many hands, and stopped thinking. 

Normally, it would be Paul who would act to end a bad situation by apologizing, or making a joke, or moving physically to shrink the gap between them. But this time, Paul remained slumped on his edge of the bed and did not move. It finally dawned on John that he would have to make the first move to try to heal the breach. John forced himself to stand up and walk over to the other side of the bed. He got down on his knees in front of Paul, placed a hand on each of Paul’s thighs, and leaned his forehead against Paul’s bent one. And he waited. It was a fairly long wait, lasting several minutes. But he waited patiently. 

“It’s always been like this with us,” Paul finally found the will to say out loud. “I tell myself I can’t trust you, and then you beg me to trust you, and so I trust you, and then you prove to me you can’t be trusted. Over and over, ever since we met, John.” 

John waited some more.

“If I had any pride, I would have refused to take you back all those times...”

John’s curiosity was piqued now, and he couldn’t help himself. “I never left you, Paul - to me it felt as though I was always chasing you, maybe not physically, but emotionally. Even when I went to New York - I felt like maybe if I go away, you will follow me. But you didn’t.”

Paul made a noise that sounded like a self-aware snicker. “What comes first - the chicken or the egg?” He asked cryptically. It was obviously a rhetorical question.

Again, John waited, hoping for an explanation. After a few more moments, Paul obliged:

“Are you insecure about me because I guard my feelings? Or do I guard my feelings because you have betrayed my trust too many times?” Paul’s voice sounded weary. “I guess until we know the answer to that question we’re doomed to repeat this ridiculous, unhealthy pattern we’re stuck in.” 

John saw now what Paul was saying. He had always assumed that Paul was just made that way: distant, hard to know, endlessly layered, and impossibly self-contained. It had never occurred to him that maybe Paul hadn’t started out that way; that maybe Paul had been forced to build up ever-stronger defenses to John’s ever-swinging moods and loyalties in order to protect himself. He sat back on his ankles and stared at Paul. “Babe, I’m sorry I never saw it that way before,” John said honestly. “Once you finally point it out, I can see that it is obvious.” Paul nodded slightly in response to John’s apology, and John squeezed Paul’s thighs and added, “Where do we go from here, Pud?”

Paul felt it happening again. The inevitable melting inside of him when John acted loving to him like this. He wanted to maintain distance, and to remain unmoved, but he was emotionally incapable of doing so. He was always so eager to assure John that he was loved, and that there was at least one person in the world who would never leave him, no matter what. Entering John’s life just when they’d lost their mothers had bonded them in such a deep, primal way that somehow Paul had come away from that experience believing that he was meant to give John the unconditional love he never got as a child. Like it was his sole purpose in life. Almost as if by rote, Paul’s hand came up and ran it’s way through John’s hair. He then brushed the hair off of John’s face, and smiled reassuringly into John’s fearful, insecure eyes. “Right now, I think we should just go to sleep. All this shit will still be here waiting for us when we wake up, but maybe we will be able to make more sense of it then.” 

He said ‘shit’ again, John thought randomly. Somehow the fact that Paul was using earthy language calmed John down. It was as if this was Paul, allowing John to see his weaknesses and frustration. It was an odd thing to be happy about, John supposed, but then all he’d ever really wanted was to be as close to Paul as possible, to the exclusion of virtually everyone else. If he could have climbed inside Paul’s mind and merged with him and become one with him, he would have done so long ago. That isn’t too much to ask, is it? John was serious as he asked himself that question; the irony of it did not penetrate.

Paul helped John get up off the floor, and then they each completed their bedtime ablutions, and climbed into bed. There was no awkwardness because Paul, performing his usual role in their oft-repeated dance routine, pulled John into his arms, and whispered comfortingly in John’s ear, “I love you.” 

 

*****

 

The freelance tabloid reporter had approached his assignment as if he were tracking Deep Throat. And, the reporter chuckled, in a way, maybe he was. The clerk at the hotel had sold him the photo of the credit card receipt for $750: cheap at one-tenth the price. But now the reporter wanted to track down who was with Lennon that night in the cruising hotel. All he knew so far was that the assignation happened in Room 614. The reporter had been frequenting a few of the trendier gay clubs in the hotel’s general area to see if anyone remembered seeing Lennon partying there, but what he ran into was a goodly number of 25 year-olds asking him, “Who’s John Lennon?” And even most of the ones who did recognize the man’s name didn’t know what he looked like! This was exceedingly frustrating to the reporter. Still, he kept digging. It would be a huge story - a gigantic payday - if he succeeded in tracking down Lennon’s cruise partner. And what if the young man was more than just a one-night stand? What if Lennon had a young, male lover on the side? When the reporter closed his eyes he could see dollar signs swimming in front of him.


	56. Chapter 56

The next morning was rough. They both felt as though they had awakened with monster hangovers. Paul woke first, as usual, staggered into the bathroom, forced himself to put on his workout clothes, and headed down to the hotel’s workout room. When he got back a little over an hour later, John was still in bed, but Paul could hear inarticulate groaning from under John’s pillow. Paul shook his head in bemusement, and headed for the shower. 

He was unable to stop himself from humming in the shower. Music always seemed to come unbidden to him when he was in the shower. Suddenly the door flew open and a very naked John was standing there. 

“That’s a nice tune, Macca,” he said bluntly, and then sniffed comically. “Move your ass over, I’m coming in.”

Paul moved, and John’s hands were soon roving all over Paul’s backside. 

“Don’t think you’re going to divert me from being mad at you,” Paul said firmly. 

John laughed, and then slapped Paul on his bum. “You can’t stay mad at me. You can’t stay mad at hardly anyone. Why pretend otherwise?”

“I’m so relieved to find that you took what I said last night so seriously,” Paul grumbled, although he could feel his dick growing. My cock is shameless, he tutted to himself. 

“I have taken it very seriously, babe,” John whispered in Paul’s ear, and Paul felt the tingle going down his neck in response to John’s breath. “So seriously that I feel as though I owe you some kind of ... restitution...”

Now John’s cock was rubbing against Paul’s bum. Paul was having a hard time not reacting positively to the situation. Still, a fugitive part of him felt like this was the start of just another papering over of their core problem. 

“John...” Paul said, turning around, and pushing John a bit away from him. “I’d feel better if we actually solved our problem rather than pretend nothing happened. I thought that was what you wanted from me.”

“I do, I do,” John said, although it sounded as though he was just humoring Paul, as he reached across Paul’s middle and grabbed on to his ass cheeks.

“I’m not a bloody bird, John, I know what you’re up to,” Paul’s voice was muffled since his face was stuck in the crook of John’s neck. 

“Just relax, baby, I’m really horny this morning,” John said in a deeply sexual voice.

Somehow the word ‘horny’ hit Paul the wrong way. In fact, Paul heard the word and his brain zipped straightaway to John getting horny and picking up some stranger in a club... “John - not now. Really. I mean it.” He pushed John away, slipped past him, and got out of the shower. As per usual, he handed John a towel, and then took one for himself. He quickly covered himself up and left the bathroom.

John was left standing in the shower. He thought about shutting the door and giving himself a hand job, but somehow the whole spirit of the thing had collapsed. It was only moments later that his cock collapsed too. Well, that was weird, John thought. The only other time Paul had resisted his advances was in 1968, when John was trying to seduce Paul back into the fold after he met Linda. And, as it turned out that time, Paul’s resistance had been long lasting and had gone on for years. John hoped this wasn’t a precursor of things to come. Was Paul going to resort to the tactic of withholding sex to get his way from now on? If so, John predicted a defeat for himself. He could not live without the sexual satisfaction that came from having sex with Paul. 

By the time John was dressed, he wandered out into the sitting room of the suite, and saw Paul through the sliding glass door sitting on the terrace reading a newspaper. John headed toward the terrace, ready to have it out, and expecting Paul to be withholding and cold. Instead, Paul looked up when he heard the sliding door open and he smiled warmly at John. 

“I called room service. They should be here in about 20 minutes.” He folded up his newspaper and put it down. He then leaned over and poured coffee out for John. “I made it myself,” he explained, “so you’ll have to choke it down. Sorry, mate.”

John was mystified. What the fuck was going on now? He plopped down in a chair and said, “I thought you were mad at me.”

Paul looked up at him with innocent eyes. John always distrusted that expression. It usually meant Paul was manipulating him in some way. “I was mad at you last night, but I’m not mad now,” he said reasonably.

“Then why won’t you let me fuck you?” John asked bluntly. First things first.

“Because it felt to me like we were falling into our old pattern.”

“What pattern is this?” John asked grumpily, although he pretty much knew what Paul was talking about.

“The one where we have a bad falling out, and then we have sex, and then we go about our business as if we’d never had the falling out - until the next time.” Paul had folded his arms in front of him on the patio table, and was looking John directly in the eye with a curious lack of strong emotion. 

John’s upper lip curled dangerously. “I kind of like that pattern,” he joked. “Especially the sex part.” 

“I thought you wanted me to be more honest about my feelings,” Paul persisted, as objectively as he could manage.

“I feel as though I’ve created a Frankenstein,” John mumbled under his breath. 

Paul laughed at John’s remark, and then sobered. “I’m trying to be the person you said you wanted me to be. I realize I must have a part in what happened. You left me to go to New York for a reason, I’m assuming, and maybe I should hear you out and find out what that reason is.” 

John was looking at Paul sideways, as if he couldn’t quite believe what Paul was saying. “Who are you, and what have you done with my mate, Paul?” John joked; he was still hiding behind sarcasm, because he wasn’t sure if Paul’s approach was genuine, and he was having a hard time trusting it. 

A look of disappointment crossed Paul’s face. He leaned back in his chair, and picked up his newspaper. It flew up and became a wall between him and John. 

John rolled his eyes. Sometimes Paul was like a bloody woman! He reached over and grabbed the newspaper and pulled it out of Paul’s hands. “Ok, ok. You have something you want to say, and I want to hear it,” John said, all sarcasm gone from his voice. “But let me get this straight. I didn’t leave you; I hoped you would follow me. And I only wanted to spread my wings a bit.”

“How’d that work for you John?” Paul asked sharply. 

John’s temper flared. “I got side-tracked, I admit. But it isn’t very kind of you to rub my nose in it.” 

Paul’s eyebrows flew up his forehead and his mouth opened into a small ‘o’.

John saw this and demanded, “What? Just say it if you’re thinking it, Paul.” This was John’s nasty voice that Paul remembered so well from their youth. It had always infuriated Paul at a deep level, although he never could show it or the witnesses would have laughed at him. 

But there were no witnesses now. “What I’m thinking is, it’s rich for you to accuse me of not being nice. How rude of me to allude to the fact that you cheated on me with some fucking male prostitute you met at a club!” 

“Why do you keep going on about the ‘club’? Would it feel better to you if I’d met him at the fucking library? And who said he was a prostitute? I met a bloke I fancied, and I wanted him to fuck me. It wasn’t going to be about money at all - just an anonymous fuck. He just got overly aggressive is all, and I only left him money as an insult to him, because he didn’t stop when I told him to!” John’s voice had gotten quite loud. 

Paul realized suddenly they were on a balcony. Other hotel guests may over hear them. He got up and went in to the living room, and John followed him angrily.

“Running away again Paul? I thought you wanted to talk truth to each other! Obviously, you can’t hack it!” John shouted this as he entered the sitting room area. Paul quickly doubled back and closed the sliding door and then turned to face John again.

“I’m not running away, John,” he said in his low angry voice - Paul rarely shouted, which had always irritated John, causing John to shout ever louder for some kind of reaction. “I just wanted to get off the terrace, where anyone might overhear us.”

“Ahhhh, of couuurrsee...,” John drawled dramatically. “Paulie always has to hide the fucking truth from the world, doesn’t he? Nothing could be worse than the truth getting out, right?” John’s voice was dripping with nasty sarcasm. 

Paul was tired of feeling guilty about protecting his family. “John - we had a deal from day one. I will not betray my family. I’ll die first. If that is going to be a real sticking point for you, then we may as well say goodbye right now! You don’t have to stay in this...this...thing we have. No one’s twisting your arm!”

John flopped down on the sofa, because his legs could no longer hold him. He was shaking all over. He was fighting back fearful tears, and had to get hold of his breath before he could respond. “You see - you can’t call it anything but a ‘thing’, can you? That’s what it is to you - a ‘thing’. Linda is your wife, your family. And I’m a ‘thing’. Guess I’m supposed to be fine with that!”

Paul’s anger fizzled out at that point. He sat down on the nearest chair. He leaned forward. “John, you’re not a ‘thing’ to me; it’s just that for me it is sometimes confusing to have two life partners. The only thing I can’t do for you is to leave my family or subject them to the press because of us. Ask me for anything else, and I’ll give it to you.” 

“I asked you to go to therapy with me, and you wouldn’t.” John said; his face was buried in his hands.

Paul acknowledged the hit. “Yes, you’re right. I did do that. But I’m willing to go back to therapy with you if you want me to.” 

John became still. Did Paul just say he would go to therapy with me? He looked up and saw that Paul’s face was dead serious. “Really?” His voice was incredulous.

“I was wrong to cut you off that way. I’m not very comfortable with the idea of therapy, but I’ll do my best.” 

John took a deep breath. It was his turn to compromise. “Would you feel more comfortable going to a different therapist? I know you don’t like Fiona.” 

Paul smiled at John’s generosity. “No, babe, Fiona is fine. I’ll just put my big boy pants on, and face her down.” 

John laughed. He felt...lighter...somehow. As if a huge weight had been lifted off him. If Paul was willing to go to therapy with him - and John knew how Paul felt about therapy - then clearly he was serious about trying to make their relationship work. He sat back in the sofa, and sighed. He felt as if he’d just run a few miles. He looked across the room to where Paul was sitting, and saw that Paul was sitting back in his chair, too. Their eyes met for a good 20 meaningful seconds before John asked, as if it were an idle question,

“So, do you want me to fuck you now?”

Alas, just as he asked the question, the doorbell rang. Room service had arrived.

 

*****

 

It was the last night of the European tour, and John and Paul were ready for it to be over. John was eager to get back to London, and drag Paul to therapy. He intended to drop Paul on Fiona’s doorstep like a triumphant cat does with a rat it’s caught. He was super excited to get started. Paul, meanwhile, was tired of the periodic brutal verbal fights they’d had, as Paul continued to slowly digest John’s conduct in New York. Paul couldn’t help the feelings of anger and hurt that would suddenly rise up in his throat. As a result, he would make sniping remarks whenever John pissed him off. John would bite every time, and they’d go another 10 rounds before reaching another détente. At least now Paul was getting his anger out. But he was so fucking tired of having to go out on the stage and act all happy and full of love and light, and then - on the ride back to the hotel in the limo have the uncertainty building up in him: Would tonight be a lovey-dovey night? Or would it be World War XIX? It was anyone’s guess. Sometimes they would even go three whole days without falling into an argument, so to Paul the whole burst-into-argument thing seemed completely random - like spontaneous combustion - and therefore it was extremely anxiety-inducing to a control-freak like him.

And these arguments were not silly or meaningless. It was gut wrenching stuff, with John attacking Paul’s “endless fucking layers”, and Paul responding with John’s “total and absolute faithlessness.” Oddly, neither one of them considered parting, even after the worst of these fights. This game of now-it’s-simmering, now-it’s-boiling anger was too compelling, too exciting, for either of them to abandon the playing field. So they’d call each fight a draw, and crawl away and then, absurdly, lick (figuratively) each other’s wounds. It was very weird and unsettling, and for this reason even Paul wasn’t enjoying the tour. 

He just wanted to go home and sleep for like a month. But he knew when he got home there’d be no rest for him. He’d instead be in for more. What he was enduring now was the minor leagues compared to what therapy with the dangerous Fiona in charge would be like. Paul figured she’d make mincemeat of him. Oh, well. It was what he had to do if he wanted to save his relationship with John and get beyond his festering anger.

Both men stood backstage chatting casually with the band members as they waited for the signal to take the stage. From the outside they both seemed normal - simpatico. No one knew what was going on behind closed doors. Playing pretend had become second nature for both of them, and they were extremely good at it. They were always one thing with an audience, and an entirely different thing when alone. This last night, they were in Paris. This had been the first time they’d been in Paris together when they hadn’t made an effort to set aside time to be alone in the city. It was probably because they feared they’d ruin Paris for each other forever if they lapsed into one of their many rows while on a romantic getaway.

It was time, and the stadium went dark. John walked out first, followed by Paul. They walked straight to their mics as the crowd went wild. As they led into their first song, Paul willed himself to truly enjoy himself that night, and to show that joy to John. They might as well go out with a bang. It was hard to know if they’d ever do another tour. John had been complaining about touring again during the various flare-ups, and Paul worried that he meant it for real. This just might be their last live concert. As sad as the thought was, he figured he could hold off the mourning period until he was home, in Cavendish, and alone in his music room. (Or, as John playfully referred to it: “the Mopetorium.”)

John noticed Paul’s increased energy, and he did feel unmitigated joy coming from Paul throughout the whole show. Although John had whined about touring, and even while angry at Paul he had hinted he might not tour again, John really could not see himself denying Paul his life’s blood: performing. What a ham the man was! John returned Paul’s joyful smile with a matching one of his own. For the next few hours they could have nothing but fun together.

 

*****

 

It was funny. At least Linda thought it was funny. The limo had driven through the gates and parked at the front door, and Linda had opened the door to greet Paul. Paul piled out of the car, and the driver brought Paul’s overnight bag into the house. Paul was talking excitedly with John, telling him how sorry he was that the trip was over, and waving goodbye very energetically as the car pulled out of 7 Cavendish. Almost as soon as the car’s tires were off the property, Paul turned to Linda and his entire aspect changed. He made a “oh my fucking god” kind of face, and said, his voice heavy with meaning, “It’s so great to be home! You have no idea!”

Linda giggled at this blatant display of split personality, and then held her arms out for her husband’s huge enthusiastic hug. The hug was long, tight, and sincerely meant. Yup, a little separation was a good thing for a marriage, she thought.

“Oh, Lin, I missed you so much,” Paul whispered in her ear. What Paul missed the most was the lack of drama that Linda represented. After a month of living out loud with John’s mood shifts, and giving in at will to his own inner 2 year-old, Paul was exhausted. He didn’t like drama, and in Linda’s arms he immediately felt a sense of peacefulness coming over him. Life in the emotional fast lane was a little too exciting for Paul these days, he decided. 

After Paul had showered and changed, he came down to find a fantastic home-cooked meal. James was glad to see his dad, and the three of them sat around the table catching up. Paul felt himself becoming normal again: like whatever had gotten into him on the tour had finally gotten out. After James had retired to his room, Paul and Linda cuddled on the sofa in the sitting room. 

“So, tell me all about it,” Linda said, as she sipped on a cup of tea. Paul had opted for whiskey instead.

Paul laughed. “John and I had a real roller coaster of a ride,” he admitted. “We spent half the time at each other’s throats, and the other half of the time...” Paul suddenly stopped. Had he really been about to tell his wife that he’d spent half his time having wild crazy sex with John? (Of course, no anal sex for John, but John and Paul were endlessly creative, and this had not been much of a constraint.)

Linda giggled. “I know what you were about to say, Paul. I know that you and John have sex.” 

Paul had the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah, well, it was all so unpredictable. It was very tiring.”

“So you actually stood up to John, and fought back?” Linda was skeptical.

“I did - yes. I see that look on your face, Lin! You don’t believe me. But I did. It was very unsettling for me; I couldn’t sleep very well afterwards.”

“And how did John take it?” Linda wanted to know.

“At first I could see he thought I was playing some sort of game, but after a while he got in to it. The fear I have is that he likes that kind of life. He likes the high highs and the low lows. I don’t think I can keep that up for any length of time.”

“So what’s up next for you two? Are you going to start writing again?” Linda asked. She was trying to understand if Paul was going to be able to settle into a routine again after such a merry-go-round existence. 

“I honestly don’t know. John was saying he didn’t want to tour again. I’m hoping he didn’t mean it. And we were too busy arguing about our personal stuff to focus on our music.” Paul looked upset about this revelation; apparently this thought hadn’t occurred to him before. 

“And does he expect you to go to therapy?”

“Yes. I promised him I would. He’s quite excited about that. That’s all he could talk about on the trip home from Paris. He’s got all sorts of plans for it. It’s terrifying.”

Linda giggled again, and snuggled close to Paul, running her hands through his black hair, which was now shot through with silver. He smelled good to her; he felt good to her. She was looking forward to going to bed with him. “Well, enough about John. Let’s talk about us.”

Paul melted a little, and said softly, “Is there any particular aspect of ‘us’ you would like to explore?” Paul was looking forward to be on the giving end of the sex act for a change.

Linda was only too happy to give him a few ideas. Just off the top of her head, of course.

 

*****

 

John, meanwhile, had gone home and quietly made himself comfortable. He was very tired. It had now been 10 weeks since that experience in the hotel in New York, and John felt that the physical fissures inside him had healed. He was still nervous about being fucked, but at least he didn’t cringe at the very thought of it. Tonight, he just wanted to climb into his bed and read. He was rereading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirzig. It was a favorite of John’s. He had found it lurking on his bedside table, and seeing it sitting there was like an answered prayer. He could take his mind off of the fact that Paul was probably at that moment fucking Linda blind. The pain and jealousy this threw up was like a wound that never healed. Sometimes a favorite book was like a good friend.

To John, the crazy, out-of-control six-week tour had been like nirvana. He hadn’t been bored even one second. It was like when he and Paul were young, and had fought ferociously over control of the band and then fucked with a dedicated intensity that would leave them both empty and exhausted. As he had these thoughts, his eyes felt heavy and started blinking closed. He really couldn’t read anymore, so he closed the book, and turned off his bedside lamp. He fell asleep remembering a long ago night of extreme anger in the studio, followed by a night of extreme passion in Paul’s music room at Cavendish.

At Abbey Road one night in 1966, John had tried to kill Paul with the business end of a microphone stand, but Paul had been too nimble and wiry. John had delivered significant damage to the studio walls, but not a scratch on Paul. Later, after Paul dragged John out of the studio and over to Cavendish, they’d got busy on the mattress on the floor in Paul’s music room, and the sex was incredible. It was as if they were on fire. But John’s best memory of that night was afterwards. Paul was lying naked on his back, his legs crossed, one arm behind his head, the other hand waving a spliff around. He took an enormous puff, inhaled, and then let it out, watched the smoke rise in that sexy way of his, and then said, in an extremely dispassionate and objective tone of voice: “Well, John, you really outdid yourself this time.”

 

*****

 

Fiona had just returned from a weekend getaway to the Lake District with her new boyfriend. Or, maybe she should call him her new former boyfriend, since the man had talked endlessly about share prices and SWAPS and other high finance terms that left Fiona hiding yawns behind her hand, and periodically looking at her right wrist to see the time.

The first thing she did when she got back to her flat was to check her professional answering machine to ascertain whether any of her patients were in emotional trouble. It was while listening to a few messages that she heard John’s voice:

“Well, Fiona, you were right again. Paul has come ‘round. He will come with me to therapy. We’ve been fighting like cats and dogs for weeks now, but it is kind of exhilarating. Anyway, just wanted to warn you that it will be both of us on Tuesday. See ya then.”

A great sense of relief passed over Fiona as she heard John’s words. She had been feeling horribly guilty about her mishandling of Paul’s last visit. She had pegged him as a man with a strong (meaning healthy) ego, who could stand up to emotional pressure. She hadn’t expected him to take things so much to heart so quickly. Well, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She was excited about the upcoming challenge, and cheerfully went about unpacking her bag.

 

*****

 

Paul swung the car around to John’s driveway, and John hopped in the car. He’s awfully cheerful this afternoon, Paul thought sourly. It was time to go back to see Fiona, and Paul really did feel a sense of dread as he headed the car in the direction of her office. 

“I’m really grateful you’re doing this, Paul,” John said, his voice warm and friendly. No one was ever quite so warm and friendly as John was, when he was finally getting his own way. “I warned Fiona that both of us were coming.”

Great. She’ll be armed and ready for me, Paul grumbled to himself. He pictured her sitting in her chair wearing a Valkyrie hat with a slobbering beast on a chain at her feet. Gee, I hope I’m not the beast on the chain. He shook his head to dislodge the disturbing image.

“I wonder what she’s going to lead off with...” John was nattering excitedly.

‘Lead off?’ It sounded like a set list! Paul sighed heavily. How could John be so eager about going to a mental proctologist? 

“I think we should tell her about our fights on tour,” John went on.

Paul finally spoke. “Or, we could start by telling her about what you did in New York.” 

John stopped talking and stared at Paul. “Still carrying that cross, are you?” This was one of John’s favorite putdowns, Paul knew. It had been used on him any number of times over the years.

“Yes, I believe I am,” Paul said succinctly and without a trace of guilt in his face or voice. So this time Paul had refused to be shamed out of his own legitimate feelings. 

John was silenced. He turned to stare out the side window, and pouted all the rest of the way to Fiona’s office.

 

*****

 

When she heard the buzzer, Fiona’s heart rate went up. This was high stakes counseling - like the Olympics for therapists. Smoothing her skirt, she went to open the door. This time the snapshot she took of the two men before they noticed her showed Paul seated on one end of the sofa, his legs neatly crossed as he thumbed through a magazine with a blasé expression on his face, and John seated on the other end of the sofa, his arms crossed, and his face in a pouty funk. So, they’re in the middle of a row, Fiona said. Interesting.

Both men got up politely, and each held out his hand to her for a shake. This must be a memorized reaction, Fiona thought. It would have been beaten into their subconscious minds after decades’ worth of constantly having to make the first gesture of greeting to virtually every new person they met. Paul looked slightly nervous, but his palm was cool and dry. John had a look that perfectly combined insecurity and anger. Ahhhh, John. Here we go again...

“Come in, gentlemen. Please make yourselves comfortable. I’ve just made some afternoon tea. Would you like some?” This was a strategy she had thought up especially for Paul. She’d make it seem like a nice friendly chat over tea, rather than an appointment with a dentist. She wondered if Paul would bite.

“Thanks, I’d like that,” Paul said smoothly. There wasn’t really any warmth in his eyes, but there was no overt distrust, either. 

John nodded affirmatively, and she acted as mother, pouring out the tea for all three of them. 

“So, John, so much has happened since we last saw each other. And you stopped calling me regularly weeks ago.”

John shot her a guilty look and grumbled something about a lot going on, and being too busy to spare the time. “Anyway,” he added, “the stuff that was happening I really couldn’t talk about on the phone. I thought I’d save it up for when we saw each other in person again.”

Fiona’s silent response was a rebuke, but she didn’t make a meal of it. She said, “So you stopped calling me regularly halfway through your trip to New York. I never really got a rundown on how that trip went.”

John’s face suddenly clouded over in anger, almost as if Fiona had betrayed him in some way. Fiona noted this, and then quickly glanced at Paul, who had a slight duck-face smirk on his face, but who was looking at his tightly clasped hands. Fiona fancied that Paul’s knuckles were white. A tell. 

“Don’t you want to talk about your trip to New York?” Fiona asked John.

“What do you want to know?” John asked grumpily.

Fiona chuckled. “Come on John, you haven’t been away that long. You know that’s not how it works. Just tell me your story in your own way and in your own time.”

John heaved a long-suffering sigh. It was the sigh of a martyr. Fiona ignored this and waited for John to open up. 

“It started out okay,” John said slowly. “I was working on my apartment with the contractor and designer, and my friend Jason was helping me. Anyway, I’d get back to Jason’s and it would be like 6, 7 p.m. We’d have dinner and it would be like half past 8. It felt like, now what do I do? Gerry always watched these news programs on public television, and Jason would sit down and read books he was reviewing for his magazine column. I could literally hear the clocks ticking.”

“How did that feel to you?” Fiona asked softly.

“Boring! I was bored out of my mind. When I’m bored, I start having all these bad thoughts. I just want to shut them up, so I try to do something to block them out.”

Paul had looked up from his hands, Fiona noticed, and was watching John intently with a half curious, half sympathetic expression on his face. Fiona looked back to John. 

“At home in London, when you get bored, what do you do to shut the thoughts out?” Fiona asked. 

“I call Paul,” he said, laughing. Fiona noted that Paul chuckled too.

“And if Paul is with his wife or is otherwise busy?”

“I have friends in London. We go to movies, or plays, or out to dinner or a club. Or I watch one of my video movies. When I’m in my house, I can choose what’s on the TV, and I have an assortment of reading material.”

“Do you think the boredom was related to the fact that you were in someone else’s home in New York, and you couldn’t control your environment?”

John thought about it for a while and said, slowly, “Maybe.” He’d honestly never had thought of that possibility, so it was something he would have to simmer over. And, of course, he had skipped over the fact that he frequently got bored at home in London, and had scary thoughts, and struggled to come up with ways to quiet those thoughts.

“So, when you had this feeling of boredom while you were in New York, what did you do?”

“I looked up some old friends - people I knew in the ‘70s,” John said. 

Fiona noticed that Paul winced - ever so slightly - and then shook his head - again ever so slightly - at this news. This made Fiona wonder. Still, she had to focus on John just now. 

“What did you do with these friends?” Fiona asked. John was being uncharacteristically withholding today - it reminded her of how he’d been when he first started therapy, years earlier. She suspected it was Paul’s presence that was inhibiting him.

“They would take me out to these clubs and bars - crazy scenes. It was like being time-warped back to the ‘70s. There were lots of loose women.”

“And drugs...” The mutter had come from Paul’s mouth. Both John and Fiona looked at him in surprise.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Fiona asked. She’d heard the word, but wanted him to expand.

Paul blushed a little. “I’m sorry. It just burst out. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.” 

“It’s okay. This is a place where you can just blurt things out without thinking,” Fiona said lightly. “So what did you say?” 

John answered for him. “He said, ‘and drugs’.” 

“What did you mean by that?” Fiona asked Paul.

Paul stopped himself from rolling his eyes because - really - it was obvious what he meant by that. “I meant that there were a lot of drugs in those clubs, just like in the ‘70s.” 

“Is this true, John? Were there a lot of drugs in these clubs?” Fiona asked. 

John grunted. “Yeah, there were drugs. I took my share of ‘em, but I stopped when I came back to London, so it didn’t trigger abuse or addiction.” 

Fiona was alarmed by John’s dismissal of the fact that he had literally regressed to his thirties and dabbled with drugs and ‘loose women’ just because he was bored. But she could not show this alarm to John. “What drugs were these?”

“I smoked a lot of hash, tried some designer pills, took some lines of coke ... nothing terribly serious.” John minimized.

“How did that make you feel afterwards?” Fiona asked, smothering her shock.

“High,” John snorted. 

Fiona did not comment. She just kept looking at him politely as if John had not spoken. Eventually, this shook John’s confident exterior. 

“I guess it took away some of my ability to make good decisions,” John finally admitted.

“Did you make some bad decisions while you were in New York?”

John looked to Paul, and Paul met his eyes and nodded ever so slightly in an encouraging way. So John looked back down at his hands and answered, “Yeah. I made some really bad decisions.”


	57. Chapter 57

Fiona paused after John’s admission that he had made some bad decisions in New York. Her thought was to let John tell her in his own words. But John didn’t look like he was going to say anything more about it. It was Paul who broke the silence.

“John, you don’t have to do this today if you don’t want to; I’m okay with it.” Paul’s hand had reached over, Fiona noted, and he was squeezing John’s hand, which was clenched on his thigh. 

Fiona decided to let that cryptic remark go. It seemed to have a very relaxing effect on John; he looked up at Paul and smiled slightly. He looked...grateful. Then he said,

“Paul and I were arguing about this on the way here. He wanted me to talk about this, and I didn’t want to. “

Fiona nodded, but said nothing. She waited.

“But I guess it might as well be now, as later,” John added. “See, I was having these one night stands with women, but it was, well, it wasn’t hitting the spot, if you get what I mean.”

Fiona swallowed manfully. “So you didn’t find these ‘one-night stands’ satisfying?” She spared a quick glance over to Paul, and saw that his elbow was on the arm of the sofa, and his forehead was in his hand. He looked pained. 

“You miss my point,” John said, a not-very-nice flicker licking around the edges of his grin. “It wasn’t hitting the spot because they were women.” 

Fiona had to work very hard not to show her surprise. Again, she cast a worried glance towards Paul. He hadn’t moved since the last time. John noticed Fiona’s protective glance, and looked over to Paul too. 

“Paul, if you don’t want to hear this, I can have this conversation separately with Fiona,” John offered.

Paul looked up and said, “No, no.” He smiled valiantly. “In for a pence, in for a pound.” Fiona thought with some amusement, how thoughtful they are to each other all of a sudden.

“So, the thing is, I went to this trendy gay club - it was for twenty-somethings. I figured I wouldn’t be recognized there.” John sounded almost cheerful as he told this story. Fiona felt like this was not a good tone for him to take in this situation. Now Paul had leant back against the sofa, both arms by his side, with his head leaning all the way back. He was staring at the ceiling. “My idea was that I would have an anonymous fuck - just the one time. Paul and I have rules about this...”

Paul sucked in his breath. His hand had gone up to cover his eyes. Fiona asked, “Are you okay with this Paul?” She had begun to think John was doing this to stick Paul’s nose in it. She was ready to call this line of inquiry off, and tell John to discuss it with her privately if she read another deeply vulnerable vibe off Paul. 

Paul allowed his hand to fall off his face and said, “Oh, yeah...fine.” One of his eyes angled down until it met Fiona’s concerned expression. He then winked and a fugitive but not very convincing grin fled across his face. He then replaced his arm across his face.

“As I was saying,” John continued, irritated by the interruption, “Paul and I have rules. I’m allowed to have other lovers, but only when Paul is with Linda, and only if I’m not drunk, and not in our homes, and only one-night stands - and only if I use a condom.”

“You’re leaving one out, John.” Paul’s voice was singsong, while his head was still aimed at the ceiling.

“I told you - I didn’t think that was one of the rules!” John responded defensively. 

“What are we talking about, please?” Fiona asked.

“Paul has this belief that I promised him I wouldn’t have sex with other men. But I don’t remember that one. I remember that I imposed that one on myself.” 

Fiona was losing ground here. But oh, well, she might as well jump in. “So, Paul, what do you remember about that rule?” 

Paul allowed his arm to flop down to his side again, and with what seemed like a great deal of effort, he sat forward. “What I remember is asking him not to have sex with blokes if he could possibly not, since there were blackmailing possibilities, and then he said he wouldn’t do it with blokes.” 

“See!” John cried. “He said, ‘if I possibly could not!’ He didn’t say I couldn’t!”

Paul’s baleful expression met Fiona’s perplexed one. Paul said to her directly, “This was after Nigel.” 

“But it was before Rob,” John spat.

“I didn’t have sex with Rob,” Paul snapped back. 

“Yeah, but you wanted to have sex with him!”

“Who’s Rob?” Fiona asked loudly, finally catching their joint attention.

Both men, who had been sitting forward and had faced each other while they were arguing, immediately sat back in their seats again and calmed down. It was as if they suddenly realized they had an audience and had to behave themselves. They’re quite a pair, Fiona told herself.

She asked again, more quietly, “Is Rob important to this discussion, or is he a red herring?”

John sighed and said, “He’s more like a red herring I guess.” 

“Then let’s stick to one thing at a time, shall we? John, you were talking about the rules, and I think we determined that there was a misunderstanding between the two of you about what the rules were.” 

Paul heard this, and closed himself off a little. He knew John had reassured him he would never have sex with another man. It was true that Paul hadn’t demanded it of John, but John had promised. It was discouraging to find out that John had no memory of those promises. Discouraging, that is, but not really surprising. Paul’s whole aspect seemed to collapse in on itself, although he did not know how obvious this was to an objective and careful observer. 

Fiona noticed it immediately. We’ve lost him, she thought. “Paul? Did I misstate something?” Her expression was as encouraging and soft as she could make it.

Paul shook his head, and then smiled to reassure her. But Fiona felt there was something forced about the smile.

“Cough it up, Paul!” John demanded coarsely. “We don’t have time for your shrinking violet shit!”

“John!” Fiona objected.

“It’s okay, Fiona, I’m used to it.” It was Paul. Fiona turned to look at him and he had a wry expression on his face. He turned towards John, and his expression became tougher. “Okay, so John - you told me more than once that you wouldn’t cheat on me with a bloke. You said it a number of times. When you said it did you mean it? Or maybe you meant it when you said it, but you don’t hold yourself to promises?” 

John was stilled. This was a heavy indictment indeed, and while Paul had implied in some of their rows on the tour that perhaps he was not a trustworthy partner, now Paul was calling him out very directly on that issue, in front of Fiona. 

“Paul - I - I - I’m sorry. But I really don’t remember making that promise.” John looked sincere enough. But this did nothing to assuage Paul’s deeply hurt feelings. 

“Well, let’s leave that aside for the moment. It is a very important issue, but I’d like to find out the end of this story. What happened with this man?” Fiona’s voice was firm. 

John’s voice was no longer chipper or laced with braggadocio. “I met this young man. I fancied him because he reminded me of you, Paul, when you were young.” 

Paul sucked in his breath. 

“Did you mean that as a compliment, John?” After a dead silence, Fiona finally asked, as neutrally as she could.

“Of course I did!” John said.

“Paul, did you hear that as a compliment?”

Paul actually was near tears. It was humiliating to feel the tears threatening. Not again! I’m not going to lose it again! It was an effort of will, but Paul found the strength to regain his composure. Very calmly he said, “No.”

John had the nerve to be surprised by this. “No? No? I told you I went out cruising and the only man I find attractive reminds me a little of you and you think that’s not a compliment?” John’s voice was incredulous.

“To be precise, John, what you said was, that the man looked like Paul ‘when he was younger’.” Fiona was seeing a very ugly side of John she hadn’t even known existed.

John heard Fiona’s remark and took a few seconds to react. “Well...no, no...I didn’t mean it that way! I mean, it wasn’t like I was looking for a replacement. It was just a one-night stand! I couldn’t get it up unless I was attracted to him, could I?”

Fiona was trying to follow this crazy logic when she was surprised by Paul’s poorly disguised laughter. His hand flew over his mouth and he shook his head as if to say, I can’t help it. It’s objectively funny. Fiona decided that she should lighten up. These two were so unpredictable that it was useless to try to make sense of it all. “I’m beginning to think there is no end to this story,” she said with a smile. 

“Well if everyone would stop interrupting me, I could get through the whole fucking thing, okay?” John sounded thoroughly exasperated, and Paul let loose another smothered laugh.

“So, this man and I went to this nice hotel he knew about, and, well, we had sex.” John stopped. He suddenly realized that to explain to Fiona what happened he would have to tell her that he had wanted some stranger to fuck him up his ass. His discussions of his sexuality with her had never been reduced to this kind of detail. This was certainly going to be awkward. “And so, the idea was, he would be the dom and I would be the sub.” The old standby. 

Fiona now knew where the credit card receipt controversy she’d read about in the news came from. She also knew - of course - what doms and subs were. She was not surprised that John wanted to be the sub. Of course, she would never tell John that.

John could tell by Fiona’s expression that Fiona wasn’t shocked by his disclosure, so he felt emboldened to continue. “So, it was going okay until, well, he went a little overboard. And it was hurting me. And I tried to make him stop, but he just kept on going. It was, well, it felt a bit like...”

“Rape?” Fiona asked softly. 

“Yeah. Although I know I asked for it, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t know how much it hurt, because I tried to hide it from him, but...” John’s voice petered out.

Fiona couldn’t be angry with John any more. He had dressed up this tragic story in humorous bravado. It had to have been extremely traumatic for him. She looked over at Paul, and Paul was now watching John’s face empathetically. Paul was quite the chameleon. He was disengaged, then irritated, then obviously in pain, then holding back honest giggles, and then deeply empathetic, all within the space of fewer than 10 minutes. Intriguing. 

“So, after this happened, what did you do?” Fiona asked quietly.

“I went back to Jason and Gerry’s place, and I didn’t go out again. It really scared me. It really did.” John subsided into silence. 

Fiona turned to Paul. “So Paul, when did John tell you about this?”

“I think it was about 2 weeks later, I flew to New York to find out what was going on with John, and he told me what happened.” 

“What was your reaction?”

“He was in physical pain. He had been injured. I was worried, I was angry at the man who had done that to him...”

“Were you hurt because he had consensual sex with another man?” Fiona asked.

Paul was silent. He considered his answer for a long time. He wanted to be honest, but he was having trouble dissecting and remembering what he felt the first time John had told him what happened. It had been a horrible shock. “I don’t know if I was hurt then,” he said finally. “But later on, after I thought about it for awhile, yes - I was hurt.” 

 

*****

 

Driving home from Fiona’s that night, Paul was actually quite cheerful. It hadn’t been bad at all. In fact, John had been on the hot seat for the entire hour. Therapy was actually kind of fun, when the therapist was burrowing in on John instead of him!

John, meanwhile, felt a little bit blitzed. He had been so excited about the therapy that he hadn’t stopped to think how it might turn out: him answering to Fiona and Paul for his behavior! He was pouting in the passenger seat, staring bleakly out the window. It wasn’t until Paul started whistling that his temper flared.

“You sure threw me under the bus today!” John growled.

Paul stopped in mid-whistle. “Sorry?”

“You threw me under the bus - repeatedly!”

“I never!” Paul responded. 

“You didn’t stick up for me at all!” John shouted.

“I can hear you, John - I’m sitting right next to you. You don’t need to shout,” Paul said with infuriating rationality. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. I barely said anything at all.”

“Exactly! You said nothing to defend me!” 

Paul was struck dumb. He really was. He finally was able to say, “Are you serious?”

“Yes of course I am. You just let me carry all the blame!” John’s arms were crossed and he sounded very bitter.

“John, you amaze me. We were talking about how you went off and asked another man to fuck you! What blame did I have in that?” Paul’s voice was so angry it sounded as if it throbbed even to John.

“You need to get over that. Really. It was just a misunderstanding. I didn’t think you would mind.” John was very defensive. 

“Ohhh- kay! Since you think that is acceptable behavior, maybe I’ll just give Rob a call and see if he is still interested in me,” Paul said in a very bitchy voice. (Well, it was bitchy. Truly.) 

“Oh-oh-oh-oh - here we go!” John shouted. “And how do I know you didn’t already let him fuck you? He was smelling up your dress for months, after all!” 

Paul was offended by the phrase “smelling up your dress,” and that added fuel to his already burning fire. “I didn’t fuck him, and he certainly didn’t fuck me, but only because you came back. If you hadn’t come back that night, I would soooo have fucked him! I’ve often wondered what it would have been like.” The words echoed around the car, and Paul heard his echo and was thoroughly surprised it had come out of his mouth. But he wasn’t sorry. Not one tiny bit. It felt good to land an arrow in the middle of John’s heart for a change.

John was stunned. His face looked like a photo example of a stunned person. His mouth was hanging open. “You- you’re - you’re saying you wish you had fucked Rob?” His voice was shocked, absolutely shocked.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve given it much thought before now, John. But I used to feel grateful it hadn’t happened, because I would have hated to hurt you. So what do you do? You didn’t give a shit about me when you allowed that bloke to fuck you. How am I supposed to get over that if you’re not even sorry? You continue to pretend that you never promised me you wouldn’t do that!” Paul accented this last sentence with a mighty pound on the steering wheel. His voice had actually risen to something approximating a shout.

John was in total awe. I never saw him that angry! He thought. It’s kind of thrilling. Paul was jealous of him! Paul was actually jealous that he had allowed another man to fuck him! This was fantastic news! John knew he should be thoroughly pissed, but this was good news! This gave John his power back. “You only said you wanted to fuck Rob to make me jealous, isn’t that interesting,” he said, a smug look permeating his face. 

“What?” For a dangerous moment Paul took his eyes off the road, and nearly rear-ended the car in front of him. “Don’t be daft. I wouldn’t do anything that stupid! I wouldn’t have sex with anyone unless I was attracted to him.”

So now a silence permeated the air. John took that in. This new information was not nearly as fantastic. Paul had just inadvertently informed him that he had been attracted to Rob! This was... disturbing.

Just then, Paul was driving down the mews, and parked the car in the garage. Paul unsnapped his seatbelt, and swung the driver’s door open and immediately got out. He was really upset. John had no sense of guilt for the hurt he’d caused. Even Fiona’s surgical questions couldn’t get an admission of guilt out of John. There was only one conclusion Paul could draw from this: John didn’t give a shit that he had hurt him, and he didn’t care enough about their relationship to deny a temptation. And why would John be tempted to fuck someone else? Aren’t I enough for John? Apparently not! So John was also basically telling him that he wasn’t enough. Paul was so upset with these interior thoughts that, after slamming the door behind him, he turned down the mews and walked back to the Cavendish garden gate without another word, leaving John still seated in the car.

 

*****

 

Linda was in the kitchen when she heard Paul slam a few doors and thunder upstairs. Oh, dear. I knew this therapy with John was not a good idea. She had been rinsing dishes, so she dried her hands on a hand towel, and headed towards the stairs. She found Paul banging around in the bedroom, as he changed out of a suit and into some comfier clothes.

“So, I take it the therapy didn’t go so well,” Linda said in a soft voice, after she sat down on the bed to watch Paul banging around the room.

“The therapy was fine!” Paul declared, and then slammed a drawer.

“It seems as though you are very upset, though,” Linda pointed out.

“The therapy was fine - it was John - on the ride home...” 

“Yes?” Linda asked.

“He - he - well, he isn’t loyal to me. I’m beginning to think he doesn’t even love me. I can’t understand how I could have been so wrong for so long!”

“Whoa - Paul - slow down. Tell me calmly what happened?” Linda’s heart rate had actually increased.

“You know - he - he keeps deserting me! He runs at the first sign of boredom!” Paul wasn’t planning on telling Linda that John cheated on him with a man, but he needed to explain why he felt so betrayed.

“Yes, this is true. And you’re just realizing this?” Linda asked. She was actually encouraged that Paul was showing his anger for a change. She had always known the hurt and anger were there; but she had also known that Paul was a genius at hiding his true feelings, even from himself.

“I know, Linda, I know. I should have put an end to this nonsense years ago. I mean, how much am I supposed to take?” Paul’s question was throbbing with intensity.

“I think you have taken as much as you should take, obviously,” Linda responded.

“He doesn’t really give a shit about my feelings. It’s all about him, him, him. If I even try to defend myself he gets all, ‘you threw me under the bus’ - I mean - who’s the one who has pulled him out of all the crap he’s got himself into? And without a thought to my feelings?” Paul was on a roll now.

Before Linda could say anything, from the lower floor a shout was heard:

“Paul! Where the fuck are you! How dare you just run off? We have unfinished business!” It was John, and he was nearing the foyer downstairs.

“Oh, fuck,” Paul swore. “He can’t leave me alone for two fucking seconds!” Those last three words were shouted at the top of Paul’s lungs. Linda stepped away in awe. She sat back down, this time on the easy chair in the bedroom, and waited for John to join the fray. This ought to be interesting, she thought.

John was suddenly in their bedroom. “Linda - this is between me and Paul!” John’s voice was overly dramatic.

“Says you and what army?” Linda asked laconically. She wasn’t about to leave her own bedroom so John could berate her husband in privacy.

John ignored her, and Linda remained where she was. John turned to Paul. “How dare you walk out on me when we were in the middle of a discussion? It is so fucking rude!”

“That’s rich! You calling me rude! I had nothing more to say to you! I’d already told you everything I had to say, and you blew it off! It made no impact on you whatsoever when I told you that I was hurt by what you did! You just want to argue your fucking semantic point! Well, you can take your fucking semantic point and shove it up your ass!” Paul was literally shouting through this diatribe. Linda was thoroughly impressed. She had to stop herself from acting as Paul’s cheerleader. Oooh, ahhh, siss boom bah, John is an asshole, rah rah rah!

“You just told me you were attracted to Rob and you wanted to fuck him!” John yelled. “And then you think you can just walk away?” John’s voice ended with an actual wail. 

Wait a minute, Linda thought. What’s this about Paul wanting to fuck Rob? Suddenly, this wasn’t nearly as fun as it had been a moment ago. She turned to Paul with a look of shock and betrayal on her face.

Paul didn’t notice Linda’s expression. He was too busy interacting psychically with John. “You want to dish it out, but you can’t take it!” Paul shouted at John. “Well, if you take me for granted you might get burned!”

“Paul?” Linda’s voice was weak and fearful. Paul noticed it, and stared at her with confusion for a few moments.

“What?” He asked her, confused.

“Is it true that you wanted to have sex with Rob?” She appeared to be choking back tears.

Paul rushed over to her and gathered her in his arms. “Lin, Lin, I was just mad at John and I said stuff I didn’t mean.”

“You didn’t mean it? You didn’t mean it?” John was literally sputtering at the other side of the room. 

Paul was still focused on Linda. He was comforting her and whispered in her ear, “I was just lost because John had deserted me again, and Rob actually expressed interest in me at a time when I felt very unwanted.” Linda heard this and hugged him fiercely. She understood without having to hear further explanation that Paul was telling her that his reaction to Rob had everything to do with John, and nothing to do with her. Still...

John found jealousy rising in his throat at the sight of Paul comforting Linda over Rob. Paul had used Rob as a red flag against him, but didn’t want to hurt the precious Linda, Queen of All That is Right. “See - you protect her! You take her side against me - every fucking time! I never see you protecting me that way!” John’s voice was bordering on a screech at this point.

“Oh bullshit!” Linda screamed, standing up. Both men stood back in surprise as she entered the fray. “John, Paul has had your back through all of your craziest stunts! He won’t hear a word against you, not even from me! You’re so fucking self-centered! You have no idea what Paul has been through on your behalf! I think it is time you got an idea, or you are going to lose him! You’re halfway to losing him already!” 

John wanted to slap her across her face. He had wanted to do that once before - when she’d come between him and Paul during a meeting at Apple, back in 1969. She had actually presumed to rush to Paul’s defense against him! The nerve of that! Paul had been his property...er...partner, not hers! Linda’s display of triumphant possessiveness had gone straight to John’s jealousy button, and the only thing that stopped him from hitting her was the intervention of others. This time he was able to stop himself. At least he had matured sufficiently in the past 23 years to be able to stop himself from hitting her. But probably the main reason he stopped himself was that he knew if he hit Linda that would be it. Paul would banish him and nothing would ever be the same. So, instead of hitting her, he turned on his heel, and rushed out of the room. He plowed down the stairs, and practically ran all the way back to his home, slamming the backdoor behind him, and then racing up the stairs to his bedroom, where he slammed and locked the door and threw himself on the bed. He then lost himself in angry, fearful, and painful sobs. 

Back at Cavendish, Paul felt bewildered. How had he let his temper get so out of control that he’d literally waved Rob in front of John’s face? What was happening to him? It had come to pass, just as he had feared. He had opened up, just a little at first, and now there was a torrent of uncontrollable anger pouring out of him, swamping and scarring everyone and everything close to him with its corrosive properties. I should never have opened my mouth, Paul thought as waves of guilt rushed over him, I knew it would be like this. 

Linda was trying to comfort Paul, but he was not responding as he usually did to her loving touches. He wasn’t pushing her away, precisely, but it was as if so much was going on in his head that he didn’t even notice her attempts to ease his emotional suffering. He was obviously in the midst of a mental civil war. 

Finally, Paul stood up, disentangling himself from Linda’s embrace. He said, “I can’t take this anymore - all this drama. I just can’t do it. Let’s you and me go down to Sussex for the rest of this week. I need to get away from John for a while because I’m so mad at him; he won’t admit he was wrong, and so I can’t stop myself from saying mean things to him.” 

Linda was more than willing to get away with Paul, and return to their Sussex home for a nice break. It would be great, too, if Paul would spend some quality time with James. But she wasn’t sure he should be running away from this particular fight without first squaring things with John. “I think a break is a good idea, especially after the tour,” Linda said carefully. “But don’t you think you should go talk to John, and make sure he understands why you need the break?”

“He never considers my feelings when he wants to get away. He just gets up and goes.” Paul’s voice was sharp; the tone in his voice was ungenerous. 

“Which is precisely why you shouldn’t behave that same way. You should model the behavior you would like him to follow, instead of being spiteful just to prove a point.” Linda’s voice was firm and no-nonsense. Paul always listened to her when she talked turkey like this. 

Paul nodded in a dejected way. “Okay, but not now. Right now I don’t think I can be trusted to behave like a grown up.”

Linda chuckled. “Fair enough. I’ll go down and start dinner. Why don’t you go find James and spend some time with him? He missed you a lot when you were on tour.” 

 

*****

 

It was about 9 or 10 o’clock when Paul went over to John’s house. Linda and James were packing as Paul walked slowly down the mews. He was dragging his feet because he was dreading the anticipated confrontation. The house was dark, as if no one was home. It was just like John to have run off on the town when things were bad between them. Maybe he’s fucking another bloke, he thought uncharitably. 

He let himself in, and turned on the kitchen light. He then wandered down the hallway. The house was completely dark. He switched on the light over the stairwell, and decided to check if John was upstairs. When he got to the master bedroom door, he was surprised to find it locked. That’s not good, he thought. John never locked that door, except when the kids were in the house and he and Paul were having sex. Paul checked under the door and saw that the light was off. He knocked on the door.

“John?” Paul’s voice was at first soft, but a few moments later he called out again, and now his voice was louder. Paul was starting to panic. Maybe John had done something stupid? “John!” The third time he called John’s name it was a panicked shout. Where is the key to this door? Paul asked himself. He didn’t know the answer. He’d never had to unlock the bleeping door before! He had a memory from his childhood - how he and his brother used to unlock the cloak cupboard (where their birthday and Christmas presents had been stowed) by using a knife from the kitchen utensil drawer. Just as he had decided to go down to the kitchen to get a knife, the door opened.

The bedroom was dark, but Paul could see John’s silhouette standing in the aperture glaring at him accusingly. Paul felt tremendous relief at first, followed quickly by irritation because of the accusing expression on John’s face. “What do you want, Paul?” John asked in a low, deadened voice.

“I came to talk about what happened,” Paul said, adjuring himself not to be mean, but also not to give in and absorb all the blame. 

John snickered as he turned and headed for the bed again. He turned on the bedside lamp, and then flopped down on the bed, looking up at Paul, who was now standing over the bed. John said in a snide voice: “I spent 35 fucking years trying to get you to talk, and for the last few weeks I can’t get you to shut up.” 

Paul’s reactive smile was not convincing, but at least he managed not to respond with a smartass comment of his own. Instead, he sat down on the side of the bed and said, “That argument got out of control, and I’m sorry about that.” 

“You’re sorry about the argument?” John asked. “Or are you just sorry it got out of control?”

“The latter, I think,” Paul responded bravely. 

“You basically told me that I’m replaceable, you know,” John said. His expression was that of a man who felt insulted and wronged. He didn’t look scared or hurt. This rubbed Paul the wrong way.

“I didn’t say anything of the sort,” Paul snorted shortly.

“You didn’t say it, but you implied it.”

“In fact, what I said was that you had treated me as if I were replaceable, and it hurt me. You refused to acknowledge this, and so I childishly said something about Rob to show you how it felt to be me. Then it suddenly became all about you being wronged by me. You completely missed the entire point of what I was saying.” Paul’s grievance was met with a stony silence from John. At least a minute went by and John did not respond. It appeared to Paul that he was not going to respond, so Paul broke his news: “I think we need a break from each other for a few days or so. Linda and I are taking James down to Sussex for the rest of the week.”

“We have a session with Fiona on Thursday afternoon. Are you already bugging out on me?” John’s voice now had a whiff of insecurity in it.

“I will go back with you next Tuesday, but right now I need to get my anger back in its cage, and lock it up for good. I don’t like the person I’m becoming.”

John felt panicky. “Paul, don’t. Don’t go back to that withholding thing you do.” 

“I’m a nicer person that way,” Paul said. “I’m ashamed of my behavior lately.”

“It’s just something you go through in therapy, until you get to the other side.”

Paul heard this, and appreciated John’s move towards a calmer, less childish method of communicating. He said, “Right now the ‘other side’ does not seem very appealing to me. I mean, I only seem to be able to say hurtful things.” 

John chuckled. “Join the crowd.” Paul laughed at this, but John said, “I’m serious, you know. It’s okay for you to be human like the rest of us. The world won’t come screeching to a halt if you behave badly once in a while.”

“I’ll be back by Tuesday, John, and maybe we can have a more objective - or at least a less abusive - conversation about all of this.” 

John felt bad about Paul’s running away with Linda, but he knew that it was going to happen no matter what he said, so he decided to take it in as mature a manner as he could manage. “I guess I’ll see Fiona alone then, on Thursday.”

“I think it might be a good thing, really,” Paul said softly. “You can speak to someone who is objective without me there to change the vibe.” 

A few moments later, Paul was on his way back to Cavendish, and John - who had already sobbed out all his anger, so that only fear remained - turned on his side and told himself that if he couldn’t get to sleep within 10 minutes, he was going to take another sleeping pill.


	58. Chapter 58

“So, off he went to the wilds of Sussex,” John concluded, trying to drum up a believable smile. Fiona had watched him carefully from her seat across from him. She had watched the subtle emotions flashing across his face throughout his recital. She had heard the whole story - the ride home in the car after the last session, the meltdown in Paul and Linda’s bedroom, and Paul’s decision to put distance between them for a short while. Fiona had heard it all, and felt John’s sadness, although John had tried to keep his sense of humor intact throughout. What she didn’t know about was John’s insomnia, and his increasing dependence on sleep aides. 

“What do you suppose led to the argument in the car?” Fiona asked gently.

“I started it.”

“Why?” Fiona asked.

John looked at her curiously. “Why,” he thought, was a strange question to ask. He had expected “how” or “what” - not “why.” John thought for a moment and said, “I felt like there were two of you against one at the session, and I was blaming him for not sticking up for me.”

“Funny, isn’t that how Paul felt that last session a few months ago? That you and I were ‘ganging up’ on him?” Fiona had made the connection immediately, but apparently John was just starting to consider it, by the look of clueless confusion on his face.

“Yes, I guess so,” he said thoughtfully. 

“The odd thing to me is that I wasn’t on your side when Paul thought I was, and I wasn’t on Paul’s side when you thought I was. I was being absolutely neutral both times.” 

John looked up at her and then smiled. “Yeah, I know. It’s incredibly stupid, but you have to understand - Paul and I love each other, but we’ve also always been incredibly competitive with each other. At least we’re not doing it in our work any more - we learned that lesson the hard way - but we’re always afraid the other one is going to get a bigger piece of the pie. It’s juvenile, but there it is.” 

“And I’m the pie?” Fiona asked, a fugitive smile flirting with her mouth.

“So to speak,” John said. “We were like jealous siblings around Brian Epstein. You wouldn’t believe the games we played in order to ace the other one out with Brian. I won, but I let him toss me off. Paul would never have let him do that.  
The idea was, whoever got closest to him would be in control of the band, you see.”

Fiona did see.

“And there was the Maharishi, you know.”

“The Maharishi?” Fiona was a little perplexed.

“Yes, we went to his ashram in India, and we were always competing to be closer to him. I won, I think. It pissed George off royally, because the whole thing was his idea. The Maharishi let me ride in his helicopter. Paul was raving with envy. It took me years to realize that I only won because the Maharishi was kind of a con man, and he knew that Paul was too shrewd to be taken in for long.” 

Fiona’s head was swimming.

“And, of course, there were the reporters that hung around us when we were in the Beatles, and after. They often took sides, and Paul and I were not above courting them, you know, in order to spin things our way in the press.”

“Did you have different ‘ways’ that you needed to spin?” Fiona asked. She was no longer a therapist: now she was just an avidly curious listener. 

“Not really, no, but we thought we had something individual to prove. We both wanted to be the one on top, you know, and not only were we like that with music, our friends, the press, our management, and women, but also with each other - in our sexual relationship. It has been a tug of war, as Paul once wrote, from day one.”

“Hmmm,” Fiona voiced, stepping back into her therapist role. “I could have sworn that there was more at stake in this room on Tuesday than just a pointless competition. I felt real, tense, and simmering emotion. From both of you.” 

John sighed and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, well that was there, too. But you asked me why we had the argument, and the reason we had the argument was that I was jealous that you were on his side, not mine. Well, even if you weren’t really on his side.”

“Ok, so that is what started the argument, but then it changed, right?” 

“Yes, he is still very angry at me about that bloke in New York.” 

“Does that surprise you?” Fiona asked.

“Yes and no.” John changed position, trying to make himself more comfortable. He had to settle in for the long haul on this one. “Yes, it surprises me because Paul never holds grudges. Or, he never has before. Things have always just run off his back, like water off a duck.” 

“Has it occurred to you that maybe he was storing up those hurt feelings, and just was afraid to show anyone?”

John said softly, “It has begun to occur to me,” he admitted softly.

“You told me the ‘yes’ part. What about the ‘no’ part?”

“No because,” a cynical laugh escaped John’s throat. “Because this time I...” - John flashed back to that Cavendish music room, after the fight in the studio in 1966 - “...this time I really outdid myself.” 

 

*****

 

Sussex had been a blissful break from stress. Paul had spent most of his time in the fields, doing physical labor. Of course, he did the work far less efficiently and effectively than did his land managers and the hired workers, but it was the kind of therapy that best worked for him - getting his hands dirty and putting his back into it. He stopped shoveling for a moment and looked up at the sun, bravely shining through a few passing clouds. Life is like that, Paul thought. He then wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his dirty work glove (leaving a streak behind), and went back to work.

Linda had gotten up a few hours after Paul, and was now in the kitchen making American hotcakes for breakfast. The smell wafted up through the vents and into James’s room. It infiltrated his dream, and woke him up. Meanwhile, Linda was humming as she went about getting ready to feed her two men. She knew Paul had gotten up at the crack of dawn to go out and work in the fields. She wondered if the farm manager would actually benefit from the fruits of Paul’s labor, but either way it made Paul feel closer to Real Life to do Real Chores. 

Just as she thought of him, Paul came in. He looked like he’d been rolling around in the dirt. Linda tried not to show her involuntary smile to him, so she quickly turned her back. “Clean up fast, hon, because breakfast is almost ready.”

Paul felt rejuvenated by the thought of pancakes. He made a beeline for the shower. Linda giggled in his wake. The previous night they had gotten high on smoke and had engaged in a long foreplay session, followed by a very hot sex session. Linda felt extremely satisfied and happy this morning. Just getting Paul away from London, and away from all the drama with John, had caused Paul to relax and start behaving like the goofy, adorable perennial 12 year-old that he really was, if left to his own devices. One thing that concerned Linda was that lately John seemed to bring out the hyper-responsible, heavily weighed down Paul. But there was another part of Paul that was joyful, childlike, and filled with enthusiasm and whimsy. If Linda thought that Paul could be happy without John, then maybe she could let John go on his ruinous way, gradually alienating Paul bit by bit. But Linda knew that Paul would be broken if he lost John. So there was nothing for it. She would have to at least try to reach John. She didn’t think John wanted to lose Paul, either. And if that were the case, she had a few pieces of advice for him. Of course, there was that old proverb: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. And Paul - well, he needed a few choice words as well.

A few minutes later, both Paul and James had come down. Paul was all fresh and shiny from his shower, and James looked like he had literally rolled out of bed. But they were both enthusiastic about breakfast. Paul reached for his glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and winked at Linda in a gesture of thanks. She smiled in her sunny way back at him. As they ate, Linda made light conversation with her two men, feeling happy and fulfilled. 

“What is your next project?” Linda asked Paul, as James bolted from the table, and she and Paul leaned back with their morning coffee to enjoy each other’s company.

Paul heaved a great sigh. It was a sigh of release, not stress. This break from London and John had been just what he needed to get his head out of the siege mentality he’d been in. “Well, I guess I’m going to finish that classical project I was working on last winter. Unless John wants to write a new album, but I don’t know yet what his thoughts are on that.” 

“You and John are not communicating well right now,” Linda said. It was a statement, not a question. 

“No, we’re not.” Paul’s voice was almost heartbreakingly vulnerable.

“Something’s gotta give,” Linda said softly. “You two need to get your heads screwed on right. You’re messing up your friendship, which will eventually mess up your partnership. Déjà vu all over again.”

Paul nodded his head in silent, reluctant agreement.

Linda continued: “Look, all these years I’ve loved John, I’ve hated him, I’ve been indifferent to him, then I’ve loved him again, and hated him again...For me it has been a constant merry-go-round of ups and downs and in betweens, but I’ve always loved you, Paul. You - I will always love. And I have tried my hardest to hold up my end in this weird triangle we have, but if the two of you don’t hold up your ends, why should I hold up mine anymore?” Linda’s voice was calm and reasonable, not loud and accusing. 

Paul was watching Linda’s face throughout this speech. He heard every single word. They fell on him - plop, plop, plop - like Chinese water torture. His voice was shaky when he said, “I know Lin, but how do we get out of this stupid...pattern we’re in? I just don’t know how...”

“The therapy was supposed to help,” Linda pointed out gently.

“So, John turns on me as soon as we’re in the car! He wants me to tell him how I feel, but when I do he becomes enraged! I never asked for all this drama, I just want a quiet life. I don’t know why John feeds on this chaos, but he does...”

“Have you ever said this to him?” Linda asked softly.

There was silence for several seconds. Paul cleared his throat. “No.”

“You need to talk to each other honestly. You need to tell John what you need and what you want. He can’t read your mind, Paul. I can read your mind, but then, I’m special.” Linda flitted her eyelashes and giggled.

This made Paul chuckle. 

Linda smiled, but then returned to a serious demeanor. “I’m serious, though. I do kind of read your mind, and I understand what makes you do the things you do. But John appears not to understand for some reason. He can’t see through you when you clam up. You can’t expect him to tease it out of you like I do because John is a different kind of person than me. You need to open up a route for John to find you when you’re clamming up.”

Paul knew this, of course, but somehow it sounded different - perhaps even achievable - when placed in this context. “He gets so upset, though,” Paul responded lamely. “If I try to tell him how I feel, he gets upset.”

“Okay,” Linda said calmly, “he gets upset. And this worries you...why?”

“Well, I don’t like the drama.”

“I think you’re afraid if you say the wrong thing he is going to laugh at you, make fun of you, or walk away from you. Isn’t that what is really going on?” Linda laid it on the line. She was thoroughly tired of all these ridiculous excursions and alarums. 

Paul didn’t respond. He was looking at her funny.

“So you have to tell yourself, ‘so what?’ If he laughs at you, you can brush it off. You can laugh right back at him. If he makes fun of you, you can make fun of him right back. And I guarantee you, Paul. I guar-on-tee you, Paul, that John is never going to walk away from you! He’d never make it to the door. He cannot live without you. Period.”

Paul’s eyes were round and wide. He had never heard anything like what Linda was telling him. He felt like a small boy, being lectured by a headmaster, only with a mid-Atlantic accent. She was waiting for him to say something. He felt as though he had to respond. “I wish I had your confidence about that, Lin,” he said. “It always feels to me that he always has one foot out the door. If I’m boring, or if someone else is more exciting, he’s out the door without a word.” 

“He always comes back, Paul. And I would argue that he isn’t really trying to get away from you. I’ve always thought that he was trying to make you jealous - get your attention - and it infuriates him when you act like you don’t care. Maybe you need to throw a jealous rage. Maybe that would scratch where he itches.” Linda was smiling as she said this, but she was basically serious.

“I’m not the shouting type. I don’t like throwing hurtful words at people. That’s not who I am. On the one hand he wants me to be my - what he calls my - ‘authentic self’, but I really am a reserved person. I don’t like spilling my emotions all over everyone. It makes me very uncomfortable.”

“’Authentic self,’” Linda repeated softly. “Sounds like something he must have learned in therapy.”

Paul chuckled. “Or in one of those endless self-help books he’s always reading...”

“I have an idea. Have you ever asked him what he meant - specifically - by that term? Maybe that would give you a clue of what he wants from you.”

“I suppose I could try,” Paul mused. “But the problem is, in the moment, when we’re going at each other, I can’t think of anything clever to say. Stupid shit just comes out of my mouth, willy-nilly.” Paul had a sheepish expression on his face that melted Linda’s heart (for the bazillionth time).

Linda had a brainstorm. “What if we try a role play? I’ll be you, and you’ll be John. Maybe between the two of us we can find words for what you’re thinking, so you’ll have sort of rehearsed your responses in advance.”

Paul thought it might be fun to be John for a while. As John, he wouldn’t have to weigh every word or worry about anyone’s feelings. What a luxury! This idea of Linda’s wasn’t a bad one.

 

*****

 

Because it was now summer, Sean had come to London to spend a few weeks with his dad. John was grateful for Sean’s arrival, because the last few days had been difficult to get through, with Paul off in Sussex. The first night of Sean’s visit was Sunday, the day before Paul’s planned return. Sean suggested they invite Julian along for a night out, and John was actually enthusiastic about it; at this point, anything to get his mind off his troubles sounded good to him.

John had spent the past few days contemplating the fallout from his disastrous choices in New York. The consequences had been many and far-reaching. He never could have imagined how it would play out even if he had thought about consequences before making choices; the fallout seemed that unforeseeable to John. But it didn’t matter anyway, because John never did consider the consequences before acting. That had always been Paul’s job in their relationship. So, it took John some little while to figure out the bottom line: Paul had felt utterly betrayed by his tryst with Brad, and now was finding it difficult to get past it. There was a strong possibility that Paul would never get past it. To John it might have been a meaningless fling - a way to experiment with something thrilling and forbidden. But to Paul it had turned out to be a knife to the heart. How Paul reacted to it was totally out of John’s control, and this thought surprisingly had never occurred to John before.

One of the things that Paul had said in one of their many arguments on the subject was how would you feel if I had done it to you? Well, they had both found out. That whole Rob thing had sent John screeching to the moon, fueled by a jealous rage. And Paul hadn’t even fucked Rob; he had only just flirted with the idea. It had begun to finally dawn on John how Paul must feel about Brad. I wonder why I didn’t figure this out sooner? John asked himself. He of course had wished a thousand times by now that he could go back and undo the past and make better choices. But he obviously could not do that, so his goal now had to be to figure out how to fix what he had broken. Was there even a way? John worried that he was coming to this realization far too late, and that whatever efforts he might make now would be far too little.

It was in this frame of mind that John agreed to go out for dinner and some club hopping with his two sons. Sean was going to be 18 in a few months, so until that date it wasn’t legal for him to sit in a bar and drink. But he could sit in a restaurant dining area and drink, so the plan was to have a nice dinner, and afterwards, go to a club and try to sneak Sean in.

They chose a relaxed, darkened restaurant in central London that specialized in steak dinners. John always overdosed on meat when Paul was away, to make up for the vegetarian fare he would eat when Paul was with him. John thought jokingly to himself, what Paul doesn’t know won’t hurt him. But then he remembered where that attitude had gotten him before, and he felt a twinge of guilt. 

Julian, who was now 30 years old, (this was very hard for John to fathom) was in a cheerful mood. It was rare for him to see his father, now that they lived separate adult lives. His father was often touring or buried in the studio, and Julian had his own career and friends to keep him busy. Julian was not the vulnerable little boy he once was - at least not on the outside. He had learned to develop a tougher, more inaccessible front. It was sad to him that his father seemed to prefer him this way, but then his dad had never liked to see weakness in him. Perhaps his father believed it reflected badly on him. Still, John was the only blood father he would ever have, and Julian had always craved his father’s approval and affection. If he had to pretend to be someone he wasn’t in order to get it, Julian was willing to do so. 

“So Dad, how was the tour?” Julian asked. Sean had already asked this question, earlier in the day. 

“Good, good,” John said. He wasn’t really answering the question honestly. How could he explain to his sons about the turmoil he had unleashed in his relationship with Paul as a result of his behavior in New York - behavior he would never be able to tell his sons about? Clearly, that was out of the question. 

“That was so weird, by the way - the tabloid stuff about your supposed credit card receipt,” Julian snickered. “The tabloids are so stupid; they don’t know you have aliases on your credit cards.” 

Sean laughed. “Yeah - me and Mom laughed about that too. How stupid do they think we are?” 

John’s smile was weak, but neither of his sons could see that in the dark restaurant. John stated, “I don’t think the tabloids care much about truth; they care about sales.” John felt this was an honest answer, because he did firmly believe that tabloids weren’t truth avengers, like they claimed to be, but were instead your everyday garden-variety users, whose incomes flowed from the lifeblood of famous people. It didn’t matter to the tabloids whether their stories were true or false. It only mattered that they attracted advertisers by selling copies. 

“How’s Paul?” Julian asked next. Sean shot Julian a nervous look, which Julian didn’t catch. Earlier in the day, Sean had sensed that there was some kind of rift between his father and Paul. He couldn’t put a finger on why he felt that way - he just did. 

But John was on his best behavior that night. “He’s good. He’s been in Sussex with Linda and James for the past few days. He’ll be back tomorrow.” 

“Are you going back in the studio?” was Julian’s next question. It was like pulling teeth, talking to his father tonight. Julian didn’t realize he was jumping from one touchy subject to the next. 

“We have to write some songs first,” John said. “Paul and I have been preoccupied with the tour. When he gets back, I guess we’ll have to figure out where we go from here.” John didn’t realize that his voice sounded defeatist. Julian finally picked up the vibe Sean had seen earlier in the day. He shot Sean a concerned look, and met Sean’s equally concerned expression. It was Sean’s turn: this was the decision they’d relayed to each other silently in that moment.

“Dad, are you sure everything’s okay with Paul? It seems like you’ve both been struggling with each other for, gee, a year almost.” Sean’s voice was soft and non-judgmental.

John sighed. “Yeah, it’s been a rough year for us,” he admitted. “Getting old sucks. Especially when you don’t feel old inside. You still feel like you should be able to go out and do ridiculous, dangerous stuff. But the consequences are much worse the older you get. It doesn’t seem fair, but that appears to be the case.” 

Sean chuckled. “What kind of ‘ridiculous, dangerous stuff’ have you and Paul been up to then?” 

“Oh, I’m speaking generally. It’s like there is a kind of default net below you when you are young that catches you if you fall. At some point along the way, they take the default net away without warning and when you fall you hit the fucking ground. Hard.”

Both of his sons were worried now. “Dad?” Sean’s plaintive inquiry caught John’s attention, and he smiled. 

“You know me boys,” John said more cheerfully. “I’m a complete drama queen. I’m just in a mood. I guess I’m finally accepting the fact that I need to grow up a bit.”

“So, is Paul okay then?” Julian asked again. He was worried. Paul was very near and dear to his heart, and Paul often called him to see how he was doing. In truth, Paul was his ‘father’, more than John had ever been. 

John was surprised by Julian’s sharp question. “Yes - he is. It’s just that he and I are going through a kind of up and down period. I’m beginning to think it has to do with me trying to adjust to the fact that I’m not young anymore. That I have to give that up.”

This speech confused both Julian and Sean, because both of them were still young, and did not know about the middle-age issue of adjusting to a life that was now on the downhill slope. 

 

*****

 

That same night, Paul had picked up the phone and called his brother. He was in a very relaxed mood after six days of peace and quiet in Sussex with his wife and son. He was in his favorite easy chair, and nursing a glass of whiskey. 

On the other end of the line, Mike was equally relaxed. He and his wife and children had shared a Sunday roast beef dinner, and now he was in his favorite easy chair, also nursing a glass of whiskey. He was delighted when he heard his brother’s voice on the other end of the phone line.

“Paul! I take it you’re back from your tour, then?” 

“Yeah - Lin and I are just finishing up a visit to Sussex. Heading back to London tomorrow to get back to work.”

Mike was happy to hear that Paul was in Sussex with Linda. “What’s next, then?” He asked politely. He figured they’d both probably beat around the bush for a few minutes before getting down to the nitty-gritty. 

“I’ve got a classical piece to finish, and John and I have to write the new album.”

John and I. There it was: his opening. “So, last time we spoke we had a kind of disagreement about the whole John thing,” Mike said slowly, after taking a deep breath and crossing his fingers. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t let his prejudices and loyalties get out of control this time. 

“Yeah, we did. I’m sorry I was so defensive, but the problem is I know you’re, well, you don’t approve of the whole idea of us having sex, and so it is hard for me to believe that your advice is based on a real understanding of me and my life with John.” Paul laid it out there. How could he trust Mike’s advice, when he knew Mike’s bias was to try to argue the “gay” out of him no matter what? 

Mike acknowledged that this was a fair assessment of his advice to Paul. “I want to understand, Paul, I really do. It isn’t like I want to be estranged from you. I loved John, too - I even idolized him when I was a kid. It was like losing both of you at once, when I found out.” 

“You didn’t lose us, Mike. You might have lost your idea of us, but we’re still here. We’re still the same. I’m still the same Paul I was when we were growing up. John’s still the same John. The part of our lives that we hid from you, we hid from everyone else, too, for years and years. We were afraid of people’s reactions. And in your case, our fears were obviously justified. And to be perfectly honest, John had been urging me for years to tell you the truth, but I was afraid this would happen. I was afraid you’d reject us, and I knew it would hurt me very badly when you did.”

Mike was silenced. He had actually listened to what Paul said this time. His strong denial emotions had not run interference this time. “I didn’t react well, I know. But I thought I knew you, and I just don’t see - can’t see - what you are getting out of this triangle thing you’re mixed up in. How can it be good for you, or Linda, or your children, or John, or his children? It seems so impossible and...” Mike hesitated. He had been about to say ‘unhealthy’, but stopped himself. Paul would probably be offended by that word, even though it was the word that Mike wanted to use. He was struggling to find another one but Paul saved him by interrupting.

“It is impossible,” Paul chuckled. “You have no idea. There have been all sorts of problems related to it. My problem is, I can’t imagine a life without Linda, and I can’t imagine a life without John. I just came to the conclusion that the only thing worse than this way of life, was to have to choose one or the other.”

“But are you being selfish? Linda thinks you would choose her if she demanded that you make a choice. Is that the truth? Or would you choose John?” Mike’s voice had gained a little momentum now. He saw himself as the defender of Paul’s straight family life, and also of Linda. 

Paul was at first a little taken aback by Mike’s aggressive questioning. He wasn’t used to it, seeing as how he had always been the older (and bossier) brother. But he decided to let it go. He could no longer claim the whip hand over his brother, that was clear, so he might as well get used to the new regime: from now on he was going to be his brother’s equal instead of his protector. “No, it’s not a lie. I would choose Linda. I made a vow to her, and we have children. I would choose Linda.” 

Mike heard the words, and his heart went out to his brother. “You would choose her because of obligation, but your heart would go with John. Is that how it is?” 

Paul was surprised when he felt tears running down his cheeks. He hadn’t even realized he had started to cry. “Mike - how can I make you understand? John is part of me - like an arm and a leg, along with an important organ or two. I could limp away from him for my family’s sake, but I would never be whole again.”

Mike was trying to digest this disturbing information. “Even though he treats you so shabbily?” Mike was referring to John’s careless dalliance with a gay adventurer.

“Well, I’m having a lot of trouble with that Mike,” Paul admitted. “I’m trying to deal with it. I’m angry about it, of course I am, and so John and I have been struggling over it. I mean, intellectually I know that John finds it meaningless. It was just a thrill ride, you know? But emotionally, I’ve having a hard time accepting it.”

Mike was encouraged by Paul’s comments. “You shouldn’t have to go through this, Paul. I mean, John’s in his fifties. Don’t you wonder why he still behaves this way after all this time?”

Paul nodded, and then remembered Mike couldn’t see his nod across the telephone line so he said, “Yes, of course I do. Not that wondering brings me any answers. I have always believed when he does this stuff, it really hasn’t got anything to do with me. It has to do with his inner - for lack of a better word - demons, you know?”

“He had a terrible childhood,” Mike agreed.

“John doesn’t admit it. He can’t admit that his childhood was fucked, because he feels it is disloyal to Mimi and his mother to say so. I sometimes feel as though he takes out his rage against them on me.”

“That makes a crazy kind of sense,” Mike said, “but why you? Why do you become the target of his anger? You don’t do things to hurt him or betray him.” 

Paul sighed so heavily that Mike could hear it over the telephone line. “John reads betrayal into things I do and say, when there is no betrayal there. He is so ready to be betrayed, he sees it and feels it when it isn’t even there. I’ve often felt that I’m walking through a minefield, you know? If I put a foot wrong, John will blow up.”

“I don’t understand why you would want to live that way,” Mike opined. “Linda doesn’t make you walk through minefields.”

Paul chuckled. “No, she doesn’t. She stabilizes me the way I stabilize John.”

“And John doesn’t stabilize anyone,” Mike grumbled. 

He was surprised by Paul’s laugh. “Yeah, in chemistry class we used to refer to properties like John as ‘destabilizing agents.’” 

“So why put up with it? Is it the...” Mike cringed to have to say it, “...sex?” 

Paul was surprised by the question. “No, Mike. My bond with John was formed long before we became lovers. The sex to me was just the inevitable byproduct of our intense emotional connection.” 

“So, what is it?”

“Don’t know. I guess it is because he makes me feel alive. He forces me out of my safe choices, and lures me into situations that I would never have experienced without him. Most of those situations have been fantastic. The downside to it is that some of the situations have been horrible. Until just recently, the upside always outweighed the downside.”

“And recently?” Mike asked gently, his heart in his mouth.

“Recently, I’ve begun to worry that the downside is starting to outweigh the upside.”

 

*****

 

Monday afternoon found Paul back at Cavendish. Not long after he returned, he thought he should give John a call to check in. He was ready to see and talk to John again. He had a lot to say, and no doubt he had a lot to hear as well. 

Sean answered the phone. “Hey Sean! I see you arrived safely. How’re you doing?” Paul asked cheerfully.

“I’m good. I’m just stirring. Julian stayed over. All three of us were out late clubbing last night.”

Paul laughed. John - the eternal livewire. “So is your dad still asleep?”

“No, Julian is, but Dad’s making us some lunch. You wanna talk to him?”

“Please,” Paul said. He waited while Sean went to find his father. A moment later, John was on the line.

“Paul! Are you back?” He sounded hopeful to Paul’s ears, which made Paul feel a little better. 

“Yeah, just checking in.” 

“Well, come on over! Sean and Julian are here.” John found that he was extremely excited at the possibility of seeing Paul again. The six days apart had done their magic, obviously. Suddenly the day seemed much sunnier than it had just moments before.

Paul felt all fluttery inside. It was so easy for him to be swept off his feet by a buoyant, positive John. “See you in a few,” he said, hanging up. There was a song in his heart as he whistled down the mews. Again.


	59. Chapter 59

A few months had gone by, and it was near the end of the summer now. Paul had put his classical piece aside, because ever since his return from Sussex in June, he and John had been wrapped up in a composing frenzy. Fueled by their more productive therapy sessions, and re-energized by the emotions thrown up by the rough period they had been through, the songs were practically writing themselves. It was exhilarating.

At first, Fiona had been reluctant to buy into her patients’ seeming rediscovery of each other. She had been left confused by their sudden cheerful reappearance in her office upon Paul’s return from Sussex. It was as if two completely different men had suddenly popped up in place of the John and Paul she’d been counseling before; it was as if they had drunk Love Potion # 9.

 

*****

 

“So you two seem awfully cheerful,” she had opined as a conversation opener at that Tuesday session. “I admit I’m a bit surprised, based on our last session on Thursday, John,” Fiona said.

“Maybe we had just been together too much. Maybe we needed a break,” John suggested.

Fiona noted that Paul’s expression was as unconvinced as was her own. Even he apparently knew that this was not a satisfying explanation. “Paul, is that what you think too?”

Paul turned to her and said, “Well, I don’t know if it was the time apart so much as it was time for each of us to think quietly about what had happened.”

John nodded in tentative agreement.

“So, Paul, what did quiet reflection do for you? What was your take away?” Fiona asked.

“I was very hurt by John’s fling, but I didn’t go about expressing that in a very productive way. It was like I didn’t want to admit that I was hurt, so I started sniping at John instead. It was really ugly. I didn’t want to be like that anymore.”

“Did you decide upon a way to express your feelings that was more productive?” Fiona asked Paul, impressed by his thoughtful response.

A sheepish look crept over Paul’s face. “Actually, it wasn’t me who thought of it. It was my wife.”

“Your wife?” Fiona asked, trying not to sound shocked by this answer.

Paul laughed and said, “She gave me some tough love.”

“Yeah,” John added. “The other night she read the riot act to me, too.”

“So tell me,” Fiona said, smiling in response to this surprising news.

“Linda convinced me that John really couldn’t read my mind. Somehow, I thought he could - or at least he should,” Paul said.

“I can read his mind easily when it comes to our work together,” John explained to Fiona. “But when he closes up in his shell, I’m totally clueless.”

“So you thought John should be able to read you when you were withholding your feelings. Where did that expectation come from?” Fiona asked Paul.

Paul was stumped. His answer sounded less than confident. “Umm, I don’t know. I guess since he reads my mind so well when we’re composing?”

John laughed.

“What’s so funny, John?” Fiona asked.

“I’m the same way. I think Paul can understand why I do the crazy shit I do, and that he’ll be okay with it. But where I got that idea, I don’t know.”

“This is a good start. From this perspective, can we talk about the episode in New York? Maybe we can take a more analytical approach?” Fiona was holding her breath. She saw that John and Paul exchanged a knowing glance between them, before Paul said,

“Yeah. I think we’re ready for that now.”

So that had been the start to a very productive six weeks of therapy, two sessions per week. Both men brought to the sessions an enthusiasm and determination that filled Fiona with admiration. She had finally understood how these two men had been able to change the world. They had done it when they were both pulling together - 100% together, and 100% focused. Goal-oriented, creative, witty, and willing to put the hard work in: they were an awe-inspiring combination of talent, determination and charm. It was a force that had taken on, conquered, and then changed the world. Fiona figured she didn’t have a chance in the face of that much magic ju-ju, so she decided to let them approach therapy from their own unique direction.

 

*****

 

John had been exorcising the remains of the experiences he’d endured in the previous 12 months. A lot of emotional turmoil had flowed through his brain in that short period. As often happened with John, this turmoil had been boiling and simmering in his mind, eventually to be transformed into piercingly affecting lyrics. The fear of being alone with one’s own thoughts; the desire to be young again, when reckless choices were expected, not reviled; the pain and disillusionment of the sordid cruise night; witnessing and enduring Paul’s emotional journey set loose by that cruise night...all of these experiences and more were begging to be expiated by song lyrics.

Paul was always hearing and feeling music, but when John was inspired, Paul’s inspiration would shoot to a higher level in response. Hence, he was working through his own experiences too. However, his expiation was by music. His lyrics were far less specific and direct than were John’s; his were more ‘universal’ in their approach, so as to be understood by a much wider audience.

While they were writing, though, John had a difficult subject to raise with Paul. The remodeling work on his New York apartment had dragged to a halt while John had been swallowed by the tour and his personal problems with Paul, and so to finalize the project he really needed to go back to New York. This time, however, he approached the subject with Paul in a much healthier way.

“I can’t leave the apartment in New York half-finished, you know,” he said softly to Paul at breakfast one morning.

Paul had looked up from the newspaper and immediately the “bland face” John knew so well washed over his countenance.

“Don’t block your feelings, Paul,” John said gently, a soft smile haunting his lips. “I know this is like opening old wounds, but if I don’t do something about it, the work I’ve already done will have been wasted.”

“What are you going to do about that apartment when it’s finished?” Paul asked guardedly. He decided to ask a question of his own, rather than to respond to John’s comment.

“I’ll keep the apartment, I think. It will appreciate in value.” John’s rationale wasn’t very convincing to Paul because John had never shown the slightest interest in finance before.

As a result, Paul’s expression was ironic. But “o-kaay,” was all he said.

“I’m not going to see other men, baby, so you can put that fishy face away.” John’s voice was warm and playful, and therefore caused no offense. “And of course, you’re welcome to come with me. We can work on our songs...” John left the invitation hanging out there, knowing that Paul would find it hard to turn down a chance to work with him.

Paul was sorely tempted. He even considered it. Maybe he could stay in the loft instead of John’s flat? ...But no. If he went alone to New York and hung out with John - even if they stayed in separate places - it would fuel gossip and he couldn’t do that to his family. “How long will you be away?” He asked, accepting the inevitable.

John was affected by Paul’s obvious disappointment. It was clearly there, he noted, now that he took the time to look for it. “Well, I guess I can go for two weeks, get the thing started up again, and come back here for a few weeks, and so on. We can send each other tracks on tape while I’m gone. I just have to finish this project off. The contractor says 8 more weeks and we’re done.”

“Contractors always underestimate,” Paul grumbled.

“So, worst case - 12 weeks. I can do 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. What do you think? And you can always visit anytime you want. You’re the only one stopping you from coming.” John was still hopeful that Paul would be persuaded to come stay with him in New York.

“I guess it is a reasonable compromise,” Paul admitted. “I’d rather you abandon the whole idea, but I can see that it is important to you.”

John felt empathy for Paul this time, instead of anger at the implied criticism of his decision. “It’s not about us, you know. It’s about having a place in New York that I’m proud of, that is all my own design, so when I’m in New York I’m living the life, not hidden away in a cave. I wanted to make it a home for both of us, you know. Maybe someday you will share it with me. That’s my hope at least.”

Paul smiled at John through his sad expression: the sun bravely shining through passing clouds. “You know I would if I could, John. But it’s like the point of no return. If I did this - if I moved in with you in such a high profile place - we might as well put up a billboard that says ‘we’re lovers.’ Can’t you see how that would feel to Linda and the children? Not just my children, but yours, too.” 

John sighed. He sighed because he did see. In fact, he had always seen. It was just that he was better at ignoring unpleasant realities than was Paul. “I do see,” he finally said. “I don’t like it, but I see it. But I’m hoping the world will not always be like this, and then you can live there with me. Maybe the kids will grow older and won’t care anymore, or the world won’t be so bloody-minded about us being lovers anymore. I have to believe there is a chance for us in the future, because the present can be so fucking sad.” 

 

*****

 

Back in New York, a certain freelance tabloid reporter had not given up on his quest. He had been sidetracked many times by other stories. A man had to make a living, after all. But when he had a few days off he’d go back to the gay clubs around the hotel that he was sure Lennon had visited, and poked around, hoping to find a clue. On one of those nights he was showing John’s picture around and he hit upon a young man who thought he recognized the man in the photo.

“It was months ago,” the young man said. “I could be wrong. But I was here with a friend of mine, and this older man came in and picked up my friend.” The young man was thinking hard now. “Wait! Does this guy have a British accent?”

Bingo! The reporter exulted silently. “He does indeed.”

“Well, if it’s the same guy, my friend left with him about a half hour later.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“I only know him as Brad. He hangs around here some nights. Other nights I’ve seen him at the Astro Club and the Billingsgate. We’re not close friends; we just hang together in the clubs while we’re waiting for action.”

“I mean nothing by it, and anything you say will stay with me, but is Brad a prostitute?” The reporter was practically salivating at this point.

“No!” The young man barked. “Neither one of us is! We’re just here to have a little fun, and unwind after work. We’re just looking for hookups, like everyone else. We don’t do it for money.”

This honestly surprised the reporter, who was not gay but who had barhopped as a young man trolling for women, so after he thought about it awhile, it made sense to him. “I see. And where do you think I’d find Brad?”

The young man finally became suspicious. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Well, this man in the photo - he’s an old friend of mine. I’m trying to track him down. Haven’t seen him in years.”

The young man was not 100% convinced by this answer, but shrugged away his concern. It wasn’t his problem. “I don’t know where Brad lives, and I don’t know his phone number. But if you give me yours, if I run into him, I’ll pass it on. And I already told you the clubs where I sometimes see him.”

“What does Brad look like? In case I want to look for him at the clubs.”

“He’s a bit taller than me - say, 5’10 or ’11, and quite slender. He has hair that is almost black, and dark brown eyes. He’s good-looking - has a bit of a baby face. He’s very popular with the older men. They hit on him a lot.”

Sounds a lot like Paul McCartney, the reporter noted to himself.

The young man continued to talk; he was musing now. “We all like the older men, because they usually have a lot of money, and can show you a good time, you know?”

Yes, the reporter did know. He thanked the young man for his time, bought him a second drink, and then quickly departed. The young man had made it clear to the reporter that other men were being discouraged from approaching the table, and thus he had worn out his welcome.

 

*****

 

It was the end of the summer, 1993, and John was back in New York. This time he decided to stay at the loft, and not at Jason and Gerry’s place. He figured he had well and truly worn out his welcome the last time he stayed, and didn’t want to spoil what was left of his friendship with them. Of course, they had offered to have him, but were quietly relieved when he turned them down. Neither Jason nor Gerry wanted to be further disillusioned by their friend, and his behavior the last time he had stayed with them had been hard for them to reconcile with his charm and warmth. Having him at arm’s length had a positive effect on their relationship: they spent several nights a week at each other’s apartments, having dinner and watching movies.

To Jason’s relief, John appeared not to be swinging at night. He didn’t know for sure, because he saw John only about 3 nights a week, but from the signs in the apartment it seemed that John spent a lot of time there, working on his music and on his design plans. He also was never drunk or under the influence of some unknown drug when he was in Jason and Gerry’s company, and he seemed upbeat and cheerful whenever they saw him.

One day Jason went with John to the new apartment to see the progress. He was very impressed by the designer’s sketches. John had chosen soft light earth neutral tones, very light golds and beiges, punctuated by bursts of assorted and vibrant shades of blue: everything from robin’s egg to vibrating cerulean, to rich Persian blue. After a few hours of going through the plans, he and John went to Elaine’s at 2nd Avenue and East 88th Street for a late lunch. There they settled in for a chat. It soon developed into a deep conversation.

“You seem to be in a really good place right now, John,” Jason commented as he sipped a glass of red wine. John, he noticed, was drinking water.

John’s eyes danced with amusement. “I know I was a handful for you and Gerry,” he said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I was going through a very bad time, but it wasn’t fair to you.”

“We were mainly very worried about you. We felt responsible should something bad happen.” Jason’s heart had melted a bit with John’s sincere apology.

John’s eyes fell down to his plate, and he lost his appetite. He took a deep breath. What was the point of having a friend as good as Jason if you didn’t tell him the truth? He said, “Something bad did happen.”

Jason put his glass down. He stared at John, not sure what to say next. Avid curiosity seemed to be a really bad approach, so he waited.

“One night I went out cruising, and I got more than I bargained for,” John said slowly. He was watching Jason’s face for his reaction, and he wasn’t disappointed. Jason’s face reflected horror and curiosity in equal amounts. Jason said nothing, however. John continued. “I picked up some young buck and I really didn’t know what I was getting into. It ended badly.”

“When?” Jason was finally able to issue that single word.

“Remember when I came back that night, and then didn’t go out anymore?”

Jason nodded with the memory. He also remembered wondering if John was okay - he had been so subdued. But he had been so grateful and relieved that John wasn’t out prowling every night, that he didn’t question John’s sudden nesting behavior.

“Anyway, he wouldn’t stop when I asked him to stop. I have come to believe he didn’t mean anything by it - he didn’t realize how it felt to me, because I was too proud to let him know. He was just a kid.”

Jason was putting two and two together and finally getting four. “The credit card receipt in the news! And the bank statements Paul asked me to send!”

John smiled ruefully. “Yes, and yes.”

“Oh my God, John! How awful for you!” But suddenly Jason had another thought, which came to him unbidden. And the words out of his mouth were unbidden too: “Paul!”

John had been waiting for that. Even though Jason quickly tried to hide the look of betrayal, John saw it quickly scarper across his face. “I know, Jay, I know.” John put his hand on Jason’s hand and squeezed it. “It was an incredibly thoughtless and stupid thing to do. I did it to prove I could, and to try something dangerous and exciting, but I never thought about the consequences.”

Jason stared at his hand - the one John was squeezing - and then looked up and met John’s eyes. “You love that man! You’re so lucky to have him! Together, you’re magic! How could you hurt him like that? What on earth could be worth the risk of losing him?”

John was choking up a little at Jason’s reaction. Somehow he could fathom how stupid he’d been by seeing it through Jason’s eyes. John decided the sad truth was all he could give his friend. “To my shame, I didn’t think I would lose him over it. I didn’t think he would find out, one, and I thought if he did he wouldn’t be jealous. I guess I didn’t think he was possessive of me in that way.”

“That’s bullshit, John,” Jason said firmly. He had regained his senses and was spitting mad. “A blind man could see how much he loves you. And a deaf man can hear his heart break! You’re not blind or deaf - and you can’t see or hear? I don’t believe it.”

John was chastened, but he still felt a little ill-used. Jason should believe him, surely? What reason would he have to lie? “Why would I lie about it, Jason?” John asked. “That is what my thinking was.”

“What your thinking was, was that you wanted to do ‘something dangerous and exciting’ as you put it, and you convinced yourself that Paul wouldn’t mind so you wouldn’t feel guilty about it!” Jason’s voice was unyielding.

John was tired of the whole subject. He had paid for his mistake in so many fucking ways that he was tired of paying anymore. “Jason, look, Paul and I have been through hell and back over this, and we’ve worked it out. You’re right, and I was wrong. He was terribly hurt, and he was angry. But most of it is behind us. I finally told him I was sorry, and I guess he finally believed me.”

“So you managed to survive this bad decision. What about the next one?” Jason’s voice was unusually skeptical and uncharitable, John thought.

“What do you mean by that?” John asked in indignation.

“What did you learn from it, John? If you didn’t learn anything, you’re bound to repeat it.”

John calmed down. What Jason said was basically the same thing Fiona had said, although she had expressed it in a less accusatory style. He would tell Jason in short form what he had told Fiona and Paul - the long way - in therapy: “I learned,” he said, “that Paul is a hell of a lot more fragile than I thought he was. And that he is very easily hurt. And that I don’t want to hurt him like that ever again.”

 

*****

 

John stared down at the piece of scratch paper in front of him. It was odd, but he worked much better off found pieces of paper - the backs of envelopes, pages off a memo pad, the reverse side of business letters - when writing lyrics. He was struggling on this particular set of lyrics. He scratched out a few words, and then paused in frustration. A hand ran through his auburn but greying hair. It never gets any easier, he grumbled. He was trying to write about how the events of the past year had transformed him. It was as if all the baser elements of his personality had staged a coup and taken over his life for a year before crawling off in utter defeat. And now the better part of his soul was coming to the fore again. This thought acted as a kind of prod that broke loose the logjam, and soon John’s hand was flying across the page, and then on to another, and another. Within about two or three hours he had done what he had to do.

John had no music for the lyrics. He wasn’t worried. He wrote out another copy of the lyrics and stuffed them in an envelope along with a letter and addressed it to Paul. He’d have it sent by overnight mail.

 

*****

 

Paul found the letter on the sideboard in the hallway at Cavendish. He saw John’s scribble and his heart skipped a beat. Surprisingly, he had been finding the ten days’ of John’s absence to be tolerable. John was calling him a lot, and sending him notes in the mail. One night John had called him from Jason and Gerry’s place, and they had all shouted down the telephone wire to him, clearly all of them a little in their cups. It had left a big smile on Paul’s face. And his time with Linda and his family was peaceful and happy. What he hadn’t told anyone - not Linda, not John - was that he was going to see Fiona once a week on his own. John may have been calling her on Tuesdays and Thursdays for his own private sessions, but Paul was seeing her alone on Wednesdays.

Paul opened the letter and pulled out one piece of stationary, and another page with lyrics on it, on scrap paper. Paul shook his head and smiled with affection. How many times had he read John’s lyrics scribbled on weird pieces of paper? Sometimes John had run out of space, and had allowed the lines to crawl up the sides of the pages and then over to the back side. Somehow, Paul had always been able to decipher even the worst of John’s scribbles. He opened the letter first.

 

Paul! I finished this set of lyrics this evening, and thought I’d get them to you asap. I’ve got another set of lyrics right behind it, and I’ll send it to you when I’m done. 

The apartment is coming along. They’ve finished all of the remaining structural work and installed all the fixtures - the kitchen looks amazing! You can see all over the City from   
every single room. They’ll be painting in the next week, and then I’ll be on my way home as soon as they're done. I can’t wait to see you!

My love to Linda and the kids. I really miss you, babe.

Love ya baby - (your) J. 

 

Paul’s face was wreathed in a sentimental smile as he closed up the letter. No matter how infuriating John could be, he’d then turn around and be so adorably irresistible.

“What’s so funny?” Linda asked her husband, as she caught sight of Paul’s endearing expression.

“Hmmm?” Paul looked up, tearing himself from a few sexy thoughts of John. “Oh - John sent me a set of lyrics to work on. He seems to be on fire. He says there is another set to come right after this one.”

“It seems to me that you both are writing songs like crazy right now. It must feel great to be back in the zone,” Linda said. Part of her was delighted for Paul; another part of her felt sad and left out. This was the conundrum she lived with.

“Yeah - John especially,” Paul agreed. “It’s hard to keep up with him. I think I’ll end up with fewer songs on this album, because I’m spending all my time finishing his!” Paul did not sound upset by this fact, which puzzled Linda. She knew Paul was big-hearted but it took a pretty big heart not to be resentful when being asked to do the finish work when he could be working on his own stuff. But apparently Paul didn’t see it that way.

Linda decided to change the subject. “I was hoping we could get away for a few days since John isn’t here.”

Paul looked up from his guitar. He was wanting to try out chords for John’s song. His first reaction was to beg off, because he was very excited about his work and didn’t want to be distracted or interrupted, but his second reaction was to give Linda what she wanted. He could compose music anywhere, after all, so long as he had his guitar and maybe a piano. “Sure. Where would you like to go?”

“We haven’t been to the south of France in a while,” Linda suggested as if it were just a thought off the top of her head. Of course, she’d already researched villas for rent and had her eye on one of them.

“Wherever. That sounds like fun.” Paul was forcing himself to interact with Linda. He really wanted to re-focus on his guitar. He could feel the right melody building up in him and he needed to pay attention to it before it drifted out of his mind again.

“Shall I make the plans? We can leave the day after tomorrow.”

“Sure, sure,” Paul said with a distracted smile. Linda realized her window of opportunity to claim Paul’s attention had closed, so she got up with good humor and went off to make the appropriate plans. Paul immediately turned back to his guitar.

 

*****

 

John was putting the finishing touches on the second set of lyrics. He didn’t know why he wanted to feed Paul lyrics and not compose the music himself. He supposed it was because it made him feel closer to Paul, as if he were there in the room with him, and they were working eyeball to eyeball. He was looking forward to getting back to London in the next week. He turned back to the paper upon which he had written out the clean version of his lyrics. He had two copies of it. This time the original marked up set had been written on the back of an advertisement that John had found in the mailbox. After stuffing the envelope, John decided he should go to a favorite pub and have dinner. He picked up the book he was reading, “Trainspotting”, and headed for the pub. He didn’t notice the man who was waiting outside the loft’s entry hall, leaning on a lamppost. He headed south for the 4-block walk to the pub, with the unnoticed man trailing after him at a discreet distance. Paddy, the bartender/waiter/owner gave John a welcoming eye-roll, and John headed for the tiny little table in the back. He was grateful to find it open. The tables were backed up to booth-like bench seating along the wall, and John preferred this spot because he was practically invisible to most of the people in the pub when he sat there.

He wasn’t invisible to the man who followed him, of course. The reporter was actually disappointed that John had gone to this clearly heterosexual pub. He had been hoping John would go to a gay club. He was even more disappointed to see John pull out a book, and bury his nose in it. Clearly, he wasn’t there to meet anyone. Well, just catching John Lennon loose and alone on the hoof was enough luck for one evening, he philosophized; it was too much to expect John to head for a gay pickup joint too. The reporter found a stool at the bar where he was facing John’s secluded corner, ordered a draft beer, and then quietly observed from afar.

John had gotten used to people staring at him wherever he went. He knew his nose was a telltale feature that he never could disguise, and people often recognized him when he was out in New York. Thankfully, New Yorkers were pretty blasé about celebrities, and for the most part gave him a lot of space. Consequently, the sensation of being watched did not spook him out. It only encouraged him to focus even harder on his book. Although John had ordered a beer, he was nursing it very slowly, which was also a disappointment to the reporter. For a tabloid reporter, the next best thing to a gay trolling John Lennon was a publicly drunk and embarrassing John Lennon. 

Twenty minutes of peace had passed before John felt rather than saw someone slipping into the seat next to him. The man’s elbow bumped John’s as he slid in to the small space at the adjacent table. The reporter had waited until the table came open before making his move.

“Excuse me,” the reporter said quietly to John. “It’s a bit tight here.”

John looked up and smiled politely, and then went back to his book. I hope he isn’t going to want to talk to me, he thought.

“I was at the bar, and then I saw the food going past and decided I’d have some dinner,” the reporter said, adopting a friendly but clueless mien. He had adopted a slight lisp, and was trying to act as though he didn’t recognize the ex-Beatle sitting next to him.

Crap. I hope I don’t have to be rude, John swore to himself. Again John nodded, smiled coolly, and returned to his book. What was he going to do once Paddy brought him his meal? He’d have to prop the book up against the napkin receptacle and focus even harder on his book if he was going to discourage this person from bothering him.

At that moment Paddy brought John’s steaming bowl of beef stew. 

“Wow, that smells great,” the reporter said with enthusiasm. “Can I have the same?” He asked the waiter. After the waiter had departed, the reporter turned to John and watched as he propped his book up against the napkin dispenser and struggle with a way to keep the book open with the salt- and peppershakers. John seemed to be very determined to read his book - he clearly did not want to be disturbed. But the reporter was shameless about intruding into other people’s private spaces and feelings. He’d been thrusting microphones into the faces of disaster victims’ family members for over ten years, after all. Interrupting a man in the midst of his dinner was child’s play in comparison.

“What’cha reading?” He asked John cheerfully, leaning a little too close in John’s direction.

John took a long moment to count to 10. He wanted a nice, quiet evening. He didn’t want to make a scene in Paddy’s pub. He turned to his nosy neighbor and said, ‘Trainspotters.’”

“Oh! I really want to read that one! How is it?” The reporter was privately impressed. Lennon actually did read literature. It wasn't all hype!

John had to bite his tongue because what he wanted to say was, ‘If you let me read, I’d know the answer to that question.’ Instead, he said “So far, so good.”

The reporter finally had Lennon’s full attention, so he decided to make the most of it. He squinted as a look of confusion came over his own face while he studied John's. “You look so familiar to me,” he said. “Are you famous or something?”

John snapped his book shut. He was going to finish his meal and get the hell out of there as soon as possible, but realized it was futile for him to try to ignore this busybody. “Yes, I’m famous,” he said flatly. “I’m John Lennon.” John watched the man’s face for signs of feigned surprise. He did see surprise, but to John’s practiced eyes the expression looked as though it could be genuine.

“Oh, man, it’s an honor to meet you,” the reporter said breathlessly.

“No, I’m just a bloke like any other bloke. Honor has nothing to do with it.” John had made so many such remarks over the years, and there was a kind of flat, bored tone in his voice as he made this comment.

The reporter didn’t believe celebrities when they said they were ‘just regular folk’, and he felt a nasty sense of superiority as he thought this. To his way of thinking, celebrities needed to be knocked down to size, and he was just the sort of person who loved to do it. None of these ugly thoughts showed on his face or echoed in his tone, however. “I love your music, though,” he said, feigning shyness.

John relented a little, although the slight flutter of the man's eyelashes gave him pause. I hope he’s not going to come on to me, he thought. “Thanks,” was what he said. John dug into the dregs of his stew, grateful that he was almost done, and doubly grateful when Paddy showed up with another bowl of stew and placed it in front of the man. Maybe he’ll shut up and eat now, John thought hopefully to himself.

“It’s a coincidence, though, running into you like this,” the man said as he waited for his stew to cool. 

“Oh?” John asked. He really wasn’t that interested in what the man had to say, but he’d already decided he was going to suffer through the rest of his meal and get the hell out of there without embarrassing Paddy.

“Yeah,” the reporter said, allowing a certain subtle femininity to show in his expression and his wrist as he played with his spoon, “a friend of mine says he knows you intimately.” The reporter’s hands imitated quotation marks as he said the world ‘intimately’.

John’s eyebrows went up. “’Intimately?’” John repeated. “It seems pretty unlikely. I don’t know that many people ‘intimately.’”

The reporter looked down at his stew, and blew on his spoon. He went in for the kill without even looking at John’s face. “His name’s Brad...”


	60. Chapter 60

John was struck dumb for a few harsh seconds as the name ‘Brad’ lingered in the air. Thank heaven he was quick-witted. He forced himself to keep a straight face and said, “Who’s Brad?” 

“You don’t know Brad?” The reporter asked quietly. “He knows you.”

“Who the fuck are you?” John asked, his tone turning nasty and aggressive. “Clowning with me like this. What’s your game, man? You’re a fucking tabloid writer, aren’t you?” 

The reporter - who considered himself to be a legitimate news reporter, not a ‘tabloid writer’ - forced his irritation down while he allowed his real persona to emerge, but tried to keep his tone friendly, as if he was on John’s side. “Look, I know about Brad and the pickup at the gay club, and the stay at the hotel,” the reporter said. “If I know about it, so do others. I just thought I’d get your side of it.”

John snickered. “After you play games with me, and try to trick me into incriminating myself in some crazy way over some crazy thing I never did - now you’re my friend? I don’t think so.” 

“Hey, I’ve got a job to do - same as you,” the reporter said, putting his hands up in a defensive gesture.

“No, my job isn’t anything like yours. I actually create things and give them to the world. You go around making up lies, and hurting people with it. Nothing about you and me is the same.” John’s face was contemptuous and hard, and although his voice was low, the tone was threatening. “I wouldn’t mess with me if I were you - dragging out false stories, and hiding behind mealy-mouthed words. I don’t know who you’re talking about, and I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s clear to me that isn’t important to you. Don’t mess with me. If you tell lies about me in the press, you will get burned.”

The reporter was mildly surprised by John’s canny response. The man was no pushover - that was for sure. He didn’t seem scared, and he didn’t appear to look guilty. Maybe the story wasn’t true? Maybe he was chasing a chimera? No. No, his nose told him he was right. This story was true, and Lennon was trying to warn him off. But the reporter knew how to write a story without stating a thing was true. Liberal use of the words “alleged” and “anonymous witness claimed” were called for. It would give him plausible deniability, and protect him from a defamation suit. And the more controversial it was, the more money he would make off the story. 

“I guess I’ll just have to publish Brad’s story then without your response,” he said, acting as though he was reluctant to do this but clearly John had given him no choice in the matter.

“Yeah,” John sneered. “You do that. See what happens.” John had taken out a wad of cash, and got up from the table, picking up his book. He left the table without another word, and paid his bill at the cash register, disappearing into the street and grabbing a cab at the first chance. The man had obviously followed him here, and he didn’t want to be followed by him any more, so he took a cab even though it was only a 4-block distance.

 

*****

 

When he got back to the loft, his heart was beating a mile a minute. Paul had warned him that ‘Brad’ would eventually expose him to the tabloids, but John had dismissed the thought. He had been sure that Brad had not recognized him, and wouldn’t be interested in reading about an aging British rocker, so would be unlikely to connect the dots later. But how would the reporter know ‘Brad’s’ name, if he hadn’t already talked to him? And he also knew about the pickup in the club. Fuck! It really sucked being famous some times! Couldn’t he do one private naughty thing without the whole fucking world finding out about it? What was he going to tell Paul? He’d finally mended his fences with Paul, and now this! Now the wounds would be torn open again! 

John’s fury was deep. He picked up the sofa pillows and threw them around. He stopped himself when it came to throwing anything valuable or breakable, so he was at least on one level in control of this tantrum. As he remembered the confrontation, he hoped he hadn’t given anything away to that dickhead. What did he say? John struggled to remember what he had said, but found he had been so stressed out he could barely remember what he said. What could he do? He knew he had to let his PR people know, but how to contact them? He’d have to tell their manager. And there was no way he could get away without telling Paul. It was going to be in the tabloids eventually - probably sooner rather than later - so there would be no keeping it from him in any case. What would Paul do? Would he become angry and hurt again? Would he be furious about the embarrassment to his family? Why is it that when I make a mistake I’m never allowed to get away with it? John fumed to himself. 

John tried to settle, but he was too upset. Whenever he sat down his overactive imagination would go into high gear, and he’d be up and pacing again: trying to think of something to calm him down; trying to come up with a strategy that would get him out of this mess. It just wasn’t fair!

As the anger burned out, fear began to take its place. He began to tear up. He was such a fuck up. Everything he did ended up a fucking mess. All he wanted at that moment, sincerely, was to be in Paul’s arms, with Paul whispering in his ear, ‘It’ll be okay. It’s no big deal. This will pass.’ He began to think of excuses why he should call Paul and talk to him. He’d sent those lyrics - maybe he could call and warn him they were coming. But then he looked at the clock. It was now 9 p.m. in New York, which meant it was 2 a.m. in London. He couldn’t call that early could he? No. That wouldn’t be fair. He’d have to wait until the next morning. It was going to be a sleepless night. Unless... John got up and went to the bathroom medicine cabinet. Yesssss! He had some sleeping pills left over. Tonight was clearly a 3-pill night. 

 

*****

 

It was about noon in New York when he called Paul, because the drugs had been difficult to wake up from. It would be 5 p.m. in London - a good time to reach Paul, who would be home, and it would be before the dinner hour. But the phone rang several times before churning over to an impersonal voicemail machine. Frustrated, John hung up. They must have gone out for the evening. Irrationally, John felt upset and left out about that. He could be separate from Paul as long as he didn’t know that Paul was out having fun, living his life cheerfully without him. He could stand almost anything but that. Why did Paul suddenly seem so much more precious to him whenever his relationship was in jeopardy? John knew he had to fix that. He had been working hard on it. But these little abrupt reminders kept popping up to prove to him that he still had a long way to go before he could appreciate Paul to his fullest when the blasted man was safe in his arms. 

John fussed with his telephone book and found Mary and Stella’s phone number. He called that number, and to his relief James answered. Maybe the family was having dinner with Mary and Stella!

“James! Surprised to find you here!” John announced in the phone, suddenly cheerful. “Visiting your sisters?”

“Yeah,” was the 16 year-old boy’s cryptic response.

“Is your Dad there?” John asked.

“Nope.” 

John waited for more, but more was not to come. “Do you know where he is?” John tried again.

“Yep.”

!!!! John was biting his lip now. He had forgotten what 16 year-old boys could be like - monosyllabic and incommunicative. Sean, soon to be 18, had thankfully grown out of that tendency.

“So where is he?” John asked, trying not to sound impatient.

“France.”

“France?” John was repeating the word out of confusion, not because he didn’t hear it.

“Yeah. France.”

“James, please, focus. Why is your father in France?”

James sighed. Grown-ups were such a drag. They were all full of boring questions all the time. “He and mum went there for a holiday,” he said. He was exhausted by the effort.

“When?” John asked. He was bewildered. Paul hadn’t told him about a holiday!

“This morning.”

John gave up on James. He was an extremely dissatisfying correspondent. “Let me talk to Stella or Mary.

Hallelujah! Reprieve! James celebrated to himself. Without another word he shouted, ‘MAAA-RRRR-YYYY!” 

John winced at the noise assaulting his ear. Soon, Mary’s lovely, soothing voice was on the other end. “Hello?”

“Mary, this is John.”

There was a slight silence while Mary placed the voice to the right John. There were a lot of Johns in her life. “Ah, John. What’s up?”

John smiled a bit, reflexively. Mary was using Paul’s favorite telephone line - ‘what’s up?’ “I was trying to get a hold of your dad,” John said.

“He and mum left for the Cote d’Azur this morning. They’re staying at a villa.” 

John didn’t like to admit he hadn’t known. He said, “Do you have the telephone number for the villa?”

“Yes - give me a moment, I’ll find it for you.” A few moments went by, and soon Mary was back and read out the number for him. “Is everything alright?” She asked John, having sensed a little desperation in John’s voice (although he thought he had hidden it well.)

“Yes, yes,” John said reassuringly. “Business - can’t be avoided.” Soon he had rung off. He had to wait a few moments before picking up the phone and dialing again. He was angry. Why hadn’t Paul told him he was going away? Was he going to be home when John returned? His anger was building up. Paul was supposed to be accessible when John needed him, and he really should have told him he was leaving town. After all, John had been very clear about it when he left town to come to New York. But some really smart part of his brain told him not to call all angry. He needed Paul in his corner at that moment. 

He checked his watch. It was a bit after 6:30 p.m. in the south of France. It was a decent time to call. So, as calmly as possible, he dialed the number. 

Linda answered. John said, “Hi, Linda. Sorry to disturb you. Got your number from Mary. I’d like to talk to Paul for a few moments, if that’s okay with you?”

Linda was curious. Of course she was. But she answered brightly that she’d find Paul and get him to the phone. True to her word, a few moments later, Paul was on the line all chipper and surprised. 

“John! What on earth?” 

Even to John’s suspicious ears Paul sounded delighted to hear from him. That went a long way to assuaging John’s irritation. It was a much calmer John who said - as if it were an idle remark - “I didn’t know you were going on holiday.”

Paul said, “You didn’t get my message?”

“Message?” John asked. “What message?”

“On the voice recorder? On your phone?” Paul was surprised that John had been able to reach him if he hadn’t heard the message.

“Oh! I guess I didn’t notice that I had a message,” John said, suddenly very grateful he hadn’t come out with all guns blazing. 

Paul was curious about how John had found him, which led to John’s comical relaying of James’s less-than-helpful responses. Paul was laughing by the time John was done. “I’m glad it’s not just me he does that to,” Paul said. “I was afraid he only treated me that way.” A few seconds went by, and then Paul said, “What’s on your mind? Why have you called?”

“I was going to say that I was calling to tell you I sent you another set of lyrics, but the truth is I just felt the urge to hear your voice.” John allowed his voice to dip to a low, intimate tone in the final phrase.

“Oh man, you’re putting me on the spot. Now I have to say something worthwhile.” Paul could hear John’s chuckle on the other end of the phone, and his face lit up. Too bad John couldn’t see it. 

“So, anyway, I put the second set of lyrics in the mail for you this morning,” John said. “I just finished ‘em, but I want your input. Unfortunately it’s going to London.” 

“I’ll be back in 5 days. I have pretty much composed the music for the first one. I worked on it for a whole day.”

John thought to himself, asshole - he finished the fucking music in a day, and I’d been unable to write any music for days. But the thought was ringed ‘round with pride in Paul’s talent. After all, Paul was an extension of him. 

“So, you’ll be home when I get back?” John asked, as if the answer was not of immense importance to him.

“Yeah. It was a last minute thing. Linda wanted to go away for a few days, and I thought it was a good idea.” Paul said all this as his brain was thinking, something’s off with John. Should I ask him? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie? He sighed. He was himself - Paul - and he was always going to be himself - Paul - and Paul was a person who never saw a problem he didn’t think was his to solve. “Johnny? Are you okay? You sound a bit...disconsolate.”

“’Disconsolate!’ That’s a fancy word!” John mugged into the phone.

“But is it true? Are you sad?” 

Paul’s caring words pierced John’s sore heart. He tried not to start sobbing, and just said, “I’m feeling a bit lonely just now.”

Paul’s heart went out to John. He said, “Did something go wrong today?” John’s moods usually would take dramatic turns based on really good or really bad things that happened in the course of a day.

“Yeah, kind of,” John said. He didn’t like spoiling Paul’s holiday, but if the tabloid published the story tomorrow it would soon find it’s way to France, where they loved tabloid stories and were quite ruthless about them. 

Paul swallowed. This didn’t sound good. “Are you going to tell me what it is?” He asked gently. 

“I went to Paddy’s pub for dinner last night,” John said, trying to bump up his energy as he spoke. “While I was there, this bloke sat next to me and started talking to me - pretending not to recognize me.”

“Yes...” Paul said as John paused. The word ‘pretending’ didn’t sound good.

“He said he knew someone I knew.” John was finding it very hard to let the words go.

“Yes...”

“He said he was a friend of ‘Brad’s’.” John said the name as if it were a dirty word.

Paul had to think a moment. Brad. Brad. Br...oh! Brad! His heart started beating a little faster. “I see,” he said as calmly as he could.

“And it became clear the guy was a tabloid writer, and he was basically telling me he knew about Brad, and was fishing around for my reaction.”

“When did this happen? Last night?”

“Yeah. I’ve been sick to my stomach ever since.”

“What did you say to him?” Paul asked, the businesslike tone coming into his voice. Somehow this always gave John confidence. Paul the Ace was on the Case. 

“I’m pretty sure I said nothing incriminating. I denied that I knew what he was talking about, and told him not to print lies about me. But if he really knows Brad, what are we gonna do?”

Paul tried not to sigh out loud, although he certainly did so in the privacy of his own brain. He was thinking furiously. “Well, I’ll call Frank and warn him,” Paul said. “Maybe the PR folks will have some advice for us.” Paul had run out of useful things to say, and he was filled with chaotic emotions. He didn’t know which ones were preeminent, much less which ones to feel, so he ran out of things to say.

John heard the awkward silence and his voice sounded plaintive, beseeching. “Paul?”

“Yes? I’m here,” Paul said softly.

“Do you hate me for this? For putting us through this?”

Paul said softly, “No, of course not John. I could never hate you. Even when you’ve been hateful to me, I couldn’t hate you. Surely you know that by now.” 

“You just seem like a - what do they call ‘em? - a - a thingie where they store the grain, you know?”

“A silo?”

“Yes - you seem like a silo sometimes, and I know you’re not telling me all the things you’re feeling. So I imagine the things you might be feeling, and then I convince myself you hate me.”

Paul chuckled. “I’ve been called many things in my long life, but never a ‘silo’ before! John, I’m telling you I don’t hate you. I have a lot of feelings roiling around in me right now, and I’m not even sure what they are yet. But none of them have anything to do with hate. That much I know.” 

“I was feeling like I should just come home to London, but now I find out you’re not there, so what’s the point?” 

“John, if you need me to meet you in London, I will. Linda will understand, I’m sure.”

John sighed heavily. “No, no, Linda deserves her time with you. If it were me I’d resent it if you ran off to meet someone else during my holiday. It isn’t fair.”

“So what do you want to do?” Paul asked.

“I guess I’ll wait until you call me back to tell me what Frank says.”

“Ok. But in the meantime do me a favor.”

“Yeah?” John asked.

“Call Jason up, and ask him to stay with you tonight. He’s a good friend to you.” Paul’s voice was firm, and brooked no denial.

John relaxed at the very idea. “Yeah, I will. That’s a good idea. Well...I’m sorry I had to spoil your holiday, but I was afraid the tabloids...”

“Johnny, you never have to apologize for calling me. Anytime you need me, you just pick up the phone; and my holiday isn’t spoiled, don’t worry. We’ll get through this like we got through everything else, yeah?”

“Well, just don’t be late getting back to London. I’ll be seriously pissed if you’re not there when I get back.” John’s voice was very possessive.

Paul’s eyebrows flew up his forehead at John’s peremptory declaration. “Oh?” He asked. A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes, but John couldn’t see it through the telephone line. “And what’re you gonna do about it if I’m not there?” He asked in a very naughty, suggestive voice.

“I wouldn’t try me if I were you,” John growled back, but now his eyes were dancing with mischief too. Paul was flirting with him, and he was gonna flirt right back. 

“Hmmm, I’ll have to give that some serious thought,” Paul teased. “I do worry that perhaps I’ve spoiled you too much.”

“Ha! You tease!” John snorted. “Not 'alf!”

 

*****

 

The reporter was dissatisfied with his meet-up with Lennon. Lennon had not reacted like a guilty person. He hadn’t begged or bargained for discretion. He had literally dared him to print his story, and implied that he would be sued if he did. Tabloids could be scared into silence, the reporter knew. The business suits consulted lawyers on a lot of the proposed stories, and lawyers were notoriously cautious. He just didn’t have enough evidence to convince them to print yet. He had to find that guy Brad... Then he would have enough to get the tabloids to publish for sure, because they could simply quote Brad, and claim they didn’t know if it was true, but could assert that nevertheless it was newsworthy. 

He would just have to go back to the drawing board.

 

*****

 

Paul was practiced in the art of quelling bad publicity. It was funny how he could do it even without threatening lawsuits or going on television to deny and justify. He had figured out decades earlier that a dignified and slightly amused silence - an out and out ignoring of the gossip - was the only way to go. His motto was - let the press take their shot. When it came, it was never fatal, and the echo of it always faded away pretty quickly. You just had to hunker down and not react. He wished John hadn’t threatened the reporter, but it was a much better reaction than John normally had when dealing with unscrupulous members of the press. Paul had seen John hit a female reporter in the face when she made insinuating remarks about his wife, Cynthia, back in the Beatle years. He had seen John being bitchy at press conferences, and shouting and swearing at reporters in private interviews. He had very personal knowledge of how John could open up and spill even the most intimate details of his life to a reporter if he felt like it in the moment. So, compared to these other more obviously bad reactions, John’s mere threat to sue seemed like a stellar performance. 

It made things a bit awkward though, no lie. It was hard to ignore a thing after you’ve threatened to sue over it, after all. It emboldens the opposition and convinces them you’re all hot air and no real action. So this was going to be a tricky one. He picked up the phone and called Frank. 

“So we’re in hot water again,” Paul said, without preamble. 

Frank sighed theatrically. “Are we ever not in hot water?”

Paul chuckled. “Yeah, I know, but this one’s a real humdinger.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be on holiday? Don’t tell me you got drunk and rode through the town naked.”

“Don’t give me any ideas,” Paul laughed. “No, it’s not me. It’s John.”

“Paul, I already knew that. I was just teasing. It’s obviously John; it’s always John. What has he done now?”

“He hasn’t done anything new. It’s the thing about the hotel again. A reporter approached John about it and mentioned the...er...man’s name. John fears that...the man...is going public.” 

Frank absorbed this shocker in deadly silence. Paul waited patiently for the bad news to soak in. Frank finally found words. “Okay, so I guess our earlier joust over this was too easy. We’re going to have to survive another round. Let me get the PR people sorted out. When can we call you back?”

Paul appreciated the resigned but businesslike reaction from Frank. The last thing he and John needed around them was more drama. He arranged for a time to call back the next morning, and then called John to give him an update.

About this time, Linda - who had been wondering what had taken Paul so long - came into the room and gave Paul a quizzical look. Paul acknowledged the look, but turned his back and lowered his voice to say goodbye to John. Even after all these years Paul was shy about exposing his love talk with John to his wife. 

“What’s going on?” Linda asked after Paul finally hung up.

“Another PR disaster, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh, lord, what now?” Linda was irritated. John couldn’t stop acting up long enough for her to be alone with her husband for even a few days’ holiday?

“It’s more of the same - some man has told a tabloid reporter that he had an affair with John when he was in New York last spring.” 

Linda threw up her arms, and plopped down in a chair. “Well, why does that surprise me? I should’ve seen it coming.”

Paul approached Linda, and pulled her up to her feet and into his arms, and spoke softly into her ear. “We’ll just have to weather it. I somehow knew this was coming, and so I’m not terrorized over it.”

After Linda had thought about it a little she said, “It really isn’t your PR disaster. It’s John’s. What John got up to while on his solo trip to New York shouldn’t rebound on you.” 

Paul looked at Linda with surprise in his eyes. “Of course it rebounds on me,” he said with a calm but assertive voice. “Whatever hurts John hurts me.” 

 

*****

 

It was a few nights later when a young gay man saw Brad in the Astro. He made a beeline for him, and when Brad saw his friend coming, he waved him over. 

“Hey Roge,” Brad said in a friendly tone.

“Brad - I’ve been looking for you for over a week now.”

“Why?” Brad was curious. Roger was a club acquaintance. They’d never made an effort to search each other out before. 

“This weird older guy came up to me at Buster’s and he asked about you.”

Brad’s heart skipped a beat. Could it be the mysterious Fred who had thrown money at him as if he were a street prostitute and left him alone that night? Brad had really been attracted to Fred, and had been left wondering what he had done wrong. He’d gone over and over the night in his mind, and the only conclusion he could draw was that Fred must be one of those self-hating homos who took his self-directed anger out on the men he had had sex with. It was a damn shame, because Brad had been harboring high hopes that night before everything went wrong. 

“What was his name?” Brad asked.

“I didn’t ask. He was very nosy, and was showing everyone a photograph of a man. I thought I recognized the man in the photo. Remember we were here several months ago, and you got picked up by that older English dude?”

Brad’s heart raced again. “Yes, I remember.”

“Well, the man in the photo was that guy, I think, and the man who was asking about him said it was an old friend of his and he wanted to get in touch with him. I said I’d give you his number when I next saw you.”

“That’s really weird,” Brad said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Hey, if I remember right, that old dude you went off with that night was pretty hot. He was pretty charismatic. Maybe this guy asking questions is an old boyfriend or something, and wants to track him down.” Roger shrugged. “Anyway, here’s the man’s phone number if you want to call him back. Up to you.”

Yes, Brad mused, Fred certainly was hot and charismatic. He took the little piece of paper and looked at the number. Midtown, by the looks of it. 

“Hey, I never asked; how was that old dude in bed? Did he show you a good time?” Roger’s eyes were locked on Brad’s in anticipation of some hot gossip.

“He was great in bed,” Brad said softly. “But I think he’s a closet case. He left abruptly afterwards and I haven’t heard from him since.” 

“Oh, I hate when that happens,” Roger commiserated.

 

*****

 

John walked through his new apartment after the painters had finally left. He strolled through the two huge bedrooms, his library-study, and the living, dining and sitting rooms. He stopped in the kitchen, which was waiting until the cabinets were all installed before it would be painted. Thus far the kitchen / breakfast room was still a large blank box. John had vacillated too long on his finish choices, and then of course his expensive tastes had settled on custom items that had to be advance ordered, and so progress on the kitchen was going to have to wait until his next visit. John didn’t think he’d be back in two weeks. He was returning to London the next day, and needed to be with Paul longer than two weeks before returning to New York. His earlier scheduling had been overly-ambitious, and he had underestimated how much he would miss Paul.

In the days since his interaction with the tabloid reporter, John had calmed down. Nothing had shown up in the papers, and no rumors were being circulated - at least not that his PR people had been able to pick up from their sources. But John knew it was simmering and that soon it would come to a boil. The reporter knew the kid’s name... Paul had responded like a pro to the whole mess, and at least as far as John could tell, he wasn’t harboring anger or hurt feelings. John was looking forward to getting back to London where he could see Paul with his own eyes; then he’d know for sure if Paul was just covering up his feelings again. 

Because he had found it necessary, John had come to terms with the notion that his tryst with Brad was going to become public. And then he would be outed. People would say he was gay, because most people didn’t understand or believe in bisexuality. John supposed some of his former female lovers would come forward and naysay the gay claims, but in the end it was all the same. He was going to be outed. His main goal, since he couldn’t save himself, was to save Paul any humiliation or exposure. Once the press knew that he had sex with a man then they’d of course start focusing in on their Brian Epstein, Stu Sutcliffe, and - of course - Paul suspicions. He would have to lie outright about Paul this time. Joking about it wouldn’t work because things would have gone too far and with too much specificity. He had no intention of telling Paul that he was going to lie, because Paul would want him to ignore the rumors, let them die away, and not dignify them with responses. But John knew that this was too serious a rumor for it not to be world news for a long time, and that like it or not, Paul was going to be dragged into it. The gossip about Paul would start in earnest, and it wouldn’t stop until he - John - put a stop to it by lying. Even then, some wouldn’t believe the lie, but at least it would save Paul the stress of having to be the one to lie. 

Once he’d sorted through those gloomy thoughts, it was as if he had emerged in a peaceful, sunny garden after hiding in a dark and shadowy house for long, aching years. In the garden, the sun was bright and welcoming, birds and bees were singing and humming, and everything was green and growing. When it is finally out, I will get to be my true self in public for the first time in my life. The triumphant thought rang in John’s mind like church bells on a wedding day, and on that future happy day, the echo would last a long time


	61. Chapter 61

Paul and Linda had arrived back from France in the late morning, and John was expected home from New York in the late afternoon. John was being collected at the airport by a limo driver, because Paul had thought it wasn’t a good idea for him to be seen picking John up if the Brad rumors were about to explode. John had seen the wisdom in that decision. In fact, John was awfully sanguine about this whole impending PR disaster, Paul thought, and since Paul found that unexpected and odd, he worried about it. Was John engaging in magical thinking, and not accepting the fact that at any moment he would be exposed? Well, whatever gets him through the night, Paul quoted to himself.

Paul was looking forward to seeing John again - to holding him in his arms. Being away from John for almost three weeks had been tolerable, but he had felt John’s absence as if it were an ever-present but tolerable ache. He had confessed this to Fiona. He had told her he had grown so used to having John in his life every day that he felt like he was walking around without his trousers on: it was like he had forgotten something very important when he left the house. 

“Have you let John know that’s how you feel when he’s gone?” Fiona had asked.

“No. I’m just noticing it now. I mean, I’ve noticed it before, but I never concentrated on it and figured out what it meant to me before.” 

Paul’s verbal expressions were often delivered in the passive voice, so Fiona found it encouraging that he was feeling comfortable enough to speak in the first person like this. “If you told him, it would mean a lot to him,” Fiona suggested.

Paul nodded. “Yes, there’s a lot that needs to be said,” he admitted. “Is it always like this? Do people come in here who have never talked about their feelings before, and then once they start talking they can’t stop?” 

He’s back to a passive voice again, Fiona thought, not to mention using third parties in substitution for self. Well, it always is two steps forward, one step back, she reminded herself. Patience is what is required. “Some people don’t know how to express their feelings, and when they finally learn how, it gets easier and easier, and ultimately it is a huge relief to them to be able to unload.” 

Paul looked thoughtful. “I haven’t gotten there yet,” he had told Fiona. “It still feels very uncomfortable to me.” 

And so it was. Now, as Paul waited for John’s arrival, he practiced in his mind the things he wanted to say, needed to say, but was afraid to say.

 

*****

 

Brad played nervously with the telephone cord. He had the strange man’s telephone number in his hand and was of two minds about calling him. He wasn’t really very promiscuous - at least not by his social circle’s standards - although he had enjoyed a lengthy affair with an older gentleman who had ‘kept him’ for not quite two years. But he had never been in the habit of cold-calling men who had asked questions about him in clubs. The only reason why Brad was tempted was because of Fred. For whatever reason, Brad had developed a lingering crush on the ironic Englishman, with his biting words and his clever eyes. He had loved Fred’s sinewy hands, with the veins showing on top and every bone of the fingers articulated, and could picture the unusual silver bracelet that Fred had worn on his thin wrist. Fred had told him about a years-ago trip to South America, and Brad had learned that the bracelet had been made by a descendant of Peruvian Incans. The trip sounded romantic and Brad had been fantasizing ever since about traveling the world and enjoying different cultures with a handsome, charismatic, wealthy beau. If the man on the other end of the phone knew Fred, perhaps there was a way for Brad to reconnect with him. At the very least, Brad hoped for an explanation for Fred’s angry departure that night. 

It was this curiosity that prevailed, and Brad dialed the number. A brusque, businesslike voice answered at once: 

“Williams.” The voice said.

“Hello, ‘William’ did you say?” Brad was thrown for a loop, and stuttered a bit.

“Williams is my last name. Who are you and how did you get my number?” The voice was extremely impatient, and Brad was regretting making the call already.

“Oh, sorry. My name’s Brad, and a friend of mine gave me your number...”

Brad! The Holy Grail! Williams’ voice changed instantly to a cozy and encouraging tone. “Ah - the elusive Brad! I am so glad you called! I’ve been hoping to connect up with you.”

Brad was confused. Why was this man so interested in connecting up with him? He needed some clarity. “I am wondering why you were asking about me in the club, and why you wanted me to call you,” he said, his voice a tad suspicious.

“I know it sounds weird. I was hoping we could meet somewhere for coffee - you pick the place, treat’s on me - and I will explain everything,” Williams crooned.

Brad was still suspicious, and was hoping this wasn’t some kind of weird runaround. “You have to tell me what it’s about before I’d be willing to meet you.” His voice was firm.

“It’s about the man in the photograph I showed your friend. John Lennon. I wanted to talk to you about him.” Williams had made his voice sound as unthreatening as possible.

“John Lennon?” Brad was disappointed. He had thought the man in the photo was Fred. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Yeah, John Lennon the Beatle. The news I have for you could be very lucrative. At least agree to give me fifteen minutes of your time. Name the place.”

Brad had of course heard of the Beatles, but didn’t know them by name or - individually, at least - by sight. Lots of the members of his generation were the same, but Brad was even less clued in to oldies music because he’d never been much of a music fan. He only went to clubs to hook up and meet people, not to listen to the music or dance. Frankly, Brad could think of no reason at all why anyone would want to talk to him about a former Beatle. It sounded crazy to him. But fifteen minutes in his local Starbucks wasn’t going to kill him. He knew the barista there and he’d ask the barista to keep an eye on this strange dude while he was talking to him. He would be safe, and maybe there was something in it for him, although he could not think what. 

“Okay, there’s a Starbucks on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn...”

“I know it,” Williams said. This was better and better. Williams lived in Brooklyn, and the Starbucks was a short drive from his apartment. He wouldn’t even have to go out of his way for this explosive exclusive!

“I’ll meet you there in an hour. But fifteen minutes only; I’ve got chores to do today,” Brad stated. 

 

*****

 

Paul felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, only he was sneaking peeks out the front windows waiting for John to arrive, and not for Santa Claus. It didn’t occur to him that the limo would take John directly to his own house, and that his first sight of John would come from the other side of the room - through the garden door. So when John was suddenly standing in the garden door, it surprised Paul enough to make him jump.

“John!” The name came out unbidden, and there was love, excitement, affection, desire and joy exposed in Paul’s involuntary cry. It made John smile, and he came in the room with his arms open. Paul actually flew into those arms. This surprised John very much, because it was usually he - John - who did the flying as between the two of them. Clearly, Paul was very excited to see him, and wasn’t afraid to show it either. 

“I note that you’re glad to see me,” John teased, as he felt something hard and unyielding pressing against his pelvis. But John’s own boner was equally strong, and he was sure Paul could tell too. He didn’t have any more time to think, because soon Paul had engaged him in an over-powering and passionate kiss. 

It was while that kiss was going on that Linda came in the room. Neither man saw her there, and she quietly backed out to leave them their privacy. What she had seen had given her a bit of a shock, but also kind of a thrill. It was a very erotic scene, and she hadn’t allowed herself to ponder much about what Paul and John looked like when they were making love. This scene was going to haunt her forever, probably, but somehow this did not upset her. It was a part of her husband - and a very sexy part at that - and Linda accepted it along with all the other things about Paul that made him special to her. 

Paul pushed John backwards until he was up against the garden door, and then rested his forehead on John’s while his thumbs - on either side of John’s head - massaged John’s upper neck. “I really missed you,” Paul made himself whisper, even though he was afraid to say it out loud. “I don’t like it when you’re not with me. It feels like something important is missing.” There. He’d said it. John had said words like these to him many, many times, but Paul had not said them nearly enough to John. Paul figured it was time he made up for that. The biggest surprise for John was still to come. Paul screwed his courage to the sticking point and added, “Next time you go back to New York, I’m going with you, and I’m staying with you.”

John wasn’t sure he was capable of holding this much happiness in his heart at one time. Things were bubbling over, like tears and little cooing sounds that he knew rather than recognized were coming from his own throat. In this very important moment, words failed him. Part of him was thinking, ‘no, Paul - you can’t do that now - it will fuel the rumors once Brad talks!’ But the other part was thinking, ‘when I get outed, Paul’s coming with me. He doesn’t want me to be alone.’ It was such a generous and heartfelt gesture, that John could do nothing but hug Paul fiercely in return, while engaging him in another lengthy and passionate kiss.

Paul broke it off only to say, “Let’s go to your place,” and he clearly meant ‘right now.’ John was more than happy to oblige, but he did have a thought for Linda. 

“Shouldn’t I say hello? I hope she hadn’t planned dinner.”

Paul said, “Dinner isn’t for another hour. I don’t need an hour.” His eyes danced with promises. He then pulled away and shouted, “Lin - I’m going to John’s!” He waited a moment until he heard a shout back from the direction of the kitchen. “See you for dinner in an hour!” Grabbing John’s arm, Paul literally dragged the poor man down the garden, then down the mews, and into John’s house, and up the stairs, and until the master bedroom. 

 

*****

 

At that exact moment, by the clock it was 5 hours earlier in Brooklyn, and Brad was waiting at Starbucks. He had gotten there early so he could talk to his friend the barista, and find a table right in the front window. It was also as distant from other seats as you could get in the shop’s miniscule seating space. He had ordered and paid for his own coffee, not wanting to be beholden in any way to this stranger, and was trying to read the newspaper, although his eyes often strayed to the sidewalk and then the front door. 

He saw Williams before Williams saw him. The guy was a bit overweight, and probably in his forties, but was trying to dress like a hipper guy in his thirties. He was balding a little on top, but still pulled his hair back into a tiny ponytail. Blue jeans, black shirt, black faux leather jacket. It was almost like a uniform for older men who were trying to look cool. Well, in Brad’s estimation, some older men dressed like this did look cool, but not this one. He waved his folded newspaper in Williams’ direction, and caught the man’s eye. 

Williams caught sight of the young man and did a bit of a double take. Brad had a passable resemblance to a young Paul McCartney, sure enough, not just in the coloring and body build, but also in some of his body movements and expressions. Of course, Brad didn’t have the huge, arresting hazel eyes, nor did he have the jaunty curl of the lip or the slightly crooked front teeth. 

As he sat down, Williams put his hand out in greeting. “Hi, Brad, I’m Russ Williams. What’s your surname?” 

Brad wasn’t ready to share his surname. He ignored the question. “You said you had something to talk to me about, although it all seems pretty sketchy to me.”

Williams was surprised by how canny the young man was; he was not your usual bar fly, obviously. But then a man like John Lennon wouldn’t waste his time with a complete idiot would he? He shrugged off Brad’s slight rudeness, and pulled out a photograph of John Lennon, and pushed it across the table to Brad. “John Lennon. Do you know him?”

Warning bells were going off in Brad’s head. The photo was obviously a paparazzi shot, but a good one. Its object was getting out of a car on a New York street, and his taut frame was dressed in blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a real leather jacket, and had dark glasses perched on the top of his head. This older man was cool. It was also unmistakably ‘Fred.’ So, Brad thought, he had had sex with a Beatle, and the Beatle had given him a false name. Big surprise. Even non-famous people gave fake names in gay clubs; it happened all the time. And when they gave fake names, they did it for a good reason. Brad could grasp immediately what that reason was for John Lennon. Without a second thought Brad pushed the photo back at Williams. 

“Never saw him before.” Brad said flatly.

Williams couldn’t believe his ears. “Your friend said you left a club with him a few months ago!” He stated indignantly.

Brad pulled the photo back and pretended to give it another look. “It does look a tiny bit like someone I clubbed with before, but Roger’s mistaken. He only saw the guy I was with for a few moments in a dark club. He can be forgiven for misidentifying him.”

“He said the guy had an English accent!” Williams accused.

Brad pretended to think hard about that for a moment. “I would have said he sounded Australian, but then I talked with him for a longer time. Roger was only at the table with us for two minutes before he left to dance.” 

Williams could not believe it. His whole explosive exclusive was evaporating in thin air! Unless Lennon had got to Brad, and... yes, that was it! Brad was Lennon’s lover, and he was covering for him! “So, this guy you met in the club, did you spend the night at the Steadham Hotel with him?” Williams asked this with a knowing grin on his face.

“That’s a rude, personal question,” Brad retorted. “What I do or don’t do with guys I date is none of your business.” 

“So this guy - this Australian guy - what’s his name?” Williams let his contempt show in his tone for what he increasingly thought was Brad’s cover-up.

“What’s your interest in him, anyway?” Brad demanded. “You told Roger this photo was of an old friend of yours, but that is obviously a lie. Are you a private investigator or something?” Brad was glaring openly at Williams now. Maybe he didn’t know John Lennon well, but he knew what it was like to be gay, and to have people treat your sexuality as a crime or a shame that they could expose or exploit for some dark purpose of their own. He wasn’t about to help this creep put a fellow homo through the ringer, Beatle or no Beatle. 

“What makes you think a private investigator would be looking into John Lennon’s nightlife?” Williams asked with his customary smirk.

“First, I don’t know John Lennon, and I don’t know anything about his ‘nightlife’ to the extent he even has one. But the sneaky way you’re going about things makes me think you’re doing something underhanded, so I immediately thought of private investigators. It’s a sleazy job, messing in people’s private lives. It fits. So is that what you are?”

“No, of course not,” Williams sneered. “I am a reporter.” He said this with great pride, as if he had just announced that he had discovered the cure for cancer.

Ahhh, of course, Brad realized. He should have figured that out earlier. “I see. And your idea of news is trying to prove a Beatle is gay, is that it? Lot of money in that is there?” Brad was disgusted and made moves to go.

“There is a lot of money in it,” Williams admitted cheerfully, “and especially for the man Lennon had sex with, by the way, should he come forward and cooperate.”

“News agencies pay for stories? That sounds sleazy,” Brad opined. “But why are you so sure that this Lennon dude did have sex with a man? It certainly wasn’t me, but what makes you think it even happened?”

“Didn’t you read that story a few months ago about Lennon leaving his credit card receipt at the Steadham? I’m the one who wrote that story, and my source saw him there with another man, and it is a gay hotel.” This gave Williams an idea, and he quickly took his miniature camera out of his pocket and snapped a picture of Brad before he could even react.

“Hey! I didn’t give you permission to take my photo!” Brad - who had not paid any attention to the referenced tabloid story and had heard nothing about it - was incensed about the invasion of his privacy.

“Well, if you’re not the one who went to the hotel with John Lennon, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” 

Brad collected his newspaper, and just before he got up he said, “It must be awful to be you. Spending your whole life digging in garbage cans, and corrupting people by paying them to give up other people’s secrets. I have no idea if you’re right or wrong about that poor man...” - with that he pointed at the photo still on the table - “...but it is clear to me he isn’t even a person to you. You don’t even care who you hurt, do you?” 

Russ Williams’ face remained impassive and unmoved. He shrugged. “Whatever,” he said, as Brad stalked away.

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, John Lennon’s thoughts couldn’t have been further away from Brad, New York, or tabloid stories. Paul was on top of him and it seemed as if his hands were everywhere at once, and it was doing funny things to his tummy. His thighs had pulled up and he had encircled Paul’s upper bum with this crossed legs, holding on for dear life, and John knew that this would be the night when Paul would ask if he could fuck him. John had been wanting this kind of sex for several weeks, but Paul had been reluctant to ask, and John - for whatever reason - needed to be coaxed into it after so long a time without. John held his breath, and tried through his body language to encourage Paul to go ahead and go for it. He squeezed Paul’s bum with his crossed legs, and made thrusting motions up to meet Paul’s downward thrusts. He felt rather than heard himself groaning in anticipation, and perhaps that was the prod that emboldened Paul. 

Paul’s cock was now rubbing up and down over John’s anus, and Paul propped himself up on one elbow and looked down into John’s feverish eyes. Paul’s eyes were full of invitation. “Shall I?” He whispered. 

“Yeesss!” John hissed. He was a little anxious about it. He knew Paul would be gentle and would do nothing purposely to hurt him, but he feared that he had been so injured inside that any kind of penetration would be an agony to him. He hoped against hope that this wasn’t the case, and it was this fear that had kept him from speaking up about it with Paul earlier. 

“Let me know babe,” Paul said in a low, soft voice.

John understood this to mean that he was to tell Paul immediately if it was too painful. He supposed his body would seize up immediately if he felt anything close to the pain he had suffered on that night with Brad. He made a noise that expressed his agreement with Paul’s sweet instruction. 

Paul was not in a hurry. He was deliberate and gentle in his movements. Although John was tight, it was not painful and no emotional impediments kept him from thoroughly enjoying the stroking and rubbing. It was an ancient impulse, the need to be entered and massaged in otherwise private areas. The familiar but still appreciated waves of pleasure were soon rolling over him, and his arms tightened reflexively around Paul’s neck. 

For his part, Paul felt the build up and then the release as a kind of metaphor for the emotional trip he’d been on. One thing that surprised him (because he had believed as a young man, life after fifty would be dull and uneventful) was that even in one’s fifties, life was still a bucking bronco. You just had to hold on for all you were worth, and let life happen. 

 

*****

 

“It’s good to see you in person again,” John said to Fiona. 

“Where’s Paul?” Fiona asked brightly.

“I wanted to come alone today, and he was okay with it, if that’s okay with you,” John explained.

“So, how was New York?”

John sat on his thoughts for a few seconds trying to consider what to say. “Oh, Fiona,” he finally groaned, deciding to open up entirely. He needed the comfort and advice. “It’s all a fucking mess.”

“Your apartment?” Fiona asked, confused.

“No, no, not that. But - this is hard for me - apparently the bloke I had sex with that time has gone to the tabloids.”

Fiona was silenced for a good 30 seconds.

“Oh, no, John. That must be very distressing to you.”

John sighed, and finally said, “Actually, it is kind of a relief for me, to tell you the truth. I’m tired of hiding and lying. I’ve really had my fill of it. If it weren’t for Paul I wouldn’t be hiding and lying anymore anyway.”

“’If it weren’t for Paul’ - what did you mean by that?” Fiona asked, although she had a pretty clear idea of what he meant.

“He doesn’t want it public. He doesn’t want his family to deal with it, and I don’t think he wants to go through it himself, either. He just wants a quiet, private life when he is off stage. He wants to turn fame on and off like a light switch. I wish you could do that, but you can’t.” 

“Do you have an idea of how you are going to handle this?" Fiona asked.

“Well, it has been over a week and there’s been no story yet. I guess I have to wait until the story hits. You know, we have PR people who have their ears to the ground. So far, nothing. Not sure what that means, but our manager tells us that tabloids aren’t as reckless with mega stars as they are with lesser known celebrities. They’d be going through their legal departments before publishing.”

“Good lord, it sounds like big business,” Fiona responded, disgusted.

John looked up. “Well, it is.” He snickered. “I’m not a person to them - I’m a dollar sign. So’s Paul. It is part of the dark side of fame.”

“Have you spoken about this with Paul?” Fiona asked. She figured this was what John wanted to talk about, and why he didn’t want Paul there, so she decided that she was just going to flow with it.

“Briefly. He is doing his cheerful stiff upper lip thing.”

Fiona chuckled. “I’ve heard of ‘stiff upper lip,’ but not ‘cheerful stiff upper lip,’” she smiled.

“I know,” John acknowledged with an affectionate smile. “That’s my Paul. He tries hard not to show his emotions when he is upset, so it is hard to know what is really going on with him. But thus far he has been very supportive of me, and doesn’t seem outwardly to be overly upset about this development.”

Fiona smiled inwardly at the word “development.” She looked down on to her notebook, and then looked back up at John. “Why did you want to meet with me alone, without Paul?”

“I need to know how to talk to Paul, to draw out how he really feels about this. I don’t want to assume he is okay only to find out later that he is very upset. And if he is upset, I want to know how to deal with that either.”

“There are no secrets, you know. There is just hard work. You should come here together, and we will work through it together.” Fiona’s voice was not as definite as her words. It came off sounding like a suggestion rather than a declaration.

“Yeah, but, Paul tries to protect me from any feelings he has that may be negative about me. I think he should meet with you alone on this issue before we meet together. But I don’t know how to talk him into seeing you alone.” This proposal was John’s purpose in coming alone to the session.

Fiona smiled. “He has been coming to me alone once a week since you left for New York, John. So I don’t think there is a problem with him coming to see me alone. Should I call him up and suggest he come alone next Thursday?”

John was sincerely surprised. “Paul has come here alone? For weeks?” His face reflected shock.

Fiona smiled. “Yes. But I have nothing further to say on the subject. Confidential, you know.”

John’s head cocked the way a spaniel’s does when it hears something odd. “You’re not going to leave me hanging, are you?”

“Yes, I am. Paul’s visits are as private as yours. If you want to cross-pollinate, you’ll have to come together.” Fiona’s expression was so self-satisfied that John wanted (for a very brief and tentative moment) to smack her. 

 

*****

 

That same day, Paul and Linda had gone for a car-ride in the country, just to enjoy the lovely winter afternoon. Linda had brought her camera, and Paul had brought a hamper with a picnic lunch to surprise her. It turned out to be way too chilly to sit on the hard-packed cold ground to eat, so they had set up their feast in the backseat of their car, and did as much snuggling as they did eating. Afterwards, they got out and took a long walk along a pathway cut through the woods. They were both bundled in heavy jackets, and Linda hung on Paul’s arm as they strolled. Occasionally others passed them, and everyone nodded sunnily as they did. On their way back to the car, Linda raised the thorny question.

“What are we going to tell the kids about this John thing? I think we ought to warn them.” 

Paul sighed. “It won’t be a problem with Mary and Stella,” he said, “but James, and maybe Heather...”

Linda nodded in agreement. “I’ll explain to the girls,” she said. “Do you want to take on James? I think you should also tell John to prepare Julian and Sean.” 

Paul had no desire to ‘take on James’ concerning this subject, but knew of no way out of it. “Yeah,” he said. He also suspected that it would be him who explained it to Julian. It always seemed to work out that way. They both lapsed into silence for a few more minutes.

“I’ve given it more thought, Paul,” Linda finally said, deciding it was now or never to raise the subject. “My first attitude was that this was John’s problem, not your’s. You know, what he did in New York on his own could not possibly be drawn back to you. But it didn’t take long for me to disabuse myself of that notion.”

“Oh?” Paul asked. He was watching his feet as he walked and listened. He knew what was coming next, because he had known the truth of it from the very first time John had told him what was going on.

“It will come back to you, and to all of us. It will be worse, I think, than when they were just talking about you and John being lovers. Now it will be stories of ‘Paul is Dumped!’ and ‘John cheats on Paul!’ in addition to all the usual stuff. It will be humiliating as well as invasive. You do realize that, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” was all Paul could say in response. Linda had already said it better than he could have done. 

“And it will become a huge fishing expedition, with those gossip mongers trying to track down any other possible male lovers. We don’t know what John has done that he hasn’t told you about, either. It will get really ugly.” 

Paul hadn’t thought of the possibility that John may have had other male lovers that he didn’t know about. This was a revelation that raised his blood pressure considerably. Am I a blind fool? He asked himself. He didn’t believe he was, but now there were doubts that weren’t there before. “So what do we say to the kids?” He finally asked, emotionally defeated by the question himself.

“I’m just going to be very honest and direct with Mary and Stella, because they can take it, and because they will arrive at these conclusions themselves. Heather will be trickier...”

“And James.”

“And James,” Linda agreed.

“He knows John and I are lovers because we told him. It hasn’t been a secret. And now he will know that John had another male lover, and this will be very confusing for him.”

Linda was silent for several more moments, and soon they saw their parked car. There was one more thing Linda felt she had to say. “You know I love you, and I’ll be there for you throughout the craziness, don’t you? You’re not going through this alone.”

Paul squeezed Linda’s hand, and allowed his head to lean gently against hers for a moment in quiet gratitude.

Linda hadn’t liked to spoil their lovely afternoon, but it was rare for her to have Paul totally to herself without kids or John around. These were things that had to be said, so that Paul could prepare himself for what was to come, and so they could both prepare the children. 

 

*****

 

Brad had no idea what to do. He had stormed back from the coffee joint in a mix of anger and excitement, and then paced around his apartment for the better part of an hour, trying to settle down. Brad was afraid that he was going to be dragged into this tabloid melodrama via the photo shown to the desk clerk at the Steadham Hotel. That possibility presented two scenarios to Brad. One was that it would be embarrassing and scary to be followed by paparazzi for the sole and dubious distinction of having spent a few hours fucking a Beatle. That scenario upset Brad a great deal, because in his rather mundane little day job - the one he wanted so much to ditch for an easier life with a wealthy lover - he was a customer service rep for a department store, and he could see his employer becoming very upset with the publicity. The second scenario involved him seeing ‘Fred’ again. He would fantasize about going to Lennon’s offices in New York, and meeting the man again, and the two of them falling madly in love...

The phone rang. It was his sister, Maddy. He and Maddy were very close emotionally, almost like twins. She seemed to know when he was emotionally fragile, because she would always call, or write a letter, or show up on his doorstep at such moments. Brad was happy his sister had called; finally, here was someone he trusted who he could talk to about the situation.

“Brad, I haven’t heard from you in so long,” Maddy nagged. “Why do I always have to call you?”

“We just saw each other last month,” Brad responded fondly. Maddy lived in upstate New York, in the same small town as their parents.

“Like I said - too long!” Maddy’s voice was serious, and this made Brad laugh. “What have you been up to lately?” She asked, her voice becoming warm and friendly again.

“Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve been up to, even if I told you,” Brad said. The receiver was cradled on his shoulder as he opened the fridge, found a beer, popped it open and took a slug.

“Well, you have to tell me now. Have you found a boyfriend?” Maddy was always asking about Brad’s love life. He knew it was because she worried that he was wasting his life in a go-nowhere job, trying to hook up with wealthy men who would soon leave him for someone younger and fresher. Brad agreed with his sister about his bleak future, but he didn’t have any ideas about how to avoid it. Maddy’s solution had always been for him to find a nice, regular guy, and settle down to a middle class life. That was the choice she had made, and she was happy with it. Brad doubted that he could be happy with it, although he really didn’t want to say so to his sister. That would be rude.

“No, no boyfriend,” Brad said, chuckling. “But I have been interrogated by a tabloid reporter.”

“A what?” Maddy squealed.

“You heard right. This guy just popped up out of nowhere asking me about a man I dated once.” Brad knew that ‘dated’ was a slightly sedate term for what he had got up to with John Lennon, but that was the term he and friends always used for their one-night stands. Perhaps it made them feel better about themselves to use that word. 

“Oh? You dated someone famous?” Maddy was excited to hear all about it.

“I don’t feel real comfortable talking about it. At the time I dated him, I didn’t know who he was. He was just this very attractive older man, and he was very funny and interesting.”

“So how long did you date him?” Maddy asked. She was taking the word ‘date’ literally, as straight people had a tendency to do. 

“We only went out the one time,” Brad said, “but I really liked him a lot.”

“Who is it?” Maddy asked, her curiosity getting the best of her.

“He told me his name was ‘Fred’, but I’ve just found out it was John Lennon.”


	62. Chapter 62

The name “John Lennon” had hung in the air for a few moments before Brad heard his sister’s response.

“The Beatle????” Maddy squealed. “My God Brad!” Maddy was a huge music fan, and apparently was far more knowledgeable than Brad was on the subject of the Beatles.

“I didn’t know who he was,” Brad insisted. “I would never have known if this reporter hadn’t accosted me. Please don’t tell anyone. I lied to the reporter. I said I never saw the man before. I feel bad for him, really, because this reporter is going to try to expose him in the news, and I don’t want to be the weapon he uses to do that. It seems wrong to me.”

“It is wrong,” Maddy said staunchly. She was thoughtful for a few moments. “You do know that there have been rumors about John Lennon for years. He is supposedly in a long-term relationship with Paul McCartney. They’ve denied it, but the rumors persist.” 

Brad had heard the names Lennon-McCartney before, now that he thought of it, and he sussed immediately that this would be Lennon’s writing partner from the Beatles. “So he has someone he’s living with?” Brad hoped his voice did not sound too disappointed. Now it appeared that to ‘Fred’ it really had just been an anonymous one-night-stand, and a lusty cheat on his long-term lover. This was not the stuff of which romantic fantasies are made.

“Well, I don’t think they live together. Paul is married and has a bunch of children. I mean, he has been married for over 20 years.” Maddy spoke of “Paul” as if he were a personal friend of hers, and this amused Brad. Being famous must be weird, with strangers feeling as though they were on a first-name basis with you. “Anyway, that’s why I’m not sure it’s true. I mean, Paul had all those women in his life before he married, too, and he seems very happy with his wife...”

“It’s not unheard of, Maddy,” Brad said gently. “Eli told me that the composer Leonard Bernstein had a family and a male lover for years and years.” (Eli was Brad’s former older lover; the one who had 'kept' Brad in style for a while. Maddy had never liked Eli, or that whole unhealthy setup, but she had learned to keep her opinions to herself on the subject.) 

“Yeah, well, who knows if it is true?” Maddy said quickly, skipping over the mention of the Evil Eli. “But apparently John is at least bisexual, or he wouldn’t have gone on a date with you. How did you meet him?”

“I met him at a club.” Brad didn’t want to discuss the details of this hookup with his sister. He knew she would be very disapproving of his lifestyle if she knew the stark details.

“I see,” Maddy said, picturing her brother in a meat market getting picked up by richer, older men. She sighed. She wished she could make her brother see that was no way to live his life. But no, she could never find it in her heart to say such things out loud. “What’s he like?”

“A bit secretive, but then we all are at first...” Brad let that sentence end without resolution. It was inching in the direction of revealing unsavory detail that he wanted to keep from his sister. “He is extremely attractive. Thin, very thin, but his face has all kinds of angles to it. His eyes - well, he obviously has very poor eyesight and wears these thick bifocals, but the eyes are full of life. He was also very funny, although half the time I didn’t understand his humor. I felt if I could spend more time with him, I would learn a lot. He seemed very hip and sophisticated to me.” Brad’s descriptions petered out. He had no desire to go into the man’s sensuality, and his strong hands and arms, and...

“But he didn’t call you back?”

“No, he didn’t,” Brad said, his disappointment obvious. “I guess I wasn’t his cup of tea.”

“So, how did some tabloid reporter find out that you once went on a single date with John Lennon?” Maddy was confused. Something wasn’t adding up.

Brad took a deep breath. If the story was going to hit the press Maddy was going to hear about it anyway. “We went to this hotel, and the clerk recognized him...”

“Oh my god! That’s the credit card receipt story! I read that when I was at the beauty salon! He used his credit card at a gay hotel in New York...” Now it was Maddy’s turn to peter out. She realized suddenly what this must mean. Her brother’s ‘date’ with John Lennon was merely an anonymous pick up. She felt very sorry for her brother in that moment. How awful it would be if this were to hit the press. Their parents, and their neighborhood friends -- it would be a disaster! “Brad, oh my goodness, what did you tell that reporter?”

“I said I had gone out with someone who looked vaguely like him, but that it wasn’t the same man. But the reporter took my picture, and I’m afraid the clerk at the hotel will recognize me.”

“How’d he get your photo?” Maddy asked, worried now.

“He just snapped it without asking me! So now all I can do is sit here and wait and see if suddenly I’m stuck in the middle of this mess.” Brad’s voice sounded forlorn. “I can’t think of what else to do. Do you have any ideas?”

“Did he offer you money, Brad?” Maddy asked.

“He suggested that there was a lot of money in it, but since I denied it he didn’t actually offer me anything.”

Maddy loved her brother, but knew that he valued money and the things that money could buy too much; part of her worried that he might be considering selling his story for money. “You’re not going to fall for that, are you?” She asked.

“Fall for what?” Brad asked.

“It’s a trap. They give you some money - a one-time payment thing - and then your life is forever tainted. Don’t do that. Mom and Dad...”

“Maddy - I’m not selling my story to a fucking tabloid, okay? Who do you think I am? That would in no way be in my long-term best interest, anyway, would it? I’m just worried about what will happen if that hotel clerk identifies me.”

“You can deny it. It was late at night, right? One night? He couldn’t possibly have seen you properly, nor can he be sure it was you. I think you’re worrying over this for nothing. The story may come out, but I doubt they’ll link your name to it.” Maddy was hopeful more than sure. If she was wrong, how were they going to explain this to their parents? Brad didn't have that luxury. He had been to the hotel on numerous occasions, and the clerk might recognize him from that, and put two and two together.

“Do you think I should warn John Lennon?” Brad finally asked the question he had been struggling with the most. There was a part of him that still believed that if he went to Lennon, and saw him in person, that some spark would fly between them and perhaps...

Maddy was thinking about Brad’s idea. Her thoughts were circling around the procedural difficulties, though. “How would you ever get through to him?” 

“I don’t know. I’m assuming he has a manager, or someone like that,” Brad responded weakly.

“They might think you’re trying to blackmail him,” Maddy pointed out.

“Oh, man, I never thought of that. Of course they would. But if I were him, I’d like to be warned.” Brad was actually speaking the truth here. 

“Well, let me think about that for a while, Brad. I can do some research and see if there is some person you could contact.” Maddy was a fact checker for a small local public relations firm. “I might be able to track down his P.R. people. They would be the most likely to take it seriously.”

Not long after he had hung up the telephone, Brad thought about going to the library to check out the periodical section. He wanted to do a little research on John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He didn’t like to think the McCartney rumors were true, mainly because he still coveted ‘Fred’ for himself. 

 

*****

 

It was Wednesday night, and Paul was at John’s place, nestled beside him on the sofa as they watched a video of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This film satisfied both Paul’s action-adventure preferences and his love of sumptuous movie scores, and John’s more highbrow love of Stanley Kubrick’s political and social writing. Still, although Paul appreciated John’s gesture in obtaining that video for his viewing pleasure, he was distracted by the necessity of talking to John about breaking the news of the impending gossip to his sons. When John paused the movie during the intermission in order to pull some late-night snacks together, Paul followed him into the kitchen. As John padded around, Paul scoured his brain for the right words to say. 

“Emm, John,” Paul started, unusually tongue-tied. “You do know, don’t you, that when the shit hits the fan, it isn’t just you and me in the crosshairs.” Paul was looking at his hands as he sat at the kitchen table, while John was cutting up apples and cheese.

John knew what Paul meant by ‘shit hitting the fan’, so his question was directed at the point of Paul’s question. “Whad’ya mean?” He asked.

“Our kids. Yours and mine.” Paul’s voice was abrupt.

John put the knife down and stared at the kitchen clock directly in front of him. He wasn’t consulting the time; it was just hitting him for the first time how his highly anticipated ‘coming out’ admission would affect his sons. For some reason, he had never considered that before, probably because worrying about the consequences of stuff had always been Paul’s role in their partnership. 

“John? Did you hear me?” Paul asked gently.

“Yeah, I did. So what’s your point?” John’s voice was unnecessarily rough, but this was because John was feeling guilty, and when he felt guilty he was visited with the compulsion to shift the blame on to someone else as quickly as possible. It was instinctual for John to do this.

“My point,” Paul said drily, as he started to get irritated with John’s reaction, “is that you need to talk to Julian and Sean about it - warn them - and I need to talk to James. We have to do this before the story breaks, not after. I don’t think we have the luxury of time to wait, do you?”

John turned to face Paul, and leaned against the kitchen counter, a palm holding the counter edge on either side of him. Paul had the absurd momentary thought of how beautiful John’s forearms and hands were. “Why are you bringing this up now?” John asked. He felt blindsided, and upset that his fun evening was being systematically dismantled.

“I’ve been worrying about it all day, and have just found the nerve to bring it up,” Paul said honestly. “Me and Linda were talking about it yesterday, while you were at Fiona’s...”

“Ah, see, I knew Linda had to have had a role in this somehow,” John drawled. “She just can’t leave us alone, can she? She’s always meddling, pointing out to you all the ways in which I’ve let you down, just in case you might have missed them yourself.” 

Paul was struck dumb. He stared in shock at John, his eyes turning black with anger and surprise at what seemed to him to be a completely unprovoked attack on his wife. “That’s unfair!” He shouted back. “You caused this problem - not Linda! As usual, we’re the ones picking up the pieces! Of course she has to think of our children. And she thought of your kids, too! Someone has to, since it obviously isn’t going to be you!”

John shut up. This was the first intelligent thing he’d done since Paul had raised the thorny issue. The silence that fell between the two men was chilly and anxious. John was deciding how best to extricate himself from the corner he’d worked himself into. There was no point in getting between Paul and Linda. He’d only end up bloodied and bruised if he did. That Linda could dump all over him to Paul, whereas he could not do the same to her, had always struck John as patently unfair. Still, there it was: in all of its stark and painful reality.

“I’m sorry, Paul, I shouldn’t have said that,” John finally admitted. “I just feel ambushed. I was having a nice evening, and now I’m down in the fucking dumps again.” 

Paul noted that this was another one of John’s sorry, buts that had always driven him crazy, but he was prepared to overlook it for peace’s sake. “I hate always to be the bearer of bad news, John, but we’re the grown ups in this situation, and if we’re going to bring embarrassment and disgrace down on our families, we should at least be the ones to try to soften the blow, don’t you agree?” 

John heard the words “embarrassment and disgrace” and was hurt by them. Yes, he was the architect of his own distress, but when Paul said ‘we’ he really meant ‘you’ - John knew this latest debacle was entirely his own fault. “So what do you suggest?” John asked bluntly.

“Well, first, we have to decide what we’re going to tell the press. Have you given it any thought?” Paul was starting to sound like a businessman again, hiding behind that role, and it was yet another unintentional piercing of John’s heart. 

John pulled out the chair opposite Paul’s, sat down, and faced Paul across the kitchen table. “I had planned to admit that I had the affair,” he said simply, “and take the heat off you.”

Paul blinked at this. On one level, Paul realized that this was a very noble thing for John to suggest, but on the other - more predominant level - he was surprised that John believed he could contain the damage so neatly. Paul knew he had to respond to John’s sweet disclosure as tactfully as possible. “Are you sure that is what you want to do? You know it will bring a lot of unwanted attention. They’ll be bombarding you with questions, and trying to find out if you had other affairs like that...” 

John heard what Paul said, but it didn’t concern him. The press had been bombarding him for as long as he’d been famous. What else was new? And he also knew that it didn’t matter how hard they dug, they wouldn’t find more dirt - at least not of the Brad variety. “I can deal with the press,” is all John said.

Paul’s carefully mined query about ‘other affairs’ had gone unanswered, and this raised Paul’s alert level. “Are you sure there isn’t more they could dig up?” Paul asked.

John was a little surprised that Paul should come up with the same terminology of ‘digging’ that he had just engaged in himself in his private thoughts. “What are you asking me?” John asked, suddenly wondering if Paul’s question had been loaded.

“I’m asking if there are other ‘affairs’ that they might find out about if they went on a witch-hunt,” Paul said bluntly. “If there are, we might as well discuss it now.” 

John was staring at Paul’s grim face. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’ve been sleeping with men left and right and behind his back. “Paul, I’ve told you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There is nothing else to find.”

Paul was tremendously relieved to hear this, and he did believe John. He hated himself for doubting, but John could be so impulsive. It wasn’t that far of a way to go from reality to think that there could have been others... “Okay, good, then. But still, there are consequences to engaging with the press like this,” Paul said. “As much as I truly appreciate your willingness to take all the abuse, it nevertheless will come back to me - with a vengeance. Can’t you see that? Once it gets out there will be no protecting me or Linda or our children or your sons from the aftermath.”

“Well, if I say it’s only me who loves men, and not you, why wouldn’t they believe me?” John asked. 

Paul stared at him with scarcely hidden incredulity. “They never believe anything we say, John. They will assume you are lying to protect me, which is exactly what you would be doing. They’ll get at me anyway. In fact, they’ll blame it on me - ‘Paul made John take the bullet to protect himself!’ Or they’ll be saying I was dumped, that you are tired of me, that you wanted a younger, newer model. You said he looks like me, but younger, right? It will be very humiliating for me. You must see that. And what am I supposed to say to my children, when they know you are my lover, and now you’ve admitted publicly that you’ve had an affair with another man?” 

John was dumbfounded by Paul’s recitation of horribles. Of course Paul was right! Why hadn’t he thought of all that? “Oh, god, Paul...you’re right! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it that way...”

Paul smiled and said “I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, Johnny. We’ve been very lucky in a lot of ways - making it, and being famous - but this is one of the ways in which we’ve been unlucky. We will be tracked relentlessly by the press, and we will be taunted by whatever they turn up. They will trip all over each other, trying to spin the story a new and even more humiliating way until they’ve wrung every penny out of it.”

John nodded and said bitterly, “You’re right. They don’t care at all. They only want to print vicious lies.”

Paul laughed and corrected him. “The vicious lies don’t bother me half as much as the vicious truths.”

 

******

 

What Brad had learned about John Lennon and Paul McCartney on his spelunking adventure in the periodical section of his local library had rocked his world. Here they were - if not the most famous men in the world, then certainly at or near the top - (and stupid me didn’t even recognize him! Brad twitted himself) - and they had apparently been living this secret life for years! Naturally, they hadn’t admitted it publicly, but their responses to direct questions had been very evasive and did not amount to denials: in just the same manner that he and his friends and acquaintances had answered awkward questions posed by family and friends for years. If Lennon was in a long-term relationship with McCartney, Brad certainly hoped it was an open one. He wouldn’t like to learn that Lennon cheated on McCartney, and that McCartney would be blind-sided by the tabloid stories when they came out. That seemed a bit harsh. 

He also couldn’t help noticing that there were certain obvious similarities between his looks and McCartney’s when he was younger. Of course, McCartney was a creative partner to Lennon, as well as (apparently) a lover, and that was a hard act to follow. Brad also thought about how hard it must be for Lennon to be in a relationship with a man who was married and had children. But perhaps Lennon and McCartney had a deal - maybe Lennon could have lovers on the side, since McCartney had a wife. Brad’s spirits brightened immediately at that thought. Almost as soon as his spirits went up, they came crashing down like a lead balloon. Lennon was hardly likely to strike up a relationship with him now, since the hounds of the press knew about him and would no doubt be following his every move once the tabloids had unmasked him. Brad felt that he would be the last possible person Lennon would agree to have an affair with under the circumstances. Still, he wanted to warn the guy of what was coming, and if a spark or two flew as a result so much the better.

 

*****

 

It was Paul’s turn on the couch with Fiona. He was curious why she had asked him to come alone; he had hoped to start up his dual sessions with John again, because he thought perhaps therapy would be a safe place to come up with a strategy for handling the press. John had been clamming up about it, which was unusual for him. Paul - completely forgetting that clamming up was his own specialty - was quite irritated by John’s unwillingness to talk with him about it.

“So why am I here alone?” Paul asked in a very chipper voice. 

Fiona chuckled. Paul was never afraid to ask the awkward question if the answer was important to him. “We’re supposed to be talking about how you’re dealing with this new melodrama you’re swept up in.”

“I see,” Paul said. And he did see. “So John’s deputized you to get to the bottom of me? Is that it?”

Fiona dismissed the naughty thought that had momentarily burst into her mind. “He is worried that you are protecting him by holding back your true feelings.”

Paul was stumped by that comment; he thought he’d been pretty clear about his feelings lately. “It must be his guilt talking,” Paul opined. “He can’t believe that I’m not torn up about it.”

“And you’re not?” Fiona asked. 

“I’m not. I get upset about things when I think there is something I can do about it, or should have done about it. But all of this is out of my hands, so all I can do is come up with a plan on how I’m going to deal with the press.”

“Have you got a plan?”

“No. I keep trying to engage John on the subject, but he refuses to talk about it. His first idea was to admit it was true! I nearly had a heart attack.”

“What bothered you about that idea?” Fiona asked, struggling to pose the question as tactfully as possible.

Paul gave Fiona a sharp look. Maybe she honestly didn’t know what it was like to be in the crosshairs of a tabloid. He figured he’d just have to try to explain it to her. “In an ideal world, John could tell the truth and the reporters would all say, ‘well done, son’, and then they’d write a nice little bit about how honest John is, and it would be over. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s like trying to distract a shark from eating you by offering it a shrimp.” 

Fiona had to laugh out loud at that. The image was clear, and she immediately got the point. “They wouldn’t be satisfied, in other words.” Fiona said.

“No, and it would just whet their appetites. They’d want more, and they would come after me next. And my family - they would be writing that I didn’t really love my family, they were only around to hide my thing with John.” 

“What is a better way of dealing with it?” Fiona asked. “It seems to someone like me that there is no good way to deal with it.”

“Well, see, that’s the problem. There is no good way to deal with it. All the options suck. It’s just that some of them suck less than others.” Paul had a comical look on his face as he spoke, and this made Fiona smile. “But I think ignoring it is the best of the bad options. Or maybe I should say, the ‘least bad.’”

“How does that work? Don’t they just keep shouting questions at you?”

Paul laughed. “Yes. They do. And so you have to pretend like you can’t hear what they’re saying. You laugh, and make gestures to your ears, you know, ‘sorry! Can’t hear you!’” (Paul gestured as he said this to better explain.) “You have a bodyguard, and you go straight into your car and it peels away. Keeping your head down is a must.”

Fiona was giggling at this point. “John doesn’t agree with this strategy?” She finally managed to ask. 

“He has in the past. But this time - he is avoiding discussing it with me.”

“Why do you think that is?” Fiona asked.

“Don’t know! Except...” Paul had almost blurted out his own darkest fear on the subject.

“Except...what?” Fiona asked softly. It was the softness in her voice that was effective, whereas blatant curiosity would not have been.

“Well, I don’t want to think it’s true, and it seems unlikely, but...”

Fiona waited patiently. He wanted to tell her, and he would tell her, in his own time. This, she knew.

Paul decided he might as well say it out loud. Saying it out loud wouldn’t make it more likely, after all! “I’m wondering if he wants to go public. As if this whole thing is an excuse to go public.” 

Fiona had to think a bit before speaking. John had more or less basically told her that he wanted to stop living a lie, and she did believe his eagerness to “accept responsibility” for the incident had more to do with his desire just to get “it” over with. However, she didn’t feel it was appropriate for her to tell Paul this. “What leads you to that possibility?” is what she asked instead.

Paul thought for a while, and then an expression that almost amounted to shrewdness but was less cynical than that visited his face. “It’s just that he has always ‘outed’ himself, as long as I’ve known him. Oh, I don’t mean that he outed anything that was truly traumatizing to him - like his childhood, with his mother not raising him and his father leaving him. He kept all that ugly stuff quiet as long as he could, and then when it started coming out in books and such, he opened up about it more. What I mean is, if it was a base motive he had or an ugly thing he’d done, John would be the one to blurt it out before someone else could accuse him of it. That’s why reporters all think he is so ‘honest.’ But I always thought he did that out of fear: fear of exposure, fear of being ridiculed, fear of having to explain himself after he was exposed. He just preferred to brag about his bad behavior. Beat them to the punch, sort of. It drove the rest of us crazy, because of course every time he said ‘the Beatles are bigger than Christ’, or ‘the Beatles are bankrupt’, or ‘the Beatles are bastards’, you know, whatever it was, the rest of us had to suffer too. That was John - speaking for us without our permission.” Paul chuckled, and he didn’t look angry. He looked slightly amused, and there was real affection in his face. “It didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as it bothered Ringo and George. But I suppose that was because I’ve always been so besotted with John, so I could never really stay mad at him, you know?” 

Fiona did know, and she smiled at him encouragingly. “So you believe that his go-to strategy when confronted with an impending exposure is to confess loudly and proudly - in order to maintain some control over the exposure?”

Paul looked at Fiona with deep respect. “That’s exactly it. Only you said it so much more clearly than I did.” Paul thought some more and then chuckled. He clearly was holding no grudges, Fiona realized. “Except it never worked that way. By blurting that stuff out he created absolute chaos, whereas if he had just ignored the exposure or the insulting question, the controversy - whatever it was - would have died a quiet death within a relatively short period of time. You’d think he’d learn.”

“He has been very discreet about your relationship though for - how many years now?” Fiona rejoined softly.

“Yeah, he has - I guess, geesh, 1981 - it’s been over 12 years now.” Paul paused for a moment as he digested this. “Except until just recently - well, the last couple of years, anyway - before he was just as unwilling as me to expose us. It’s only been, like I said, the last few years, where I’ve felt him pulling on the leash - you know what I mean. Trying to get out ahead of me, into a place where I’m not comfortable to go.”

“And this is the conversation you’d like to have with John, that he has thus far resisted having?” Fiona asked, beginning to understand Paul’s quandary.

“Yes,” Paul said, sighing. The soft look of memory melted off his face, and was replaced with an older, more troubled visage. Funny, Fiona thought. When Paul was reminiscing about the past, he had looked, acted and sounded twenty years younger! There had been a youth spirit in his face and voice so palpable that Fiona swore she could have photographed and recorded it and still seen and heard it. It had been actual and real for the time that it had been there, and now it was gone. 

“Well, you came to the right place then,” Fiona said cheerfully. “We will discuss this exact topic next Tuesday when you both come to session!”

 

*****

 

Russ Williams was stymied. He had the tabloid’s photo lab develop the picture of ‘Brad’, but Williams still hadn’t been able to put a last name and address to Brad. In addition, he had taken the photo to his source at the Steadham Hotel, but he had known even as he did so that the odds were very low that his source would recognize Brad. The source had told him many times that he ‘didn’t really see’ the person who was with Lennon, because he hadn’t really recognized Lennon until he was leaving, and Lennon left alone then. 

Indeed, his worst fears were realized when his source said he didn’t remember seeing Brad’s face in conjunction with Lennon, although the young man looked vaguely familiar, and could have been one of the young men who sometimes brought their dates to the hotel. “I see so many of ‘em,” the source said forlornly, “that I don’t pay any special attention to ‘em.” The desk clerk source did promise to keep an eye out for Brad in the future, and retained a copy of the photo for his easy reference.

Unable to tie Brad to Lennon, Williams was stuck. There was no way he was going to be able to sell this story to the tabloid, except maybe as a ‘blind item.’ (‘What major rock star was seen at the Steadham Hotel with..?’) That was paltry money, and Williams didn’t like to waste such a juicy story on a ‘blind item’ payday. He would have to put the story on the backburner for a while, as he tried to think of another way to approach it. If Lennon enjoyed trolling gay clubs and hotels for hot young men who reminded him of Paul, eventually (Williams thought) there would be another scent to follow. He filed his bits and pieces on the story away, and moved on to other stories.

 

*****

 

Maddy had finally obtained the name of Lennon & McCartney’s American publicist. She had looked the number up in the New York phonebook, and gotten the main number for the agency. She then called her brother back.

“Brad, I’ve got a number for you to call, and a name to ask for.” 

Brad had given the whole prospect of calling ‘Fred’s’ publicist a deal of thought in the last few days and had come to a few conclusions. “Mad - I don’t think it is such a great idea for me to call. I’m sure they’ll think I’m trying to blackmail him. I really kind of dug that guy, and I don’t want him to think that is what I’m after.” 

“I see your point,” Maddy said. “But I had the thought of calling myself, and making it clear upfront that we weren’t looking for compensation. What do you think? Perhaps a third person doing the talking will make it sound less threatening. It’s not like I’m a lawyer or anything; I’m your sister!”

Brad thought about this for a while, and although he was still uneasy about it, he also thought that Lennon deserved to be warned about that slime of a ‘reporter’ and his muckraking. “Ok, but Mad - please don’t push if they’re not interested. Just give ‘em a quick heads up, and then leave a number in case they want to call back. It’s a tricky thing.” 

So, the next morning Maddy called the number and asked for the publicist by name. She was quickly disabused of the notion that this communication was going to be easy. “Who may I ask is calling?” The female receptionist asked in a haughty voice.

“Madeleine Stone.”

“Do you have an appointment, Ms. Stone?”

“No. I had some important information to provide to Mr. Lester.”

“I will connect you with his assistant.” The haughty voice cut off, and soon the phone was ringing again. On the third ring another haughty female voice answered.

“Mr. Lester’s office.”

“Hello, I’m Madeline Stone. I wanted to speak with Mr. Lester.”

“Is that Stone, S-t-o-n-e?” came the unhurried answer.

“Yes.”

“What is the nature of your call?” The voice asked, snotty as hell.

“I have some information to give him - I think he will be grateful to hear it.”

“I see. Well, I am his assistant. You should tell me what the information is, and then if Mr. Lester is interested in it, you will receive a call back.”

Maddy didn’t want to tell this information to just anyone. Brad had only given her permission to talk to the publicist. “I’m calling for my brother,” she said awkwardly.

“Yes?” Ice crackling in warm water could hardly have sounded so crisp and cold.

“He was approached by a tabloid reporter a few days ago about one of Mr. Lester’s clients.”

There was a slight silence at the other end of the phone. Now the voice warmed slightly. “Oh?” It was almost encouraging.

“I don’t like to talk about it with anyone other than Mr. Lester, because my brother hasn’t given me permission...”

“I can assure you of my absolute discretion,” the woman said firmly. “What client are we talking about?”

“John Lennon.” Maddy held her breath.

Silence. Then: “I see. And what was the nature of this reporter’s inquiry?”

“He was insinuating that my brother had gone to a hotel with Mr. Lennon, and wanted to know details about it.”

Now the silence on the other end of the phone was longer, and thus it induced more anxiety for Maddy. Was she going to be believed? Finally, the voice spoke again.

“I will connect you with Mr. Lester, if you care to wait for a few moments.”


	63. Chapter 63

Sam Lester had just finished lunch at his desk - a most dissatisfying turkey sandwich, a sacrifice to his thus far lackluster attempts to lose weight. His assistant knocked and came in.

“I’m at lunch, Natalie,” Lester said grumpily, glaring at the remainder of his uninspiring sandwich. 

“Yeah, and it looks sumptuous,” she cracked drily. They had that kind of working relationship. “I’ve got a call you’re gonna want to take,” she added in a more businesslike tone. “It’s about John Lennon.”

Lester put his sandwich down abruptly. “Oh?” This must be the call he’d been waiting for. The lead PR agent in London had put out an all points bulletin to the other offices, and they’d been trying to get to the bottom of this tabloid reporter’s threat to John Lennon. Lester had put out feelers all over town, searching for a lead on this story.

Natalie continued. “She says she’s the sister of a guy who has been approached by a tabloid reporter about the Steadham Hotel.”

Lester’s eyes grew large. Was it possible that he could kill the story before the tabloids got a hold of it? Was it likely that the stars had actually aligned perfectly so that he could be the white knight that saved the day? “Is it a shake down?” He asked Natalie.

“Don’t know. Thought you’d want to put her on the speakerphone, and we could talk to her together. I’ve told you everything I know, so we’re both starting at zero.”

Lester saw the blinking light on his telephone display, and he nodded to Natalie. She automatically leaned over, and pushed the lighted button and then immediately after that she pushed the ‘speaker’ button. “Ms. Stone?” She asked.

“It’s ‘Mrs.’ actually, it’s my married name.”

“Of course. Sorry. Mr. Lester and I are both here on the speakerphone.”

“Okay,” Maddy said. She was suddenly frightened by the formality of it all. 

“Hello, Mrs. Stone. What is your first name? I’m Sam, and my assistant is Natalie.” Sam Lester had a smooth, broadcaster type voice that he had used many times to great effect when sweet-talking reporters to spin stories for his various celebrity clients. 

“Madeleine,” she said. She wasn’t about to share her nickname with such sophisticated people. Natalie scribbled the name down on her pad.

“I understand you have some information about John Lennon you’d like to share with me?” Sam oozed warmly.

“Well, it’s my brother’s information, but he was reluctant to call himself. He was afraid you’d think he was, well, trying to get money for himself.”

Sam’s and Natalie’s eyes locked for a brief moment of silent wonder. “What is your brother’s name?” Lester asked.

“Right now I’m not comfortable saying, at least, well, maybe later.” Maddy was starting to think this had not been a good idea after all. Meddling in big time public relations concerning super stars was entirely above her head. She should have realized that before.

“That’s fine. Just tell me the gist of what happened, and we can go from there.” Sam intuited that the woman was having second thoughts, and wanted to reassure her that she was safe with him.

“B- my brother - told me that he had a call from a reporter named...” Maddy consulted her notes... “Russ Williams? Have you heard of him?”

“Not by name, no,” Sam said.

“Anyway, he asked to meet my brother at a Starbucks in Brooklyn, and my brother didn’t know what it was about. You see, B - my brother - well, he’s gay. He is very handsome and he isn’t in a relationship, so he goes to clubs and likes to date people he meets at these clubs, you see.”

Sam Lester took a deep breath. This sounded very real indeed. “Yes, I understand,” he responded soothingly.

“And one night he met an older man at a club there - the man was calling himself ‘Fred’ - and they got on, so they ended up at the...” Maddy consulted her notes again... “the Steadham Hotel.” Maddy took a deep breath. “And I guess they had sex, and afterwards the man - Fred - left, and my brother hasn’t seen or heard from him since.”

“I see,” Sam Lester said. His stomach was doing loopy-de-loops in anxious anticipation, but he didn’t want to rush his informant, who was clearly gun shy.

“Anyway, B- my brother - didn’t recognize Fred. So when this reporter called and asked him about John Lennon, he didn’t know what he was talking about. He was curious, so he met the reporter at that Starbucks, and the reporter showed him a picture of John Lennon, and Brad knew right away that it was ‘Fred.’” Maddy was unaware that she had just revealed her brother’s name. Natalie was writing the details down on a pad, and neither she nor Sam said a word to indicate that the name ‘Brad’ had been uttered. 

“What did your brother say to the reporter?” Sam asked, his heart beating hard.

“He told the reporter he’d never seen the man before, and denied that he knew John Lennon.”

Sam’s and Natalie’s eyes met again, this time in silent victory.

“Why did he deny it, if it was true?” Sam asked gently.

“He liked ‘Fred’ a lot, and didn’t want to hurt him. My brother doesn’t follow music, he’d never really heard of John Lennon before this, you know? It isn’t his thing. And anyway, our father is a minister. You know, this isn’t the kind of thing he wanted to be associated with; it would be very painful for our parents.”

Father a minister? Sam and Natalie gave each other non-visible high-fives. Better and better. “That’s very good of your brother,” Sam cooed. 

“He’s a good man, really. His lifestyle is...well, I worry about him. But he’s got decent values, just the same. He was afraid you’d think he was trying to blackmail John, but he’s not. He doesn’t want anything. He just wanted to warn John that this reporter was going around raking up muck.”

Sam Leslie could not believe his ears. This was like manna from heaven dropping straight into his lap. “Do you feel able to give me your brother’s name and phone number? I would of course like to confirm this information directly with him.” Sam’s voice was as non-threatening as he could make it. He listened to the silence on the other end for a moment. 

Maddy was trying to make up her mind. “What if I give my brother your direct number, and he can call you back if he is comfortable with that?”

“That’s fine,” Sam said, “but Natalie will need to know his name, so that she can forward him to me if he calls back.”

“His first name is Brad.” 

“Natalie is going to take your name and number, in case we need to call you back, Madeleine. And please ask your brother to call me back as soon as possible. We really appreciate his thoughtfulness.” Sam didn’t 100% trust this information, and felt that he needed to make sure this young man did not have some ulterior motive. After he hung up, he and Natalie looked at each other, and finally Sam said, “Well, that was too easy.”

 

*****

 

It was Friday night, and John and Paul had decided to have dinner out at a favorite restaurant. Ostensibly they were going to talk about the status of their songwriting, and indeed they did intersperse that topic into the much more expansive conversation they actually had, but mainly they were both feeling romantic and wanted to spend alone time together. 

The restaurant was in an unfashionable and unobtrusive suburb of London, but it served top-notch Italian fare as well as a comfortable atmosphere, complete with the red and white checked tablecloths, and wax candles melting in old Chianti bottles. It was dark and intimate, and John and Paul were squeezed into a tiny back table. No one recognized them except the waiter, who knew them as frequent and well-tipping customers, and who left them alone and protected their anonymity to the best of his ability. 

John was staring at Paul’s candlelit face as it studied the menu. John was filled with that old intense feeling of desire mixed with fascination. How could a face be so beautiful? How was it even possible? And how could it still break his heart after all these years? Paul suddenly felt John’s stare, and looked up with a question flashing in his glorious eyes. John smiled in response. I'm bewitched. That was it. Paul had bewitched him back in 1957, and John had never been able to break that spell. 

“You okay, Johnny?” Paul’s deep voice broke the silence. John thought to himself how funny it was that Paul’s speaking voice was so deep, seeing as how his singing voice was so high. Another one of the myriad of fascinating (to John) mysteries and intrigues John associated with Paul. 

“I’m just staring at you, is all,” John said, a goofy smile on his face.

“Do I have a smudge on my nose?” Paul chuckled.

“No. You’re absolutely perfect, as usual.”

John’s fulsome praise was a little embarrassing to Paul. He snickered a little, and shook his head as if to say, ‘the things you say...’

“I’m serious, Paul. Your face is captivating to me. I could stare at it all day and night...well, occasionally I’d want to do other things with you...” John’s expression was the definition of ‘wicked’ in that moment.

Now Paul blushed. John hadn’t been this gooey about him in years. He’d almost forgotten what it was like. Paul wondered what ulterior motive John might have. Perhaps it was as simple as he wanted to get laid tonight. (As if that wasn’t in the cards already.)

“Cat got your tongue?” John teased. Paul’s blushing and obvious embarrassment just made his face more adorable. 

“You’ve already succeeded in reducing me to a puddle, so leave off, okay?” Paul’s eyes were warm and inviting, despite his snippy comment. 

John laughed. “You’re blushing, you know. I love it when you blush because of something I’ve said.” 

“I’m not blushing,” Paul protested, his voice raising an octave, while he blushed even deeper.

John laughed again. “You’re not in a romantic mood, is that it?” He asked, his face alive with mischief.

“It’s a bit much,” Paul said, clearing his throat and trying to look firm and authoritative. “I’m 51 years old, after all. I’m not a young thing anymore.” 

“You’ll always be a ‘young thing’ to me, Pud,” John said sincerely. 

Paul couldn’t help the thought that flashed through his mind at that moment: John telling him he had wanted to have sex with someone who looked like a younger version of him. It was a pang of pain that flooded Paul with doubt. Why was John telling him all these lovely things, after he had gone out of his way to find a younger version of him? It didn’t seem possible to Paul that John could be speaking the truth about his feelings tonight; it must be John’s way of trying to make up for the betrayal. A sop for my ego, Paul thought sadly. He suddenly felt old and unattractive, and self-conscious about John’s staring. But he forced himself to push those thoughts aside.

John could see the momentary cautious flicker in Paul’s eyes, and it hurt him a little. What was that all about? But soon, Paul was smiling back at him again.

“We should probably order if we hope to get dinner before they close,” Paul joked awkwardly, and the moment was broken. Conversation for the rest of the evening was back on solid ground, although Paul repeatedly caught John staring at him with wondering eyes throughout the meal. It was confusing and unsettling to him, and so Paul found it easier to push the feelings this aroused in him away. 

 

*****

 

It was Saturday when Paul got the call from Frank, his manager. 

“Our agency’s New York office has received information about the Steadham Hotel story,” Frank announced with as much professionalism as he could. He was sure that this whole subject was a giant pain button for Paul, but he always spoke with Paul about business and unpleasant news, because John simply could not handle it. 

Paul’s heart dropped. So now the other shoe will drop. “Yes?” His voice was remarkably steady and unconcerned, given the state of his nervous system at the moment. 

“We need to get some corroborating information from John to make sure the story we’re getting is true, but apparently the young man he allegedly went to the hotel with has come forward privately to our PR agency, and wants to cooperate with us.”

Paul had mixed feelings. The main feeling was hope, the next feeling was fear of the story being a hoax, and the third feeling was - John’s lover (the one who had ‘raped’ John) was a real person, and he was about to learn facts about him. Somehow it was easier for Paul to think of the man as a nameless, faceless ghost. Now perhaps there would be a real live human being whose existence he would have to acknowledge. He forced himself to be all business, however.

“What sort of information from John do you need?” Paul asked. 

“We heard from this man’s sister, and we’re waiting for the man to call our agent back, but his name is Brad.”

Brad. Suddenly, Paul did not want to hear anything more. “I think it is best that you talk to John about this,” he said. He couldn’t keep the emotions entirely out of his voice, and Frank felt bad for not realizing that this would be too much for Paul.

“Of course. Is he home now?” Frank had called Paul at Cavendish.

“I think so,” Paul said. He had been planning to spend a quiet day with Linda, but he doubted that would happen now. As soon as John spoke with Frank, he’d be in a state, and Paul knew he was going to be drawn into it even if it was the last thing on earth he wanted. “But be gentle; John did not have a good experience with that young man.”

Frank hung up and regrouped. He felt terrible for the automatic habit that had caused him to call Paul. He had once spoken with George Martin about Paul, and Martin had told him that he had often felt sorry for Paul back in the ‘60s, because all the ‘grown ups’ wanted to deal with Paul. The other three were just not rational or interested in business, and they were also overly emotional, so Paul had always been dragged into the decision-making process to deal with all the problems and P.R. disasters, and very few of them had been Paul’s fault. Most of them had been John’s. 

He picked up the phone and with shaking fingers, called John Lennon. Frank never knew quite what to expect from John. John was unpredictable, and very moody. And Frank didn’t have the ability to talk John down from his flights of anger or fantasy, the way Paul could. Still, this was what he signed up for when he became John’s manager, so he waited with a heavily beating heart for John to answer his phone.

“Hello?” John’s voice sounded chipper enough. 

“John? Frank.” 

John had to think a bit before he could place ‘Frank’. He finally decided it had to be his manager, although he couldn’t understand why Frank would be bothering him. Dealing with Frank and all his nonsense was Paul’s job. “Paul’s not here,” John said flatly. “He’s at Cavendish.”

“Yes, I know, I just hung up from talking to him. He suggested I should discuss this with you.” Frank was trying not to sound afraid. In truth, he was afraid of John Lennon. Almost everyone who worked for John was at least a little afraid of him. 

“Why on earth would Paul suggest you should talk to me?” John was honestly flummoxed. He was still coming down from his high of last night - the romantic dinner, the passionate sex afterwards. But there had been something wrong there, too. Paul had seemed -- distant -- somehow, and he had slipped out of their bed in the early morning hours and had gone back to Cavendish without waking John. John had been a bit upset to awaken in an empty bed. 

“It’s about this tabloid reporter who confronted you in New York a few weeks ago,” Frank said bluntly. No point in drawing this out longer than necessary.

John’s heart fell. No wonder Paul didn’t want to talk about it. “What’s happened?” John asked. His voice was hushed, and worried.

“There is a young man who has apparently come forward in New York - to our press agent there - and he claims to have spent an evening with you at the Steadham Hotel.” Frank let the news sit out there until John responded.

“Oh?” Was all John could manage. 

“The man’s name is Brad. Actually, his sister was the one who called, and the agent in New York is waiting for Brad to call him back.”

John had heard the word ‘Brad’ and his heart had suddenly felt as though a hand was squeezing it. 

“John?” Frank asked after a prolonged silence. “Is that name familiar to you?”

“Yes. His name was Brad.” This was the first time John had admitted to Frank that there had been a lover in New York, although Frank had believed it to be true from the first moment he had heard about the credit card receipt. 

“He has told the press agent he was approached by the reporter, but denied recognizing you. His sister says he isn’t interested in money; apparently Brad’s father is a minister, and they don’t want the negative publicity.”

John heard all of this as if it were coming to him through a thick cotton filter. “Do you believe him?”

“Well, as soon as he talks to the agent, we will be able to assess his honesty. But the news I wanted to impart is that he apparently refused to cooperate with this reporter, so that is probably why we haven’t seen any tabloid stories about it yet.”

“That’s good news,” John said dully. He didn’t sound as though it was good news, but Frank supposed the poor man was on an emotional roller coaster just then. 

“I will call you when I know more,” Frank said, suddenly wishing he hadn’t called until he knew more. Paul had trained him to immediately call at the first scent of such news, but if he’d known he would be speaking to John instead he probably would have employed a different strategy. 

“Sure,” John said. He hung up the phone and felt a curtain of despair falling over him. That fucking screw had blighted his whole fucking life! Why am I such a fuck up? John demanded of himself for the umpteenth time. His first impulse was to call Paul. But something held him back. Paul hadn’t wanted to talk to Frank about it, which meant that he really didn’t want to talk to him about it either. He didn’t want to hear about it at all. And who could blame him? John suddenly felt tired. They had been out late, and then their sexual activities had kept them awake longer. John felt the need to crawl into bed and pull the covers over him. And, since John was in the habit of giving in to every single impulse that passed through his brain, that is what he did.

 

*****

 

About that time in New York, Brad was having lunch with his sister in his 500 square foot room in Brooklyn. They had bought some Cuban sandwiches from a local bodega, and were seated on his futon sofa, legs curled up under them. Maddy had taken the train into the city, and she had a few hours to spare before she had to make the return trip.

“Why don’t you want to call Lester back?” Maddy asked.

“It just feels wrong to me,” Brad insisted. She had already asked him this question three times.

“Thing is, they really want to hear from you. They think it was very thoughtful of you to call and warn John. But I’m not sure they believe me. They want to talk to you. They asked you to call them.”

“It seems so real now, I mean, after you’ve actually spoken to his people. Before, I could sort of pretend I wasn’t being dragged into this mess. I never asked to be in this position.” 

Brad was pouting now. Maddy found this to be annoying. Didn’t he realize that when you lived recklessly that unpleasant, unplanned things could happen to you? She stilled that inner critic. “I know that, Brad, but all you need to do is confirm what I said, and then you have completed your duty to warn him, and it will all be over.” 

Brad did finally see the point his sister was making. By calling back he would end the constant should I or shouldn’t I that was going on in his brain endlessly. “Well, I’ll have to wait ‘til Monday, because I’m sure they’re closed on the weekend.” Brad was glad for this. Perhaps he’d change his mind again before Monday.

 

*****

 

Paul was surprised that John hadn’t called him yet. It was now late afternoon. He and Linda had taken a walk to a local cafe and had a quiet brunch and then had taken a walk in Regent’s Park before returning to Cavendish. They had curled up on a sofa to read quietly side-by-side, and Linda had fallen asleep. Paul had tucked a blanket around her, and then found himself at a loose end. He was worrying about John. All morning and early afternoon he had been able to push the worrying away when it popped up, but now he was confronted with the silence of a Saturday afternoon with nothing to distract him. He decided he’d go down the mews to John’s house, and see how he was doing. 

The house was silent, and no lights were on. That was unusual for John, because John tended to turn any and all available lights on, and then failed to turn them off when he left a room. Paul had always gone around reflexively turning them off, worrying vaguely about the electricity bills as he did so. He wondered if John had gone out. While Paul intellectually acknowledged that John had a life of his own when they were not together, Paul never really believed in it emotionally. Thus, he hated to be confronted with the evidence of it when he stumbled over it. Consequently, he felt the jealousy pulling at him as he went up the stairs. He was hoping John would be in his bedroom, but feared that it was not. 

But John was there, snuggled in his blankets and looking as innocent as an angel. Paul’s heart filled with affection, and he climbed up on the bed and propped himself up on his side. He brushed some hair off of John’s forehead, and John’s eyes blinked open. 

“Don’t tell me you never got up!” Paul teased, as John’s eyes focused (as well as they could be expected to do, given John’s extreme near-sightedness). 

“I got up all right,” John said. “But you really tired me out last night, so I went back to bed. Where do you get all that energy? I could use some.” John decided to banter instead of immediately unloading his troublesome news. 

“Did you talk to Frank?” Paul asked. Apparently, Paul wasn’t interested in small talk at the moment.

“I did,” John said, turning on to his back, and adjusting his covers a bit.

“Is that why you went back to bed?” Paul asked. He was fully aware of John’s tendency to climb into bed when he was overwhelmed by something. And hearing about the young man who had raped him, had to be pretty overwhelming.

“Yes,” John responded succinctly. “Why did you sic him on me?” He complained. 

Paul’s smile flickered off and then back on again. “It was your private business,” he said guardedly. 

“Well, turns out ‘Brad’ has come forward. He claims not to want anything, but why would he come forward if he didn’t want something?” John’s voice was querulous.

“Did he talk to the tabloids?” Paul asked the bottom line question first.

“Supposedly not. Frank said he ‘wasn’t cooperating’ with them, whatever that means.”

Paul was hoping this was all true. If the bloke didn’t talk to the tabloids, then the tabloids couldn’t publish anything but unsubstantiated rumors, and there would be no PR crisis. They would have averted yet another exposure. While Paul was happy about this news, he also worried that John would be disappointed on some level by it. 

“So how did you leave it with Frank?” Paul asked.

John was irritated. “If you wanted to micromanage what happened, why didn’t you handle it yourself?” He was quite put out by the whole situation.

Paul didn’t allow his anger to show. “I’m not trying to micromanage,” he said instead, as evenly as he could. “I am just asking how it ended. If you don’t want to tell me...”

“Oh, Christ, Paul, don’t get all bitchy on me. Frank’s gonna call me back after he has spoken directly to Brad. Apparently, it was Brad’s sister who called, so they’re not sure it isn’t some kind of hoax. But I don’t think it’s a hoax, because otherwise how would she know Brad’s name?”

Paul dismissed John’s crass insult, and he also ignored John’s dropping of Brad’s name as if he were a mutual friend instead of someone who had raped John. Instead, Paul focused on the content of John’s disclosure. He didn’t say it out loud, but he did wonder if this was the reporter’s gambit to get an admission out of John. Paul knew his thoughts would sound paranoid to a third party, but - as the old hackneyed phrase went - it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you. Paul shrugged. “It sounds like a non-story, then. That’s good, isn’t it?”

John didn’t respond right away. Yes, he supposed it was good. But then - why did he feel so disappointed? Paul was still talking.

“I guess it’s a good thing we haven’t said anything to the kids yet.” 

 

*****

 

Linda woke up about an hour later, and she noted that Paul was not there. She called his name, and went looking for him. As she reached the kitchen the phone rang. She hoped it was Paul. 

“Linda? It’s Mike.” 

“Mike! How nice to hear from you,” Linda said cheerfully. She was more awake now, and it occurred to her that Paul had no doubt been lured down the mews to John’s house while she slept. Honestly, she couldn’t take her eyes off Paul for even a second, or the lure of John would drag him away! 

“I am going to be in London next week for some doctor appointments, and thought maybe you and Paul and I could get together. Maybe I can take you to dinner?”

Linda knew that Mike was not made of money. “Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll make dinner for us! It will be far more comfortable to meet here than in some restaurant.” Especially, Linda thought, if Mike and Paul got into another fight about Paul’s relationship with John. 

“Okay then - Tuesday night? I’ll be done with my appointments by 5 p.m. Should I just come straight over to Cavendish then?”

“Yes! Paul will be so excited to see you again. We’ve both missed you, and it’s been so long.” 

After Mike hung up, Linda called John’s house, but the phone rang until it turned over to the answer phone. 

 

*****

 

In a vague sort of way, John and Paul heard the phone ringing, but it was so far back on their list of priorities at the moment, that they didn’t pay it any mind. John was on top of Paul, and had his hands on either side of Paul’s face.

“I was serious last night, you know,” John said in a slow, sexy voice. “Your face is so beautiful, I can’t keep my eyes off it.” 

Although just moments before they had been finishing up an awkward conversation, it didn’t take much to set off their physical attraction to each other. So here they were nose to nose again. 

“You must be going blind,” Paul snorted, as he allowed his hands to run up and down John’s back. He loved the feeling of John’s muscles and skin. His hands seemed to crave the feel of them. 

“Don’t play coy with me, son,” John directed, adopting a mock authoritarian voice for the purpose. “You know you’re a honeypot, and you might as well admit it.”

Paul’s eyebrows shot off his forehead in amused horror. “Honeypot? John!” The disgust at the word reflected clearly on Paul’s face.

John laughed out loud at Paul’s antic reaction. “What would you prefer I call you? Sexpot? How about incubus? Do you like that better? Because you are an incubus to me. I’m absolutely bewitched and bedeviled.” 

“Both at the same time?” Paul chuckled. 

“Yes, definitely. Because there is a masculine you and a feminine you, and I am absolutely gobsmacked by both of them.”

Paul forced the unbidden thoughts of ‘Brad’ out of his head. Maybe John was right. Maybe he was half-female. He shouldn’t feel so girlishly jealous of a one-night-stand. A real man would not let such trifles bother him so much. He smiled at John, and the smile was sincere, although there was doubt and insecurity hovering in the background if John could only see it. But he didn’t see it. Paul said, “I’m gobsmacked by you, too, you know.”

John’s purr transformed into a masterful kiss, and no more words were necessary.

 

*****

 

Paul had woken up from a nap with John at 6 p.m. It was almost dinnertime! He jumped up, inspired by a stab of guilt. This woke John up, who groaned when Paul clicked on the bedside lamp. 

“I’ve got to go home!” Paul declared. “It’s almost dinnertime. Linda’s probably furious with me.” Paul considered inviting John to come along, but decided against it since he was sure Linda would be angry about his disappearing act. He fumbled with his clothes as he dressed, leaned over to kiss John with a smack on his lips, and then disappeared out of the room and down the stairs.

John was philosophic as he heard the sounds of Paul’s quick departure. He smiled like a Cheshire cat. Whatever sore spots there were in their relationship, John knew that - at least at this point in time - he had the whip hand over Linda. It wasn’t often that John let such truths trump his normal fears and insecurities, so in that moment at least John basked in the knowledge. He put both arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling, a soft smile on his face. He had suddenly fallen deeply in love with Paul again. He had thought he had been deeply in love before, but now he was truly deeply in love. In fact, every so often this happened, and John would be stunned at how much more love he could feel for that man. He would think for a while that the love could not possibly be greater, and then he would be proved wrong. Now he understood why some songwriters wrote soppy things like, ‘How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?’ As he lay there, he wished he could finally put into words what he really felt, but he also knew that there were no words for it, and there never would be.

Paul, meanwhile, had approached Linda with trepidation. She was in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator, obviously trying to figure out what to do about dinner.

“Hey, Lin, I’m sorry I disappeared.” Paul looked very sheepish indeed.

“How’s John?” Linda asked with a sardonic twist to her voice.

“I just went over to talk to him about business, and we got distracted...”

Linda thought of Paul and John in a clinch in her sitting room, and couldn’t help but smile at the image. “I’m sure you did,” she said, and then she looked Paul full in the face. “Is everything all right?” 

“It looks like we’re going to be home free on the New York tryst story,” Paul said, happy to give her some good news after disappointing her so badly.

“Really?” Linda was genuinely relieved and happy with the news.

“It’s not 100%, but it looks like John’s...well, the bloke appears to be cooperating with our press agents, and not going to the tabloids. We’ll know more in a day or two.” 

Linda had just found out for sure that John had in fact had an affair with another man. She had gotten the gist of it weeks earlier, but it still was a jolt to hear Paul make this announcement. And she hadn’t realized how much she had been dreading the tabloid stories until she thought that she might be spared the whole nightmare. She gave Paul a spontaneous hug, and couldn’t help but notice his pullover shirt smelled like John Lennon. 

“Mike called; he’s coming for dinner on Tuesday night,” she said lightly. She watched with pleasure as her husband’s eyes lit up. 

“I haven’t seen him in a year and a half...” Paul said, his eyes filling with latent tears. 

“If he says anything about John, let’s try to let it go,” Linda advised.

Paul felt his spine stiffening, but then he forced himself to relax. He could make no such promises to Linda, but he didn’t need to say that out loud. In fact, Paul could forgive his brother anything; anything except if he said anything mean about John.


	64. Chapter 64

On Monday, Brad nervously picked up the phone and called the number his sister had given him. There were only two rings before a female voice answered. 

“Mr. Lester’s office,” the voice said.

“Hello, is this Natalie?” Brad asked tentatively.

“Yes, who is this?” Natalie rarely received calls at Sam Lester’s phone number asking for her.

“My name is Brad. My sister spoke to you last Friday?” The sentence was pronounced as though it were a question.

“Ah yes!” Natalie’s voice melted considerably. “So glad to hear from you. Wait one moment while I connect you with Mr. Lester.” 

It was only moments before Natalie was back on the line, and this time Sam Lester was on the line too. After the awkward introductions, Lester asked Brad to tell his story.

“I don’t want to make trouble,” Brad said after explaining all the details again. “I only knew Mr. Lennon as ‘Fred’, and I liked him very much in the short time we were together. I hope you will tell him that.”

Lester wasn’t sure what John Lennon would be told, if anything. That was above his pay grade. But he wasn’t going to tell Brad that. He had to treat this man with the utmost respect. “Of course, of course,” Sam said in a comforting tone. “Do you have a way to contact this reporter?”

“I have his phone number. Do you want it?”

“Please.” Lester wasn’t sure what would be done with the number, but decided that this, too, was above his pay grade. 

Brad found the piece of paper, and read the number to Lester. He wanted to say something else, but was nervous about doing so. “There is one thing you could do for me,” Brad finally said, shyly.

Ah, here we go. I knew this was too good to be true. This was the look that passed between Sam and Natalie. “Yes?” Sam asked, schooling his voice to sound neutral.

“I’ve written a letter to him. Would you please make sure that he gets it?” Brad was actually blushing as he made the request. He knew he was about to be judged, if only silently, by the others on the phone.

“Of course, of course,” Sam said, thinking this was yet another thing beyond his pay grade. “You should send it to Natalie. She’ll give you her address when we’re finished talking. The main thing I want to know is, can we count on you to keep this story to yourself?” Sam used the word ‘story’, because he didn’t like to overtly acknowledge the truth of Brad’s version of events. And for all Sam knew, it wasn’t true: it was just one man’s claim after all.

Brad did hear the word ‘story,’ but didn’t allow this to upset him. He supposed it did sound sketchy to people who did not understand his type of lifestyle. “Yes. I have no desire to be dragged into this.” 

“Will you leave me your full name and telephone number so I can contact you if necessary?” Sam asked. 

Brad only hesitated for a moment before giving Sam the information. Perhaps it would be passed on to John?

 

*****

 

It was nighttime in London that Monday when Frank called John Lennon. Paul was at John’s home when the call came through. Frank couldn’t have known this; if he’d known, he would have called at a different time when John was alone. 

“John!” Frank’s greeting was perhaps a little overly cheerful. 

John, of course, heard this in Frank’s voice, and couldn’t help being a smart ass in return. “Frank!” He responded with too much energy. This made Paul - who was seated quite close to him - jump with surprise. John turned to Paul and said, unnecessarily, “It’s Frank.” He grinned in a goofy way and then said into the receiver, “What do you want Frank?”

Paul sat back in the sofa, and felt as though he were holding his heart in his hand as he listened to the one-sided conversation.

John, meanwhile, sat up straight once Frank began to explain what Brad had said. “He said that?” John asked. Paul looked up; he was filled with curiosity.

A moment later John said, “Do you think this is some kind of set up, to get me to respond?” 

Paul’s eyes were growing as large as saucers at this point.

“So you believe him then?” John’s voice sounded tense, and the silence while he listened to Frank’s response was difficult for Paul to endure. 

“A letter? Why would he write me a letter?” John looked very perplexed, and Paul forced himself to look down at his hands. They were bound up like tight balls in his lap. And his knuckles were white.

“Okay, then. Thanks for calling.” John hung the phone up, and looked at Paul. He saw in one split second that Paul was on pins and needles. He put his hand on Paul’s two tight fists, and said, “Turns out Brad has a conscience.”

Paul didn’t like to hear John speak the man’s name. It felt too personal. He didn’t say that of course. Instead, he forced his hands to relax, and he allowed his eyes to meet John’s. “The man raped you, John. I doubt he has a conscience.”

“I was just in over my head, Paul. I’ve come to believe it was a misunderstanding. He was young and powerful - he was very strong. I’m not used to that, and it scared me.”

Paul heard “young and powerful ... very strong ... not used to that” and shrunk inside. John was still talking.

“I don’t think he was raping me; I just overreacted. Anyway he doesn’t want to be dragged into the tabloids; his dad is a minister, and he doesn’t want the drama. But he wanted me to know he didn’t want anything from me for his silence. He’s sending me a letter.”

“A letter?” Paul asked. His voice was sharp and his telltale expression exposed his vulnerability in the moment.

John squeezed Paul’s hands again. “I know, huh? Weird.” 

Paul didn’t think it was ‘weird’. He thought it was intrusive and threatening. Why had John completely let go of his fear of that guy? Paul didn’t want that man in his life, and that meant he didn’t want him in John’s life, either. It sounded to Paul as though the man was using this situation to get close to John again. But of course he didn’t say any of this to John. Instead, he forced himself to relax his hands again, and smile as jauntily as possible at John. “Well, at least we don’t have that story hanging over our heads any more,” Paul said, recovering nicely. He even managed to look confident and happy about the news. 

John was left wondering if he had even noticed Paul’s uncharacteristic insecure reaction to the news about Brad. It was only a fleeting impression, after all. And Paul seemed very chipper about not having to confront the rumors. John felt a little relief; at least he wasn’t under the gun now. But it did nothing to assuage John’s increasing desire to be open and frank with the world about his sexuality.

 

*****

 

“So, I guess the immediate danger has passed,” John said with confidence to Fiona, after having laid out the whole tale. Fiona had been surreptitiously watching Paul while John spoke boldly. Paul had looked like he was in hell. He hadn’t looked up from his white fists even once. 

“Paul, this must be a relief to you,” Fiona said gently.

Paul looked up and met her eyes, and for a second she saw something approaching agony in them. “You think so?” He asked flatly.

“So you don’t feel relieved?” John asked incredulously. “I thought that’s what you wanted - the whole story to be buried!”

Fiona winced at John’s clumsy approach. She watched as Paul shrunk into himself a little, and now his eyes were wary as he returned her gaze. “How do you feel then?” She asked him with a warm smile. 

“I am relieved,” Paul said after a brief pause. “I guess I’m just tired of the whole subject.”

That was an honest answer, Fiona gauged. “But John,” she said, “didn’t this young man rape you?”

John sighed as if everyone was being tedious on the subject - as if he had never been a quivering mess, injured and afraid to engage in full-on sex for weeks. “He’s a kid; he’s much stronger than I’m used to. And I shouldn’t have messed in that trolling world. I was in over my head.” John felt as though he had been explaining this endlessly now, and no one seemed to hear him.

Fiona was unsure about John’s reversal of opinion, but decided to let it ride for the moment. “At our solo session last week, Paul suggested that we should talk about how you both were going to address this issue if it became public. Do we still need to have that conversation?”

Before Paul could say anything, John jumped in. “What conversation did you want to have with me about that, Paul?” John asked, his irritation showing. Fiona wanted to shove her foot in his big mouth at that moment. 

“Paul wanted to make sure you were both on the same page about how you were going to handle the resulting fallout from any tabloid story,” Fiona said. Her eyes were speaking to John, if only he would listen to them. She was trying to give him a message to chill out, and let Paul breathe. John did not get the message.

“We were going to do it your way, Paul,” John’s voice was sharp and even a little bitter. “We always do, don’t we?” 

Fiona held her breath. She was thinking about how she could intervene to stop this bullying when Paul finally spoke.

“I guess I thought I was doing what was best for both of us, but apparently not." Paul’s voice was not angry, and it wasn’t even bitter. It seemed resigned. 

Finally, John began to feel the temperature in the room. He turned to Fiona and saw the disapproval in her eyes. He sat back and said, “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

“I think you did mean it that way,” Paul said softly. “That was why I thought we should talk about it.” 

John was chastened. “Okay, well, let’s talk then.” 

Both men looked at Fiona for guidance. She let the breath she had been holding out slowly. She was glad the situation was getting back under control. 

“John, do you feel that Paul makes decisions concerning your relationship that you don’t agree with? That you just go along with?” She asked.

“Yes, I guess I do. I’ve always felt that way. But it doesn’t always bother me.”

“When does it bother you?” Fiona asked.

“He is always so self-assured, and clear-headed. Sometimes he makes decisions for us before I’ve had a chance to digest it. It kind of takes my voice away.”

Paul couldn’t believe his ears. Not this complaint again! He’d been hearing it since the late ‘60s, and he’d always felt it was so unfair, since he’d only stepped in to make decisions when everyone else was sitting on his hands. And if John didn’t get them both into iffy situations, there would be no need for such decisions to be made! Paul’s eyes sparked with anger, and Fiona noticed it. 

“You seem upset by what John said,” Fiona said. “Had you not heard it before?”

“Oh, I’ve heard it before,” Paul snapped, his voice tight with anger. “He wants me to make the hard decisions, and then when I make them, he wants to be able to stand back at a safe distance and criticize them. Yeah - I’ve heard it all before.” 

John was a little surprised by the strength of Paul’s reaction. After all, Paul was the one who had wanted to talk about this subject. If he couldn’t take it, he shouldn’t have asked for it!

“When you say he ‘wants’ you to make the decisions, do you mean that he asks you to make them? Or do you assume that he expects you to make them?”

Paul was taken aback by the question. He thought about it for a while, and said, “Mostly, he expects me to handle it.” Paul admitted.

“And how to do you know that he has that expectation?” She asked in a reasonable tone of voice.

Paul felt pushed against a wall. Both Fiona and John were looking at him, and to Paul’s eyes it appeared as though John had a smirk on his face. He felt defensive. “He - he - looks at me,” Paul said, having no other words to describe it. He heard John snicker at that response.

Fiona didn’t think it was funny. She understood that the silent looks between lovers were full of meaning and expression. “What kind of looks?” She asked.

“He looks so helpless. It’s like he is begging me to do something. To make it better.” Paul felt foolish now, having to describe it in actual words. It made him sound overwrought and driven by irrational emotions. 

John’s smirk had disappeared, and now he was looking down at his hands, and then up at Paul, and then back to his hands. He actually felt tears welling up. Now he knew what Paul meant. Of course, it was like that. When he was in trouble he did turn to Paul, and he did want his help, and although he never actually asked he could see how Paul might have heard the unspoken requests for help. “I know what he means,” John said to Fiona. “I do kind of push this kind of thing on Paul.” 

“Do you resent it later?” Fiona asked John. Her voice was clinical, so it did not give offense.

John squirmed. “Oh, you know me,” he said. He looked at both Fiona and Paul, and saw the looks on their faces. “Well, you both do! You know I’m kind of moody, and if I’m in a good mood, I like a thing, and if I’m in a bad mood, I don’t like it. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Paul covered his mouth with four fingers of one hand as he smothered a chuckle, in that adorable way he had. So like a small schoolboy. Fiona laughed too, with open affection. It was difficult not to respond to John and Paul. They had such personal charm, even when they were not at their best. But after a few light moments, the mood became solemn again.

“So, if it doesn’t mean anything, why did you bring it up?” Paul was the one who asked the perceptive question, and it took both Fiona and John by surprise.

“What?” John asked weakly.

“I mean, if it doesn’t bother you that I make decisions for you, why did you say it did? I’m thinking it must bother you at some level, or you wouldn’t have said it.” Paul’s voice was dry and curious. 

Fiona monitored John’s body language and noted that while he looked alert, he didn’t look like he was going to explode. That was good. 

“Sometimes it does bother me,” John said, a little aggressively. 

Fiona butted in. “When does it bother you, John?”

“Well, it bothers me when he assumes I agree with him about something, and he just tells me in this logical voice that I’m wrong, and then it sort of silences me, and then he assumes I now agree with him. I don’t always disagree with him at times like those; in fact, I rarely do. But the few times I do disagree, it’s like he uses his logic and self-confidence to steamroll over me.” John’s voice sounded defensive, not bitter. 

Paul knew, truthfully, that he was bossy and controlling while in decision-making mode. It just surprised him to hear that John wasn’t fond of that side of him. “I didn’t know you felt that way,” Paul said calmly.

“Well, like I said, most of the time it’s not a problem. It’s just like once in a while.”

Fiona interrupted again. “Is one of those times this issue of how to deal with the publicity that would follow a tabloid story about your... ahem ...adventure in New York?” She asked.

Paul was thinking, that was a clever segue. 

John responded to the question. “Yes! Paul just rolled over me! I wanted to talk about me telling the truth about my sexuality, and he came at me with all these logical arguments about how it was going to hurt him!” John then turned to Paul and spoke to him directly. “Did you ever think that not being honest about it is hurting me?” 

Paul stared at John blankly while the words sank in. “No, I never thought about that.” He finally admitted in a small voice.

“Paul, how are you feeling about what John just said?”

Paul hated questions about his ‘feelings’. But he tried to push that aside because he was more interested in what John had said. “I would like to know why it hurts you, John? Why do you even care?”

“Why do I care? Haven’t I said forever that I want to live an ‘authentic’ life. What the fuck did you think I meant by that?”

“To be honest, I had no idea. I thought it might have come from some book you read...”

“Why do I even bother?” John declared to the ceiling, and gave Fiona a look that said see what I have to deal with here?

“John, why don’t you explain to Paul what you meant by that,” Fiona suggested.

“I don’t like lying about something so important to me. I don’t like living a lie. What is so hard to understand about that?”

“Paul, you look confused. What are you thinking?” Fiona asked, studying Paul’s face and body language.

“John,” Paul said, turning to face John directly. “You’re not living a lie! Our families know the truth. Our therapist knows the truth! Our close friends know the truth. Our management knows the truth. Many of our other friends and acquaintances ‘know’, they’re just too polite to mention it. All the people in the world who really matter already know. The public isn’t entitled to know everything about you or me! Just because they buy our records doesn’t mean they’re entitled to know everything about us.” Paul’s face was intent and his voice was determined. “We don’t owe anybody anything. It’s not like we lie outright. We just don’t answer their intrusive questions - the questions they shouldn’t be asking anyway.”

John stared at Paul for a few moments, and then blinked a few times. He then turned to Fiona. “See, see what I mean? This steady stream of unarguable logic! It just fuckin’ pours out of him! What am I supposed to say to that?”

Fiona had to laugh. “I do see, John, but he also makes some excellent points.”

“Yeah, except it doesn’t scratch where I itch! I don’t give a fuck what people are entitled to. I want to breathe, you know? I don’t want to be coy with people anymore. I’m tired of it!” John’s voice had risen to the point of almost shouting. His voice echoed for several seconds while Fiona and Paul absorbed what he had said. 

Paul had no idea what to say in the wake of such strongly felt emotions. Fiona had to fill in. “John, if you could tell the ‘truth’, as you call it, and it was all out there. If it ended up seriously hurting Paul and his family, would you still feel good about it?”

John’s mouth was open. He had been stopped in his tracks. After a few moments of silence he shut his mouth. And then he opened it again to say, “No. I would feel terrible.” 

“So maybe you just want your feelings about it to be acknowledged by Paul, even though you know you would never want to hurt him by doing it?” Fiona asked.

John turned to Paul, and Paul looked deeply in John’s eyes. “I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry I hold you back. I don’t know any way to protect my family and make you happy at the same time. It seems impossible to do both.” Paul’s face was deeply apologetic. 

John sighed and said, “I know it Paul. Just sometimes...”

“Sometimes you just need to vent about it,” Paul finished.

John smiled. “Yeah. And at least I’m not going to be outed by the fucking tabloid.” His smile was genuine.

Until the next time, said a dark voice in Paul’s head. 

 

*****

 

On the ride home, Paul reminded John that his brother Michael was coming over to Cavendish for dinner that night. 

“I don’t see why I can’t be there. I’ve known Mike since he was 13 years old,” John grumbled.

“It’s baby steps, John. This is the first time we’ll be in the same room together for over a year and a half. I think this first time it should just be me.”

“You and Linda,” John corrected. “Your legal spouse.”

Paul couldn’t help being a little amused by John’s pouting. But he hid it well. “Funny thing - Linda is always accusing me of putting you first. The two of you should sit down and compare notes. You’d find out what I know already - how deeply disappointing I am to both of you.” 

“Ha ha, Paul,” John responded. But he was privately cheered up by what Paul had said about Linda’s jealousy. He hoped it was true. 

After Paul dropped John at his home, he drove back down the mews and over to Cavendish. As he walked in the front door, he heard voices in the sitting room, and realized that Mike must have arrived early. Feeling a bit insecure, Paul entered the sitting room. Mike saw him immediately and stood up. The look he gave his brother caused Paul to tear up. He moved almost as if by rote over to his brother, and soon they were engulfed in a deep and lasting hug. 

Linda watched this and she, too, teared up. She knew how much Paul loved his brother, even if the two brothers had more than once had their differences. They had been through a lot together as boys and young teens, and this had created a very strong brotherly bond. 

After the two men broke away from their hug, they laughed self-consciously, and each surreptitiously wiped away tears. 

“You look good, Paul,” Mike said honestly. “I swear you never age a day.”

“Oh, don’t start with flattery this late in our life, Mike,” Paul laughed. “Here I stand with my hair almost all grey. Anyway, you look good too. I am so happy to see you again.” 

“Me too,” Mike said, and then there was an awkward silence. 

“Well!” Said Linda. “Mike was telling me about Rowena and the kids,” she said brightly. “They’re doing very well!” 

Thankfully, at that awkward moment 16 year-old James came in to the room, having finally dragged himself away from his video game. He grudgingly allowed his uncle to hug him, and then plopped down on the sofa next to Linda. This pretty much put paid to any deep discussions about Paul’s sexual predilections. 

It wasn’t until after dinner, when Linda had chased James upstairs to ensure he was ready for school the next day (and to make sure Mike and Paul had some alone time) that Paul and Mike were able to speak on a more intimate level.

“Paul, I want to apologize for the things I said,” Mike said, staring into his Irish whiskey. 

“I really appreciate that,” Paul said softly, staring into his own tumbler. 

“It was a shock, I have to say,” Mike said, “Because it challenged everything I believed about you.”

Paul’s heart sank a little. “Everything?” He asked. His heart was in his eyes. 

Mike saw the pain in his brother’s eyes and was quick to amend his statement. “No, not everything. I misspoke. I meant everything about your...well, your masculinity, I guess.”

Paul had to suck in the breath that threatened to be expelled loudly at the blow. “I’m a man, Mike. I’m masculine.” 

Mike wanted to hit himself in the head. He couldn’t seem to say anything right. It was because he didn’t want to utter the words: you have sex with John. “Of course, I know you’re a man. And I’m not saying you’re queer or anything...”

But wasn’t he? Paul thought. Isn’t that exactly what Mike thought he was? And what if he were queer? Why should it make any difference in their relationship? Paul didn’t want to start another fight, though, so he swallowed the thought. “Well, maybe we should just talk about now, instead of the past. How do you feel about me and John now?” Paul asked. He was surprised at how blunt he was, but he suddenly didn’t want to beat around the bush any more.

“Well,” Mike said, “I get that it is important to you. I can’t say I understand it, but I do accept that it is how you choose to  
live your life.” 

“You accept but you don’t approve?” Paul asked. He didn’t want to pick a fight, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Look, Paul, my approval is irrelevant. You’re my brother. I love you. You love John. I get that. So, I have to accept that or lose my relationship with you, and I can’t bear to lose you. Maybe, over time, I will get to the point where I approve. But John - you know he has to try a little harder.”

“What do you mean by that?” Paul asked, indignant on John’s behalf. 

“He hasn’t treated you very well, Paul. This business in New York - he hurt you badly with that didn’t he? How can I approve of him when he hurts my brother?” 

Paul’s anger melted away. Mike had a point. Of course, Mike didn’t know the whole story, it was true, but at the bottom of the story was an unavoidable truth: John had cheated on him with a younger version of himself, and Paul had been hurt by it. Badly. 

Mike was staying overnight, and would catch a flight back to Liverpool in the morning. Paul offered to drive him to the airport the next day as they parted for their separate bedrooms. 

Linda was awake in bed, and she put her book aside. She wanted to hear from Paul what had happened. 

“So?” she asked.

“So, he accepts my relationship with John, but he doesn’t really approve of it. He says it is because of John’s behavior in New York. He doesn’t even know about how John hit me that time, or the other stuff he’s done to me. On an objective level, Mike’s point of view is not out of line. It’s just that he only sees one side of it.” 

Linda patted the space beside her, and Paul joined her on the bed. “It will take time, Paul. But over time it will get better. It will all work itself out.”

“You mean - I should just ‘let it be’?” Paul twinkled. Linda smacked him lightly on his cheek. Paul then said, “I feel bad for John, though. Mike used to idolize him.”

“No one really wants to be idolized,” Linda opined. “It only leads to disappointment. Maybe now John will be able to build a real relationship with Mike, over time, that is based on truth.” 

 

*****

 

The letter arrived the next day. It was delivered to John at home. Paul was still with Linda. They had driven Mike to the airport, and then had gone out to lunch together. Thus, it was a good time for John to read this letter. He turned it over in his hands a few times, and then opened it. Inside was another, smaller envelope, with a scribbly handwriting on the front. To ‘Fred’, it said. John had to smile at that. He carefully unsealed the envelope, and pulled out two pages of stationary, which were covered with charmingly adolescent handwriting. Brad obviously hadn’t worked too hard on developing this particular skill. John could relate. His own handwriting was a bit out of control, after all.

John stared at the letter for a few seconds before beginning to read it. He was incredibly curious to know what Brad had to say, but he dreaded it too. But given Brad’s decision not to betray him for money, John felt he owed it to the bloke to at least read his letter: 

"Do you mind if I call you ‘Fred’? It feels weird to call you ‘John’. I’ve been wondering about you ever since you left in such a rush to get out of there, and the thing is I really enjoyed being with you. I guess my feelings were hurt..."

 

John stopped reading for a moment. He was surprised by what Brad had said. He hadn’t really thought of Brad as a person before, and this was disturbing. He’d hurt the bloke’s feelings! Who knew pick-up dates had feelings? 

 

"I know that I must have seemed kind of immature and uneducated because I didn’t always understand what you were saying, but I knew I would learn a lot if I was around you more..." 

 

John’s radar went off: Oh no, he wants to be ‘around’ me more. 

 

"I thought we had a connection, and wonder if the reason you walked out like that was guilt over your other relationship. I’ve heard you have one, and not sure if it is an ‘open’ one. If it is an ‘open’ one, I would like to see you again..." 

 

John sighed. Oh, dear. But at least this gave him a graceful excuse for cutting all ties. 

 

"Anyway, I think you're a very attractive man, and I would be very glad to see you again, and as you now know, I am very discreet. I’m leaving my phone number and address in case you want to contact me.

Yours truly yours,

Brad Chalmers"

 

John closed up the letter and as he did so he felt what he should have felt all along: shame. He was ashamed of himself for treating this young, impressionable kid like a throwaway wrapper merely so he could satisfy a fleeting desire for a naughty thrill. It served him right that he had been hurt that night, because his recklessness had led to his own downfall. He’d never given much thought to all the women he had used for sex, either. He had behaved like a depraved existentialist: as if these people had only existed to serve and pleasure him, and then when he was satisfied, they just magically disappeared from his life. It was disgusting, really, especially because most of these fly-by-night affairs featured women who had been young and enthralled by fame or wealth - like Brad had been. 

John felt that he had to respond to the poor kid. It would just be too cruel if he didn’t. It wasn’t like the kid had wanted to hurt him. The only problem was, how to do it?


	65. Chapter 65

John struggled with how to communicate with Brad. He wasn’t going to put anything in writing. He was wary enough not to acknowledge the letter directly, either. Instead, he finally decided to call Frank. 

“Would you do a favor for me?” John asked Frank.

“Sure.”

“Could you have someone call this kid and tell him that I appreciate his kind words, but that I have a serious relationship with someone else? Something like that?”

Frank thought this was a bad idea, but had no clue how to tell John that. Paul had always broken the tricky news to John. “Have you talked with Paul about this first?” Frank asked, knowing that the answer was “no”.

“Why would I talk to Paul about this? I’m capable of making a decision on my own!” John demanded angrily. Frank of course did not know of the last therapy session, or he wouldn’t have made such a careless remark.

“Oh, well, okay. But my advice would be not to make any contact with him at all. Just keep your distance.” Frank’s voice shook a little while he said this.

“See, that’s what I’m ashamed of right now,” John said firmly. “It’s so easy for me to just use people and then walk away. I don’t have to do the dirty work; there is always someone else willing to do it for me.”

Frank swore under his breath. He had known John Lennon for a few years now, and he’d never once witnessed John struck with guilt over the treatment of some thrusting nobody. Why did he have to develop a conscience now? It wasn’t as if these pick-up types were innocent. They knew exactly what was going to happen when they hung around hopefully backstage, and they wanted it. Frank had seen the groupie types, male and female, hanging around rock stars like stray dogs at a banquet waiting for crumbs to hit the floor for over a decade now, as he had managed many others before John and Paul. Frank realized that he would have to talk to Paul about this. In the meantime, Frank took the young man’s name, telephone number and address from John. If Paul okayed the decision, then he’d figure out the most careful way of delivering John’s message. Before he hung up, Frank asked, “Do you know where Paul is?” 

“Why?” A suspicious John asked.

“Well, I’ve got some other business to talk about, and thought if you knew where he was, I wouldn’t have to chase him around to find him.” Frank was schooled in the art of obfuscating when it came to keeping the talent happy.

“He’s with Linda. They were out this morning, but they might be home by now,” John said. John looked at his watch. He had an afternoon appointment to meet up with a friend at a café, and realized he’d have to hurry and get cleaned up to make the date on time.

Frank, meanwhile, tried dialing Cavendish. To his relief, Paul answered. “Frank! You just caught us walking in the door!” A breathless Paul exclaimed.

“Should I call back in a few?” Frank asked.

“No, no, this is fine. Just give me a sec.” Frank could hear Paul explaining to Linda and then a few moments later a much calmer, businesslike Paul was back on the line. “What’s up?”

“Well, I am sorry to have to bring this subject up with you. I know it’s a drag,” Frank began.

Frank imagined he could hear a groan all the way across the telephone line. “Oh, lord, what now?” Paul asked instead.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of the fact that the young man involved in the hotel situation wrote John a letter.” Frank put it in as matter of fact way as possible.

Paul remembered John saying that. “Yes. Has it come in?” Paul assumed that was why Frank was calling.

“It has, and the office sent it over to John in a separate envelope. He read it this morning.” 

Paul was silent. Frank’s teasing release of the information was giving him anxiety. “And?” He prompted.

“And so John feels bad about how he treated the kid, so now he wants me to instruct someone to go and talk to him.”

Paul was appalled. John felt sorry about the kid who had fucked him so hard he had caused fissures up his ass? Paul really didn’t have any words for how crazy that was. “I see,” he said.

Frank cleared his throat. “I think it is a terrible idea. I advised him to make a clean break, and to keep his distance. Stuff like that can backfire.” 

Paul’s initial reaction was to go into Problem-Solving Paul mode, but what held him back was John’s voice at the therapy session accusing him of 'steamrolling'. “What was John’s response to your advice?” Paul asked dully instead.

“He said that he was ashamed that he had treated this kid - and others - so shabbily. He wanted to thank the kid for his kind words in the letter and tell him that he was in a relationship with someone else.”

Paul blanched at the thought. He wanted to intervene, but he felt as though it would be a betrayal of John if he did so. “Frank,” Paul said, after ruminating on the problem for a few moments, “I don’t suppose it would be so awful if one of the PR people met this guy somewhere and thanked him for the letter. If it is oral, with no witnesses and no recording devices, what harm could there be?” 

Frank could hardly believe his ears. “Paul, you know there is no up side to it, and there are some pretty serious downsides. For one, John reaching out to this kid in any way may encourage him to think he is close to John, and he may start talking about it carelessly.”

“We can’t stop the bloke from talking, Frank. All we can do is deal with the aftermath if he does. I was preparing to deal with the PR disaster anyway, and so the fact that he didn’t come forward right away was a nice surprise. If he changes his mind, we’re no worse off than we’d have been if he spoke out now. I think you should do what John wants. It’s his affair, not mine.” 

Frank winced at the word ‘affair’. He hoped Paul meant it in the generic, not the specific, sense. “Well, I see your point. It really isn’t the end of the world, is it? It’s easy to get paranoid in my job.”

Paul laughed, although it was a hollow sound. “Yeah, well, they really are out to get us Frank, so I appreciate your vigilance on our behalf.”

Paul hung up, and felt himself slipping into a melancholy mood. John never cared about the feelings of the numerous women he’d slept with over the years. Why did he care so much about this one man’s feelings? Especially given what had passed between them? Paul had suspected all along that John had really been attracted to this guy - largely because the guy was young and still beautiful and “very strong”. Paul chafed at these thoughts, and then looked up from the hall sideboard to the mirror above it and saw his head full of greying hair. He also noted his spreading waistline. Maybe he should make an effort to shape up. Maybe then John wouldn’t lust after younger, stronger men. 

 

*****

 

“Hey, John, how’re ya doin’?” The unrepentant hippie-looking dude greeted his friend.

“Drinking already?” John teased, noting the already depleted pint in front of his friend Kevin. Kevin was a would-be beat poet and denizen of the art galleries of London, and John had befriended him in the last few years after running into him at all sorts of esoteric events. Kevin was a one-off, with the most screwed up but interesting view of the world. John had always appreciated oddball people; they tickled his fancy, so long as he didn’t have to spend more than a few hours at a time in their company.

“I haven’t stopped drinking,” Kevin slurred mysteriously. 

John plopped down across the table from Kevin. He thought he’d order coffee instead, and signaled for the waitress. Once properly supplied with caffeine (and Kevin had his refill), John settled back in his chair and regarded Kevin, the old reprobate. Kevin realized he was being regarded, and he managed a cockeyed grin. 

“So, John, have you been lurking in gay hotels again?”

“No, Kev, the doormen always lock the doors when they see me coming. Publicity is bad in that business you know,” John wisecracked. 

“I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to do it with a bloke,” Kevin revealed. “Maybe you wanna fuck me?” 

“Too generous of you, mate,” John chuckled, shaking his head ‘no’. 

“I come cheap,” Kevin pointed out in what he hoped was a tempting manner. 

Now John laughed out loud. “You’re a tonic, Kev, I’ll give you that. At least you don’t tiptoe around with namby-pamby insinuations.” 

Kevin made an effort to straighten up in his chair, but even when he had adjusted himself to his own satisfaction he still managed to look slouched and lop-sided. “Seriously, though, John, how are you doing?” 

“It’s been a rough little while, I’ll not lie,” John admitted. “I’m supposed to be writing songs, but life keeps intruding.”

“Yeah, man, that’s a serious bummer,” Kevin agreed. He hated it when real life interrupted his drug-enhanced fantasies. “And how’s Paul?” Kevin, of course, had figured out about Paul pretty quickly, although he had never asked and John had never told. In fact, Kevin thought it was stupid that people still gossiped about it as if the idea were blasphemous, and pretended shock over something that was as plain as the nose on a skinny man’s face. Honestly, a blind man could see the truth of it. 

John paused before speaking. He didn’t mean to pause, it just happened. How was Paul? John realized he had no fucking idea. Paul had been - briefly, for a few days upon his return from New York - incredibly open, loving and honest with him. But then he had slammed shut again sometime after his solo visit to Fiona. Now John felt as though he was talking to a mask when he was talking to Paul. “He’s fine,” John said.

Kevin noted the pause, but didn’t comment on it. It had to be hell to be John Lennon’s lover, Kevin thought. Kevin loved John, he really did, but the man was unpredictable, pretty self-centered, and inconstant. The few times Kevin had met Paul, he had sensed - under the undeniable charm - a very reserved man who disliked drama and surprise. It must be an unending unwanted roller coaster ride for Paul, being tied to John so closely. Love was a bitch. At least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about Kevin snickered to himself. He was proudly and stubbornly single, and had been his entire life. These interpersonal entanglement thingies were a fucking mess. And to Kevin’s world-weary eyes, it seemed that human beings insisted upon falling in love with their exact opposites, and then spent the rest of their lives driving each other crazy.

“I bet Paul is writing, real life or no real life,” Kevin opined. He figured it would take an atomic bomb going off next door to deter Paul from his creative impulses.

John chuckled again. He liked hanging with Kevin. He was so laid back and un-touchy. “No doubt he’s in his music room right now, pouring over his piano.” 

“So is that your plan - make another record?” Kevin asked. The question appeared idle, but it was not.

“Yeah. It’s just one damn record after another,” John commented, responding to what appeared to him to be a jibe from Kevin. No doubt to a guy like Kevin his life seemed like a repetitious bore. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered if you had given any thought to that suggestion I made the last time we saw each other,” Kevin offered.

John had to think about it. What ‘suggestion’ was this? He looked questioningly at Kevin.

“I’m glad to see that you hang on my every word,” Kevin drawled sarcastically, to John’s obvious amusement. “I asked why you weren’t writing - a book or short stories or poems or a memoir. You would be such a fantastic writer, if you would just write down the crap that came out of your mouth.” 

John remembered now. He had given the idea serious thought at that time - right up until the moment he would have had to sit down and actually write something. “I have written short stories, in the nonsense genre,” John pointed out.

“Yeah, I’ve read ‘em. And they’re great. But the thing is, you should write in your own voice. Instead of hiding behind clever word play, why not write ‘The World According to John Lennon’? That is a book the world really needs to read.” Kevin was serious. He felt John had squandered so much of his talent over the years due to his innate laziness and deep insecurities. Kevin also believed that John had been lured back to his songwriting partnership with Paul because Paul made it so easy for John to participate without really extending himself. It served both their needs: Paul’s to always be busy, and John’s to always be lazy.

“I’ve tried to write before,” John admitted shyly. “But I can’t think of anything to write about.”

“The world is full of things to write about,” Kevin rebutted.

“But I need it to be interesting, and it has to be something I know about.” 

“You could start by writing about yourself - a kind of memoir. You told me once you write journals.” Kevin was trying to hide his frustration with the fact that John was spending all this time fighting the idea instead of working with it.

“My journal entries are pretty boring,” John responded.

Kevin sighed. “Well, I’m not gonna beat your head against a wall over it, but you should at least try to write something. Once you get a rhythm going, you may find it is a lot easier than you think it is.” What John didn’t know about Kevin was that he had graduated with a first in literature from Cambridge back in the late ‘60s, and had taught English at a prestigious boarding school in the early ‘70s before turning off and tuning in. “I’ll read whatever you write and give you notes, if you want. I’d be honest.” 

John had no doubt but that Kevin would be ‘honest’ about his writing, which was why he felt very dubious about the offer. But he nodded his head politely, and changed the subject. Still, the idea of writing a book excited him...

 

*****

 

The next day was their Thursday session with Fiona, and Paul didn’t want to go. John showed up in the Cavendish sitting room through the back garden door, and was surprised to find Paul lazing around in flannel pj bottoms and an oversized t-shirt. He still had bed hair, too. 

“Hey, why aren’t you ready?” John asked, surprised. 

“I’m not feeling well. Maybe you should go alone,” Paul said. He certainly looked on the punkish side.

“What’s wrong? Is it a flu?”

“Not sure yet, just feel blah,” Paul said. 

“Well, if you haven’t any symptoms, I think you should come to therapy. Fiona gets upset when you ‘avoid’, you know.”

Paul didn’t know, because he had never ‘avoided’ once he had dedicated himself to the therapy. But, thinking about it now, Paul figured he could understand how it might make Fiona mad if he skipped out on the session. 

“Come on babe, get up, get your clothes on, run a comb through your hair. You’ll feel better. And if not, we’ll be back inside of two hours, and then you can laze around all you want.” John could not believe that he was the one saying this to Paul! It was a bizarre role-reversal, and yet John could not stop himself. He began to sound very Paul-like with his placating tone. 

Paul groaned loudly, and ran a hand over his face. He didn’t want to go, but now his guilty conscience was prodding him right along with John. Before he could protest again, John leaned over and pulled Paul by his arm until he was sitting up.   
“Up! Up!” He exhorted, now pulling Paul by both arms until he was standing up. 

Moaning all the way, Paul made his way towards the stairs. He was running his hands through his hair and complaining about it as he walked. John didn’t take what Paul was saying seriously; to John, Paul’s hair was luxurious and the silver in it was interesting. He didn’t realize that Paul was suddenly self-conscious about this blatant sign of aging. 

Twenty minutes later they were on their way to Fiona’s. Paul looked sullen as he drove. John tried to reach across the emotional divide. “What’s got you down?” He asked.

Paul didn’t take his eyes off the road as he responded. “Just tired today, I guess.” 

That was the sum total of what John got out of him. Now, as they sat down on Fiona’s sofa, John was a bit worried. He didn’t like it when Paul was glum and out of sorts. It caused a kind of free-form panic inside of him. 

“Paul didn’t want to come,” John blurted out. “He’s not himself.” 

Paul turned to John with an arched eyebrow: so much for loyalty. John didn’t even require a threat before he gladly threw him under the bus. 

“Are you ill?” Fiona asked Paul politely.

“No, he hasn’t got any symptoms,” John answered for Paul. “He’s just depressed. That’s what I think it is. Paul, admit you’re depressed, and then we can talk about it.”

Fiona just managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “I think it is best to let Paul speak for himself. This is therapy after all,” she teased. 

John grinned sheepishly. “Well, when he closes down like this the only thing that gets a response is to haggle with him. So I’m haggling.” 

Fiona smiled in a non-committal way at John, and then turned to Paul. “Are you depressed?”

Paul sighed heavily, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I’m just in a down mood. I’m entitled, aren’t I?” 

“Yes, of course you are,” Fiona said staunchly. “So long as you are not in pain. I mean, if you are in pain you should ask for help.”

Paul considered taking Fiona literally, by telling her that he wasn’t in any (physical) pain, but he lacked the energy to put up a spirited defense. “If I’m ever in pain, I’ll be sure to ask for help,” was his cryptic response.

Now it was John’s turn to sigh heavily. “I’ve got a subject,” he said determinedly. 

Fiona suspected that it would relate to Paul’s mood, but nodded pleasantly at John anyway.

“A little over a week ago he was all over me, telling me he loved me and needed me around. And now he is spaced out, and avoiding any intimacy with me, and I want to know why.”

Fiona said, “You should talk to Paul, and not about him to me.”

John was irritated to be delayed by a mere procedural error, but he turned to Paul and said, “What happened? Why have you closed yourself off from me?”

“I wasn’t aware that I had done any such thing,” Paul objected. “I’m just tired today. You’re exaggerating.”

“So now you’re saying I’m making shit up?” John was glaring at Paul. He turned to Fiona as if to ask for her intervention. 

“It’s clear that John feels as though you have pulled back from him since last week,” Fiona said to Paul, rephrasing John’s ill-chosen words. “If his feeling is wrong, why not explain to him how he is wrong?”

Paul felt ambushed. He knew that something like this was up John’s sleeve, which was probably why he had wanted so much to avoid the session. Fiona was just doing her job, but John had some kind of motive, and Paul wasn’t sure what it was. He remembered the flush of love and relief he’d felt when John had returned from New York. But in the past week he’d been beaten up by the aftermath of the whole Brad mess, and then John had told him he was a control-freak steamroller at the last session. Paul had always thought John loved that about him - that he could take charge, deal with unpleasantness, and protect him from harm. To learn that John resented it was an enormous blow to his ego. And now, because Paul was also feeling old and unattractive because of Brad, he was regretting last week’s openness about his true feelings. All he had done was give John more ammunition to hurt him with later. He no doubt thinks I’m pathetic now, Paul told himself. He played with the thought as if it were a loose tooth: there was a kind of pain associated with it, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Fiona and John were staring at him, expecting him to say something. Paul could think of nothing to say. He supposed he would have to force himself to smile and appear fine again. No one actually liked it when he allowed his sad feelings to show, no matter how many times they claimed that they wanted him to share them. He managed a sickly smile. “I’m sorry, John, if you feel that I have been closed off. I don’t mean to be. I didn’t think I was. I’m sure that after I’ve had a good night’s sleep I’ll be as right as rain.”

John gave Fiona a deeply skeptical look. He knew immediately that Paul was just fending him off. It was so frustrating trying to communicate with Paul when he was in this extreme self-defense mode. Fiona smiled sympathetically at John. Yes, Paul was in his safety cave right now, but John didn’t seem to realize that standing outside the cave and shouting insults into it was not going to bring Paul out again. 

“I think, John, we should let Paul be. Let’s take him at his word. He is tired today. We should talk about something else.”

“I know!” John said enthusiastically.

“Yes?” Fiona queried.

“I hung out with a friend yesterday afternoon, and he suggested I should start writing - like a book, or a memoir - instead of working on another record. I wanted to talk about that with Paul.” John looked excited and enthusiastic; Paul, not so much. He was stone silent.

Fiona said, “This may be what your friend thinks you should do, but is it what you want?”

“I think so! At least, I think I’d like to try. But I can’t do that and write songs, too. So it impacts you, Paul.” John turned to Paul to try to gauge his reaction. What he saw was a blank slate. John swore to himself. He’s going to be bloody-minded about this idea, obviously. 

“Why can’t you do both?” Fiona asked. “I’m not a creative person, so I’m just wondering why it would not be possible.”

“I don’t work that way,” John said intensely. “Paul can work on several things at once; he always has been able to do that. And I’ve always admired that about him, that he can bring what he is channeling from one project into his other projects, and cross-pollinate them. He builds up a kind of synergy that way. But I have to focus on one thing at a time. If I try to split my thought process, I end up with nothing for either project.”

Paul heard what John said, and he knew that it was true. John didn’t like to do two creative projects at once. This was the main reason why he could not work with the Beatles and work with Yoko Ono at the same time. It was why John had tried to merge the two in order to hold on to both. Of course, that had been a hopeless dream. The ironic thing was, Paul was the one who was accused of ending the Beatles, but it had been John who would not work with the Beatles alone after he had met Yoko. These thoughts filled his head, and he lost track of the conversation between John and Fiona.

“Aren’t you in the middle of a recording project now?” Fiona had asked John.

“No, we’ve been writing an album for the last several weeks, but we’re nowhere near to the recording process. I was very excited about writing when I was in New York, but I haven’t written a word or a note since I got back. It’s like I ran out of steam.”

Paul had come out of his reverie in time to hear this last remark. He blinked several times to stop his eyes from tearing up. This was worse than he had thought. John really did want his independence from him, and if he couldn’t have it through going public about his sexuality, then he was going to get it by working alone. Paul interpreted this to mean that once John felt he was secure in his prose writing, he would find it easier to cut Paul loose permanently. Suddenly the room seemed suffocating to Paul, and he wanted out. He had to grasp his hands together to stop himself from jumping up and running out of the room. This was like September 1969 all over again, although admittedly there were far fewer drugs, and not as much shouting or slamming of doors. Soon John would be saying to him, “I want a divorce” again. 

Fiona couldn’t help noticing Paul’s silence, but she was out of ways to draw him out. This subject of John writing alone was going to hit him hard, Fiona suspected, and how thoughtless of John to blurt it out for the first time in front of a third person at a time when Paul was obviously already in a depressed state. “Paul? Are you okay?” She finally asked softly. Her hand reached out and softly covered Paul’s cold, clasped ones.

Paul managed to shake his head ‘yes’ and rummaged around and found a slight smile to accompany the nod. 

“Do you want to talk about it now?” She asked gently.

Paul shook his head ‘no’. He had to look down at his hands, because he didn’t want her to see the fear in his eyes. 

Fiona leaned back and faced John. “I don’t think this is the best time to address this issue. Perhaps you would like to have a solo session with me?” 

John was perturbed by that suggestion. “What good would that do? I know what I want to do. I just wanted to explain it to Paul, to make sure he understands what it’s about.”

Paul finally managed to speak, although his voice was a bit croaky. “What is it about, John?”

 

*****

 

The next day, Paul told Linda he had some errands to do, and drove off. Linda had been worried about Paul the night before. He had been utterly bereft when he had come home from the therapy session, and had gone upstairs to their bedroom, and thrown himself down on the bed. When she’d tried to talk to him about it, he had covered his face with a sheet and told her he was just exhausted and needed to sleep. And this morning he had wandered around like a zombie, nodding pleasantly at her while she spoke to him, but Linda was willing to bet he hadn’t heard a single word she said.

She decided John Lennon had to be at the bottom of it. He was the only one who had the power to make Paul feel like shit. She pulled on a light cardigan, and headed down the mews to John’s place. She leaned on the buzzer, mainly because John hated it when she did that. It was her tiny little rebellion. He flung open the door, unsuccessfully hiding the irritation on his face. He said nothing, however, as he ushered Linda in.

After they sat down at the table, and John poured her some coffee, Linda decided not to pussyfoot around. “So what have you said to Paul, John?” 

“What?!” John’s voice was edged with outrage.

“Well, he came home from the session yesterday and he hasn’t said a word since. He is clearly devastated about something. What is it?” Linda wasn’t having any of John’s bullshit. She was staring him straight in the eye.

“He was already depressed when we left for the session. Maybe you’re the one who said something to him,” John said nastily.

Linda’s gaze was even and unyielding. “What did you say to him in session?”

“Sessions are supposed to be confidential.” John was just being stubborn now, because he knew that what he had said at the session probably had devastated Paul. 

Linda kept staring, and made it clear that she was still waiting for an explanation.

John sighed. “Linda, it’s between Paul and me. If he tells you, that’s one thing, but it isn’t right for me to tell you.”

“Well, John, seeing as how he is not speaking at all, that is highly unlikely.”

John broke. “We were discussing my plans to take a break from songwriting for awhile. I’m thinking of trying to write - you know, like a memoir, or a book. I just need a break for a little while; I’m dried up on songwriting now anyway.”

Linda’s heart sank. Yes, this would devastate Paul. Nothing meant as much to him as his creative partnership with John. Linda sometimes believed that Paul’s entire ego was built on that partnership, and it worried her. On the other hand, she could hardly be angry with John for wanting a break and aspiring to try something new. Probably working with Paul - who was so driven and intense when in a creative zone - was not the easiest thing on earth. She had felt it herself back in Wings, when all she wanted to do was stay home and take care of her babies, and he would push - push - push. 

John watched in a kind of astonishment as Linda’s angry expression relaxed into a sad but accepting one. He hadn’t expected that at all.

“Okay, thanks for telling me. At least now I know what I’m dealing with,” is all she said. She looked deflated and worried. John felt bad about that, but she had insisted that he tell her after all. “I’d better get home,” she said as she pushed back her chair.

“Is Paul there?” John asked guiltily. “Should I go see how he is?”

“No, he went out to do some errands. But you can come over for dinner if you like.” Linda got up and walked out the door and back towards her garden gate. From John's perspective as Linda walked away, her shoulders drooped, giving her a defeated look from behind. 

Not long after Linda got back, Paul returned. She heard the front door close, and then the footsteps hurrying up the stairs. She’d leave him alone for a few minutes, and then go up and join him. She put the soup on simmer, cleaned up a few counters and utensils, removed her apron, and then headed for the stairs. The master bedroom door was closed, but she entered it slowly, expecting to find her husband in bed. But he wasn’t there. She moved in the direction of the master bathroom, and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She waited quietly for a few minutes, hearing some slight noises and thinking Paul was using the toilet, but after what she thought of as a sufficient amount of time had passed, she moved towards the door, and knocked on it slightly before opening it. 

She saw her husband seated on the side of the bathtub, and his hair was wet, and there was a towel on his shoulders. He was holding a box, and appeared to be reading the directions. 

“What are you doing?” Linda asked quietly.

Paul jumped at the sound, and looked up guiltily. After a slight, embarrassed pause he said, “I’m going to dye my hair.”


	66. Chapter 66

“Dye your hair? Your beautiful hair?” Linda cried. She was tremendously upset by the very thought of it. “What has brought this on? I love your silver hair!” 

“It makes me look old,” Paul said defensively. 

“It does not! It’s a beautiful color!” Linda was indignant. “Why all of a sudden do you think you need to dye it?” Linda already suspected it had something to do with John. He must have made a joke about it or something. Honestly, the man had no sensitivity whatsoever.

Paul prevaricated. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I’ll feel more myself if my hair is dark.” 

“Paul, don’t be silly. You and I have talked many times about this aging nonsense. I thought you agreed with me that it is silly to try to hide from time itself! You are a beautiful man, with beautiful hair, and I don’t want you to dye it.”

“But they always comment on my hair in the paper and make jokes about it...”

“The tabloid writers and readers are pea-brained naysayers. If you dye your hair they’ll make fun of you for dying it. If you don’t dye it they’ll make fun of you for not dying it. It’s stupid. You can’t live your life according to assholes like that!” 

“But the fans prefer my hair dark,” Paul said. He had read the letters to the editors in enough tabloid newspapers to believe that everyone agreed that he looked bad with grey hair.

“I don’t think that’s true. When we meet them out on the sidewalk, they seem to adore you just the same as they always have. Honestly, Paul, you can’t stop yourself getting old by dying your hair. We agreed to age gracefully, remember?” 

Paul looked down at the box in his hands. He could never explain to Linda the real reason why he wanted to dye his hair. He really didn’t care about the tabloids - or, at least he could live with them - and he doubted that his fans cared one way or the other, but he was losing John. And part of the reason he was losing John was that he was looking old and bedraggled. He had to pull himself together. But clearly, he could not say this to Linda. 

“The truth is Lin,” Paul lied, “is that I want to do it for me. I think I’ll feel better if I do it.” 

Linda could see she was fighting a losing battle. But maybe she could delay the actual loss for a day or two. “Well, if you’re going to do it, please don’t do it yourself with a box of hair dye. You should go to a hair salon. I can make an appointment for you.”

Paul was horrified at the very idea. Hair salons had employees and customers inside them, and they talked. There would be jokes about it in the tabloids... “No, no hair salons. I’m going to do it myself. How hard can it be?” 

Linda sighed in exasperation. “Can you at least wait until tomorrow morning? That way, if it turns out bad, we can get you into a salon right away to fix it.” 

Linda clearly did not have faith in his hair-dying ability, but Paul saw the wisdom in what she said. He liked strategies that featured “just in case” default plans. It appealed to his cautious brain.

 

*****

 

After the hair dye controversy, Linda was fit to be tied. Paul had some squirrelly ideas in his head, and she had no clue what they all were, and how to get rid of them. She thought furiously about it while she finished dinner, and had forgotten that she had invited John, so was surprised when he showed up in the kitchen.

“Where’s Paul?” John asked.

Linda made a face. “Up in our bedroom, hopefully not dying his hair.”

“What?” John laughed.

“He’s going to dye his hair tomorrow. Out of a box.” Linda stopped what she was doing and faced John with a fully exasperated look on her face, both hands on hips. They’d have to call a truce and somehow - together - talk him out of this nonsense. 

John was perplexed. He was staring at Linda with a deeply confused expression on his face. “Dye his hair?” John asked again, as if he thought he had misunderstood what Linda said.

“Yes. He’s gotten it into his head that he looks old with grey hair, and that everyone thinks he looks bad, so he’s going to dye it dark. I have tried everything to talk him out of it, but have come up empty. All I could do is delay him a bit.”

“I’m going up there right now and make sure he hasn’t done it!” John declared with urgency. He turned and headed for the master bedroom. He normally wouldn’t have intruded upon Linda’s territory (he rarely did) but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

Paul was back in his bed, covered in sheets. He had been lying there for almost an hour - since his confrontation with Linda - contemplating the ceiling and feeling sorry for himself. Suddenly, John burst in.

“What’s this about dying your hair?” He shouted after summarily switching on the overhead light, and standing over Paul by the side of the bed.

Paul blinked up through the light, shaded by one of his hands, and said, “Linda told you.”

“Of course she told me! And, really, do you think I wouldn’t have noticed it once you’d done it?” John was quite upset. Paul was acting all weird. He didn’t like it one tiny bit. 

“I would have mentioned it to you afterwards,” Paul said calmly.

“And you don’t think I should have some kind of say in it? Maybe I don’t want you dying your hair! I know Linda agrees with me about it!”

“John, you don’t have to shout. I can hear you just fine.”

John plopped down on the side of the bed. “What’s going on with you, Pud?” He asked softly. His earlier anger had only been a mask for his concern. 

“I just don’t like the way my hair looks. It’s no big deal.” Paul was kind of surprised that John was so angry about a little thing like dying his hair. He’d have thought John would be glad about it. “I’d look younger,” he added hopefully. 

“No, you won’t look younger,” John said flatly, not catching the poignancy in Paul’s tone. “You’d look like mutton dressed as lamb. Older people walking around with artificially dark hair just look like they’re trying to look younger.” 

“That’s easy for you to say,” Paul responded, stung by John’s acknowledgement that he did, in fact, look old. “You’ve still got a healthy amount of your old hair color left. Wait until it is all white. See how you feel then.”

“You’ve never worried about such stupid vain things before,” John said, trying a different approach. “Hell, at the height of Beatlemania you walked around with a big chip in your tooth for months, and even did a video with it like that! You look great for your age. You don’t need to dye your hair.” 

Paul heard the “for your age” as an indictment, rather than a compliment. His face was shrouded in a bland safety net again. John sighed when he saw it.

“Paul, you don’t need to do that for me or Linda, or your kids, or anyone else who knows and loves you. Maybe you should wait until you’re going out on tour again - then maybe if you want to you could try dying it.”

“But will I be going out on tour again?” Paul asked. 

“I don’t see why not, unless you don’t want to,” John responded reasonably. Again, he didn’t catch the real question behind the opaque one.

Paul could see that he was not going to win this argument, so he decided to extricate himself from it. “Well, I’ll think about what you said, and maybe I’ll put it off for a while.”

“Thanks, mate. I really do like your hair this way. I just think dying it would make it look phony.” John stood up. “Now get up out of your fucking bed, Paul, stop pouting, you can’t stop father time. Come on downstairs and have dinner with your family like a normal bloke.” 

 

*****

 

Paul decided to put off dying his hair, although he hadn’t dispensed with the idea entirely. Maybe if he had it done professionally, it would look less phony. Instead of dying his hair the next morning, he had gotten up early and gone off on “an errand” again. 

Linda shook her head as he left. I hope he doesn’t come home with blue contact lenses, she muttered. What was up with him? It seemed like he was going through middle-age crazy or something. Maybe he’d return from the day’s journey driving a red Maserati instead of the family’s sensible brown sedan. Oh, lord, I hope not. 

Paul went to a gym. Of course he had gone to gyms before, usually when he was on tour, to keep his energy up. But since the end of the tour, he’d been terribly lazy. But as he stood there surrounded by step-machines, treadmills, and stationary bicycles, along with racks and racks of weights in various sizes, his heart fell. Paul had done yoga fairly regularly ever since India in 1968, but other than laps in the pool and sometimes a little running (until he injured his knee), he hadn’t been a great one for aerobic exercise or weight lifting. Still, he needed to get his body under control before it got flabby, and he wanted to be stronger, so he supposed it required actual work to accomplish this. 

“Can I help you?” 

Paul turned to find a very fit young man with a clipboard gazing at him hopefully. 

“Ummm, I was thinking of coming here. Do you have trial memberships?” Paul had never joined a gym before. He’d used the gyms in the hotels he’d stayed in, but had never made a real gym commitment.

“I’m sure we can arrange something that fits for you,” the young man said pleasantly, and gestured with his clipboard to his office.

Once they were in there, Paul unzipped his coat, unwound his neck scarf, removed his hat and sunglasses, and looked up to meet the young man’s eyes. 

“You’re Paul McCartney,” he said. 

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Paul laughed. 

“I’m thinking you might prefer a personal trainer.”

“What’s a personal trainer when it’s at home?” Paul asked jokingly. He was, ludicrously, nervous.

“It’s one-on-one intensive training with a specialist, with routines designed especially for each individual. I have a number of clients I work with privately. We have a private workout room here where you wouldn’t be bothered. Maybe you’d prefer that to being out on the floor with everyone else.” 

Just then a mighty crash came from the weight room, causing Paul to turn around and see a tall, heavily muscled man stepping away from what looked like 200 lb. weights. 

“Yeah, private sounds good,” Paul said quickly, having no desire to stand next to such exemplars of the human form while he struggled through his 2 or 3 pitiful pull-ups. He walked out of the gym with a contract for three months’ worth of three-times weekly personal training sessions plus nutritional advice. The trainer had weighed him, and Paul had been horrified at how much weight he’d gained in the short time since the tour ended. At least when he was on tour he was burning a lot of weight off during the 3-hour shows. 

The man had also measured him, and had told him (no surprise to Paul) that his stomach was too large and his legs were too thin for his body’s proportions. He was going to have to diet and do ‘core exercises’ for the stomach, and weight lifting and protein supplements for the legs. Oh goody. The diet supplements and protein powder were loaded in to his arms as he struggled out the back door and into the car park. Crap. What on earth was he going to say to Linda about all this stuff? She was going to think it was ridiculous, he knew. 

His first session was scheduled for the next day.

 

*****

 

It was Saturday in the late morning and John was starting to get worried. It was now 4 whole nights, and into the 5th day since Paul had even spent solo time with him, much less had sex with him. This was getting serious. Paul was clearly upset about his decision to take a break from their creative partnership, but John didn’t intend to end it forever - he thought he had made that clear to Paul, but it was difficult to get to the bottom of Paul’s unhappiness if Paul wouldn’t talk to him. He decided to get to the bottom of it come hell or high water. He hated this ‘silent treatment’ thing. Paul had often done it to him when they were younger, but he hadn’t done it very often since the renewal of their relationship in 1981. He needed to nip this in the bud before it became a habit again. He decided to go over to Cavendish and beard the infuriating man in his den.

When he got there, however, he was sidelined. He found Linda at the kitchen table, bemusedly reading some colorful pamphlets, and surrounded by various sized cans. 

“What on earth?” He asked her. 

She looked up with a comical expression on her face. “These are Paul’s ‘supplements,’” she said, her voice dripping with amusement. 

“His what?” John stood in the kitchen door with his mouth open. 

“He is on a special diet,” Linda said, trying to keep a straight face. “He is only eating shakes and egg whites, apparently.”

“Oh noooo,” John moaned. He sat down and then he and Linda met eyes across the table and then they both burst out in giggles. “What next?” He asked her.

“I was afraid he would come home with a red Maserati, so I guess this is an improvement on that,” Linda managed to say in between guffaws. 

John laughed harder. Pretty soon they were drying their eyes. “So where is he?” John asked.

“Oh. You haven’t heard about this yet,” Linda said, leaning forward in her eagerness to vent to a sympathetic ear. “He’s also got a ‘personal trainer’, whatever the hell that is. He is at his first session right now.” 

John was shaking his head as if the information did not compute. “What’s up with him?” John asked Linda.

“I was hoping you knew,” she said, sitting back in her chair.

“I have no clue what’s up with him. He’s been acting weird for almost a week now. I haven’t had hardly a moment alone with him since Monday night. Of course, we had two rough therapy sessions last week...”

“Oh?” Linda’s inquiry was not hostile, John could see. She was just worried about Paul and was hoping for some kind of answer to his strange behavior. 

“Well I told you about the one on Thursday - he didn’t take my decision to take a break from songwriting well, and he got worse after that. The drive home was pretty horrible.”

“What happened?”

“He wouldn’t talk to me at all. I think the only thing he said to me about it was, ‘you’ve obviously made up your mind, so what does it matter what I think about it?’

“Oh, dear,” Linda said sympathetically. 

“And on Tuesday we had a rough session about him always making decisions for me, even when I disagree with him. It got pretty heated, but I thought it ended okay. That was the day he saw Michael. Did Michael say something to him that upset him? He’s been weird ever since then.”

Linda thought about that. “It wasn’t as satisfying of a reunion as he’d been hoping for,” she said carefully, “but they hugged each other, and cried, and then they sat together for a couple of hours after dinner and spoke quietly together. They parted friends at the airport. He told me that Mike said he has accepted your relationship with Paul as a given, but he doesn’t entirely approve of it.”

“Fuck him,” John spat out. He was sick and tired of Michael’s bullshit. 

Linda smiled warmly. “Paul was upset about that too, but I pointed out it was a step in the right direction. I think you and Mike need to work out a new relationship, based on reality and not on teenage hero worship. But that’s just my opinion.”

John smiled at her. “You’re right of course.” John waited in a companionable silence for a few moments before adding, “Do you ever get tired of being right? Here you are stuck between a pair of Neanderthals. How do you do it?”

Linda laughed gaily. “At least it’s never dull,” she offered in response. 

Just then they heard the front door closing and footsteps mounting the stairs. 

“I think we’re about to have a Paul sighting,” John said laconically, causing Linda to giggle some more. 

Linda got up and started making lunch for John and her. “Maybe he’ll smell it, and decide that he doesn’t want another shake. He had one for dinner last night, and for breakfast this morning.”

John made an “ew” face. His memory harkened back to the days of the dreaded macro diet Yoko had kept him on. 

Eventually, Paul entered the kitchen, his hair wet from the shower. He saw John and Linda peaceably eating the leftover vegetable soup and some fresh baked brown bed. He smelled the soup and the hot bread, and his stomach grumbled. 

Linda said, “Your supplements are over there...” and she pointed to a cupboard where she had just found a place for them. 

“Hey, Paul,” John said sweetly, after blowing cool air on his hot soupspoon. 

“Hi,” Paul said, and went over to the cupboard. He really didn’t want to make the shake in front of John and Linda. He figured they would laugh at him. But he might as well get used to it. They wouldn’t be laughing at him in three months’ time when he looked like an Adonis, would they? He pulled out one of the protein powders, and began to mix it. He found a banana, and then rummaged through the fridge looking for maybe some berries. He came out empty handed.

Meanwhile, John and Linda silently sipped their soup, while occasionally looking up and meeting each other’s eyes and suppressing grins. 

When Paul had finished with the blender, and had poured what looked like a thick beige-colored liquid into a glass, he sat down at the table, and took a sip. He tried to look as though the fucking thing tasted good, but it didn’t. 

John was beside himself. To stop himself from laughing out loud he said, “How was the personal trainer?” 

Paul looked up and said, “Wade? He’s cool.” 

John and Linda exchanged a frustrated look. “So what did you do during your workout then?” Linda asked.

“We worked on my ‘core’,” Paul said blandly, taking another sip of the yeasty-tasting shake. He had to force himself to swallow. Next time he’d have to put two bananas in, he thought. And berries. It needed berries.

“What’s a ‘core’?” John asked innocently. He honestly had no idea what it was.

“Basically it is your stomach muscles,” Paul said.

“So why don’t they just call it your stomach instead of your ‘core’?” John asked, trying not to allow his amusement to show.

“I don’t know John,” Paul said, irritated. He knew he was being razzed. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” 

“No, I guess not,” John agreed equably, and turned back to his soup.

When it was time to get up, Paul discovered to his dismay that every muscle in his body was sore. In addition to ‘core’ work they had done a whole lot of squats with a weight bar over his shoulders, and he had done several pathetic push-ups and pull-ups. The only good thing that happened during his hour session was that Wade had been very complimentary of his shoulders, back and arms. 

“You’re gonna look great once you’ve shaped up,” Wade had said while he ran his hand over Paul’s right shoulder blade as he hung from a bar. You’ve got great shoulders and arms, and a great long back. You’ll be able to lift weight for sure.” 

Paul had taken that as something to feel good about; there was precious little of it floating around at the time after all. John and Linda thought he should just forget about how old and unattractive he looked, and they clearly didn’t understand even a little bit how bad he felt about himself. Well, he was glad for that. The last thing Paul McCartney wanted from anyone was pity. 

Still, getting up from that chair and taking the first few steps hurt like hell, and he had to struggle not to reveal this embarrassing information to John and Linda. He tried to walk out nonchalantly. Of course, behind him as he walked stiffly out of the room, John and Linda exchanged desperately smothered giggles. 

John put down his spoon and followed Paul out. It was time to get to the bottom of all this nonsense.

“Where are you going, Pud?” John asked as Paul headed for the stairs. He was worried that Paul was heading back to bed. 

“I’m going to work, up in the music room,” Paul said, stopping briefly at the bottom of the stairs, and giving John an almost defiant look. 

“Can we talk for a few minutes?” John asked.

“So you can make fun of my diet and exercise plans?” Paul asked bitterly. 

“No, no. Linda and I just don’t understand where all this is coming from all of a sudden. Maybe if you explained it to us we could understand better.” John had forced himself to talk in a Paul-like soothing voice. It was going to get tiresome if he had to do this for any real length of time. He needed Paul to snap out of this sooner rather than later and go back to being the mature, steady one.

“What is there to understand?” Paul asked stiffly. “I just feel as though I’ve let myself go, and I’m trying to pull myself together.”

“You never felt the need to do that before,” John pointed out.

“Well, when I was younger I didn’t need to work at it. Now that I’m old, I have to.” Paul’s expression was still defiant.

“Paul, I wish you’d stop calling yourself ‘old’. I’m two years older than you, and Linda is a year older than you. You’re making us all feel old, and none of us are that old yet. We’re just older than we were before, which is a good thing, because the alternative is death.” 

Paul did hear what John said, and considered it. But the things John had said absent-mindedly when he didn’t realize what he was saying weighed more heavily with Paul than the things he was saying deliberately now in an attempt to make him feel better. And by this point Paul was convinced that John was looking for younger, stronger lovers, and he was clearly losing interest in him. That whole business about loving my face, Paul thought to himself derisively, was meant to assuage John’s guilt, and for Christ’s sake John even had feelings for a man who had fucked him so hard he’d been seriously hurt!

On the other hand, Paul didn’t feel as though he had anything to lose by getting himself in shape. He’d have plenty of time on his hands to focus on himself, now that John didn’t want to work with him anymore. And, really, how come John had leapt to that decision to write a book in a few short hours, after an acquaintance just mentioned the idea to him? It all seemed like a put up job to Paul. For this reason, Paul was realistic. He assumed that he was going to lose John eventually anyway, but he didn’t want to look like an old middle-aged, flabby loser when the time came. He wanted to be in great shape, looking younger and stronger. It would be easier on his pride that way. And there was always the outside chance that John would fall in love with him again if he were more attractive.

John was worried about the long pause. Paul’s face was utterly inscrutable. “Paul? Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry if you’ve been offended by my desire to look better.” 

John sighed. “You’re willfully misunderstanding me, Paul, you have to be. I have no problem with you wanting to look better. I’m just thinking all of this stuff you’re doing is kind of sudden. I’m wondering if there is anyway I can reassure you that you look great.”

Paul smiled at John and said, “Thanks. But I still want to look better.” He waited a moment as John’s face clouded with disappointment. “Is it okay if I go back to work now? I’m gonna need to do something with all my free time since you’re not working with me anymore.”

John felt the bitter riposte. “Paul, I’m not quitting our partnership. I’m just wanting a few months to do something else. I’ve dried up anyway; I’m hoping the break will re-inspire me.”

Paul nodded and said, “Okay, well, I’m gonna keep working ‘cause I don’t know what else to do.” He turned and went up the stairs, and then the next flight of stairs, and finally John heard the door to the attic room slamming shut. 

John felt defeated by Paul’s cold anger. He knew it was because he wanted a break from songwriting, and he supposed he could have done a better job of breaking the news, but really Paul would have been this upset about it no matter how John had told him. There was no ‘good’ way to tell Paul this news. It was ironic, because it took years to persuade Paul to work with him again, and now Paul was flipping out over a short break! John shrugged. Still, he didn’t know what his decision to take a break had to do with Paul’s sudden obsession with looking younger. John had gotten no closer to understanding what that was all about.

 

*****

 

Monday morning came around, and Paul headed for the gym. He’d stayed true to his diet all weekend, and Linda no longer thought it was funny. She was quietly disapproving whenever he shuffled around the kitchen, making his shakes, throwing in fruits and vegies with abandon. Paul had even seemed to get used to the shakes, and didn’t appear tempted to eat the food she made for James and her each morning and night.

On Sunday, fed up with the silent treatment, John had come over to Cavendish, cornered Paul in his music room, and demanded to know why Paul wasn’t sleeping with him anymore. “It’s been a week now! Is this some kind of withholding shit because of the songwriting thing?” John demanded. 

Paul didn’t know for sure why he didn’t want to sleep with John, but he suspected it was because he had become very self-conscious about his flabby stomach, and his skinny legs, and his grey hair, and his weak muscles. Maybe he wouldn’t be so self-conscious once he’d built himself up a bit. But this wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to say out loud to John. So instead he said, “I’ve been tired, sore and weak since I’ve been on this diet and exercise routine. I’m not having sex with Linda, either.” 

“But you’re sleeping with her! Is that supposed to make me feel better?” John was indignant now.

“I can sleep with Linda because she won’t pressure me to have sex with her,” Paul said flatly. “She doesn’t mind just cuddling.”

John winced. “So, you think I find you so utterly irresistible that I can’t sleep next to you without forcing you to have sex with me? Because trust me, mate, the way I feel right now, I can certainly resist you! I’m not going to beg, so I’m leaving now. If you change your mind, you know where I am!” John stomped out, his feelings deeply hurt, and not realizing that by telling Paul that he was resistible, he had only done further damage. 

Paul shook his troubles with both of his lovers out of his mind. There were moments when he longed for the time - was it only just a bit over a week ago? - when he had been deeply complacent about his advancing age. Now all he could think about was losing fat and building muscle. 

 

*****

 

Wade met him in the private exercise room. “How ya feeling?” He asked in his Aussie accent. 

“I’m stiff. I can’t even do my yoga,” Paul complained.

“Lay on your back, I’ll help you stretch,” Wade suggested. As Paul obeyed, Wade grabbed one of Paul’s legs, and pushed it up towards the ceiling, and then over to one side, and then across his body to the other side, allowing 60 seconds to pass with each separate stretch, maneuvering his limbs further into the stretch as he felt the muscles relax. Wade then started with his other leg. 

Paul closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his muscles being stretched. Wade pulled up one of his legs, folded it, and pushed it against Paul’s chest. Wade lay on the leg in order to create the maximum stretch in Paul’s hip joint. After he finished with both legs, he urged Paul to sit up, with his legs splayed to either side. “Lean forward,” Wade instructed, “and try to imagine the stretch coming all the way from your pelvis.” As Paul tried to comply, Wade leaned against his back, pressing him much closer to the floor. Wade then moved back, and allowed Paul to sit up. “Cross your legs and fold your hands behind your head, and I’ll stretch your arms and shoulders. Paul obeyed. Now Wade put his arms over Paul’s akimbo arms, and pulled them backwards.

“Ahhhhhh....” Paul moaned. It hurt so good.

“You’re really very flexible, Paul,” Wade said. Usually men were as stiff as boards. 

“I’ve been doing yoga for years,” Paul mumbled.

Eventually, the stretching was done, but after it was over, Paul felt loose and relaxed. It was then that it happened. Wade began to message Paul’s neck and shoulders, to get at his sore muscles. The sensation was fantastic, and Paul was shocked and ashamed when he suddenly realized that he was fully aroused!


	67. Chapter 67

Paul returned home and rushed straight up the stairs and to the shower. Once safely in the shower, he started wanking with an intensity of need he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt relieved he had been able to get through the workout session without Wade figuring out about how Paul had reacted to him. That would have been utterly humiliating. Thank god for baggy sweatpants! He figured that going almost a week without sex was not such a great idea. Lack of sex had to be the reason why he’d been aroused by this bloke, Paul reassured himself. Thankfully, Wade was almost certainly heterosexual, and this meant there would be no awkward moments between them in the future. Paul would make sure of that. He would have to make overtures to Linda, and do it often, to avoid such solecisms in the future. 

Paul had a lot to think about. He did begin to wonder if he was going crazy. Why was he suddenly so insecure and depressed? What had triggered this complete breakdown of his usual formidable defense mechanisms? He couldn’t think of one big thing, but maybe it was a lot of little things? Mike commenting on how badly John had treated him and questioning his masculinity, not to mention John dragging out that old complaint about how bossy and controlling Paul was and so adamantly making it clear that he wanted independence from the restrictions of life with Paul and his ménage. And then there was the lingering sense of betrayal: Paul had figured out it wasn’t the fact that John cheated on him that he found so difficult to forgive, but the insensitive comments that John had made several times now in casual conversation and in therapy sessions about how young and strong Brad was, as if comparing Paul’s age and physical shape unfavorably. Paul felt if John had shouted the comments out at him as obvious insults during a fight, he might be able to dismiss the comments as John just trying to get at him. John often shouted out hurtful things he didn’t mean in the heat of the moment. But the fact that John made the comments in such a blasé, matter-of-fact way indicated that the comments were how John actually felt, or at least that is how Paul interpreted it. Then the worst shock of all - John not wanting to partner with him anymore! That was like a stake to his heart! Maybe John himself hadn’t yet figured out how much he wanted freedom from his life with Paul, but his words and actions were beginning to speak for him. That was it, Paul thought. John was making him feel that he was no longer worth the cost of the sacrifices John made to be with him. John made it sound as if Paul was suffocating him.

Paul decided that his depression was based on this fear, and he suspected his sudden need to feel better about himself through diet and exercise and how he looked was a way to salvage his ego, because in the end if John was through with him, there was nothing Paul could do to turn that around. Paul recognized all the signs from 1968. It was like 1968 all over again, minus the heroin and the legal and financial woes and the drama of new women pushing into their lives. Once John checked out, that was it. He cleared the board and started over from scratch. If that was the case, Paul could see no reason to hang around like a hopeful beggar. 

What Paul wondered about most was how fast his own disintegration had been. It had all happened inside of a week. He had been so high when John got back from New York - full of hope and love. But soon it was as if everything went down hill. Or was the high he felt before an artificial one? Had it been a last ditch effort to drown out the fears and suspicions that had been gathering in his mind for weeks - ever since John had betrayed him with Brad? Paul didn’t know, but he was in a quandary. He couldn’t keep John at bay forever. He didn’t feel he could talk about it with Linda, because she wouldn’t be able to be neutral, or give him objective advice. He also felt it would be disloyal to John. For whatever reason, he balked at the idea of talking about it out loud at all - even with Fiona. Talking out loud made it so much more real. 

But what was he going to tell John? He didn’t want to have sex with John. He not only felt hurt and betrayed, but he also felt extremely insecure and down on himself. Until just recently, he hadn’t thought twice about walking around naked in front of John. Now he’d rather die than let anyone see him naked. Maybe in a few months, if the diet and exercise worked, he could face his lovers again. Linda, at least, wouldn’t make a fuss if he insisted upon lights out, and if he put pajamas on after sex. She might not even notice it as something odd. But John - he was a real sexual animal. And he liked visual as well as physical cues when they were alone together. Maybe Paul should claim to be sick or something, but then how would he explain why he was still exercising? It was a quandary all right.

 

*****

 

It was Tuesday afternoon, and time for their session with Fiona. The drive over in the car had been a sullen affair. Paul had said nothing except one-word responses to John’s various attempts to open a conversation. John felt his blood pressure rising. This whole moody thing Paul was going through might just be the death of him! Then Paul would be sorry! John angrily crossed his arms and huffed in his seat. Paul endeavored not to notice it.

Fiona could feel the bad vibes even before they sat down. Paul was looking distant and bland, and John looked as though he wanted to throttle somebody, preferably Paul. She was not surprised by this, given the startling disclosure John had made at the last session about taking a break from their songwriting partnership. 

“I can see we’ve got a situation going on here,” Fiona said tactfully, after they all were comfortable in their seats. 

“Do we ever!” John declared angrily.

“So what’s going on?” She asked them both. Paul was looking at his hands. John took the laboring oar without delay.

“Paul’s being a dick.” 

Well, that was direct, Fiona thought. “John, no name-calling please. We’ve talked about this before - don’t characterize Paul, just explain how it feels to you.”

“He won’t talk to me, he won’t have sex with me, he won’t even sleep with me! We’re never alone! It’s been a full week now! And he’s doing all sorts of crazy shit, like wanting to dye his hair, and going on ridiculous diets, and going to the gym everyday. Linda and I are at our wits’ end!”

Fiona was first surprised, and then amused by John’s linking himself so solidly with Linda. In her experience, John had always held himself apart from Linda as much as possible. Responding directly to John she said, “Some of those things you listed are really very positive, I would have thought. As you grow older, diet and exercise are more important for your health. Why do you think they are ‘crazy’?”

“Because of the suddenness of it. He’s perfectly fine one day, and the next he’s going to dye his hair, and he’s drinking protein shakes, and going to a gym! He didn’t talk about these things with either Linda or me before he went out and did ‘em, and he hasn’t given either one of us much of an explanation for these sudden urges of his.” John looked very accusatory, and was again talking to Fiona and not to Paul.

Rather than correct John again, she turned to Paul and said, “Is this true? Have you not talked about these decisions with your wife and John?”

“It’s not true,” Paul said in a low, bored voice, as if he’d said it all several times before. “I told them I just wanted to feel better about myself. I don’t see what it has to do with them how I go about it. It isn’t hurting them, after all. It’s just something I felt like trying.” 

“Ask him about his hair! I think Linda and I should have some say in him dying his hair! We’re the ones who have to look at him!” John was thoroughly indignant.

“John, please, talk to Paul, not to me, and try to keep your voice civil. It only pushes Paul further away when you bluster like this.” Fiona’s admonishment was unusual for her, but she had said this to John so many times in more tactful ways, and he didn’t seem to get it into his thick head! Maybe a thump over the head with a 2’ x 4’ would work.

John did look a bit guilty, and he sat back in his seat. He dropped his voice but it was still pretty surly when he asked, “Well, Paul, why did you suddenly get it into your head to dye your hair, and why were you going to do it without letting Linda and me know first?”

“We’re talking about my hair, John. If it matters that much to me, I don’t see why you or Linda would be bothered by it. And I guess all I can say is, if you don’t want to look at me, don’t look at me. I’m not twisting your arm after all.” Fiona noted that Paul’s face had a stubborn set to it, and he appeared to be holding back a very strong visceral reaction to John’s words. 

John was clearly exasperated. He turned to Fiona. He couldn’t help it. “It’s like he’s deliberately misconstruing everything I say! He’s been doing this for days now!”

Fiona tried a new strategy. “Well, John, let’s say Paul was unable to tell you why he is doing these things. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you had to figure it out all on your own. What do you think might make him want to do these things, if it wasn’t simple self-improvement?” 

John was not to be reasoned with. “Ok, let’s assume that the hair and the diet and the exercise are simple self-improvement. So why isn’t he talking to me, or having sex with me, or even sleeping with me? Why won’t he be alone with me?” John was pissed that Fiona was making him answer the questions, and not Paul. Paul was the one who had wrongfully clammed up, after all. 

Fiona turned to Paul and asked, as if apropos of nothing, “How do you feel about John’s decision to work alone?”

Paul’s head jerked up. He hadn’t expected that. Before he could speak, John interrupted.

“I’ve explained it to him at least a half dozen times, but he refuses to talk to me about it. How can I work it out with him if he won’t engage?” John blasted.

Fiona ignored John. She just rephrased her question for Paul. “What are you feeling about John’s desire for a break from your songwriting? How does that make you feel?”

Paul was at sea. He wasn’t sure how to answer this in a way that would satisfy Fiona but still not reveal his true feelings. God forbid he should blurt out his true feelings. This whole thing was humiliating enough as it was. After a long pause during which John was tapping his fingers on the sofa arm and the clock ticking sounded unusually loud, Paul finally stumbled out a passable response. 

“Well, I think it is ironic that John is upset that I didn’t talk to him about dying my hair first, but feels it is appropriate to announce to me in a therapy session for the first time that he has decided to take a break from our partnership. My hair is my hair, but our partnership belongs to both of us.” 

John heard this, and of course took it in the way that would put Paul in a harsh light, rather than him. “That’s pretty juvenile Paul! Tit for tat? You’re upset about what I said, so instead of sitting down and talking with me about it, you go out and do something random and completely unrelated, and decide to dye your hair? I’ve always known you hate direct confrontation, and your methods of getting your way are kind of indirect and sometimes even sneaky, but this is ridiculous!”

Paul felt himself drowning. For a moment he had felt empowered by his little speech, but now he felt small and withered inside again. John had just called him juvenile, manipulative, unintelligible and ridiculous in one sentence! Paul didn’t feel as though it was safe to say another thing, if every thing he said would lead to such hurtful insults as these.

Fiona was furious with John. He was out of control. “John, I’m going to have to end this session if you don’t stop being abusive.”

John turned to Fiona with shock on his face. “Abusive?”

“Paul made a very logical comment, he compared what he did to what you did, and said he found irony in it. You responded with a laundry list of insults! I will end this session immediately if you do that again. Paul has to feel free to make his comments in this safe place without being assailed over them.” 

John was sobered by this threat. He was only so angry about the whole thing because he was scared shitless. He was terrified that Paul was drifting away from him. And what if Paul was trying to look better for someone else? Maybe he had his eye on someone other than Linda and him? That had occurred to John since Paul seemed totally uninterested in even flirting with him, much less getting cozy and physical. From what he had gleaned, Linda was in the same boat. John had a great respect for Paul’s sex drive. It was inconceivable to him that Paul could go a whole week without any sex unless he was ill, so what was he doing to satisfy his sexual urges? That is really what John wanted to know, but he didn’t want to look like an idiot making jealous accusing remarks in front of Fiona. 

“I’m sorry, Paul, and I’m sorry Fiona,” John finally muttered. “I’m so fucking frustrated. I don’t understand why I’m getting the cold shoulder. Okay, so I want to take a break from songwriting. I’m dry right now anyway! I never said I wanted to end our partnership! I’m hoping I’ll come back to it with new energy once I’ve had a break! I thought for sure Paul would have plenty of creative projects to work on while I was on my break. He always has at least a half dozen going at once, and only some of them are related to our partnership.”

Fiona, while irritated that John was again making his case to her instead of talking directly to Paul, was nonetheless relieved that John had taken her ultimatum so well. It was a very rare thing for her to have to do, but sometimes a therapist had to draw boundaries around the behavior of patients, especially when someone’s feelings could be badly hurt by it. 

“Paul, what do you think about what John has said?”

Paul was thinking, bullshit. In Paul’s experience, John always established a new life for himself before he abandoned the old one. He had done it to Cynthia with Yoko, he had done it to the Beatles with Yoko, he had done it to Paul with Yoko, he had done it to Yoko with May Pang, he had done it to May Pang with Yoko, and then he had done it to Yoko with Paul. Paul felt this ‘break’ thing was just another manifestation of John’s overall dissatisfaction with his life with Paul, and if he found another new life he liked better then he would dump Paul abruptly, when he no longer needed him. But Paul didn’t want to say that to Fiona, or to John for that matter. John would think he was paranoid (because John never seemed to know what he was up to until the very moment he made his new choices), and he didn’t want to be that vulnerable in front of either John or Fiona. “I understand what John means, I guess,” was all he could think to say. 

John had hoped for more. Some chink of light on the subject so he could start to make out the pattern. This was a serious moment in his relationship with Paul. John could not evade the truth of that reality. He wished he knew how to reach across this abyss that lay between him. Heck, he wished he knew why the abyss was there in the first place! Had it only been 10 days earlier when he had been gazing lovingly at Paul’s face, and adoring it - adoring him? Paul had seemed touched by it he thought, but had he said something wrong? 

“Can we talk about why he won’t let me touch him?” John asked. His voice was throbbing with emotion, and Fiona felt as though she was invading his privacy just to look at him. 

“Paul, do you mean to give John the impression that he can’t touch you?”

That was a hard one to scramble around, Paul admitted to himself. This was also intimate and embarrassing. He never talked about sex out loud with third parties. He didn’t really write too many lyrics about it - not graphic ones, anyway. It was such a private thing. But he saw John’s eyes. He appeared to be very torn up about it. Paul was not a hard-hearted person, and so he couldn’t give a flip response to such a moving question.

“I haven’t felt very sexual lately,” Paul said in a low voice. “I don’t like to talk about it. It’s private. It isn’t John’s fault, and it isn’t Linda’s fault. It’s just something I’m going through.” Paul’s face had been staring down at his hands throughout this quick exposition. 

“John is your lover, Paul,” Fiona said gently. “And Linda is your wife. It is natural for them to be worried and hurt by this if they don’t understand what is going on with you. They will naturally feel it as rejection, even if that is not what you intend.”

Paul swore at himself as he felt his eyes aching. He was not going to cry. He already felt sufficiently emasculated by this discussion of his secret need to look better and his reluctance to expose himself in sex. Now he had to have a third person - a woman - quizzing him about it? It was too much. He didn’t think he could come back to therapy under these conditions. Maybe he had been right when he thought therapy wasn’t for him. Here he’d been so faithful about sticking to it for months, but he was as screwed up inside now as he’d ever been in his whole life, save his nervous breakdown over the Beatles breakup and his first split from John. Fine job therapy had done for him. Well, there were only a few minutes left. Soon he’d be set loose from this cell, and he would be able to breathe again. 

“It is a very painful subject,” Paul said, still staring at his hands. “I really don’t want to talk about it here.” 

John was listening with his heart this time, and it dawned on him for the first time that maybe Paul was going through a period of impotency. It would certainly explain the hair dye, the diet, the exercise, the depression, the moodiness, the avoidance of physical intimacy, and the refusal to talk about it. Crap! Why hadn’t he thought of this before? John had gone through periods of impotency in the ‘70s when he was forced to have sex only with women, and he knew how it fucked up his head. He reached over and put his hand on Paul’s balled fists. 

“It’s okay babe, you don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry I’m such a blockhead.” John’s voice was sweet and gentle. 

Paul had to force himself not to burst out crying. He was lying to John, in a way, to get him off the trail. And so now John must think I’ve lost my mojo, and I’ll have to put up with the knowing and pitying looks. He’ll probably tell Linda, too. What a tangled web I’ve woven, he thought. 

Fiona decided this was a good time to stop the session. It had been very intense, and even though it was a little early, she honestly didn’t think Paul could take anymore. 

 

*****

 

On the ride home, John tried to reason with Paul. “It’s okay if you don’t want sex, Paul, really. I still want to sleep with you. I miss holding you.” 

Silence. Paul nodded a little but said nothing. John tried again.

“I’ve been impotent before. In the ‘70s - sometimes for months at a time. It was bad, I know how it feels.”

Paul knew he had to say something. “John, I’m not impotent.”

John at first assumed Paul was just being defensive. When he was impotent, he would have denied he was impotent too. “What if you were? It doesn’t last forever, you know. And there are things you can do...”

“I’m not impotent,” Paul repeated firmly. 

“You said you weren’t feeling sexual, so I assumed...”

“I think it is possible to not feel sexual without being impotent. In fact, I know it is, because that’s what I feel right now.”

John had to think about that for a moment. “How do you know if you’re not impotent, if you’re not having sex?” He asked.

“I can come, John, okay? This is very awkward for me. I wish you would take my word for it that it is something I’m going through, and I’m trying to work my way through it. Sometimes there just aren’t easy explanations for things.” Paul made a wide turn into the mews, and drove John up to his door.

“Please come in with me, Paul. Stay with me tonight. I really miss you.” John’s eyes were genuinely pleading with him, and Paul didn’t have the heart to say no. He put the gear in park, and removed his seatbelt. He nodded to John, who looked tremendously relieved. Paul followed John into the house. 

“I’ve got to call Linda and explain,” Paul said, and John nodded. He watched Paul as he went to the phone and dialed. 

John hoped a little alcohol would loosen them both up so they could talk more openly, so he poured Paul his favorite whiskey, and then poured his own glass. Soon Paul joined him in the sitting room, and he plopped down on the sofa next to John. He took the tumbler that John offered him, and then wondered what to do next. John solved the problem for him.

“Is it something that I’ve done, babe?” John asked, his heart in his eyes again.

Paul didn’t want to answer questions like these, which was why he had avoided John so assiduously for a week. “I told you, this is about me,” he said gruffly. “Why can’t you believe it?”

John was afraid to ask the question, but figured he might as well. He might as well know the truth. Even if Paul didn’t answer him honestly, he felt he would be able to see the lie. “Is there someone else, Paul?”

Paul looked startled. “Someone else?” He asked.

John was relieved by the reaction. The question had clearly surprised Paul. But he persevered. “Someone else you’re attracted to, or in love with, other than me and Linda.”

Paul had been attracted to Wade, but that, he thought, was just a weird symptom of going too long without sex and having Wade manipulate his body that way. “No,” Paul said definitely. “I would never cheat on you and Linda.” Paul even smiled a little. “Between the two of you, you’ve squeezed me dry. I’d have to be insane to go after a third lover.”

John actually looked hopeful and smiled a little. “I’d still like to be near you. I can’t promise I won’t get hard, but I promise I won’t try to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I just want to feel you next to me.” John’s words were like a prayer, and Paul watched his face as if he were studying a sacred text. In that moment, for a moment, Paul wondered if he had it all wrong. Maybe John still did love him after all?

Paul settled back in the sofa and said, “Why don’t you put your head in my lap? I’ll stroke your hair.” 

John quickly followed this instruction, and soon he felt Paul’s long, elegant fingers stroking his face and massaging his scalp. It felt heavenly. Paul was looking down into his eyes, and John looked back into Paul’s eyes. John tried to send a silent message: I want you, I need you, I love you.

Paul was dealing with the fact that he had a huge boner, and he was trying to disguise this from John, which was hard to do with John’s head in his lap. So much for avoiding sex with John... He had a snowball’s chance in hell.

 

*****

 

Paul had allowed John to pull him by his arm to the bedroom. John immediately began to undress in front of Paul without a second thought. Paul was frozen to the spot - suddenly aware again that he didn’t want to be seen naked. He quickly came up with a strategy. As nonchalantly as he could, he went to his closet and pulled out a bathrobe, and headed for the bathroom. He shut and locked the door. He didn’t trust John not to burst in to “surprise” him. He turned away from the mirror while he undressed. He didn’t want to see his wrinkles, his grey hair, his sagging stomach, or his skinny legs. If he saw those things, his cock and balls would immediately shrink to the size of three gumdrops. He made a lot of noise brushing his teeth and doing his evening ablutions so John wouldn’t be suspicious why he was so long in the bathroom. Then he came out, wrapped in the bathrobe. 

John did notice the bathrobe, but thought it was a tease. After all, he had felt Paul’s hard on as soon as it expanded - his head was lying on top of it for crap’s sake! He knew that he had lured Paul back into his web, and soon they would be having mad, crazy sex. He could hardly wait. A whole fucking week! The man was trying to kill him! But he lay in the bed, naked, with the sheet up to his waist, his arm akimbo and his head rested in the palm of the hand, and he grinned at Paul lasciviously. His promises not to push himself on to Paul sexually had vanished completely from his mind. 

What do I do now? Paul wondered. I don’t want to take this robe off with the light on and John staring at me. Paul quickly leaned over, and shut off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. He then quickly ditched the robe, and jumped under the covers.

“Hey!” John protested. “I like the light on!” He leaned over to his own bedside lamp and turned it on. “I want to see your beautiful face, babe, while we’re doin’ it.” 

Paul groaned inwardly. John would see all his wrinkles, and the jawline that was starting to sag, and the fucking grey hair... He said, “John, I need the light off, or I can’t do it.” 

John was dead silent and staring at Paul. “For real?” He asked, as if he couldn’t believe it. He loved to call Paul his ‘little nature boy’ because of his profligate nudity in the privacy of their bedroom. How odd. Now he wants the lights off. Oh well, it’s better than nothing, he reasoned. He turned the light off again, and then scooted over to Paul’s side of the bed, grabbing Paul greedily. He let his hands go wild, feeling every inch of Paul’s skin. It was a while before John noticed that Paul was stiff and losing hydraulics in his penis. What the fuck? “Baby, relax,” John cooed directly in Paul’s ear. “It’s okay, I’m just reacquainting myself with your body.” 

Paul’s eyes rolled up in his head. Now John was touching the flabbiest part of his stomach. Was he comparing it to the tautness of the younger man’s body? 

John decided maybe a blowjob would loosen Paul up. Poor baby. He needed some dedicated loving - that was for sure. He traced the little arrow of hair that pointed down to Paul’s nether regions with his tongue, and then teased Paul’s cock shamelessly. John was a first class cocksucker, and he knew it. He felt when he had Paul’s cock in his mouth the whole world was at his command. As he worked his magic, he heard Paul’s moans. He was prepared to just make Paul come, and he himself suffer in abstinence, but Paul suddenly jerked and pulled John back up until his head was on his pillow, and then climbed on top of him. 

Paul felt the jungle drums beating in his loins, and he simply could not just lie back and let John do all the work. At that moment he didn’t care if John thought he was a schlub or an aging weakling. In that moment he wanted to satisfy the eternal male urge - to enter a desired mate and fuck his or her brains out. 

John was absolutely delighted and overwhelmed by the realization that heaven’s light had finally decided to shine on him. He wrapped his legs around Paul’s waist and practically squeezed him to death with his arms. Every time Paul executed a thrust John felt his eyes rolling up in his head. 

Paul felt the familiar tautness as he pushed and pulled. It was too much for him to contemplate. The feelings just rolled over him. It didn’t take long at all for him to reach a climax. Just before he came, he pulled out as usual. Paul felt his toes curl with the orgasm as he leaned back into the cat’s stretch. He felt John’s body vibrating with the force of John’s hand slapping on his own penis, seeking an orgasm of his own. Paul forced himself to move back towards John, hovered over him briefly, and then began to assist John in his efforts. In a few more slaps the loud sounds of John coming filled the room; John was a very loud lover, and his sounds of passion were always a thrill to Paul. 

Exhausted, Paul flopped on to his back on the bed, and stared up to the ceiling in the darkened room. He was feeling a little disappointed by the fact that he had given in to his lust for John. If John loved him, then it was fine. But if John was just hanging in until he found a better situation, then Paul had yet again given into a weakness that would lead to an even greater hurt and humiliation in the future. Still, John did seem awfully cuddly and satisfied at the moment. There was no denying that. John had moved on to his side, put his arm around Paul’s chest, and his fingers were wistfully tracing Paul’s side. Within moments, John was breathing steadily. He was sound asleep. 

Paul waited for another half hour or so before slipping out from under John’s arm. He felt around for his bathrobe in the dark, put it on, and then went back to the bathroom to get dressed. He would shower at Cavendish when he got home. When he got downstairs, he went to John’s kitchen and left a note on the fridge. “I have to get up very early for my workout tomorrow, so I’ve gone home to Cavendish.” 

 

*****

 

Sam Lester had given a great deal of thought to how he should pass John’s message to Brad Chalmers. Like all of John’s other managers and advisors, Sam thought connecting with Chalmers was a bad idea. Best to make a clean break. But this decision had been made by someone in a higher pay grade, so he had no choice but to follow through with it. He had brainstormed a few times with Natalie, and the best they could come up with was for Natalie to meet Chalmers at a coffee shop, ensure that she wasn’t being recorded, and simply tell him that ‘Fred’ had gotten the letter, appreciated the kind words, and was in a committed relationship. Period. Then she was going to get up and leave. Later, she would deny saying any of those things if Chalmers went public. 

With their strategy in place, Natalie called Brad and made an appointment to meet him at a coffee shop in Manhattan not far from Sam’s office. It was 5 p.m., and Natalie was going to go straight home on the subway after talking to Brad. It was a bit cold-hearted, but really the man needed to be discouraged from bothering Lennon. He’d had his one-night-stand with a legend; he should be satisfied with that and call it quits.

On the day of the meeting, Natalie wanted to get there first, to make sure that Brad didn’t arrive with anyone else. The young man appeared on time, and he was alone. And, much to Natalie’s surprise, he bore a striking resemblance to a young Paul McCartney. Hmm, she thought. Very interesting.

He sat down across from her, his handsome face alight with hope. Suddenly she felt bad about what she had to do - crush his hopes. She hoped she would be able to be as cool and detached as she needed to be. 

“Hi - you’re Brad, right?” She asked unnecessarily. It was obviously Brad. He was wearing the Yankees shirt and the dark green windbreaker, just like he said he would be. 

Brad put out his hand politely. His parents had taught him manners when dealing with polite society. “Hi. You must be Natalie.” 

“Yes. I’m going to ask an awkward question, and I hope you will be honest with me.”

“Okay,” Brad said, mystified.

“You do realize it is illegal in New York to tape record a conversation with someone unless they agree to it, right?”

Brad didn’t know that, but why should he know it? He had never tape recorded anyone’s conversations before, and had never even considered doing it in all of his 24 years. But he nodded in the affirmative, not wanting to look stupid.

“So, if you are recording our conversation today, it would be a crime, because I do not give you permission to record me.” Natalie said this as kindly as she could, but she realized it would sound like a threat to Brad.

Brad’s eyes popped open. “I’m not recording anything! Why would I record it?” 

“Good. I just needed to make that clear, because I have a message for you that ‘Fred’ has asked me to give you.”

Brad’s face lit up with happiness and he sat forward eagerly. Probably his little heart was beating like crazy under his Yankees shirt. Natalie felt bad. She pulled out the piece of paper which had the carefully worded message written on it. She smiled apologetically and said, “I’m supposed to say it verbatim, sorry.”

Brad’s face had begun to freeze around the edges. He began to suspect this was not going to be the happy news he had been hoping for, based on the pitying expression on Natalie’s face.

Natalie read: “’Fred’ wants to thank you for your letter. He read it, and appreciates the kind words. But he wants you to know he is in a committed relationship, and it is quote, not open, unquote.” Natalie looked up. She pretended ignorance. “Does this make sense to you? I didn’t see your letter, so I don’t know what it means.” Might as well spare the boy’s pride, she thought.

Brad gulped. Of course he was pleased that John had read his letter and had thanked him for it, but he was deeply disappointed that John had just told him to back off. There would be no meeting, and no flying sparks. Part of Brad had already known this, but it was still devastating to hear it after being so hopeful just moments before. Brad nodded his head ‘yes’ that he understood it, and looked down at his hands. He didn’t want her to see his disappointment. 

Natalie took her cue, and said, “Well, I’ve got to get home. I have just enough time to catch the next train.” As she turned to leave she had a last thought. She turned around and said to the young man, “It may hurt now, but it won’t forever. Please take care of yourself, Brad.” Then she turned on her heel and headed out the door as quickly as she could, trying not to look like a rat leaving a sinking ship.


	68. Chapter 68

John was in the office that he had decorated for Paul, but which Paul never really used. Paul was so attached to Cavendish, that John had never really been able to make Paul feel at home there. Four weeks had passed since the night Paul had snuck out in the night to go back to Cavendish, leaving John to wake up in the morning alone. The next day, John had questioned Paul about it, but Paul had assured him it was because of needing to be near to his workout gear in the early morning. John didn’t know if it was true, and he had no evidence to disprove it. Still, John had been hurt by what he thought of as Paul’s desertion. 

John had begun to rue the day he had impulsively announced his ‘break’ from his partnership with Paul. He had become convinced that Paul was bitter and angry about it, and instead of coming out and saying so, was playing a withholding game. Paul had decided to “take a break” from therapy after the session when John had forced him to ‘out’ his sexual issues. While John had managed to persuade Paul to go visit Fiona on his own, to give her a chance to talk him out of taking the break, Fiona had been unsuccessful, even after suggesting he come alone for a while. Paul had shut down entirely and told her very politely but also very firmly that he needed a break from therapy, and would let Fiona know if and when he was ready to resume.

Fiona was left going over her notes and memories, trying to understand where she had gone wrong, and what she could have done differently. She had tried to keep John from attack mode, but better men and women than her had tried and failed to contain John Lennon’s kneejerk reactions. Ultimately, she had to hope that Paul would right himself, and would then be able to face her - or some other form of therapy - again. She was pretty sure that Paul was horribly embarrassed about being forced to talk about his sexual problems, and couldn’t face her anymore because of it. 

John at least had continued to come to his sessions twice a week, and had provided her with a running commentary on the problems he was encountering getting “genuine reactions” out of Paul. He had told her that Paul wasn’t impotent, but for whatever reason was “acting weird” about sex. “He won’t let me see him naked,” John had complained. “It’s like suddenly all the lights are off, and he’s undressing in the fucking bathroom. This is Paul! The man has always paraded around half-dressed at home, and sometimes naked! It’s like he suddenly is, well, ashamed of his body or something.”

Fiona tried to shove the enticing image of a naked Paul prancing around a bedroom out of her brain, and said, “Let’s talk about that a bit, shall we? I was thinking this myself. The hair-dying idea, the dieting and exercising...It sounds to me as if he is horribly self-conscious about the way he looks. Has he ever been that way before?”

John had considered the question and then responded, “When I first met him, he was self-conscious about his weight. And for years - even to this day - he will say he was ‘a fat schoolboy’ when we first met. But Fiona, I swear, Paul was not fat when I met him! He wasn’t as thin as he was later - when he had grown several inches - but he wasn’t anything close to fat! He did tell me once that his brother and some of his friends had called him ‘fatty’ when he was 13, so apparently he had been plump then, and I could tell that he was very self-conscious about it. But you know, that was 1957, 1958 - that was 35 years ago!”

Fiona was trying to find a tactful way to ask the question. She finally settled on something more direct, because she didn’t know how to make it less direct. “Has Paul gained weight recently? He always wears these bulky sweaters these days, and I can’t tell if he just likes bulky sweaters, or if he is hiding a weight gain.”

John thought about it. If he was going to be honest he did think Paul had gained a bit of weight in the last few years. And he seemed to be developing jowls under his chin. John hadn’t been bothered by it, and hadn’t thought Paul had cared either until just recently. “Maybe a little,” John said. “But it’s part of getting older, isn’t it? I mean, we’re never going to be as lithe as we were when we were young. I’ve gained weight too.” 

Fiona considered this response. “Do you suppose he thinks he is unattractive? Do you think that is what is bothering him?”

John found this almost impossible to believe. Both he and Linda literally adored the man's looks! Maybe they didn’t compliment him enough, but it was only because he already had a big head. Why make it bigger? But then John remembered the night he had focused on Paul’s face, and showered him with compliments on it. Paul had seemed...uncomfortable...like he didn’t want John to look at him too closely, and he didn’t seem to believe the compliments. “It could be, although it would be ridiculous if he thought so,” John responded slowly. 

“We none of us see ourselves the way others see us,” Fiona opined. “We’re usually much harder on ourselves than others are.”

John had to admit that appeared to be true, from his experience. “But...why would he all of a sudden be struck down by this insecurity? Why would it come out of nowhere like that?”

Fiona sighed. “I don’t know. And as long as he avoids therapy, it is doubtful that any of us will know, including Paul.”

 

*****

 

John stopped trying to write as he went into yet another reverie about his attempts to reach out to Paul. And thus far, overall, John’s attempts at writing prose were sporadic at best. He had finally resorted to pulling out some of his journals, and considered writing a memoir. But he kept coming up against the major obstacle; the obstacle that always got between him and truth. What point was there in writing a memoir if he had to leave out the most meaningful part of his life? Was he going to write a whole bunch of garbage about the “four fabs” and their adventures, and describe Paul as his ‘friend and songwriting partner?’ And then there was that confidentiality agreement with Yoko... What was the point of a memoir if it was a big fat lie? He was about to declare defeat on his writing project. He should have known it would end like this. He didn’t have Paul’s stick-to-itiveness. Just about any thought could distract him, and there was a hypercritical voice in his head telling him all of his ideas and prose were crap, thus killing the wee things before they were fully born. 

And, truthfully, John had a lot of real bad stuff to distract him, the worst being the state of his relationship with Paul. Funnily enough, he and Linda had become comrades-in-arms in the wake of Paul new moods. They were always comparing notes about Paul’s weird and secretive behavior. Sometimes they were convinced he was having an affair - cheating on them both! - and other times they were convinced that he was just going through a midlife crisis. John had even asked Paul about this one night when he had consented to spending an evening with him. Paul had looked amused. “In order to be in midlife now, I’ll have to live to be 102,” he had quipped.

Paul had stuck to his ridiculous diet, and was now going every day but Sunday to his private workout sessions. John could see that Paul had lost some weight, because the bulk around his neck and chin had disappeared, but he was still wearing the same bulky sweaters and roomy pleated pants, so it wasn’t clear what good all that dieting and exercise was doing. John might have been able to judge it better if Paul didn’t hide in the dark and under the covers when they had sex. At least they were having sex a few times a week, which was an improvement. Linda reported the same. So it appeared as though Paul was getting it 4 times a week. That was a lot by normal people standards, but since Paul used to have sex almost every single day, and sometimes more than once per day, it was yet a matter for concern. 

John threw his pencil down. There was no point sitting there pretending to write. He was going to go over to Paul’s and tell him he was through pretending to be a writer, and that he was ready to start songwriting again. John hoped that this would cause Paul to snap out of his sketchy ways. As he walked down the mews, and across Paul’s garden, he was giving himself a pep talk. He was going to give Paul what he wanted - his songwriting partner back - and then he was going to get to the bottom of everything! He shouted as he opened the French door into the sitting room: “Hello! I’m here!” He felt he owed this courtesy to Linda. He didn’t want to just barge in without announcing himself. Linda could be heard calling from the kitchen:

“Hi John!” 

He headed for the kitchen and found her preparing eggplant for grilling, stretching out the milky white meat of the marrow on wire racks and shaking salt over them to sweat out the bitterness from them before roasting. Linda had given up trying to dissuade Paul from his diet, and had found a bunch of diet-recipes for them both and was trying to eat less, too. “If you can’t beat him, join him, it’s my new motto,” Linda had joked. John had intended to do the same, but he got too hungry, and it reminded him too much of his last years in the Dakota so on Linda’s nights with Paul he tended to sneak out with friends to eat carbs and meat by the forkful. What Paul doesn’t know won’t hurt him was his (less honorable) motto. When Paul was over at John’s he had to eat like a monk, so John felt he was entitled to his dietary promiscuity. Lord, he wished Paul would get over his stupid diet!

“Where’s Paul?” John asked. He immediately sat down in a chair, absolutely at home in Linda’s company now. The two of them were like allies. How strange the world was. 

Linda sighed heavily. “Will you believe he went back to that gym for a second workout today? He says he’ll be home for dinner, though.”

John slapped his forehead. Then it occurred to him: there was no law against him going to this gym and seeing what Paul was up to, was there? “Lin,” John said, “What if I just dropped by this gym of his to pretend I wanted to join too? I could check out what he’s up to.” 

Linda gave it only a moment’s thought. “You have a perfect right to check it out to see if you’re interested,” she said encouragingly. “And if you happen to see what Paul is up to, well, that can hardly be helped, right?”

John laughed outright and said, “Linda, you’re a real broad.” 

“Why, thank you,” she chirped cheerfully. “So, I assume you’ll be home in time for dinner too?” Her eyes were dancing merrily.

“I need the address first,” John pointed out. 

Linda had already sussed it out, just to make sure Paul wasn’t cheating on her. She gave John the address. It was on the high street in St. John’s Wood, a short distance away. 

“See ya later, baby!” John shouted over his shoulder as he headed for the front door. 

James happened to be coming down the stairs at that moment and did a double take. Whoa! Did John just call his mother ‘baby’? 

 

*****

 

John walked the four blocks to the gym. It was just after 5 p.m. on a cold but not rainy December night. John had bundled up in a nice warm coat and scarf before leaving, but was shivering by the time he pulled open the door to the gym. As he approached the door he had heard the pounding sound of beat music emanating from the building. When he stepped in to the gym he could see a good thirty or so men and women running on treadmills and lifting weights. He walked casually around the perimeter of the room, and did not see Paul there. John’s suspicious mind was beginning to activate. The gym was a beard! Paul was up to some nefarious affair behind his and Linda’s backs! John felt the nagging call of nature, and headed for the men’s locker room. As he went down a hallway, he noted a door with the sign ‘private training room’ hanging on it. There was no window in the door, so if John wanted to see what was going on, he’d be forced to barge into the room. Paul would find that very odd indeed if he were in there. Thinking furiously, John first used the bathroom, and then stood outside the private training room door working up his nerve to barge in. Finally, curiosity got the best of him. He banged on the door, and then cautiously opened it. What he saw set off a flurry of bells and whistles. Paul was lying on his back on the floor, and a tall, extremely fit young man was leaning on Paul’s leg, and appeared to be all over Paul’s chest. John stood there with his mouth open, looking outraged. Paul couldn’t see John from where he was, but the young man turned to John and said,

“This is a private training session. Can I help you? If so, can you wait outside?” 

Paul squirmed around so that he could see around his trainer and saw John standing in the doorway staring at him. “John! What on earth are you doing here?” 

Wade turned to Paul and said, “You know him?”

Paul kind of pushed Wade away, and so Wade abruptly remembered that he was in the middle of stretching Paul’s hip, let go, and got to his feet. Paul lifted himself up on to his elbows and demanded, “John, why are you here?”

John was slowly coming back to earth. Paul looked angry and embarrassed, but he didn’t look guilty at all. John sputtered for a few seconds before saying, “I just came to check out the gym. You like it so much, and I thought I might like to come here, too.”

By now Wade had put two and two together and saw Lennon & McCartney. He stepped forward with a warm ingratiating grin and an open hand. “Hello, Mr. Lennon, I’m Wade Matthews. I am very honored to meet you. I’m the personal trainer here. I’ve been working with Paul.” 

Paul was struggling to his feet. From this distance John could see that Paul - in his form fitting workout clothes - was looking pretty good. He was less plump around his face and his middle. Clearly, he had been working out. But why was that man laying on top of him?

“What were you doing just now?” John asked Wade abruptly. He could hear Paul making an annoyed noise in the background. 

“Hmmm? Oh, stretching. I help my clients stretch for a few minutes both before and after the workout.” 

John looked at Wade out of the corner of his eye. He was dubious. “And just what were you stretching exactly? You were laying on top of him!”

“John!” Paul complained. He was mortified. John ignored him, and so did Wade.

Wade was beginning to get the message that John was accusing him of doing something...inappropriate...with Paul. He blushed a little at the thought. “His hip joint,” Wade said quickly. “I take the leg, bend it, lean it against the client’s chest, and push it down as close to the chest as possible with my body weight, and then I move it one direction and the other. It loosens up the hip joints.” He was speaking a little too fast and tripping over his words in his hurry to disabuse Lennon of that embarrassing notion.

John’s heart rate began to go back to normal, but now Paul was pissed. “Wade, can you leave us alone for a few minutes?” 

Wade looked from Paul to John and back to Paul. Then he said, as if it just occurred to him that they were waiting for an answer, “Oh! Yes, of course!” He walked (cautiously) around John, and escaped through the door, closing it firmly behind him. He was at a loss once he was outside. Should he stay and guard the door so no one interrupted them? But what if he could hear what they were saying - wouldn’t that be a terrible invasion of their privacy? Wade then shook his head. What made him think that? They’re a couple of blokes - friends. Nothing they could be saying to each other would be that embarrassing!

“John, what’s going on? Are you spying on me?” Paul was angry, but John was distracted by Paul’s improving physique. 

“Why are you covering yourself up at home Paul? You look really hot.” John said.

“John...” There was a warning tone in his voice. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“I just wanted to know why you’re here all the time,” John said, his face a study in false innocence. 

“Just checking up to make sure I’m not lying about it, is that it?” Paul’s hands were on his hips now. 

“Well, you have to admit you’ve been really squirrelly lately. I mean, covering up in bulky sweaters and bathrobes, and hiding under the covers in the dark? Naturally Linda and I...”

“Linda?” Paul’s voice was alarmed. “What has Linda got to do with this?”

John felt bad. He hadn’t meant to implicate Linda in his little plot to check up on Paul. “Well, I’m pretty sure Linda wants to know why you’re acting like this, too. It only stands to reason...”

“John, did you and Linda hatch this idea to come check up on me?” Paul was trying to hide from John how amusing this was to him: John and Linda finally bound together by a single thought - let’s nail Paul cheating!

“It was entirely my idea,” John said grumpily. This was true, to a point. After all, Linda had just opined that it wasn’t a bad idea; she hadn’t suggested it herself. 

Paul’s expression softened. “So, this is the gym, and that was my trainer. Coming here regularly makes me feel better. There’s nothing ‘squirrelly’ about it, John.” 

John felt a little ashamed of himself until he remembered how handsome and fit and young the trainer was. Was Paul trying so hard to look young so he could be attractive to this trainer? Is that why he wanted to dye his hair? A shrewd look came into John’s eyes, and this put Paul on high alert.

“So, Wade’s a babe.” It was a comment. But it was meant to prod a reaction out of Paul.

Paul saw this coming. “No, John, we’re not having an affair. Wade’s straight. He’s just a personal trainer, and I’m just his client.”

John said sheepishly, “I didn’t say I thought you were having an affair.”

“No, you were just thinking it,” Paul chuckled. “Look, all’s well that ends well. Are you really interested in joining the gym, or was that just a ploy to do your reconnoiter?” Paul’s eyes were dancing with mischief.

John was getting pissed off about that. He didn’t like to look like the foolish one. “No, I don’t want to join.”

“Then let’s get out of here and go get dinner, you big goofball,” Paul laughed, leaning over to pick up his gym bag and sling a towel around his neck. He then headed out the door, and John followed him, feeling stupid. 

 

*****

 

Paul had begun to recuperate from his funk after John’s behavior at the gym. He had not only been amused by John’s jealousy, but reassured by it as well. He began to think his head must’ve been in a very strange place to read such dark things into John’s words, which were relatively harmless when you examined them individually and objectively. What’s more, as they had walked back to Cavendish that night, John had informed Paul that he was thinking of giving up writing the great novel for the time being. He was ready to get back to work writing songs. Paul had tried to be sympathetic and say all the right consoling things, but he doubted that he had been very good at concealing his happiness. 

And he was right. John had felt the excitement literally vibrating out of Paul’s springy step. John had smiled secretively to himself. If he were a betting man, he would put money on the proposition that he and Linda were about to get their Paul back.

 

*****

 

Paul was in the fucking bathroom again. John was getting tired of this routine. He was lying patiently on the bed, but enough was enough! Suddenly John’s eyes flew open with a mischievous ‘aha’ moment. He hopped up and headed for the bathroom. He was preparing to bash down the bathroom door if he had to, but surprisingly Paul had failed to lock it and the door flew open.

Paul was caught in flagrante. His back was to the mirror and he was just removing the last article of clothing - his undershirt. He froze in shock and immediately pulled his undershirt down to hide his stomach.

“Oh for cripe’s sake Paul!” John shouted. He grabbed the shirt away, exposing Paul’s full frontal nakedness. “I’m not putting up with this foolishness anymore! I like looking at you, Paul, and refusing to let me see you naked is just another form of withdrawal!” John, too, was naked as he stood his ground in the bathroom doorway. His palms were now propping up his lower back, and his eyebrows were lowered in frustration.

Paul felt stupid covering up his nakedness, so he faced John bravely, throwing up his arms as if in hallelujah. “Well have a look then!” Paul shouted back.

The two men faced each other in outraged indignation for a few moments, and then suddenly they both started snickering and then laughing. John moved a few steps into the bathroom, and grabbed Paul by his waist, and pulled him into his arms. Paul’s arms just naturally fit around John’s shoulders. They hugged each other fiercely. John pulled away first, although his hands remained on Paul’s waist. “Come on to bed,” John growled, and then, holding Paul by the wrist, pulled Paul behind him to the bed. 

Paul winced when he noticed that the bedside lamp on John’s side was on, and he must have looked at it too long because John caught his eye direction and said,

“No. We’re doing it my way tonight. The light stays on.” 

Paul might have caviled at that, but the things John was doing to him after he laid back on the bed were too distracting. Paul was a little suspicious. John was really laying on the foreplay. While of course both men enjoyed foreplay to a point, it had never been as strictly necessary for their arousals as it appeared to be for women’s. For this reason, Paul was a little suspicious. 

John did have a scheme in mind. He was going to make love to every part of Paul’s body. Clearly, the man was not happy with his body right now, and to John this seemed almost a sacrilege, and he hoped to put that “foolishness” to bed once and for all. Literally. 

He started with the area that Paul seemed most insecure about: his ‘core.’ John chuckled to himself as he thought of that word, ‘core.’ This amusing diversion was but a fleeting thought to John, who once again focused his five senses on Paul’s body: his fingers to touch, to feel the smooth warmth that was Paul’s skin; his ears to hear the slight moans and swallowed groans from Paul’s throat; his mouth to taste the slight saltiness of Paul’s skin; his nose to smell the aromas that he so associated with Paul - more clean and citrusy than musky; and his eyes to see into the very depths of his lover’s soul through the dark green mystery of Paul’s own eyes. 

Paul was self conscious as he felt John lavishing attention on his stomach. He wished that John would just skip over that part, and move on to other, more flattering parts of his body. But John had a mind of his own - no one knew this better than Paul - and John seemed to be endlessly fascinating with the slight roll of flab there. Paul’s hands were impatient. He tried to encourage John’s hands to move away from his stomach, but John quickly brushed Paul’s hands away, causing Paul to bring his left hand forearm up to lay on his forehead. He was quite stressed out. 

“Relax, Pud,” he heard John order. It was an order, but in a gentle - even a patient - voice. “I’m taking my time. Just lay back and enjoy it.” This harkened Paul’s memory back to the lyrics of “You Want It Too,” and he couldn’t help smirking a bit at the irony of it. 

Instead of moving lower, which was John’s usual M.O., this time he moved higher - as his tongue swept up the stomach muscles to the chest. Nipples. Paul loved his nipples! His mouth took on the left one first - the one closest to Paul’s heart. He licked around the areola first. 

Paul could hardly breath while waves of erotic sensations washed over him. He didn’t know why his nipples were so sensitive, but he had long since accepted this about himself. And how like John to know instinctively (as he always had known) that this was his Achilles Heel. John was a genius at finding his Achilles Heels, both literal and figurative. He sucked in his breath and he began to feel little bites - like feints - on first one nipple and then the other, in random attacks. He never knew which nipple was going to get it next. This was both anxiety-inducing and exhilarating.

John truly did worship Paul’s body. It had finally dawned on him that he had not adequately expressed this to the object of his desire, and he vowed to himself he would not make that mistake ever again. With this thought in mind, he began to feather Paul’s upper chest and then his neck with light kisses. Sometimes they were little series of kisses moving in a straight line; then suddenly they would become random kisses, delivered to any part of the readily available anatomy. He could feel Paul’s body gently writhing below him, and this excited John, encouraging him to continue in his exploration. He made his way up until his face hovered over Paul’s. A sweet smile wreathed his face, and Paul was captured by it, his own face asking the silent question: ‘what’s going on here?’

“I said or did something that made you feel bad about yourself.” John’s voice was a whisper. “What was it? Because whatever it was, you misunderstood.” 

Paul didn’t respond verbally. His eyebrows rose ever so slightly, as if questioning John’s statement.

John read this subtle movement as if it were flashing on a billboard. “Yes, you did misunderstand. I say things clumsily sometimes. I say things that other people misunderstand. I don’t mean to do it, I guess it just comes naturally.” John’s eyes softened in amusement. 

Paul’s mouth curved on both ends, suppressing a knowing smile. His eyes warmed up after John’s self-deprecating remark.

Encouraged, John continued. “What was it? Did I call you ‘old’ at some point? You seem obsessed with looking younger.”  
John watched as Paul’s eyes narrowed and deepened in doubt. John’s thumb reached up and smoothed out the edge of Paul’s left eye. He wanted to erase the suspicion from Paul’s face. “We’re both older, babe, but between the two of us you are by far the more beautiful one. Why do you worry? Do you think for one moment that I want someone else - someone younger? Someone who is not you?” John’s question hung in the intimacy of the air around them for a few moments before John answered his own question. “Because I don’t want anyone but you.” 

Paul winced. He knew this last statement to be a lie. John had wanted someone else, and had acted on it. 

John saw the skepticism taking over the doubt in Paul’s face. Damn! What did I say wrong now? “It’s true!” John insisted, making himself more comfortable by falling over on to his side on the mattress next to Paul, and then leaning over Paul’s chest. He needed to advocate for himself now, and the foreplay would continue afterwards, hopefully. John’s brain raced. It was obvious that Paul didn’t believe him when he said he only wanted Paul...so it had to be that whole stupid Brad thing. This did surprise John, because he thought that Paul had put the whole thing behind him. He had thought Paul’s only remaining concern was whether the episode would become public. It had been weeks now since it had occurred to him that perhaps Paul was still emotionally wounded over the fact that he had actually had sex with the young man. Young. How on earth could he climb out of this stupid hole he’d dug for himself?

“Pud,” John whispered, his voice suddenly infused with a kind of desperate persuasiveness. “This isn’t about Brad is it?”

Paul winced again at the mention of that name. He turned his face to the side, hiding his eyes from John. 

“Oh, God,” John groaned, “that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Still?”

Paul heard the word “still” and had to stop himself from pushing John off of him so he could storm out of the room. He began to breath heavily. He was filled with anger and resentment. How could John be so heartless as to believe such a betrayal could be so easily forgotten? 

“Paul?” John’s voice had lost all of its confidence. “I told you - it was nothing to me. Nothing.”

Paul felt hot tears leaving the side of his eyes. One stream fell down on to the pillow, and the other ran along the inside of his nose, down to his upper lip, and then ended up on his bottom lip. He cleared his throat in order to say more clearly, “It was something to me, though.” 

John was staring at Paul’s broken face. I did this to him. I’m such a fuckin’ mess-up. I always hurt the people I love the most. Why the hell do I do that? In hot moments such as these he would momentarily forget what he had learned in therapy. And tonight was no exception. Shortly after his despairing self-directed questions, John remembered what he had learned in therapy: that he felt deeply undeserving of love and loyalty, and feared desertion so much that he self-sabotaged by chasing his loved ones away before they could desert him. Could it be that I am still driven by this deep psychological fear after all the years of therapy? The answer was, apparently, yes. These thoughts chased their way around John’s stressed mind before finally coming to rest. How to fix what he had broken? 

Paul had waited in bitter silence while John seemed to chew over and then digest his revelation. It had been ‘something’ to Paul. It had been something he was able to push away when dealing with the immediate aftermath, and in salvaging his pride, but when all the dust had settled, the hard ball of pain remained. He was ashamed of this ball of pain. He hated to give in to that small voice of self-hatred he had nursed inside him since he was a fat schoolboy. Friends and cousins (and his brother!) who had once treated him as someone special were suddenly making fun of him. ‘Fatty’ had become his nickname. Just a year earlier he had been a popular boy in the popular crowd. Suddenly he was hanging on the fringes of the popular crowd, as a kind of tolerated mascot, getting by on charm and self-abnegating humor. His brother had brought the taunts home with him, so he was never free of it. Of course their mother had admonished his brother, and told him to stop, but Mike’s eyes gleamed with joy as he mouthed ‘fatty’ across him at the dinner table. This, no doubt, was to make up for the years Paul had bossed him around, and treated him as a sidekick. This had been Mike getting his own back. 

“Paul,” John’s voice was a groan now. “Look at me. Please.”

Paul brought himself back from his dark memories, and slowly turned to meet John’s gaze. What he saw there was a wrenching sight for the softhearted man. Paul was softhearted. But he knew in that instant that being softhearted could be a vice as well as a virtue. After that experience as a child, he had never let anyone else treat him the way John had been treating him in the last few years. Hell. Who was he kidding? John had treated him badly since the day they met: that little snide comment about his carnation and his white dinner jacket. It was almost the first thing he said to me, Paul remembered. He started out the way he meant to go on, and I just stood there and took it, as if there were different rules of human interaction that apply only to John. And here I am lying flat on my back, waiting to ‘take it’ literally! Paul gently pushed John aside as he struggled to sit up. He leaned over and turned on the lamp on his side of the bed too. The room was suddenly brighter and less forgiving. He turned to face John. The expression he gave John was grave. 

“I think I just reached my fill,” he said flatly.

“What does that mean?” John asked, his heart beating harshly.

“I can’t take anymore, John.” Paul’s face was as serious as a funeral.

John felt a self of panic rushing over him. “Take what anymore?” He asked, although a part of him knew what Paul meant.

“For lack of a better word - the abuse. I guess I’ve run out of excuses for the things you do to me. I’m always hopeful that this time will be the last time, but it never is.”

“I don’t know what else I can say to make you understand how meaningless that whole thing was!” John was desperate now.

“I’ve tried to understand. I really have. I’ve almost convinced myself of it, actually. But I don’t understand. I’ve been good to you. I’ve been honest with you, and within the accepted bounds of our relationship I’ve been faithful. Sometimes it has been hard, and I’ve been tempted, but I have never done anything to you to deserve all the shit you’ve shoveled on me.” 

John would have felt better if Paul’s face weren’t so blank or his voice so calm. If Paul had been hysterical or sobbing in despair, John may have felt less panicked inside. “Paul?” There was a world of bathos in John’s voice.

“I have tried to put this last one behind me, but you keep poking me with it!” Paul’s voice was more assertive now.

“Poking? What am I poking you with?” John desperately wanted to understand - to work it out.

“This - person - you went with. He was younger and stronger than me, and you had no problem rubbing my nose in that, even in front of other people! You flaunt his fucking name in front of me as if he were some mutual friend of ours! You feel sorry for him, and communicate with him, even after he fucking raped you! And don’t you dare make excuses for him to me! Don’t you dare! I saw how broken you were afterwards. I haven’t forgotten or forgiven! How do you think this makes me feel? And why do I have to explain it to you? I know when you’re in pain, how can you not know when I’m in pain? How? Tell me how!”


	69. Chapter 69

John swore he could feel every muscle in his chest as he struggled to catch his breath. Paul had just told him how blind he had been, how cruel he had been, and he hadn’t even realized it while he was doing it. 

“See, the difference between us,” Paul said a moment later (after listening intently to John’s heavy breath for a few seconds), ‘is that you would never have to explain such things to me. I would know before I cheated the harm that I would do, and that harm would be too painful for me to contemplate. No matter how tempted I might be, I would have a hard time giving in. And if I was weak and I gave in, I would feel so guilty, it would never go away.” 

John was still speechless. It was as if Paul was finally revealing himself, and under the sheep-like, baby-faced exterior was the intensity of a stalking jaguar: yellow green eyes shining in the dark night. “Paul, I do feel guilt...”

“Not enough to last. Not enough to keep you from hurting me again and again.” Paul’s indictment fell like an axe on John’s fragmenting self. “The part I don’t understand the most is why I stand for it. Why do I feel like I have to take this treatment, and swallow the pain, and pretend like it never happened? Sometimes I fear that I have Stockholm syndrome.” Despite the seriousness of most of his words, Paul chuckled at this last observation. 

“You’re no pushover, Paul,” John finally managed. “You give as good as you get.” He was starting to be angry. The anger always came fast on the heels of fear. That was how John’s mind worked. 

“You think so?” Paul asked, staring at John in frustration. “You want me to tell you how I feel, right? Isn’t that what you have been asking from me forever? I’m telling you how I feel now, and you minimize it?” 

John ran his hand over his eyes, and felt defeat warring with his self-protective anger. He could respond with anger, but he decided to make a joke instead. “Yeah, I wanted to hear your feelings, but only the good ones.” He gave Paul his close-mouthed fool’s smile.

Paul recognized this as a kind of twisted olive branch - the kind only John could get away with. He checked his own smile, and instead looked down at his hands. He gentled his voice. “I should blame myself, not you,” he said softly. “I let this happen. I’ve been so afraid of losing you again, that I haven’t stood up for myself.” 

John said, “I never felt as though you weren’t standing up to me, Paul.” His face and voice were earnest and a little prayerful. “I’ve always felt you’ve held your own.”

Paul sighed deeply. “I must have been faking it then,” he admitted. “I hate to look weak.” 

John forgot for a moment to worry about his own fears. He was too deeply curious about what Paul had said. “You’re not weak, Paul, you’re the strongest person I know.” His voice and expression were sincere.

Paul nodded slightly without speaking. But then, after several moments, he said, “John, I’ve never been as strong on the inside as I must appear on the outside. Haven’t you figured that out about me yet?”

John was staring at Paul now, his mouth hanging open. This was another freaky moment. He remembered others, when Paul had tried to show him his fears, his insecurities. What had John done all those other times? He had been filled with fear - terror really - to see his rock wavering, as if it were balancing on the edge of a cliff. All those other times, somehow John had done and said things that had helped Paul sweep it all under the rug, and then they’d quickly been able to go right back to business as usual. How had he manipulated this in the past? John desperately needed to know, even as he swore at himself for being so self-centered in the past, because he didn’t want to repeat that pattern. This time he wanted to react the right way. John decided he would do the opposite of whatever his mind told him to do. Right now his brain was telling him to reach out to Paul and try to sweet talk him. What was the opposite of that? John felt tears burning his eyes. His mind told him to force them back. After a blank moment of thought, John did the opposite. He allowed the tears to flow.

“Paul, I’m so sorry. I really am. I’ve spent years in therapy, and I’m still as fucked up now as I was before I started!” 

“I don’t think you do any of this on purpose,” Paul responded. “But that is what is so hard for me to deal with. If I knew you did this stuff on purpose, I would have left you long ago. You’re not a mean person. You’re not a hard person. This only makes it more difficult for me to not forgive you when you hurt me...”

“What’s so wrong with forgiving me?” John asked, his heart in his mouth.

“It is a virtue to forgive, I know, but how many times do I have to forgive a person for basically the same thing before I realize that he is not really my friend?” Paul’s voice broke on the word “friend,” and he felt a kind of chill hovering over him. He knew he was saying words that might very well lead to the end of his life with John. In the past, he’d stopped short at that precipice, not wanting to live without John in his life. But if living with John meant feeling like total shit, and hating his own face in the mirror, and worrying what new treachery was coming next - well, his heart wasn’t strong enough to live like that anymore. 

John felt things slipping out of control. He raced around his brain, trying to think of a strategy, a tactic, even a spark of an idea to stop the inevitable from happening. “Of course I’m your friend, Paul, I’d do anything for you.”

“Except be loyal to me. That you could never do.” 

“Not true! Not true!” John virtually yelped in fear.

“Stu Sutcliffe? Remember him? And Brian Epstein? Whose name went first on the credits, John, and how did that happen? How many times did you put me down in front of other people? Do you remember telling that reporter that I was the worst actor in our movie?”

John dismissed that comment. “You were the worst actor of us! What’s the big deal?”

“You’re missing the point. Why was it so important for you to tell the whole world that, even if it was the truth?” Paul’s voice sounded dull now, as if he had given up hope of ever explaining his feelings to John in a way that he would not only understand, but also internalize. “You wanted to make me look and feel small. That’s just one silly example. You’ve done it a lot, John. And the thing is, you did make me feel small, every single time. I just had to work overtime not to show it. Remember what you said about my song, ‘Yesterday’?” 

John was staring at Paul as if he had never seen him before. He recognized that this was a rhetorical question, and no answer was anticipated or, indeed, wanted.

“You told me it was granny music, and not a Beatle song, and we wouldn’t record it. Why would you say that to me? Do you remember what happened?”

John shook his head ‘no,’ even though he knew with a certainty what had happened. He had witnessed it, participated it, resented it, and finally was defeated by it.

“The three of you vetoed it, saying it wasn’t a Beatles song. It was months before George Martin finally had me record it on my own. You didn’t participate.”

“The other two agreed with me!” John argued.

“Because they were voting with you and against me. You used them against me like a weapon. Like you did with Allen Klein. Remember Allen Klein? And 'How Do You Sleep'?”

“Oh god, we’re not going back there again, are we?” This was starting to piss John off. He was willing to take his medicine, but he didn’t want his mouth held open while Paul poured it down his throat unchecked!

But Paul was not silenced by John’s outrage this time. “It isn’t what happened because of Allen Klein that bothers me, or even that you humiliated me publicly with that song,” he said, recognizing immediately where John’s thoughts had gone. “The problem for me is: why was there room for Allen Klein to get you to go against me in the first place? Who let him in between us with his Iago-like whispers, John? For years I tried to blame Yoko. But the pain I’ve felt about it - the decade I spent living with it - couldn’t make me overlook the fact that it all really came from you. And that song - only you knew how hurtful those particular insults would be to me. Obviously, Klein and Yoko didn't come up with those. Some part of you, for whatever reason, despises me and wants to hurt me. I’ve never been cool enough, and it embarrasses you or something.”

“Paul! I don’t despise you! You’ve gone around the bend!” John was shouting now.

“If you don’t despise me, what is it that makes you want to knock me down to size whenever I’m feeling good about myself or something I’ve done? Or when I’m feeling insecure? If you really loved me, you would want me to stand tall. You wouldn’t want to put me down, or encourage my insecurities.”

John was about to respond negatively to Paul’s comment, but something about the question made him sit back. Why did he take shots at Paul? What drove him to do that? John knew the answer, although he had tried to hide it from himself. He knew why he was so worried about Paul’s stature. It had to do with John’s own fear that he would look so fucking small in Paul’s incredibly huge shadow if everyone knew the truth. Paul was so great, so wonderful, so ... perfect. John needed to make Paul look smaller so that he himself could look bigger. In John’s mind this was justified because he wasn’t trying to make Paul look smaller than him; no, he was only trying to make himself look equal to Paul. How to explain this to Paul: that his ego could not stand to look less than Paul in the world's eye? And what if Paul began to believe he was better than John? He might realize he didn't need John. How could John explain how terrifying this was to a person whose parents had not only left him, but had left him repeatedly and in seriatim. Despite all these thoughts and fears throbbing in his brain, John had no words to say. He looked at Paul in despair. “I’m sorry, Paul. I’m sorry.”

Paul did feel the stirrings of that old white knight ‘rescue him’ message in his conscience. It was that part of his mind that had convinced him his job in life was to be the giver of unconditional love to John Lennon, since he never got it from his parents. But warring with those stirrings were his long-swallowed pain and pride. Now that Paul had vomited them up from the dark place in his brain where they had been hiding, he was finding it hard to shove them back down again. If he didn’t pay attention to them, he feared he would become a very weak, very shallow version of himself. Paul wanted his self-esteem back, and he wanted to surround himself with people who liked him the way he was made. If John could not be that person for him, then John would have to go. 

“Well, I don’t suppose we have to solve everything tonight,” Paul finally said, feeling some of his power coming back. He had just imagined the worst - breaking with John - and he hadn’t fallen apart. “But let’s just hold each other tonight. I’m not feeling very sexual right now.”

John had to settle for that, but now his stomach was doing free falls left and right. He snuggled as close to Paul’s side as he could, putting his arm around Paul’s middle, and letting his nose take in Paul’s aroma. He couldn’t bear to lose Paul; surely he had made this clear to him after all these years? John knew he was impulsive, and liable to act up when he was bored or scared, but he had - in his own definition of the word - been 100% faithful in his heart and mind to Paul since the moment he’d laid eyes on him. He couldn’t blame Paul for feeling this way, though. John knew he was impossible. Even his parents hadn’t wanted him, and his Aunt had been very clear about his many and varied faults. Yoko too. Paul had been the only one who seemed to appreciate him the way he came, faults and all. How could he live without Paul? John couldn’t imagine Paul walking away from him. Since he couldn’t wrap his mind around it, he did the only thing he could do - he prayed to the TM universe that everything would look better in the morning, and that he would wake up next to the Paul who was his solid friend and support.

 

*****

 

Paul woke up first. The clock read 8:15 a.m. He was surprised he had fallen asleep so easily, and then had slept so soundly. He turned his head a little to see the top of John’s tousled hair. John was still holding him - he hadn’t let Paul go even for a minute all night long. 

What to do? It seemed to Paul there were only a few alternatives. He could continue the argument they’d had the night before - have it all out, come what may, and then live with the consequences. Or he could say no more about it, and give John another chance. Or he could go back to the way things had always been, and hope that it would be enough to effect the change he sought in John’s treatment of him. Or he could suggest to John they have a trial separation from each other - maybe John could go to New York and learn how it was to be free, just himself - and they would not see or speak to each other for that period of time. Maybe, in that scenario, they would learn whether they could live apart, or whether they really wanted to be together. If John was only clinging to him out of fear, then he would find someone else to prop him up fairly quickly, Paul reasoned. And then I would know for sure what the truth is. 

The only one of those alternatives Paul could face that morning was the first one: he was going to have to face John down about their relationship, and how they had allowed it to slip into an abusive one. He wasn’t going to live like that anymore, and he couldn’t see being happy with John again until they cleared that up. Paul knew, however, that this approach was risky. John didn’t like criticism, however constructive, and he rarely saw his actions objectively - John generally cast himself in the best possible light when he examined his own poor conduct. And, being truthful, Paul acknowledged that he himself disliked criticism too. They might become very upset with each other, especially John, who no doubt felt everything had been going just fine until Paul's abrupt pronuncements. Paul was not blind to the fact that by burying and ignoring his pain he had allowed John to think that these past events were forgiven and forgotten. 

Of course, this approach did not fall anywhere near Paul’s comfort zone. In fact, it was located in the opposite direction of his comfort zone. This factor was no doubt why he waited so long - and endured so much - before confronting the reality that he needed to ‘put up’, because he could no longer ‘shut up.’ 

Probably Paul’s restless mind was the reason John woke up at that precise moment, because suddenly John’s eyes flew open. John’s first thought was - did Paul leave him alone again? But no, no, he could not only feel Paul next to him, he could smell Paul - the comforting smell. John struggled up on to his elbow and, leaning on one side, looked down at Paul, who was lying on his back. 

“Hey, babe,” John said. He was deeply insecure as all of the angst and anxiety of the previous night washed over him and showed clearly on his face.

Paul smiled in response, but said nothing. He knew he was going to have to rock the boat, and he was not a boat-rocker by nature. It went against every impulse in his body to head in the direction of dissent, when there was a clear road open to peace. There were those who believed in peace at all costs, but generally they were not the people who were living with the downside of the relevant “peace.” Genuinely those ‘peace at all cost-ers’ were people who were content with their own personal status quo. Paul was no longer able to live with the status quo, so be supposed he was the one who had to disrupt the peace: but not just this moment. Surely, he could put it off for a while?

John cleared his throat and said, “Crazy night, eh?” 

Paul nodded and said “yeah” in a kind of non-committal way.

“How are you feeling?” John asked, his anxiety obvious.

Paul shrugged lightly, and then said softly, “I’m good.” 

“Yeah?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “I’m a lot calmer this morning.”

John brightened up. “It was hairy last night.”

“It was, indeed,” Paul said softly.

John was picking up a vibe that although Paul was saying relatively positive things, there was something else hanging there - over his head - that he wasn’t going to like. Still, he couldn’t let the inquiry go. He had to know. “Paul? Are you mad at me?”

“Not mad, no,” Paul said in a quiet but firm voice. 

“But?” John could feel the ‘but’ as if it were hanging in mid air between them.

“John, nothing has changed about how I feel from last night. I still have to draw a line. You’re a wonderful friend to me except when you’re not. And I need a friend who is a friend to me all the time, even during the hard times.” Paul’s voice was low and calm. It was firm and confident. There was no wobble-factor.

John gulped. “I’m your friend, Paul, I’m very hurt that you don’t realize it.”

Paul allowed his hand to push away the hair out of John’s worried eyes. There was gentleness in his touch. “Johnny, I love you. I really do. But I have to love myself, too. Do you understand that?”

“Why can’t you love me and yourself?” John asked, fighting back fear (and of course, anger). 

“I could, if you didn’t make it so difficult.” Paul’s eyes were not apologetic. There was a matter-of-fact look on his face that scared John shitless.

“Stop talking in riddles, Paul! You’re fucking with me! Just say it! Say what you mean to say and don’t beat around the fucking bush anymore!” John’s famed temper had been aroused again.

Paul swallowed down his irritation. “I’m not trying to be mysterious, John. I’ve told you. I am finding it impossible to overlook the affair you had. I’m finding it impossible to deal with your ‘forgiving’ the bloke, and calling him by his first name, and sending him kind messages, and bragging about the kid’s youth and strength. I’ve had my fill of all that. I really don’t know what else to say.”

“It wasn’t an ‘affair’ Paul! It was a one-night stand! And I hated it! And just because the guy was ‘young and strong’ doesn’t mean I wanted it that way! I didn’t! I haven’t wasted a single moment wishing for that! You’re the only one I want - I have tried to let you know that!” John’s voice was loud and demanding, but it wasn’t really angry: it was desperate.

Paul’s kind and forgiving side began to weaken. Paul did wonder if he had overreacted to the words ‘young’ and ‘strong’. It was true that John had never said these were good things; in fact, he had said things like ‘I was in over my head’, and ‘I wasn’t used to that kind of strength.’ Paul knew that he had been the one to read criticism into those comments. But still, they were very insensitive things for John to say. Paul snorted. John was insensitive frequently. Big surprise. But, still...

“Why did you want to have sex with another man, John?” Paul’s voice, when it finally came, was soft and plaintive. Paul had never asked this simple question, and this mystery was at the bottom of Paul’s pain for months now. He should have asked the question long ago, and if he had then maybe things would have been better for both of them.

John heard the question, and it was the one question he had no bullshit easy answer for. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it? Why did he go off that night looking for a fuck from a young man? What had driven him to that? And why hadn’t he seen it for what it was - a betrayal of Paul? 

“Babe, I don’t always know why I do the stupid things I do. I act first, and ask questions later. And sometimes I don't even ask questions later. I can see why this would make you mad, but I hope you know that I’m not premeditating these stupid things. I’m in the middle of the idiocy before I recognize it for what it is.”

Paul sighed. There was a faint affectionate smile on his face, followed by a sad release of breath. Forty or fifty seconds went by before Paul spoke again, almost regretfully.

“I need more.”

 

*****

 

Ritchie Starkey - Ringo - hovered over the telephone before he dialed. He rehearsed in his head what he was going to say to his beloved friend, his surrogate brother, the one and only George Harrison. He knew - he’d heard - that George had finally agreed to participate in the Beatles Anthology project. Ringo was incredibly relieved, because he wanted the project to be done, and it couldn’t possibly be done without George. Now that the final word had been issued, Ringo felt it was okay to call George and talk to him about the project. Until George agreed to do it, Ringo hadn’t wanted to trade too much on their friendship. 

Olivia answered the phone, and quickly went to get George. She knew George always cheered up and smiled - no matter what else was going on - when Ringo was on the phone. 

“Hello, Ritchie, what spirit bade you call me this fine day?” George asked expansively.

Ringo chuckled. “Must be mad,” he muttered. “I just heard you’re in on The Anthology.”

George tried not to tighten up at the mention of the bloody project. Yeah, he was going to work on it, because he needed the money. His financial managers had made it very clear to him that he would have at least a seven year climb out of his hole (of course, George's 'hole' was that of a man with multi-millions, but George, like the other Beatles, had gotten accustomed to a hundreds-of-millions lifestyle.) That said, he didn’t have to be enthusiastic about it, did he? “Yeah, Ritchie, I know how much you wanted me to do it.” Might as well let Ritchie think he’d given in on his behalf and not because of his own economic need. 

“I’m so excited about this project. Imagine it - all four of us together again, working on a project! Paul thought we should all work together on a few songs and record two new songs.”

“He would,” George opined wryly.

Ringo heard it, and became a little defensive. “It’s a good idea, Geo,” he said in a lower, warning voice.

“He’s always so full of good ideas,” George responded again.

“Geo, let’s don’t go there, okay? Let’s just try to have a good time. I know you have your doubts about this project, but I’d like to see us circle back and have a better ending to our story.” Ringo was pleading with his good friend George. He understood George’s bitterness, and in some ways he agreed with it, but Ringo had never believed that negative feelings should be dwelt upon. Better to forget and forgive, and look forward to better memories in the future. 

George decided to change the subject. “So when are we starting this thing?”

Ringo said, “I understand the archivists have been working on the research for some time. I guess we wait for the producer to contact us for the interviews, but I think they’re starting the interviews in a month’s time.”

“They’re interviewing us separately, right? Because I don’t want to have to compete with the John ‘n Paul show,” George groused. There was humor in his voice, but Ringo supposed that he meant what he said. 

“I think they’re going to interview us separately, and then interview us together, as well.”

“Well, I suppose if we get to talk individually, you and I will get a word or two in edgewise, assuming they use our interviews, and don’t skip over us and focus on John and Paul entirely.” George was still ‘joking’, but there was that unmistakable bitterness, too.

Ringo’s voice gentled. “Ahh, George, no point in holding on to those old grievances. Maybe we just have to get over it, and try to move forward. I’m sure we all have axes to grind from those years.” 

 

*****

 

Linda was splayed out on the sitting room sofa, reading a book. She didn’t often read books, but this book was about wild North African stallions, and their history of being bred by the Berbers and Moors into Spanish stallions. Horses were Linda’s favorite kind of animals, although she loved all animals unreservedly. While she herself preferred the American Indian pony, the Appaloosa, she also admired the majestic Spanish and Arabian horses and their arc-like necks and long, prancing legs. She was thoroughly lost in the book when Paul came in. He plopped down on the sofa next to her and sighed heavily. He looked, strangely, both bereft and relieved, at the same time.

Reluctantly, she put her book down. Since Paul was coming back from spending the night with John, she assumed Paul’s mood was based on something that had just passed between the two of them. Linda could be forgiven for not wanting to know about it. But she turned to her husband, willing herself to pay attention to him, and said, “Are you okay?”

“John and I might be breaking up,” he said flatly.

Well. That got Linda’s attention. She closed her book with a finality that showed she was no longer irritated about the interruption. “WHHAATTT?” 

Paul smiled a little at Linda’s extravagant reaction, but overall he was feeling as if the world had become surreal. He didn’t know what was up or down, or where he belonged anymore. “I told John I didn’t know if I could be with him any more.”

Linda’s mouth was hanging open. One might think she would have been at least a little happy and hopeful about this news, but to the contrary she was shocked and anxious. “Paul, what???”

Paul reached over and grabbed Linda’s hand. “I feel bad about myself, everything about myself, because of what John did. And I told him I couldn’t take it anymore, and that I expected more out of the people in my life.” 

Linda was getting very worried indeed. She suspected that there was going to be hell to pay once all of this sunk in. She was not ready for the drama that would unfold thereafter. “So what happened then?” She asked, her voice soft and aching. She was hoping Paul had not behaved in a reactive way. He didn’t often behave reactively, but when he did he really could fuck things up. 

“He’s upset with me. He thinks I’m being unreasonable. Do you think I’m being unreasonable?” Paul’s beseeching eyes fell upon Linda’s panicked ones.

“Paul, I don’t want to be in the middle between you and John in a serious dispute. I’m sorry it’s not going well. But maybe, as a friend, I can help you? What is it that you’re upset about?” Linda skillfully turned the tables so that now Paul was on the ‘answer’ end of the interaction. 

“I’ve felt so bad about myself, Lin, you know I have. I’ve felt so old and unattractive, and I couldn’t get over what John did to me... the thing in New York.” Paul’s voice was begging for understanding; understanding he clearly had not fully received from John earlier.

“Because of the man he slept with in New York?” Linda asked softly.

“He cheated on me!” Paul declared angrily.

“Yes, he did. But I thought he had the right to have other lovers, since you had me.” Linda was confused. She’d never quite grasped all of the excrutiatingly finite details of the relationship agreement between John and Paul, so she was at a disadvantage.

“Women, not men,” Paul said succinctly. 

Linda heard that and began to understand. “You acted as though you were not that hurt by it, Paul, at least as far as I could see.”

Paul’s expression acknowledged this point. “I know. I dug my own fuckin’ grave. But I guess I want John to think about me before he does stupid stuff. He always says he will do so, but in the heat of the moment I’m the last thing he thinks of.” 

“Have you told John all this?” Linda was sort of catching up, emotionally, and putting pieces together.

“Yes.” Paul’s voice sounded final, like the slamming of a crypt.

Linda’s heart jumped. “And how did you leave it?”

Paul’s leg was bouncing up and down, and his hands were tapping and moving. These were telltale signs that Paul was very tense and was hanging by a thread. “John said if I didn’t trust him I should leave.” Paul took a deep breath and leaned forward, allowing his head to fall into his hands, “So I left.”

 

*****

 

Later that day, Paul fielded a call from his scheduling secretary. 

“The ‘Anthology’ producer wants to make some appointments with you and John for interviews. I’m calling to schedule them. Is this a good time?” She asked.

No - no it isn’t. Paul swore to himself. He had forgotten all about the bleeding ‘Anthology’! How ironic that he had worked hard with Ringo to make it happen, while both George and John were being bloody-minded about it, and now that it was all approved and ready to go - he no longer had a desire to participate! He had just hinted to John that maybe it was time for them to try moving on, and then this! He was briefly reminded of that scene from The Godfather Part III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

“Have you spoken to John yet?” Paul asked instead.

“No, Frank said to call you to make arrangements.”

Well, I can put a stop to that practice, Paul thought. “Call John and get his answers. Let me look at my calendar and I’ll get back to you about mine.” 

The secretary was surprised by Paul’s comments. Usually, Paul was all eager to get things scheduled, and would ensure that John was on board too. Suddenly, she was asked to treat John as if he were a separate entity. This was confusing. She called Frank for input and advice.

For his part, Frank was stumped. Worried, and stumped. He worried that Paul’s strange behavior was related to the Brad Chalmers matter. Man, he had no idea when he took this job that he would have first row seats to a melodrama. Still, he had no desire to call Paul for further details. He instructed the secretary to call John and schedule some dates with him.

With a deep sigh, the secretary dialed the number for John Lennon. After three rings a very low, grumpy voice answered and said, “Yeah?” After the usual introductions, the secretary explained her mission. 

John was in a terrible mood. He’d been left completely unsettled by the parting words he’d had with Paul. He had challenged Paul to leave him if he didn’t trust him - what was he thinking when he did that? Why on fucking earth would Paul trust him? He’d betrayed him often enough! What a stupid challenge - what else could Paul do but leave? 

Now, however, John was very eager to have Anthology go forward. It would be an excuse for Paul to stay connected to him. Maybe they could find their way back to each other while revisiting the past. Well, maybe not the 1968 - 1980 past, but the early years at least, the ‘honeymoon years’ for sure. Suddenly, John felt much better. Yes, the Anthology would be just the thing to pull Paul back into his sway!

Feeling much more cheerful, John suddenly felt as though he had a great idea for his writing. He could write a novel about a man who has a crazy, out-of-control, infuriating love affair with a...woman - it would have to be a woman ... who drives him fucking crazy, but he loves ... her ... anyway. It could be snapshots from the relationship from different decades, and that way he could write an ending that would make him happy. Suddenly eager to get started, John headed for the office.

 

*****

 

“But Paul,” Linda said, her face covered with confusion. “I thought you wanted to do the Anthology.” 

“That was before this thing with John,” Paul explained for the third time, patiently. “It couldn’t come at a more awkward time.” 

“It seems to me that you are spending a whole lot of time and energy over accepting the breakup, and almost no time trying to prevent it.” Linda’s voice was unusually sharp.

Paul stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her. His face was like an open question mark. 

Linda saw the challenge and was up for it. “You and John go back 36 years! I was adding it up last night. You shouldn’t find it so easy to just throw up your hands and walk away.”

Paul could hardly believe what he was hearing. Linda sticking up for John! “What do you think I should do then?” Paul asked, irritated. “I’ve tried everything!” 

Linda was disappointed in Paul. Her voice dropped to a lower register, and she asked softly, “Have you tried forgiving him for his mistake and accepting him for who he is?”


	70. Chapter 70

Paul’s thought process was stopped in its tracks after Linda asked him why he hadn’t tried forgiving John for his “mistake.” Paul wanted to be upset by it, but he respected Linda’s opinion too much to have a kneejerk reaction. It caused him to question his own thought process. Instead of lashing out in his own defense, Paul’s confidence dropped dramatically.

“Do you think I am being unreasonable?” He asked. 

He looked very lost and confused, and Linda’s heart melted a little. “Of course you have the right to be hurt by it, Paul, but you have to ask yourself what does it matter in the long run? When you first restarted your relationship with John - back in ’81, remember? I had to struggle with that. I had to decide what was most important to me overall in the long run. Maybe I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted from the situation, but the things I would get - were they more important to me than the things I was losing? I decided that they were more important, so I signed on to this whole scenario. And lots of times since then, I have felt as though I’ve got the short end of the stick, but I just stuck it out, and every single time everything righted itself in time. Nothing lasts forever; it’s always changing. So, I guess I’m saying, maybe you have to ask yourself whether the good parts of your relationship with John are more important to you than the things that aren’t good. If they are, maybe you have to change your expectations, and accept what he is able to give you as opposed to everything you would prefer to have. He’s damaged, Paul. There’s only so much he can give.” 

“And if the good parts aren’t enough for me anymore?” Paul asked.

“Then I guess you would be justified in walking away. I’m just saying I think you’re being precipitous. You’re acting too quickly, while you’re emotionally hurting. Wait until you have put it all in perspective, and then make a decision. That way you won’t regret your decision forever.”

This was a long speech for Linda; she didn’t often speak at length like this. Paul listened to her every word with intense dedication. The fact that Linda was speaking against her own self-interest by defending John increased her credibility substantially, as far as Paul was concerned. He paused for thought. The brave front he had erected to deal with his humiliation over the Brad fiasco collapsed. 

“Lin, I feel so bad about myself. Why does John make me feel like this? Is it something I’m doing to make him treat me like this? I was thinking it was because I took it and took it and didn’t fight back.” Paul was embarrassed as he felt tears falling out of his eyes totally against his will. He turned his head away and he wiped the tears off. 

Linda grabbed his hand, and pulled it away from his face. “You don’t have to hide your pain from me, Paul,” she whispered. “We’re in this together. 100%. What hurts you hurts me. We’re on the same side. I just don’t want you to make a decision when you’re in a world of pain that you might later regret.”

This punctured the remaining vestiges of Paul’s self-discipline. He began to weep, with both hands over his face. Linda put her arms around him, and leaned her face against Paul’s. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she intoned in a low, husky whisper. Paul’s sobs were coming from the bottom of his soul now, and he couldn’t have controlled them even if he tried. He didn’t try. He was tired of holding it all in, tired of being the iron man. He’d never been a very convincing iron man to begin with, he figured, given his facial features, but he had tried as hard as he could to be strong and swallow all this pain. He just wasn’t strong enough. That was it. Not strong enough. 

The crying was a release. Paul was surprised at how relieved he felt when he had cried it all out. Somehow during his sobbing, he had found himself again in Linda’s warm and loving arms. Now, he slowly extricated himself from her arms and gazed at her with a look of amazement on his face. He just could not manage without her common sense, her good heart, and her unconditional love. Linda smiled at him in her sunny, uncomplicated way, as her long elegant fingers moved the bangs out of Paul’s eyes.

“We’re both getting older,” she said, “day by day. But that doesn’t mean we’re declining. We’re improving, getting wiser, every single day. We’ll get through this together. You’re still the most beautiful man in any room that I’m in.” 

Paul smiled at her, his love gleaming in his eyes. “You make me feel foolish,” he said. “I’ve been so worried about myself, I haven’t noticed that all around me life is still happening, and I’ve got it good, with you and the kids, and everything else. I guess if John doesn’t find me as attractive as he used to, it is something I can live with. It’s not the end of the world, is it?” Paul gave her a game smile.

Linda chuckled, but then said, “I think John finds you every bit as attractive as he always did. He has no clue how you feel, because you have been so busy hiding it from him. You need to talk to him about it directly, instead of expecting him to divine what you are thinking. We’ve had this conversation before, Paul. You know we have. John has never struck me as a very empathetic person. He can’t look at another person and know how he feels. He needs to have it explained to him. That doesn’t make him a bad person; it is just who he is, and you need to accept that this is who he will always be, and adjust your expectations of him.”

Paul knew this. He knew this! How had he managed to forget it? Ego - that was it. He had allowed his ego to become involved. Little by little he began to see the humor in the whole thing. Some little barfly had attracted John’s attention for a night, and John had come away torn up and tearful. Why on earth have I imploded over it? Paul asked himself. Suddenly, everything was crystal clear. John was going to take him or leave him, but no matter what happened, Paul would have Linda. There was no reason for him to have had a meltdown. He turned to Linda and gave her a sheepish smile.

“I’ve made quite the spectacle of myself, haven’t I?” He asked.

Linda was kind, but she was also honest. “You’re only human, Paul, and we all have our weak and vain moments. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Paul pulled Linda back into his arms and whispered, “I certainly do not deserve you. I’ve never understood why you chose me, much less stayed with me. I’m so grateful you did, though.” 

That night Paul and Linda made love with such intensity that they again remembered why they loved each other so. After the passion had been spent, Linda was wrapped in Paul’s arms. He said to her ever so softly, “I have taken you for granted. I won’t do that again. I think we should go away together, alone, for a long time - at least a month. What do you think?” It was as if scales had fallen off his eyes, and Paul had realized that no matter what trials John would put him through, he had Linda. He had Linda there to support him no matter what, and to love him no matter what. She had never cheated on him or betrayed him. She had never insulted him publicly or privately. I’m a lucky fuck, and I shouldn’t wander around feeling pathetic. I should focus on what is strong and positive in my life, and if John doesn’t appreciate me, Linda does. And Linda’s love and appreciation should be enough for any man worth his salt.

 

*****

 

John was leaning back in the sofa, and he was gazing across the room and out of a window. The clock was ticking loudly, as it often did in this room. Fiona waited patiently as the silence grew. Her opening bland question of a few moments earlier was still hanging in the air:

“How was your weekend?”

John finally spoke, but not in direct response to the question. “I haven’t seen Paul in almost a month, because of this vacation with Linda. He never wants to take a long vacation with me.” John’s voice had become petulant. “It’s like suddenly he and Linda have reached this new level, they’re like a solid unit, and I’m the odd man out again. It reminds me of what it was like after Paul and I got back together but before I left Yoko.” 

Fiona had heard it all before. John had been coming three times a week to see her in Paul’s absence, and he repeated the same litany of complaints each time. “To make matters worse, he is okay with me writing on my own now. I’d already told him I’d give it up, because it was too upsetting to him, and then suddenly he said, ‘I was being foolish; of course you should write if you want to.’ ‘Of course?’ There is no ‘of course’ about it! He never wanted me to do stuff on my own before! Suddenly he’s down with it?” John’s voice was a combination of outrage and exaggerated disbelief. 

Fiona tried once again to put a different light on John’s unrelentingly negative narrative. “Isn’t it a good sign that Paul was able to stand back, view his earlier behavior, and decide he had been wrong? Isn’t that what you asked him to do - to see things your way more often, and not ‘stream-roll’ over you?” 

Fiona’s comment was not well received by John. In fact, he ignored it altogether in favor of continuing on with his rant. “He’s all excited about this new Beatles project, The Anthology, of course. We started our individual interviews in the weeks before Paul and Linda left, and Paul was always off somewhere - on his boat, in a forest in front of a bonfire, wherever. I have no idea where he was half the time, or what he was saying to those interviewers.” John, too, was doing interviews, but Paul didn’t seem to show any curiosity about what John was saying. John interpreted Paul’s lack of interest as a reflection of his increasingly more dangerous tendency towards autonomy. It was reminding John unpleasantly of post-touring 1966 Beatle Paul, and this never failed to bring up all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions in John. 

Fiona tried again: Don Quixote charging the windmill. “That’s one way to look at it. Another is to consider that he wants to respect your independence, and doesn’t want you to think that he is trying to influence your responses to the interviewers’ questions.” Fiona had made this comment several times by now, and had no real assurance that John would hear it this time, either.

“And he hasn’t followed up on those songs I gave him months ago - the ones I wrote in New York!” John’s manifesto continued, oblivious to Fiona’s contributions. “He was very enthusiastic about them at the time, and wrote some good music for them, but he hasn’t responded with any songs of his own, or shown any interest in persuading me to write more!”

Fiona considered countering with the reminder that John had announced in her presence that he could not do two creative projects at once, and that Paul had finally acquiesced in John’s desire to write on his own. She decided not to bother, because she knew it would fall on deaf ears. John, for whatever reason, needed to air his grievances in these meetings in Paul’s absence, and all hope that Fiona had of making headway with John during Paul’s absence had died a disappointing death some time earlier. She decided instead that maybe she could change the subject.

“So tell me about these interviews you’re having with the Anthology producers. What kind of questions are they asking?”

“Stupid ones, of course. They’re a step above ‘what’s your favorite color’, but only a step.” John’s expression and body language expressed his disapproval of the whole Anthology process. “They asked me what I thought about fame. Really? In what universe is that an important or even an interesting question?”

In my universe for one, Fiona quietly thought to herself. “What did you say in response?”

John sighed and shifted his position in irritation. “I said that fame doesn’t change you, it just changes everyone around you. Suddenly they all go potty, and you’re standing there wondering what the fuck happened. You have no control over it; it’s a thing all on its own, and even if you want to escape it you never can.” 

“Are there any positive aspects to it?” Fiona asked. She was attempting with each question and comment to move John off of the negative level where he was stuck and up to a higher plane. 

John gave her a lugubrious look. Someone else might have quailed at it, but Fiona had long grown accustomed to it. She waited it out. Sure enough, John eventually blinked.

“Just the part where I don’t have to work a 9 to 5 job, answering to some boss, and can express myself creatively instead.” 

“That’s pretty big,” Fiona suggested.

John shrugged. “I suppose so.” John turned his face back to the window and subsided into a funk again. When he next spoke, he was back to his hobbyhorse. “He hasn’t even called me since he’s been gone!” Fiona didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was. “I got a fucking post card. A post card! It said there were no phones where he was.”

Fiona knew that Paul and Linda had gone to a privately owned island in the South Pacific, and that it was no doubt absolutely true that there were no phone lines there. Fiona knew that wasn’t the point, and before she could even repeat to herself what that point was, John had said it out loud again.

“Even if that’s true, why the fuck does he choose a place with no phones? He does it so he doesn’t have to talk to me!” 

“I thought you said that Linda picked the spot,” Fiona gently reminded.

“Well, he didn’t have to agree to it! He should have insisted on a place where we could talk by phone!”

“Perhaps he felt that you each needed some time and space to yourselves. Maybe he thought you could progress in your writing if he wasn’t around to interrupt you.” 

John either wasn’t hearing what Fiona said, or had rejected it wholesale, because his next comment ignored it entirely. “My friend Kevin says maybe Paul is drifting away from me, but I don’t think he’s drifting. I think he is casting off! It’s a fucking declaration of independence!”

 

*****

 

The water in the little bay was aqua in the morning, and a mellow shade of peridot green by the late afternoon. The sand on the beach was perfectly white, and palms encroached almost to the water line. The air was soft, gentle. It literally caressed the skin. Paul and Linda lay side by side on colorful beach blankets, both of them a beautiful golden color now, after almost four weeks of sun worshipping bliss. It had only taken about 4 days for Paul to leave the agonizing emotional pressure cooker of London behind him. Behind him during the whole of his idyll away with Linda lay the bleak ruins of his relationship with John, and the Anthology project - featuring the still contentious maneuvering self-promotion of his former band mates. Not much had really changed in 25 years between the four men; each was still - behind the scenes anyway - singing a solo song of woe and betrayal. Paul supposed he was guilty of the same; it was just so much easier to see it in someone else than it was to see it in one’s self. 

Paul had reached some conclusions about his relationship with John and his future creative life while lying on the beach soaking up the sun. He didn’t think of it often - but each time the subject had come up, he had been able to see it more clearly. As for his creative life - drawing a conclusion was easier. The Anthology project was a necessary evil. In Paul’s mind, it had to be done; there had to be a smooth finish to the circle of the Beatle story arc, as a 4-voices-at-one-time definitive version in order to snatch the band’s narrative away from a bunch of thrusting fan-boy reporters and tabloid writers. It would hopefully take some of the sting out of the way the band had ended in 1970, and correct many of the misstatements that had been published about all of them in the past several years. If they focused solely on their work, and not on their personal lives, it would also be their truth. Yes, their individual differences would be outed and discussed in the Anthology, as would be the sad end of the band, but the main emphasis would be on the band’s many positive achievements, and the enduring legacy of their music. In one hundred years would it really matter if George slept with Ringo’s wife, or what impact the John/Paul fissure had on the band’s ending? Paul felt that in one hundred years what would remain of the Beatles - if anything - would be the way they had changed the world politically and socially, and the exquisite catalog of music they had left behind. 

Because the Anthology project was something he would have to complete and endure despite it’s many unpleasantnesses, Paul was going to throw himself into it in as positive and energetic a way as possible. He was going to studiously ignore George’s moods and John’s self-aggrandizing, and he was going to try to rein in his own over-exuberance and self-promotion tendencies. Once that project was over, however, he and John had some decisions to make. 

John had in the last few years - yet again - nearly driven Paul mad with insecurity and depression, just as he had done between 1968 and 1971. Two times in one relationship were enough, Paul decided. He had no desire to ever again let John drive him to that place where he felt useless and gutted. He also had a chance to critically view his own conduct, and how that had played into these two meltdowns. Paul had decided he had allowed himself to become too dependent on John both emotionally and creatively. It was time for him to take his own identity back. To Paul, this did not seem cold or cruel, since John had been literally begging for almost three years now - ever since his cancer - to declare his own independence, emotionally and creatively. Paul was honest about his own conduct, and took responsibility for having been an obstacle to John’s desire to fly on his own. Well. No more of that. To be so totally dependent upon one another had ended up with both of them feeling emotionally weak and creatively dry, even though there had certainly been some positive aspects to it as well. Paul had even remembered, one night as he sat on a verandah with an iced drink in his hand, the “three -ations” speech his father used to deliver to him and his brother when they had misbehaved: “Toleration, moderation and consideration.” These principles had been pounded into him throughout his entire childhood, and for the most part had become the foundation of his ethical vantage point. With John and their deeply intense connection, Paul had frequently elevated his toleration and consideration for John’s feelings and needs above his own, and therefore had violated the third, less idealistic of the ‘-ation’ triad - moderation. Paul knew that he had to tolerate and consider John’s needs in the future, but he also had to do it in moderation. He had gone way too far in one direction, and had nearly fallen off the deep end as a result. 

Consequently, he was going to live his life the way he wanted to live it from now on, as much in concert with John’s life as possible. But John’s life was no longer going to be the only starting point for all of his decisions. He wasn’t going to stunt his creativity or his pleasures or friendships to accommodate John’s restrictive dictates any more. If John wanted to be part of his life, it would be up to John to accept Paul’s eccentricities and choices with as much liberality as he had expected Paul to accept his own. 

How this was going to work was still pretty theoretical. Paul knew it was going to be a difficult transition. In the end, if he and John survived the transition in any way - as friends, or as partners, or as lovers, or any combination of the three - then they would both be in a much better place than they had been when they had tried to live their lives in virtual lockstep. In the end, Paul decided, two people were still two people. No matter how hard they might try, two people could not live and act as one for long and still each remain happy and fulfilled. This didn’t mean that Paul was looking forward to what lay ahead, but as so often happened with Paul, once he had decided upon a course, he was determined to follow it. And there was no doubt in his mind that he would do so. 

 

*****

 

George Harrison had just seen off the Anthology producer who had come for his final solo interview. There would be group interviews still to come - they would be conducted at George’s home, along with the possibility of recording together again for a few songs (this was a matter still of much internal debate) but for the most part George had already said everything he had wanted to say. He smiled a little to himself as he considered what John and Paul would have to say when they heard his unvarnished remarks about their insistence upon the transcendence of their partnership over the welfare of the group as a whole. He found that there was a kind of ironic justice to his using the Anthology - the project Paul had so heavily pushed - to get his own back against Paul. It would serve Paul right. What was he going to do? Censor George’s honest answers? How would he get away with that in front of all the producers and the other Beatles? 

George’s thoughts in this regard were not only ungenerous, but they also failed to factor in how complacent Paul had been about allowing himself to be seen without varnish so clearly in the ‘Let It Be’ documentary. Whereas the other three had caused their own unflattering conduct to be edited from the film, Paul alone had allowed his own blemishes to remain. This was one of many reasons why the director of ‘Let It Be’, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, had respected and admired McCartney so much. Even Lindsay-Hogg had felt bad that Paul had come out looking like a villain compared to the others simply because he had been the one most willing to show warts and all. No one would know until years later that John and George had come to blows at one point, that George had screamed at Yoko because she ate one of his chocolate biscuits, that Ringo had stormed out in a petulant tantrum when he had been criticized, that Yoko had repeatedly driven everyone other than John absolutely mad with her screeching in the background, that John and Yoko had been clearly high on heroin through much of the filming, that George was a frequent no-show because he preferred to be home building a swimming pool, and that John was a frequent no-show whenever a George song was on the studio agenda. But such was the power of film, only Paul’s bad behavior was recorded for posterity, and thus only he had to live with the backlash, although his conduct was objectively and qualitatively less childish than the others’ and was directed solely towards trying to improve the musical product (as opposed to arguments over cookies). 

George met Olivia in the kitchen. 

“All done?” She asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m actually glad I did this. I got a lot of things off my chest.”

Olivia was a bit worried about that. “You didn’t unload on the others, did you?”

George said, “No, I was honest about the early years, when we were tight. But I was also honest about the later years, when John and Paul refused to see me as an equal.” 

Olivia figured this was inevitable. And while she was her husband’s most loyal and loving supporter, she was also no Stepford wife. She had long been a private moderating influence over her husband’s resentments against John and Paul. She understood why he felt that way, and even believed there was truth to it, but she also was mature enough to remember that John and Paul had been young men in their twenties and all of them had been high on drugs when it all happened, and George should allow for those factors and be more forgiving of their foibles as young men who, at the time, were trying to function successfully under unrelenting pressure. “Well,” she finally said, “it won’t be anything they haven’t heard before.” Olivia had been one of the few close to the Beatles who had deplored their tendency to excoriate each other publicly while pretending friendship privately. She found that to be a very unhealthy and unproductive way to behave. 

 

*****

 

Almost as soon as Cavendish’s front door closed behind him, Paul felt London’s oppression again. It reminded him of how it had been in 1969, when he’d have to come back to London for business after spending months away in the relative peace of Scotland. The sheer weight of the internal politics and the difficult conversations that faced him was almost enough to persuade him to turn around and head back to the South Pacific. Instead, he soldiered on. He performed his ministerial duties: he telephoned first the manager, Frank, and then John to say he had returned. He called John second, because he anticipated that this second conversation was going to be trickier than the first. 

“So you’ve finally returned,” John intoned in an affected bored tone.

“Yes, here I am at the appointed time and date,” Paul responded in an affected cheerful tone. “Just as I said I would.” 

“Well, I’m in the middle of something right now. I’ll come over later.” John’s comment belied his behavior in the last month, wherein he had nervously awaited Paul’s return. 

Paul had been prepared for a reaction like this. He had been prepared for a few other reactions too, because while John was unpredictable, his unpredictability was confined to two or three possible reactions, and by now Paul knew them all. “Okay. No hurry. Linda and I have to sort ourselves out, anyway, and the girls are coming over. Wanna come over for dinner later?”

John was first disgruntled by Paul’s unoffended reaction, and then worried and insecure about it. “Yeah, sure, what time?” John asked, seeking to maintain his objective tone.

“Lin!” John heard Paul calling. “What time should I tell John for dinner?” A moment later Paul was back. “She said a little late tonight. How about 8 p.m.?”

Three hours away. This was much longer than John wanted to wait, but he had kind of painted himself into this corner, hadn’t he? “Sounds good,” is what he said. He hung up, and proceeded to begin worrying instantly about why Paul had been so willing to put off seeing him again. In the past, Paul had always been eager to see John as soon as possible after a separation. John’s forebodings appeared to be bearing fruit.

Paul, meanwhile, shook his head with a kind of sad amusement after he hung up. John was punishing him, clearly, for disappearing for a month, and the punishment was taking the form of ‘I don’t need you either.’ We’re totally fucked up - both of us, Paul thought as he dragged his luggage up the stairs to the master bedroom. This because, truly, Paul would have loved to have seen John just then; if Paul hadn’t already decided to stake out his independence immediately upon his return, he’d have been down the mews and into John’s arms by now. 

Linda was frankly surprised that Paul didn’t go running down the mews upon their return. While Paul had mentioned some of his thinking to Linda while they were away, most of his dialog had been internal, and so she wasn’t privy to the promises he had made to himself about his relationship with John. Still, she was delighted to see him totally invested in her and their children again. He was laughing and joking with Mary, Stella and James in the sitting room, and she sat a little apart watching them with love and affection in her heart. 

It was into this little scene of domestic bliss that John quietly strode. He had heard the carefree laughter and excitement all the way down the garden, and felt a little left out of things as he stood in the aperture of the French door and said, “Knock knock!”

Paul felt himself brightening when he saw John. Of course he did. His heart skipped an enormous beat. He doubted he would ever be able to look at John with equanimity and objectivity. Maybe when John wasn’t in the room he could do it, but as soon as he was there - his beatific smile, his eyes searching for love and understanding - Paul tended to melt and forget all of his grievances. He had been splayed out on the sofa laughing at Stella’s cheeky comments about her adventures in fashion college when he had first seen John, and as if without thought he got up and headed in John’s direction.

John was relieved to see it. He could see love and warmth in Paul’s eyes as he approached. At least it wasn’t going to be an awkward greeting. Paul engulfed John in a big hug, but it was fairly G-rated. There were no secret squeezes or telling bulges. John noticed this right away. He didn’t like it. 

“So what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?” Paul asked in a chirpy voice after they had settled on the sofa. 

John stared at Paul as if he were from another planet. “What do you think I’ve been up to?” He asked.

“Writing? Have you been working on your writing?” Paul asked cheerfully.

“Yeah, sure,” John said, lying blatantly. He had maybe written two pages in four weeks. And he hated those two pages and was considering throwing them in the trash. 

“Great! Do you mind telling me what you’re writing about?” Paul was leaning forward with what certainly passed as interest in his expression and body language.

“Ummm, well, I’m not really ready to talk about it,” John temporized.

Paul smiled pleasantly, and Linda announced that dinner was ready. Somehow John felt that he had been the loser in that interaction. Grumpily he followed the various McCartneys into the dining room. 

Linda greeted him warmly, giving him a big hug and a kiss on his cheek. 

Discomfited, John sat next to Mary. Linda and Paul took either end of the table, almost like punctuation marks for John’s paranoid thoughts. Mary, of course, was lovely. 

“John! It’s been a few months since I’ve seen you! Too long!” She declared.

John smiled warmly at her. He engaged in what he hoped was cool small talk. He wouldn’t want anyone to know how anxious and insecure he felt. “What have you been up to, Mary?”

Mary explained her various projects and exploits. She had a new steady boyfriend, and was working at McLen, focusing on her mother’s photo library. John tried to be interested; he really did. But on the edges of his attention he was soaking in what Paul was doing at the end of the table. He was actively interacting with Stella, and the two of them were making each other laugh. Paul appeared to be totally in his element. There didn’t appear to be any heavy thoughts on Paul’s mind while he interacted with his younger daughter. John would have stared at Paul relentlessly until he caught his attention, but decided he didn’t want Paul’s kids and wife to see it. So he continued to smile politely, and engage in small talk until the dinner was over. That couldn’t come soon enough for John.

As the family finished their meal, and carried their plates into the kitchen, John sat back in his chair. He was amused (and a little impressed) that Paul had bussed his own plates, and was rinsing dishes in the kitchen. There were times when he would think he didn’t recognize his old friend from Liverpool, but then he would remember how Paul had helped his dad around the house, ironing and cooking and doing dishes, and even wearing little aprons while he did housework. It shouldn’t have surprised him except it suddenly occurred to him how differently Paul behaved when he was with Linda and his children. It seemed to John that he looked more like himself, more Paul somehow, when he was with his family. Of course, this fucked with John’s mind. 

He got up and decided to stalk back to his home. His self-pity told him Paul wouldn’t even notice. But maybe he would, and come running, all tears and apologies! These thoughts co-existed with surprising ease in John’s fervid imagination. He felt a dramatic moment was called for, so he was definitely going to supply it. He chose a moment when Paul and Linda were both in the kitchen to announce to James and Stella, who were lingering around the table, that he was on his way home. “Tell your mum thanks for dinner!” He instructed as he left the room. Neither Stella nor James saw anything weird in the declaration, and went on with their conversation.

A few moments later Paul and Linda came in and noted John’s absence. “Where’s John?” Paul asked his children.

“He went home. Oh, mum, he wanted us to tell you thanks for dinner,” Stella said.

Paul realized immediately that John was pissed. That was clearly what was going on. John didn’t like not always being the center of attention. Paul could do one of two things. He could play along, and go straight over to John’s and romance him out of his pouting mood, or he could stay with his family, enjoy the remainder of the night, and spend a romantic night with his wife. A few months ago the answer would have been obvious to Paul. He would have been down that alley and into John’s arms as quickly as he could arrange it. But tonight he gave it a second and third thought. He needed to draw a line between his own needs and John’s. Why not start tonight? Why not establish tonight that he wouldn’t come running at the first sign of trouble between them? Listening to this stern internal voice, Paul followed Linda into the sitting room, and joined his kids. They all decided loudly to watch the video Stella had brought with her, the new home video release “Groundhog Day.” It was a very good movie, and Paul soon was relaxed in the bosom of his family, and was engrossed in the film.

 

*****

 

John waited up for hours. He sat up on his side of the bed, trying to read Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. It was a fascinating history of comics, and John had been dipping into and out of it regularly since Paul had disappeared with Linda. But tonight, the book was not keeping his attention. His ears were straining to hear the telltale sound of Paul coming up the stairs. He wanted desperately to hear that sound. Each minute that went by without it was an agony to John. He wanted Paul to come to him. He desperately wanted Paul to come to him. But he had already concluded that Paul was not going to come to him.


	71. Chapter 71

It was 3 a.m. when Paul was awakened by his conscience. He awoke with the sight of John’s miserable face from the night before hovering over him in his imagination. This memory was sufficiently moving to get Paul up and out of bed. Before tiptoeing out of the bedroom, he leaned over Linda gently to awaken her and tell her he was going over to John’s. Linda murmured her understanding before falling back asleep. Paul then threw on a coat over his pajamas and shoved his feet into his old deck shoes. Tying the coat’s cinch around his waist, Paul hurried down the garden and the mews, in the direction of John’s house. He let himself in with his key, and then quietly made his way up to John’s bedroom. 

Once there, he removed coat and pajamas, and climbed into bed with John. He moved over until he was spooning John, and his nose was nestled in the back of John’s neck. John moved a little in his sleep, and made a few contented sounds, but soon he was still with sleep again. Paul, feeling much better now that he had crossed the Rubicon, and much comforted by John’s warmth, soon was asleep as well. 

 

*****

 

When John awoke some hours later, his first thoughts were heavy as he gradually remembered what had happened the previous night. But even as those thoughts were percolating, John downloaded the information that Paul was there with him - Paul’s back was set right against John’s. John’s heart jumped and a tremendous rush of relief ran through him. He figured he’d be mad at Paul later, and might even have some sharp words for him, but right now the knowledge that Paul had missed him so much that he had snuck into bed with him in the middle of the night warmed John’s soul. He turned over to his other side, so he was facing Paul’s back, and ran a gentle hand along Paul’s side, and then back down again, until it rested on Paul’s hip. He could feel Paul stirring next to him, and John waited patiently for Paul to awaken.

It was only a matter of moments, and then Paul’s eyes flew open. He was fully awake from the first moment he opened his eyes. He turned quickly to see if John was awake, and was greeted by John’s eyes smiling at him at very close range. Paul’s eyes smiled back, but a little uncertainly.

“’Morning, baby,” John said in an exaggeratedly sexy voice. “I see you couldn’t stay away.” His eyes were dancing as his hand was massaging Paul’s chest.

Paul blushed a little under John’s intense scrutiny. “That’s always been my problem when it comes to you,” he said in an equally sexy voice.

John laughed with delight. His face was relaxed and excited. He had gone to bed so miserable, and then had woken up to such exquisite pleasure! Such plunges and leaps in mood were hard for him to reconcile sometimes.

This John was the one Paul loved the most, and Paul felt as if John was squeezing his heart with an unforgiving hand. How could John still do this to him after all these years? And how could Paul ever hope to mark out his boundaries and autonomy when John was smiling at him like this?

“I’m sorry I was such a wanker last night,” John said, surprising Paul who was thinking he would have to be the one to apologize. “I was mad at you because I had missed you so much.”

“And I guess I was trying too hard not to notice it,” Paul chuckled. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? I consider us even.”

John’s smile grew wistful, and his hand became greedier. It was grasping Paul’s butt cheek now. Paul could read on John’s face what was coming next, and he had no objection to that eventuality. He turned fully on to his side and faced John directly. He brought his hand up to stroke John’s cheek, and then massaged John’s scalp just above his ear. There was love as well as lust in John’s eyes; Paul could see it. Maybe Linda was right. Maybe he just had to let John be John, and instead of trying to put it in a box, just accept the love that John was willing to give him. Still, it was a two-way street. John would have to be willing to do the same: John would have to learn to let Paul be Paul. He wondered if the two of them - given their deep insecurities - were even capable of giving each other this much freedom.

“You’ve got a very lovely tan, babe,” John whispered in Paul’s ear. John then gave Paul a quick bite on that ear. “You’ve been sunning in the nude, I see.” It was true. There were only very faint tan lines on Paul. “That makes me insane with desire, you know; the thought of you sunbathing in the nude...” John growled, as his voice petered out. Paul supposed this was all very corny, very ‘continent-all’ at some smooth, objective level, but it was doing amazing things to his libido, he had to admit. This was the last coherent thought either man had for a good ten minutes.

It was a half hour later when they became restless in bed. They got up, took a shower together, got dressed, and headed for the kitchen, where they made breakfast for each other. John was chopping onions and herbs while Paul was prepping the omelet pan and toasting the bread. They worked in silent but companionable silence, efficiently and effectively. Soon they sat down to eat, and for a few moments the sounds of two men slaking their appetites filled the room. Finally, John spoke first. 

“How was your trip?”

Paul swallowed his mouthful of orange juice and then said, “It was so peaceful John. We hardly saw a soul for a month. No phones, no mail, no fans, no one bothering us at all. It was ideal.”

John had to swallow his jealousy and his sense of being ill-used in order to keep the peace. “Well, I missed you,” he said as if he were joking.

Paul said in a more subdued tone, “I missed you too, John.” He realized he probably shouldn’t have been so effulgent in his praise of his time with Linda. Sometimes it was hard for him to keep John his best friend separate from John his lover. The two of them had always struggled with that problem, right from the beginning. Paul knew he had to say something to wash away the sting of that ‘oops.’ “We should get away like that, John. I don’t know why we don’t do stuff like that more often.”

John felt hopeful to hear this, but part of him wanted to answer back, ‘we don’t do stuff like that because you didn’t ask me, you asked Linda.’ Instead he said, “I would love to do that, babe. It’s been too long. When was the last time?”

Paul had to think. It had been a long time. A glaring thought went through his mind at that moment: perhaps I’ve been taking John for granted? Maybe that is why he gets bored and strays? He amazed himself by the fact that he hadn’t thought of this as a possibility before. “I’ll surprise you then,” Paul said in a low voice and with a wicked smile.

John actually felt butterflies in his stomach in response to that smile. His heart skipped another beat. He felt the throbbing love again. It had been missing for a while - that throbbing kind of love. Where had it gone? And thank god it had come back!

Paul cleared his throat. He had some important things to say in order to set their relationship back on the right track: the track where they each felt strong in it, and where they each felt equal. Somehow, someway - was it the cancer they’d survived together? The relationship had gone off track, and first one and then the other had the whip hand, back and forth, with precious few times in between where they both felt empowered simultaneously. That would have to change, because Paul refused to live his life swallowed up by depression and anxiety.

“John, I had a lot of time to think while I was away,” he started.

Oh no, John worried. What’s coming? It was going so well!

“I feel I owe you an apology for the way I behaved about your desire to write. I only thought of myself. The truth is I would love to read a book by you. Anything at all! I’ve loved everything you’ve written over the years. Remember when In His Own Write was published? I was so proud of you! I was bragging about it to everyone who would listen.”

John remembered. Paul had been his biggest fan and strongest supporter when he wrote. Paul had even written the foreword to the first book. He had been the one encouraging him to continue to do it. John nodded ‘yes’ in response to Paul’s question.

“I feel very small, the way I discouraged you from trying, and made disparaging remarks about it. There’s no excuse for my behavior.”

John said, “It was a nasty surprise for you. I know how much the songwriting means to you...”

“I never have let my love of our partnership get in the way of your solo creative projects before. Even the whole Two Virgins thing - I didn’t get in your way. I wasn’t happy about it, but I supported you.”

“You did,” John remembered. He especially remembered how Paul had gone to bat for him with the powers-that-were at EMI, and how he had helped broker a compromise so that Two Virgins could be sold with it’s naked photo album cover (albeit wrapped in brown paper). Paul had truly hated those photos, had advocated privately against them when he and John were alone, but Paul had supported him in the end nevertheless, hadn’t he? He’d even written some liner notes.

“I fear that things have to be pretty bad between us, if I find myself actively trying to sabotage your efforts to grow as an artist. I mean - what had it come to that I should behave so badly?” Paul’s question was emotional, but it was also strategic. He was working the conversation around to a discussion of the state of their relationship from the direction of what he himself had done to harm it, rather than from the direction of what John had done. Paul hoped that this would lead to a more constructive and less defensive conversation.

John was touched by Paul’s comments. He had felt so guilty for so long - everything he did seemed to hurt Paul. And here was Paul taking responsibility for at least some of it. It went a long way to subduing some of those guilty feelings. “We haven’t been communicating well for a long time,” John contributed. 

“I know. It’s like we were suddenly tone deaf to each other’s thoughts.” Paul leaned forward, excited and relieved that John appeared willing to engage honestly on the subject.

“Why do you suppose that is?” John asked, his expression a little fearful. He was worried that there were additional, more hurtful observations in Paul’s pipeline.

Paul sighed heavily. “I wish I knew. I think we’ve been off ever since the cancer...”

John harkened back to the dark days of his cancer, and the harsh way he had treated Paul during the chemo, and shortly thereafter. Was Paul blaming him for all of their problems? After all, he had cancer for fuck’s sake! He forced his temper to sit down and shut up. He said, as evenly as he could under the circumstances, “I was very sick. I was not myself.”

Paul was alarmed and looked up to meet John’s eyes. “Oh no! I didn’t mean to imply that it was in any way your fault! No! I just think that the experience did something to each of us, as individuals and as a couple. It changed us. And we didn’t know how to fit our pieces together again once it was over, so we’ve been sort of trying all sorts of things to make it work again, but nothing worked.”

“You have given it a lot of thought.” John’s voice was dry, and his expression seemed to taunt Paul a little, as if to say, and where are all these thoughts leading us then?

Paul could tell that he was losing John as a friendly audience. He supposed he should be grateful that he had gotten this far without pushing the wrong button. He sat back in his chair, and his subconscious stress exposed itself with a frustrated hand running through his hair. He had to say it sometime. Now was as good a time as any other.

“I’m wondering if we expect too much from each other,” he finally said.

John’s silence was a mixture of hostility and confusion. “What the fuck does that mean?” He demanded.

“Well, maybe we’re too possessive and controlling of each other. Maybe we should give each other more space.”

“You mean me, don’t you Paul?” John sneered angrily.

Paul refused to be provoked. “I mean me, mainly. I was the one who was upset about you buying the flat in New York. I was the one who made it so difficult for you to spend time with your friends in New York without me. I was the one who had a meltdown over your affair with that person...”

“It wasn’t an affair! It was a fuckin’ one-night-stand!” John shouted.

Paul heard this and kept going, “...okay, with your one-night-stand...I was the one who was upset about that, even after you explained to me that you thought you had the right to sleep with other men. I was the jealous one, not you. And I was the one who did everything he could to discourage you from writing. I’m talking mostly about my own behavior.” Paul’s voice was studiously calm and logical. 

John didn’t like it when Paul was calm while he was upset at him, but on the other hand Paul’s words did have a calming effect on him. It was a slightly less hostile John who asked, “And me? What was my part in it, then?”

“I have felt as though - ever since the cancer ended - you have been testing me. You were trying to come up with different ways to express yourself individually, and it would bring out the worst in me. I mean - the business about going public about your...one-night-stand...for example, and wanting to talk about your sexuality in the press. This would have a catastrophic effect on my family, and yet you brought it up all the time. Nothing I could do or say could persuade you that this would really hurt me more than it could possibly help you.”

“It’s only because I hate living a lie.” John said defensively.

“Which you wouldn’t have to do if it weren’t for me and the fact that I love my wife and children, right? I’m the villain of that piece, aren’t I?” Paul’s expression reflected his growing frustration.

“So, okay, okay, let’s assume your thesis is correct. What do you want to do about it?” John’s expression was pugnacious. 

Finally, Paul thought to himself, the bottom line. “I have some ideas, but I really want to hear your ideas, too,” Paul said. “I understand how you hate it when I solve the problems, so if I have an idea, it’s just an idea. It isn’t a demand, or a decision, or anything like that.”

“I don’t hate it when you solve problems, Paul!” John shouted. “You keep deliberately misquoting me. I said sometimes - very rarely - I disagree with your solutions, and you just...”

“’Steam-roll’ over you. Yes, I remember, John.”

“See - there’s more to this than you feeling bad about what you did. You have a lot of resentment for me, too!” John didn’t want to feel victorious having proven this position, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from feeling it anyway.

Paul literally counted to ten so he wouldn’t lose his temper. “Yes, John, I do have resentment. I don’t like it, I’m not proud of it. I’m trying to get rid of it. I want to do something positive about it. Are you willing to talk with me about it?”

Now that John had ‘won’ the argument, he felt terrible. Paul resented him! He admitted it! This hurt him very badly, however illogical that sounded after the way he had baited Paul. John nodded glumly in the affirmative.

Paul started again. “So, one idea I had was that we get very clear about our expectations of each other. Let’s negotiate them. What can’t you live with? What can’t I? Let’s create boundaries, and then agree to live within them. What do you think about that idea?”

John was looking at Paul cockeyed now. Almost as if he didn’t understand the words Paul said, although he had heard them. “Like, what do you mean, give me an example.” He leaned in, getting interested now.

“Well, the most important one to me is I need you to understand how important my wife and children are to me. I don’t want anything I do to hurt them. And that means if we are going to stay together, you can’t go public about your sexuality. If that is a deal-killer for you, you might as well tell me now.”

John was staring at Paul. This was tough negotiating indeed. “What do you mean, ‘if we are going to stay together’? Are you saying that if I don’t agree to your demands, you’re breaking up with me?”

Paul had feared that John would interpret his ‘expectations’ as ‘demands’, but it was a knotty subject they had to work out if they had any hope of staying together. “I mean, I think both of us need to be clear about what we can live with, and what we can’t. And my most important one is, I need you to understand and appreciate why I don’t want you to talk about your sexuality in the press because of my family.”

“Paul, I’ve already agreed not to talk about it. I’ve told you that a thousand times.” John was prone to exaggeration, Paul knew, but this was a bit more than usual.

Paul decided not to fight it, but instead to take John’s comment as a given. “Okay, that’s good. So I don’t want to hear about it anymore.” Paul’s voice was blunt.

This declaration surprised John greatly. “What?”

“If you really understand how important it is to me, then you shouldn’t constantly be reminding me of it. I’ve asked you for a favor which is very important to me, and I would like to believe that you do not resent granting me that favor.” Paul’s face was firm and even a little tough.

John was speechless for quite a little while. He had never looked at it this way - that he had been begrudging Paul his need to protect his family. He should have, Paul had told him this so many times, but finally John heard it. “I can do that,” he finally said.

Paul tried to disguise the huge sigh of relief that emitted from him. He felt as though he had run a marathon. But it was time to move to the next step. “I really appreciate that. I get that it is a sacrifice for you, and I am grateful that you’re willing to make that sacrifice for me.”

John smiled weakly and nodded lightly.

“So now it’s your turn. What is an expectation you have of me? What’s important to you?” Paul was hoping to draw John into the conversation with this gambit. 

John hadn’t had nearly as much time as Paul to think about such issues. He couldn’t think of anything except ‘please don’t ever leave me.’ He knew he couldn’t say that. It wasn’t in the spirit of Paul’s exercise. He looked at Paul helplessly.

“Do you need your space, John? Do you need me to support your desire to have your own creative projects, and to be okay with you hanging in New York alone with your friends when you want to? You have that beautiful apartment...” Paul was trying to help John by prompting him with ideas.

Although John had held these desires close to him for a few years now, he suddenly had lost all interest in them when he thought that perhaps Paul was okay about an increased separation between them. But he felt foolish to admit this. “Yeah, well, that would be good,” he said lamely.

Paul felt John’s level of commitment to the exercise was tenuous at best, but decided not to cavil at it. “Okay. So, tell me what you need specifically,” he suggested, “and then we’ll be able to communicate better.”

John doubted this very much; already he was finding it impossible to communicate. He was so terrified at the thought of Paul’s new independence. John had worried that this was coming - Paul’s ‘declaration of independence’ - but part of him had hoped that he was wrong. Well, now he knew he wasn’t wrong. “I’m not all that sure about anything right now, Paul,” John finally said softly. “Let me think about it.”

Paul was a little frustrated, because he had conquered his fear and had opened the dialog, but then he also knew it wasn’t fair to expect John to be ready for the conversation without warning. He knew he had to back off. “Well, okay, we can talk about it later. But I want you to know that I won’t hold you back. If you need your space, I will give you space. I promise.”

John smiled vaguely in Paul’s direction. He wondered if this was Paul’s plan to start putting distance between them. Well, he wasn’t going to panic just yet. He remembered the lovemaking they’d shared less than two hours earlier. Paul had been a man very much in thrall to John’s physical love, and John - even in his present insecure state - felt that this was his ace in the hole. 

 

*****

 

John was facing his interviewer. The crew was fussing with microphones and lights, and the cameraman kept fussing with the lens. He was seated in his white living room, with all the primary color accents and paintings. He was wearing the ubiquitous blue jeans and black crewneck pullover sweater. He was barefoot, because no one was allowed to wear shoes on his white carpet. The cameramen, soundmen and producers were all padding around with their shoes off.

The producer-interviewer gave John a very brief recap of what the questioning would be about in this segment. “We’ll be talking about your first trip to America, in February 1964. If you need to redo an answer, just let me know.”

John nodded, and could feel the energy stirring inside him. John was actually nervous whenever he was being asked questions in front of cameras.

The camera rolled.

“John, you brought your wife Cynthia on your first trip to America, but never on any others. How did that come about?”

John couldn’t say the real truth: that Brian Epstein wanted him to take his wife so he could make it clear to America’s narrow-minded populace that he was heterosexual. Instead, he repeated the reason Brian had suggested he use at the time. “My wife needed a holiday; she’d been home with a baby for months while I toured, and I thought it would be a nice trip for her. We didn’t know if we were going to flop, so for all I knew it was my first and last trip to America.” 

 

*****

 

John’s mind tripped back to Brian’s office circa early February 1964. They hadn’t been back from their triumphant run in Paris for very long when Brian called John in for this meeting. John was surprised to find Paul sitting there when he came in. Paul had looked equally surprised to see John there. They gave each other clueless what the hell? looks, and then John sat down in front of Brian’s desk, too.

Brian just blurted it out. He said, “John, I want you to take your wife with you to New York.”

John had immediately jumped up and shouted, “You’re off your head, Brian! We don’t take women on tour with us!”

Brian had allowed John to vent his anger, and then quietly said, “You owe it to her John, because she has been living in the shadows for over a year, hiding herself and your child. I think it is time for you to make it clear that you have a wife and child. We can’t continue to pretend that you aren’t married; the press has already got hold of the story.”

“That was my deal with her! I told her I’d marry her, but only if she kept it secret!” John had continued to shout.

“John, you have to be reasonable. You can’t keep the marriage secret forever.”

“But why now? I don’t understand!”

It was then that Paul had cleared his throat, and both Brian and John had looked at him with surprise. For a moment they had forgotten he was even there.

“Umm, Brian, this is all very interesting. But may I ask why I am here?”

A dead silence fell over the room as both Brian and John stared at Paul for a few moments. And then, rousing himself, John turned back to Brian. “Yeah, Brian. Why is Paul here?” There was a great deal of suspicion on John’s face. “Are you thinking Paul will be on your side and will convince me to do this?”

Paul thought about this possibility for a moment. Just in case that was Brian’s intent, he thought he’d better make it clear to Brian whose side he was on. “John’s marriage is his business. I don’t want to be in the middle of this, and you shouldn’t either.”

Brian had moved uncomfortably in his chair. “Paul, I asked you to come because I have been speaking with one of our sponsors in America, a friend of mine, and he has made it clear to me that Americans are very literal minded. The parental culture is already upset about your haircuts, for example.”

“Our haircuts?” John had sputtered. “What has that got to do with Cynthia?”

Brian persevered. He had noted that he had Paul’s intense attention. In fact, if Paul had antennae Brian would have seen them bobbing in that moment. “The haircuts have caused them to make jokes about your masculinity.” Brian was trying to make a point without coming right out and saying it.

Paul’s eyes sharpened. There were moments when the puppy dog looks disappeared completely, and suddenly Brian would see a mature, shrewd intelligence staring back at him. This was one of those times. “So what you’re saying is, that the Americans might think we’re queer?” Paul asked. His eyes were pinning Brian to the back of his chair.

John was surprised by that question. He had still been quietly fuming over the whole Cynthia thing, and hadn’t been focusing real well on the new direction the conversation had taken.

Brian winced at the word ‘queer’, but he said, “There are some whispers to that effect.”

“Just because of our hair?” John asked, stupefied.

“And the way you dress, yes. Men in America have a haircut called a ‘crew cut’ - they all look as though they were in the Army.” Brian was trying to lighten the atmosphere with a little joke.

Paul was still staring at Brian. His curiosity wasn’t satisfied yet, although he had his suspicions. “So, you still haven’t explained why I’m here, Brian. All four of us have long hair. Why just me and not the others too?”

Brian was exceedingly uncomfortable. He shifted in his chair again, and he looked down at his hands. “Well, you and John really cannot room together on this trip. And I think it is important for John to be there with his wife.”

It was Paul’s turn to feel plastered to his chair. Well, that was interesting. It was the first time Brian had ever referenced the fact that he knew about the nature of their relationship. John and Paul had always thought that he had his suspicions, but they had enjoyed teasing him and keeping him guessing. However, this time Brian was being as close to clear about it as he had ever been.

“What are you suggesting, Brian?” John demanded, finally getting the nuances of the conversation. He and Paul had always acted indignantly if anyone suggested there was anything ‘funny’ about their relationship. It was one of their ingrained defense mechanisms.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Brian said soothingly. “I’m simply saying that Americans are literal-minded and a bit puritanical, and it is best to remove all ambiguity from the picture.”

John looked at Paul with an expression that said, ‘What’s he on about - do you know?’ Paul said to Brian, “Well, you’ve given us a lot to think about. Let us think about it for a little while, and we’ll get back to you.”

“I need your answer by tonight,” Brian said. “This trip is being laid on in a hurry, and we’ve got to make the plans immediately.”

John and Paul had gone straight to one of their favorite clubs, and lost themselves in one of the more private booths in the back. They sat having their drinks and not saying much for a good twenty minutes before John finally said, “The nerve of Brian! I’m not taking Cynthia on tour with us. He doesn’t get to make those decisions for us!”

Paul swallowed a mouthful of his beverage and then held the glass up to the light for a moment to enjoy the reflected colors. He said, “John, I think we should follow Brian’s advice.”

“WHHAATTT??” John could not believe his ears.

“Brian has lived with this kind of prejudice his whole life. I think it was hard for him to talk to us about this. He wouldn’t do it unless he thought it was important. If his suspicions about us weren’t true, we could ignore his advice. But since they are true, I think we should do what he says.”

John was upset by what he viewed as Paul’s disloyalty. “What will I do without you, though? I’m nervous enough about the whole thing. How am I supposed to function while I’m there?”

Paul had shot John a very knowing smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there, won’t I? And there are bound to be connecting doors, yeah?” 

 

*****

 

John could repeat none of this to the Anthology producer. The whole interview process had been frustrating for this reason. To one extent or another he was still required to sit in front of a reporter and whitewash the Beatles. After all these years! But Paul had made him promise not to complain about this need to hide all aspects of their love from the world. And, John wondered in disgust, what the fuck was he going to do when he had to discuss the break up? John was bitterly discontented. He now knew without a doubt that the ‘story of the Beatles by the Beatles’ was going to be another big lie, just like all the other ‘stories of the Beatles’ out there. He felt like a giant phony to be assisting in the perpetration of that lie.

 

*****

 

Paul was frustrated. John was avoiding The Discussion. He was doing everything he could not to commit to a set of boundaries and expectations. While Paul understood that John hated change (no matter how much he went on to reporters and like such that he lived for change), Paul hadn’t expected John to erect such elaborate defenses against a direct discussion on the subject of the problems in their relationship, and how they might go about fixing them. Paul had pondered and then tried various ways to lure John into the discussion, but John had a way of slipping out of the net at the last moment. It didn’t help that there were so many diversions in Paul’s life. The individual Anthology interviews were in full swing, and then there were Linda and his kids and of course, always, the relentless humdrum of business and finance.

Paul was in this contemplative frame of mind one day as he sat in the garden at Cavendish. Yes, it was cold outside, the grass was crunchy to walk on, and the trees were bare. But all of this seemed to match his mood. Linda was off somewhere doing Linda things, and it was mid-afternoon. If Paul tended to get anxious or depressed, it was usually in mid-afternoon. Cocooned in his overcoat, and holding a hot cup of tea, he pondered his gloomy situation. Where had he gone wrong in his attempt to regularize the rules in his relationship with John? Clearly, John wanted none of it. Still, John was being loving and kind to him right now, and so maybe there was no more to be said? Maybe Paul had already made his point, and there was no need to say more? Was it just his perfectionism at work that required a period at the end of the sentence?

The gate at the bottom of the garden opened, and John strolled in. He did a double take as he saw Paul at the other end of the garden, wrapped up in wool and sitting dead still. He hadn’t expected to find him outside on such a cold day! Then he wondered: is he asleep? Paul wasn’t moving. John approached and then noted that Paul’s eyes were open, but they seemed to be staring into a deep dark pit.

“Hey, mate,” John said softly as he came near.

Paul was surprised by John’s sudden appearance, but a warm smile quickly brightened his face. “John!”

“Why are you sitting out here in the cold?” John asked simply.

“Don’t know. I just felt like it I guess,” Paul responded.

Curiouser and curiouser, John thought, remembering his beloved Lewis Carroll. He pulled a chair up so he was sitting side by side with Paul. He regarded the bleak view silently for a few moments. He was cold, and uncomfortable, but he tried to settle in his chair. “Whacha thinking?” He finally asked.

Paul sighed. “I guess I’m thinking how fucked up everything is.”

John was briefly taken aback by Paul’s direct honesty. “How so?”

“You don’t want to set expectations between us, do you?” Paul asked the question directly.

“I don’t think it’ll work. It will just be something else for us to fight about.” John decided direct honesty deserved direct honesty right back.

Paul digested this answer. He finally said, looking down into his teacup, “I don’t want to fight any more, John.”

John’s heart melted a little. “So let’s don’t.”

John’s answer sounded simple. Or perhaps he made the idea of not fighting anymore sound simple. But something in its simplicity appealed to Paul’s sense of humor. He chuckled deeply. “Well, now that we’ve settled that...” Paul said, sweeping his arm expansively outward, making John laugh too.

John finished the thought: “Yeah, now we can take on world peace.”


	72. Chapter 72

Some months later, circa April, 1994

There was a red paved driveway, which curved its way through groves of trees and led to the fantastical edifice called “Friar Park.” John and Paul were arriving together, Paul at the wheel. As they turned into this driveway and approached the rather grand gatehouse they noted that the security men inside it began to stir. John observed wryly,

“If they’re dressed like Swiss Guards, I’m outta here.”

Paul giggled his appreciation. Yes, George had a bit of a holy man syndrome, it was true.

As it turned out the guards were dressed in nifty uniforms of navy blue trousers and crisp white shirts. Paul dealt with the details of signing in, while John said quite loudly in ersatz amazement, “They have epaulets on their sleeves!” Paul pretended to ignore this announcement, but the security guard didn’t know quite what to make of it and backed away in confusion. Soon, their car cruised through the imposing gates, and headed up the red road until the implausibly overgrown gingerbread house came into view. Paul idled the car for a bit so they could take it all in.

“I haven’t been here in years,” John commented after a few moments’ silence. “The last time I saw the house, I was high on acid. I thought I imagined all that stonework.” Paul nodded slightly in amused acknowledgement and then proceeded ‘round to the parking area. Such elaborate and over-wrought architecture was not to Paul’s taste (and clearly not to John’s either), but Paul did appreciate George’s decade-long dedication to recreating the ‘purity’ of the house’s original owner’s design. 

The two men were let into the house by a middle-aged East Asian woman, who rather disappointedly was not dressed in a long black dress with crisp white apron and cap, but instead in bleach stained blue jeans, a pullover shirt with a glittery kitty on top, and tennis shoes. This would be George’s housekeeper. They were shown into George’s favorite room, a huge sitting cum great room. As over-the-top as the exterior appeared, the interior was even more exaggerated. There were intricately carved mahogany wood panels everywhere, giving the house (in Paul’s and John’s minds, anyway) a heavy, dark, cloistered feel. The beveled leaded glass windows only accentuated the faux-1540’s-inspired atmosphere. Both John and Paul felt claustrophobic, even though the room was huge. They supposed they were meant to feel small and humbled as they waited for the Great One to arrive, but instead they just felt like opening the French doors and wandering out on to the patio. So that is what they did. The topiary gardens spread out before them, and in the early spring light they were truly magnificent.

It was there that George found them. His hair was long again, below his shoulders, in that Jesus/hippie halo effect that suited his features so well.

“I see you found me,” George laughed. He often said this to guests once they’d finally successfully arrived in the right room of the labyrinth he called home.

Paul went in for the big hug first, and George, a bit surprised by the warmth of it, hugged back will equal warmth. If nothing else genuine happened between them that day, at least the hug was heartfelt on both sides. They both felt it, and were both a little surprised by it. Part of the Paul/George dynamic since about 1966 was that neither was ever very sure how much the other one liked/hated/loved/disliked/or annoyed him. Neither was sure what the other one said to others about him behind his back. They had gone in such different directions after the touring stopped in late 1966 - George into acid and East Indian mysticism, and Paul into cocaine and the London artsy scene. They’d never really found each other as friends since then, despite the closeness and affection they’d shared in their teens and early twenties.

John, of course, was the real prize in George’s eyes. Having John in his home and back in his life was satisfying for George. It had been so long, really. Years. The last time John had needed him was when Paul had been away in Sussex with Linda for a few weeks after that whole distasteful Nigel experience. Once George hadn’t been needed anymore, John had stopped calling him. Perhaps John’s hard-to-getness was what caused George to want John’s friendship so much. Consequently, the hug he gave John was far warmer and more genuine than the one he got back from John.

John was more or less oblivious to the undercurrents. Since they ran mainly between Paul and George and didn’t involve him, they barely registered at first. But in not so long a time they would become manifestly visible to all.

“This is quite a setup you’ve got here, George,” John remarked. “Somehow over the years I’d forgotten how big everything was.”

George heard this comment for what it was: here was a fellow Liverpudlian telling him he was too big for his britches, with aspirations beyond his station in life. George had never been afraid of John’s sarcasm, so he responded in kind. “True, but two Friar Parks could fit into the grounds of Tittenhurst Park with room to spare.”

Paul turned away to hide his highly amused reaction. On a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the greatest, George had just scored a 10 on John: if George was bigheaded, then John was more than twice as bigheaded. (Tittenhurst Park of course, all 72 acres of it, was the Georgian estate John had purchased with Yoko in 1969, and where they had lived until they moved to New York in 1971; they had sold it to Ringo who had called it home until the ‘80s.) Here we go, Paul thought, pushing the button in his brain that turned on the Beatle Paul. He might as well get ready for his own share of insults, because he knew they would be coming. That was how the four of them communicated with each other, and there was no point in having hurt feelings or getting embarrassed by it. It was a kind of male bravado and one-upsmanship that had been a constant beat underneath all of their interactions. 

Or, at least, that is how Paul thought it would go.

Meanwhile, John was not insulted by George’s riposte. He knew he’d get him back good later on in the day. He just had to wait for his opportunity.

Ringo suddenly joined them on the patio, and everyone warmly embraced Ringo. As insecure as Ringo sometimes felt in the group as a whole - he hadn’t grown up with the other three, the way they had grown up with each other, and he had been a last minute addition just as the band’s train began to gain traction - he was, in reality, the only one all three of them always loved and could get on with, no matter what. It wasn’t that the other three didn’t have disputes with Ringo occasionally. It was just that Ringo would not stay mad, and he had this inexplicable ability to reach past any kind of anger or resentment to the humor and love beyond. Thus, he could tease George about George’s threats to sue him, and he could overlook Paul’s patronizing tenseness about dealing with him on money matters, and he could love John even at his absolute worst (which was pretty bad). And, perhaps more cynically and less altruistically, he was the only one of the four who did not create a sense of insecurity in the others. None of the other three felt threatened by Ringo’s abilities in any way, and each of them privately felt - rightly or wrongly - that Ringo was more of a personality than a musical talent, and thus not a challenge to their individual standing in the band’s hierarchy.

The day was fine, so they sat in the wrought iron chairs arrayed around the patio. Ringo asked George if he had to go out of his way to find such uncomfortable chairs, or did they come with the house? George opined that a person who was appropriately disciplined in life would be comfortable in any chair. Paul smiled fondly at George and Ringo as they sparred. John yawned and asked if there was going to be anything to eat soon. George obediently got up to chase down the housekeeper. (Olivia had decided to get out of the house and go off with a girlfriend for a few days, so that the four men could have the house to themselves.)

After the tea was set on the patio table, and each man had his cuppa and his digestive biscuit, John decided to retake what he viewed as his rightful place as leader of the group. “So. What are we doing here? Are we going to just fuck around and jam a little? Or are we going to work on a song or two together?”

Ringo was excited to hear John say this. He had been afraid that John would not want to reunite in this way. Paul was relieved that John had brought it up, because there was a chance George would consider doing it if it was John’s idea, but not if it was his - Paul’s - idea.

George considered John’s remark as Ringo reacted first. “I think it would be fun to see if we can work together again.” Ringo tried to keep himself from seeming too excited. He knew that John and George interpreted excitement as “uncool.”

George regarded Ringo under heavy-lidded eyes and remained silent. He was waiting for Paul to say something overly enthusiastic and pushy, to which he could react by smashing Paul down. But Paul foiled his plan by remaining silent too. Paul was forcing himself to keep his mouth shut and his face devoid of any emotion for fear of setting off George.

Seeing what was going on, John sighed and added, “Of course, we wouldn’t want this to be too serious or regulated. I mean - we might suck. It has occurred to me that we may not jell after all this time, so if we just start working on a song for the fun of it, it might develop into something, or it might not.”

George was watching Paul through his peripheral vision and noted that Paul was nodding in a neutral, considering way as John spoke. Still, Paul did not commit to an opinion. George figured he’d have to goose him to get the reaction he hoped for.  
“Let me guess, John. Our friend Beatle Paul here has just the right little song to work on that he ginned up in his sleep for us, right?”

John glared at George angrily while Ringo said, “George...” Paul’s head jerked in George’s direction as though he had been slapped in the face with no provocation (which he had been, at least figuratively). John gently nudged Paul’s knee with his own, signaling to Paul that he had it covered.

“That was uncalled for, George,” John drawled. “But actually, I had a song idea leftover from the late ‘70s that I thought we could work on. It’s called ‘Now and Then’.” John’s expression was firm and unyielding as he stared down George.

“Well, maybe if I heard this song of yours, John, I’d be in a better position to decide.” George had let it go. He had made his point, and John had come rushing to Paul’s defense again. Same old, same old. George turned to Paul. “I suppose you’ve got the tape of this song on your person somewhere, haven’t you? Or maybe in the car?” George’s eyes twinkled with what Paul interpreted to be malice. In truth, it was a much watered- down version of malice - more like slight dislike mixed with a lot of distrust.

Paul flushed with resentment. He had of course brought the tape, and it was in his jacket’s inner pocket, but now he didn’t feel like bringing the tape out or working with George at all. Instead of responding he shrugged a dismissive shoulder in George’s direction.

John was getting angrier, and Ringo was getting more anxious. There was a lot of rotting baggage between Paul and George, and the fester was beginning to poison the air.

Ringo said softly, “I hope you did bring the tape, Paul. John is so forgetful. He’s lucky to have you around.”

Paul let his held breath out a little, and then gave into the relieved smile that Ringo’s kind words had inspired.

John, still irritated with George, added, “I asked Paul to bring the tape, George. Do you have some kind of weird problem with that? One of us had to bring it. It wasn’t gonna walk here by itself.”

Out-numbered, George smiled and said, “So let’s hear this famous tape, then, before it gets dark.”

 

*****

 

They had planned to stay over at George’s house for a few days, all four of them in the same house (which had over 100 rooms, so it was unlikely they’d be on top of each other in any way). However, the ‘session’ had been so difficult for Paul, and his stomach was in such a knot, that he didn’t want to stay. He just wanted to go home and forget about the whole thing.

Earlier, George had grudgingly agreed that the song (which George repeatedly insisted upon calling ‘John’s song’, emphasizing the ‘John’ part) was worth an attempt. But he had made it clear that he wanted an equal part in finishing the song with John and Paul, and had set about to talk over Paul whenever he suggested something, and, if John showed a preference for a Paul idea over a George idea, George would make a contemptuous remark about ‘schmaltz’ under his breath, (but loud enough to make sure Paul heard it.)

Paul had spent the whole time fighting his own temper, and forcing himself not to push himself forward. Consequently, to Paul’s mind, the song was beginning to sound like a dirge in the two-octave range of George’s musical voice. It was clear to Paul that the song wasn’t working. John’s lyrics were so heartfelt and delicate; only a heartbreaking melody could really embrace the words properly. All of Paul’s attempts to introduce melody through direct chords (“Since I’m playing lead, I think I’m capable of coming up with my own chords, Paul,”) or through indirect means (“That piano is a bit distracting, Paul”) or through voice harmony (“I don’t mind a three-part harmony, Paul, but your falsetto out there sounds off”) were defeated by George. Paul had finally given up, and wandered off to a corner, put some headphones on, turned to the wall (so he would not be distracted by the others), and started working out a soft counter-melody on the bass. Maybe the result would be so subtle George wouldn’t notice and call it out. Paul had done that before on ‘Something’, and if George had noticed the counter-melody Paul had added on bass he’d never said a word about it - good, bad or indifferent.

The housekeeper’s home-cooked Indian food smelled wonderful. The four men gathered around the vegetarian feast. That was one thing Paul and George had in common - vegetarianism - although George’s tastes were more Indian and Paul’s were more English. As they ate, a general calm fell over the table. The conversation became more casual, easier, and friendlier. The only one who was not casual, not natural, and only forcedly friendly was Paul. Paul felt like the odd man out yet again. Of course, he knew that whatever else happened, he was going home with John. He also knew that his friendship with Ringo was tight, and would survive any number of strained sessions in the studio. But George... How painful it was to have this huge abyss between himself and his former close friend. Paul figured he’d done his share to damage the friendship, but drugs, time and the maturation process had played the largest part. They had so few shared interests. Of course George, too, had done much to damage their relationship - primarily with his perfidious conduct in joining John’s orchestrated public and private attempts to marginalize and attack Paul in the early ‘70s. Whatever the cause and for whatever reason, Paul alone had ended up bearing the burden of the craziness that had beset all of them in the latter years of the 1960s and the early years of the 1970s. It was as if in George’s mind, all the bitterness, all the issues, all the ‘betrayals’ between the four of them had been distilled into one overwhelming burden and placed solely and firmly on Paul’s back.

Truthfully, that is what the rock journalists had done, too. The Official Story was that he, Paul, was solely responsible for it all: John’s heroin use (where was Paul when John needed him?); Yoko (why didn’t Paul - the misogynist - agree to work with her? Or, why didn’t he meet John’s needs, so he didn’t have to latch on to Yoko?); George’s estrangement, (yes it was John who didn’t show up for George’s sessions, and yes it was Paul who worked hard on all of George’s songs, but still, Paul treated George in a patronizing way - even though John did too - but it was only Paul’s fault because John was John, and no one blames him); Ringo’s hurt feelings (Paul had ordered Ringo out of his house! - well, of course Ringo had come to tell Paul that he had voted with the other two and thus Paul was being screwed, but Paul should have known it wasn’t Ringo’s fault, shouldn’t he have? Of course Ringo should vote with John and George, because Paul was always wrong!); and the Beatles breaking up - all Paul’s fault, all his ego, all his grandiose opinion of himself, with the outrageous addition of his wife’s family ganging up on the other three honorable ones! Depending on the particular grievance being aired, Paul was either a dupe of the evil plotting Eastmans, or Machiavellian in his self-interested maneuvering. He was either the Beatle most pathetically eager to keep the band together, or he was the bastard who caused the Beatles to break up. He was either John’s rejected “princess” or he had cold-heartedly closed John out of his life. He was either a no-talent hack who had ridden on John’s back, or a clever journeyman who knew how to give the public what it wanted. In other words: in the minds of a certain set of Beatle fans and rock journalists, Paul could literally do no right. To Paul it seemed as though George had internalized this tautology, and it was a bitter pill for Paul to swallow.

Paul sighed. His appetite vanished, and he quietly put his fork down. He maintained an outward polite interest in the others’ conversation, and smiled and laughed where appropriate, but his heart was not there. Eventually John noticed it.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Paul,” he said suddenly. Paul had just picked up his fork again and was poking at his food, trying to drum up some interest in it. He looked up quickly and tried to smile in an easy way.

“Tired, I guess,” was all he said.

“Usually, you dominate the conversation,” George observed.

“’Usually’, George?” John asked sarcastically. “You haven’t hung around us much since 1968. I don’t think you have the slightest clue what is ‘usual’ for Paul these days.”

Paul put his fork down and said, “It’s okay, John. I don’t think he meant anything by it; did you, George?” Paul turned to him in all seriousness. At that moment he didn’t know if George was going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the question, and he didn’t much care which it was, either. It almost didn’t matter, because the question was rhetorical. They all knew it had been personal, and so a response from George was unnecessary. George just smiled at Paul in response. It was probably the only polite way he could have answered the question honestly.

To change the subject, Ringo said, “So tomorrow - what time do you want to start?”

“I don’t work in the morning,” John said firmly.

“Or in the afternoon or evening, either,” Ringo joked. Everyone laughed a little nervously. But soon, the cadence around the table relaxed again, as they savored their coffee. Paul receded into the background, and observed the dynamics between his friends. Ringo was leaning backward in his chair, laughing and joking easily, and John leaned forward, dominating the conversation. George was hanging on John’s conversation while trying not to look as though he was, and periodically he added le mot juste. For a moment Paul saw it clearly: George still was longing for a closer relationship with John, John did not reciprocate that feeling although part of him was obviously flattered by it so he played up to it, and only Ringo felt at home with both of them. Where had he - Paul - fit in this ménage before? Back before he was the outcast, the black sheep, the villain, the uncool one, the one left outside the circle? He strained to remember.

They were holed up in a hotel room somewhere in England on a cold rainy night, circa late 1962. Ringo was still new to their group, and sat on the side of one of two beds in the room, mainly observing. John and Paul were seated next to each other on the other of the two single beds, and John was holding a guitar in his lap. George was sitting cross- legged at the bottom of that bed. He, too, had a guitar, and the two men played random chords in between the ebb and flow of cheeky talk and careless insults. Paul had felt entirely at home in that circle. He had felt that he had an important place in it - he was John’s lieutenant then, and he had been the band’s most dedicated cheerleader. This was before he had started stretching his wings, needing to find his own self within the context of the 4-headed monster; thus far Paul’s little acts of rebellion over Brian and John’s tendency to treat him as a subaltern had been almost childishly ineffective. He hadn’t yet found the confidence to stand outside of John’s shadow and demand his own respect. 

Strangely, as Paul remembered it, George had been in the same boat. George, too, was treated as a subaltern, but because John had selected Paul as his writing partner, George had found himself one rung below Paul. Paul hadn’t thought about how George must have felt at the time. After all, Paul had been only 20 years old and not a very introspective person to boot. Paul thought about it now. George’s resentment over his place in the hierarchy had landed on the person next up on the ladder - Paul - and had not reached the person at the top, who orchestrated it all (John). Paul supposed that was natural. Once - as a teenager - he’d worked in a manufacturing business, and everyone had hated the line supervisor but not the head boss, largely because it was the line supervisor who had to enforce the head boss’s rules. 

These thoughts led Paul to the conclusion that his relationship with George had probably been on its way down from the moment he met John. John was the 500-pound guerilla in the room, and George and Paul’s individual desires to be the one closest to John had been a poison pill in their friendship that took years to do its worst work. George’s bitterness must surely flow from the certain knowledge that Paul had won that competition on every single level.

“Paul? Oh, Paa-uu-ll?” John’s voice was echoing in the back of Paul’s mind, as he slowly came back to the present. As his mind focused on the present, he noted that all three of them were looking at him with amused expressions on their faces. “You with us here on earth, Paul?” John asked as Paul’s eyes unclouded.

“Sorry, I’m dead on my feet,” Paul said sheepishly. He knew he must have looked stupid, sitting there with a vacant look on his face, musing over his inner thoughts.

“Well, maybe we should go to bed, then,” John suggested, and then allowed his eyebrows to dance up and down on his forehead mischievously. This caused both George and Ringo to look down at their hands in embarrassment. Neither of them liked to be reminded in any way of the John/Paul sexual relationship.

Paul knew they were embarrassed, and this caused him to be a bit embarrassed, too. He said, “No reason for you to break up for the night. It seems like you’re all having fun. I’ll just go up myself and crash.”

John was enjoying this opportunity to renew his position as the group’s enfant terrible. He said suggestively, “There’s a lot more fun to be had for me upstairs with you, Paul, than there is down here with these two gits!”

Paul shared a I-can’t-take-him-anywhere kind of expression with George and Ringo, who both chuckled at it, although both were still painfully embarrassed. None of John’s outrageous flirting with Paul tracked with their very platonic afternoon, when it had felt like they were just four blokes from Liverpool banging around together with no cloudy issues like homosexuality hovering over them. Paul pushed his chair away, and thanked George for the meal. He headed down one of the endless halls in search of the main staircase.

John shouted after him as he left - “I’ll be right up, baby!” -causing Paul to laugh. Now that Paul’s back was turned, no one would see the amusement he actually felt over John’s teasing.

 

*****

 

The huge mahogany bed was daunting, and the tapestries on the walls made the whole room feel surreal. Paul took it all in, and decided not to be intimidated by it. It was just a bed and a few hanging rugs. He took a quick shower, and, with a towel wrapped around his waist, combed his hair back from his face, and began to brush his teeth. He wanted out of there. He didn’t want to stay. He wanted to go home to London. But he didn’t think he had the nerve to act on those desires. He really didn’t want to look like a hangdog in front of George. Still, if tomorrow was going to be another day like today, Paul wasn’t sure he was going to be able to deal with it.

John burst into the bedroom just as Paul finished rinsing his teeth. “Pa-ul!” John called in a singsong naughty voice. Paul chuckled deep in his throat. The man was irrepressible!

“In here!” he called.

John was soon in the doorway and noticed Paul’s state of undress. He said wickedly, “You need to shave, babe.” Paul had a heavy rate of beard growth, and his five o’clock shadow was fairly prominent in the low light of the bathroom.

“Oh? Why is that?” Paul asked, turning to John with a wicked gleam in his eye. “You have something in mind?”

“I am looking forward to a blowjob, and I don’t want you ripping my skin all to hell,” John responded lazily.

“Hmmmm,” Paul mumbled, turning back to the mirror and pretending to study his own unshaven face from several angles. “Well, if you insist,” he said as if he was being inconvenienced, even though he had fully intended to shave all along. He picked up his razor as John laughed and then disappeared into the bedroom. A minute later he breezed past Paul, naked, and he smacked Paul’s toweled ass as he jumped into the shower.

“Come join me!” John shouted over the hot water a few minutes later.

“I’ve already showered!” Paul answered as he completed his final stroke of the razor.

“So?” John’s tone brooked no denial, so Paul - looking at his own image in the mirror, shrugged and peeled his towel off. He admired his body in the mirror for a few seconds. He looked damn good. Five months of strenuous workouts and dieting had him looking pretty damn good if he did think so himself. Whistling, Paul opened the shower door and joined John.

John, of course, had noted months earlier how good Paul’s body looked. Paul was still wearing ridiculously baggy clothes, but John liked it that way. That way only he (well, Linda too) could see that gorgeous body, and no one else! John had his own private glorious view. Of course, John had never thought Paul’s body looked bad to begin with, but now Paul was hot - hot - hot. For the last few months, John had found it almost impossible to keep his hands off Paul. Sometimes, in polite company, he had to literally sit on his hands. Today had been an agony at times, looking across the room to see Paul and not being able to touch. It was, in a way, sexually exciting, and if he hadn’t gotten a bit drunk at the dinner table he might even have made it through the whole day without acting up in front of George and Ringo. He’d contained himself for Paul’s sake; he knew Paul would be uncomfortable with a public display of intimacy in front of George and Ringo, although left to his own devices, John would have found it thrilling - sort of like when he necked with Yoko in front of the others during Abbey Road.

John especially loved Paul’s body when it was slippery wet, so he pushed Paul up against the tiled shower wall, his hands cupping his bottom. “You were too quiet today,” John whispered, his nose up against Paul’s.

“It was...sooooo weird...” Paul managed to say, after a silent skirmish with a desire to give in immediately to his sexual arousal instead.

John knew what Paul meant - or he thought he did - and decided any discussion about it could wait until later. He had other plans for Paul over the next little while.

 

*****

 

As it happened, they fell asleep as soon as the lovemaking ended. Paul really was exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster he’d been on, and John was exhausted from the physical release he’d had when Paul had fucked him. It wasn’t until late the next morning, after they’d exchanged some kisses and cuddles, that John broached the subject again.

“You really did not look happy yesterday, babe. I thought you were looking forward to it.” They were each lying on their sides, facing each other. Paul’s transcendently beautiful green brown eyes were like deep but inviting pools for John to bathe in. John was dreamily wondering which pool he was going to plunge into first.

“This is too stressful for me,” Paul said. “I don’t think I can do it.” Paul needed to vent to John. He had to get it off his chest, and he hoped that John would say the right words to make it feel better. 

“Stressful, why? You wanted this almost as much as Ringo did.” John had been surprised by Paul’s odd reaction to the “reunion.” Of course, the day had been very stilted at times, but then it had been many years since they’d spent much time together, and it was only just the first day.

“I don’t feel comfortable. It’s like I don’t belong.” Paul’s words were achingly open, and they touched John deeply.

“Don’t belong? Who among us belongs more?” John’s voice was strong and sure.

Paul smiled at John’s comment. Of course John was on his side. Paul had not thought that he didn’t fit in with John. It had been fitting in with the three as a group that he found so awkward. “George doesn’t want me here. Or, he just doesn’t want me to participate.”

John understood now what was going on. “George is just being George,” he said softly. He brought a hand up to Paul’s face, and ran a gentle thumb over Paul’s lush lower lip. This was a mistake, because now he was thoroughly distracted by Paul’s lips...

“He is only being rude to me, he’s getting along fine with you and Ringo,” Paul insisted, not wanting to be derailed from the conversation by the lascivious light in John’s eyes. His hand captured John’s and gently pulled it away from his mouth. 

Immediately John’s attention went back to Paul’s eyes. He was going to have to put Paul’s mind at ease before he was gonna get any action, he figured. “It was only the first day, Paul. George is going to exact his pound of flesh, but it’ll get old, and he’ll stop.” This was so clear to John, that he couldn’t understand why Paul would let George’s behavior bother him.

“Yeah, but I’m the one the flesh is coming from. It feels differently to me.”

Paul’s mouth looked awfully pouty, John noticed. No! He had to pay attention to Paul’s words, not his mouth. “I’d just relax and be myself if I were you,” John advised. “Maybe he’ll continue to act like a jerk to you, but there’s no reason for you to let it bother you. You can enjoy working with Ringo and me, and if George wants to take shots, you can ignore them. Once you stop letting them bother you, he’ll stop. You know that about George.”

Paul sighed and turned over on to his back. He was clearly not in a sexual mood, and John’s words had clearly not set his mind at ease. “It goes deeper than that, John. I think it goes way back - years back - between me and George, and I’m not sure we can ever find our way back to even a friendly association, much less friendship.” 

Giving up on his plot to get more sex for the moment, John propped himself up on his elbow. “Ok, so even if that’s true, we’re not starting the group up again. We’re just messing around to see if we can make a song or two together, before we go our separate ways again. You don’t have to be friends with each other to do that, do you?”

Paul nodded his head in absent-minded assent. It was true. It wasn’t necessary, but Paul wanted it. He wanted his friendship with George back, and he supposed what the previous day had shown him was that the likelihood of the Anthology spurring a renewal of their friendship was nil. Oh, well, nothing he could do about it. He decided he’d just do as John advised. He’d just try to be himself, and George could take him or leave him. If the music were to be any good at all, it required Paul to be Paul, so he would have to assert his compositional two cents whether George liked it or not. It mattered not that over the last 25 years Paul had lost the stomach for confrontational disagreements in the studio; he supposed he was going to have to find the gumption to assume that role when necessary. Finally Paul said, “I suppose I should give your suggestion a try, John. It can’t be any worse for me than sitting back and not participating, although it will probably piss George off royally.”

John was relieved Paul had finally made a decision. He was quite impatient; or, to be more precise, his cock was quite impatient. As Paul continued to gaze intently at the ceiling, John’s patience finally broke.

“So does this mean you’ll let me fuck you now?”

 

*****

 

It just so happened that at that exact moment, George was striding down the hall past John and Paul’s shared bedroom. The day before, George had made two rooms available to John and Paul, but they had both immediately and wordlessly lugged their suitcases into one of them instead. Now, as George passed that bedroom, he heard the unmistakable crack-like sound of Paul’s laughter coming from within. George’s first reaction to that was, ‘Eeeww, what are they doing in there?’ But once that kneejerk homophobic reaction washed over him, George’s second reaction was more interesting: he suddenly realized how much he had missed the wacky sound of Paul’s bursts of laughter. Nothing else had ever sounded quite so zanily cheerful and uncomplicated as Paul’s laughter.

He made his way down to the dining room, where the housekeeper had laid out a breakfast spread. George loved his breakfast. He loved his eggs, and he loved his toast, and he loved the various jams he could put on his toast, and he loved his stewed tomatoes. He was surprised to find Ringo already at the table, peering at the newspaper and sipping some coffee. Ringo was a light and picky eater, so George had arranged for an array of fruits to be set out for him, and indeed his plate contained only a modest amount of berries and melon.

“’Morning George,” Ringo intoned.

George sat down across the table from his old friend. He nodded warmly and said, ‘Ritchie.’

There was a companionable silence for a few moments before Ringo spoke.

“You were a bit hard on Paul yesterday, Geo,” Ringo observed, putting his coffee cup down.

George looked up and met Ringo’s eyes. Had Ringo’s eyes been accusing George would have reacted differently. But since Ringo’s eyes looked empathetic and gentle, George swallowed the planned retort. “You think so?” He asked instead.

“I do.”

“Paul has an enormous ego, he can take it. In fact, he needs it, just to keep himself in check.” George said this lightly, as if it were not an insult.

“Paul is a lot more sensitive than that, George,” Ringo disagreed. “He was very hurt by how you treated him yesterday.”

“Oh? Did he tell you this?” A little bit of irritation was creeping into the edges of George’s voice.

“No. But I could see it. It was plain on his face. Why are you doing it?” Ringo’s voice - again - was not particularly accusative.

“He gets on my nerves,” George said, with finality.

“He didn’t do or say anything even remotely objectionable yesterday, as far as I could see,” Ringo offered.

George shrugged. “Maybe it’s just his presence that’s so annoying,” he joked.


	73. Chapter 73

George’s declaration about Paul being ‘annoying’ was still ringing in the room. Ringo had a slight frown on his face, and struggled with what to say next. He figured he wasn’t going to change George’s mind about Paul, so he would have to settle for less. “Well, it’s none of my business how you feel about Paul,” he said, “but it is making the whole thing damned uncomfortable for the rest of us. The least you can do is put your private feelings away so that we can work together professionally.” 

George heard Ringo’s words, and was in the process of digesting them, when John came in to the room. He was wearing a silk paisley bathrobe lined in velvet, and clearly had nothing on underneath. His hair stood up in a kind of messy wreath around his head, and his granny glasses sat precariously at the very tip of his nose. He was barefoot. He strolled over to the sideboard, and began to indiscriminately pile food on to his plate.

“I don’t know about you, Ritchie, but I sure could use some sausage right about now!” John declared loudly.

Ringo laughed out loud, and George chuckled too. “You’ll survive,” George managed.

“You sound like Paul,” John said. He knew he was being provocative, but he couldn’t help himself. “Maybe that’s why you can’t get along with him,” John wondered out loud, staring blatantly at George. “Maybe he’s too much like you.” 

“He’s not like me at all!” George declared reflexively. His eyes were filled with hot indignation at the very thought!

John responded with his patented Cheshire cat smile. He decided to say nothing more on the subject. Instead, he turned to Ringo and began an innocent conversation. George sulked moodily at the head of the table.

Paul came in, looking bright and chipper, freshly dressed and obviously feeling more himself. Ringo brightened at the sight. (So did John, by the way, but in a significantly different way.) Paul said his ‘good mornings’, including one very pointed one aimed pleasantly but directly at George. George grunted and nodded in what he thought passed for a return greeting.

Well, it’s a start, Paul thought. After he had settled in his seat, and addressed a few bites of his meal (his appetite was suddenly soaring), he said to the table as a whole, “I’m sorry I was so useless yesterday. I was tired and kind of overwhelmed by the four of us being together again. It got the best of me.” Paul’s determinedly cheerful mien sold this little speech. 

John smiled proudly at Paul across the table. Good on you babe, his eyes seemed to say. 

Ringo felt a tremendous release with Paul’s words, and quickly agreed with Paul. “I know - it was like déjà vu all over again!” 

George was now feeling like the odd man out. How odd it was that as Paul grew stronger, George grew weaker, and vice versa. What strange chemistry was this? George didn’t know, but a small voice in his head told him it served him right for being such an ass to Paul the day before. 

It was a couple of hours later that John felt like going to the music room. The liquor from the night before had worn off completely, and the headache powder had taken full affect. Paul was already in the music room when the others arrived; he was at the piano playing with some melodic chords. John headed straight for him.

“What’s that?” He asked, referencing Paul’s melody. 

“I like this version of the tune better than the one we were working on yesterday,” Paul said confidently. Everyone knew that the version of the tune from the day before had been heavily influenced by George’s choices of chords for his lead guitar, but Paul wasn’t going to be intimidated into silence any more. Today would be different. 

George was equal to the challenge, however. He approached the piano and listened to the new version. It still retained the strong emotional pull of John’s original melody, but it was much better, more...wistful, cloudy, delicate... George could tell right away it was better. He had a choice to make. He could behave like an ass and put Paul down and get overruled by John and Ringo, or he could go to work on a lead guitar part that would compliment the tune. He made his choice, and soon was plugged in and hunched over on his stool, listening to the music in his inner ear as he played his chords. 

A few minutes had passed when George suddenly said to Paul, “Play that middle bit again please.” He wanted to see if there was something in the melody that he could pluck out as a tease for his lead. 

Without thinking, Paul immediately replayed the tune, and looked to George to see if he needed more. George nodded ever so slightly that he was good now, and Paul went back to working with John on marrying the enhanced melody to John’s words. 

“I need something, a verse or two,” John was saying to Paul, as they sat next to each other on the piano bench. “I like what you’ve done with the music, though...it almost seems...”

“...dreamlike...” Paul finished without looking up. 

“What do you think? Do we need another verse or two?” John asked. 

George could hear their low voices from his stool, so he put his earphones on, and rededicated himself to his guitar.

“What would you want to say that you haven’t already said?” Paul asked. His voice was flat, not expressive. It was a question, not a comment.

“I wrote it back when I was living in the Dakota, missing you,” John said softly so that only Paul could hear. 

Paul looked up, met John’s eyes, and they smiled sweetly at each other. Then they both returned their eyes to the pad of paper leaning against the keyboard, which was covered in John’s scrawls. John read the words, dissatisfied with the lack of profundity in them. The music - yes, that was profound - both his basic original melody, and Paul’s embellishments. But the words seemed a bit weedy to him. Not fully grown in. He read them softly out loud and Paul listened closely to the words:

 

I know it's true, it's all because of you  
And if I make it through, it's all because of you  
And now and then, if we must start again  
Well we were not sure, that I love you

I don't want to lose you - oh no, no, no  
Lose you or abuse you - oh no, no, no, sweet doll  
But if you have to go away  
If you have to go...  
Now and then, I miss you  
Oh now and then, I...  
I know it's true to me...

I know it's true, it's all because of you  
And if you go away, I know you...

I don't want to lose you - oh no, no, no  
Abuse you or confuse you - oh no, no, no, sweet darl'  
But if you had to go, away  
Well I won't stop you babe  
And if you had to go...  
Well...

 

“It doesn’t seem intelligible,” John complained. 

“Maybe just reading the lyrics by themselves seems that way,” Paul opined, “but when put to music it sounds very dreamy. Subliminal almost. It doesn’t require much more.”

John checked Paul’s face for any sign of bullshit. But he saw none. Paul was speaking in all honesty, as his creative partner. 

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t also be good if you changed it up and made it more informational,” Paul added, thinking about John’s doubts more deeply. “But it works for what it is, too, if we tighten up some of the lines a bit.” 

George had finished with his careful planning. He liked to sit alone and work out his bits without distraction. Now, with a certain amount of trepidation he approached the intimidating conglomerate of Paul/John/Piano, and said, “I’ve got an idea. Do you want to hear it?”

First Paul and then John looked at him, and George saw in a flash as each of them in turn lit up with pleasure. Yes, they really do want to hear it, George thought. I shouldn’t be surprised by their reaction, but I am.

John and Paul both turned around on their piano bench, as George sat on a stool in front of them, and proceeded to play his new guitar line. It was exquisite: simple, unadorned, perfectly paced, and meticulously performed. Ringo wandered over from the back of the room and listened too. When George finished, he looked up and saw the pure joy on Paul’s face and felt a thrum of memory - a memory of Paul encouraging him to play his ‘Raunchy’ for John on a Liverpool bus in the middle of a 1958 night. Paul pushing John to let George into the group, and singing his praises. George smiled (very slightly) at Paul in that moment, as he was overcome with the old memory. 

The moment passed quickly, but it was deeply moving to both George and Paul. Not that they would tell each other that, of course. Or acknowledge it to anyone else either.

 

*****

 

That night at dinner the atmosphere was much warmer. George had stopped baiting Paul, and although George was still a bit standoffish, he seemed to have gotten the pique out of his system. Maybe the alcohol helped. The whole dinner, in fact, had been wonderful. All four of them were at their most hilarious best, and lots of memories and swear words had whipped around the room. After two hours, John had fallen asleep in his chair. He had just laid his head down in his arms, which were folded on the table (after pushing his plate away) and gone straight to sleep. After a while, Ringo noted this and said,

“I’m ready to turn in. Same time tomorrow?”

George and Paul nodded in agreement, and then Paul continued with what he had been saying to George. “My biggest takeaway from India,” he said, “was the meditation. I’m not patient enough to meditate for long, but when I need it, I do it, and it helps me very much.”

“We were wrong to think that the length of time you do it is what makes meditation valuable,” George said.

Paul laughed. “You and John especially. It was hilarious. You were both trying to outdo each other on how long you could do it. That sort of missed the point, didn’t it?”

George threw his head back and laughed from his belly. “Yeah, we were all so frickin’ competitive all the time. We even tried to turn gaining-peace-of-mind into a competition.”

“And the pot smoking. We weren’t supposed to be doing that while we were there, either,” Paul remembered.

“I still haven’t managed to give up pot,” George admitted.

“Me either. And the thing was, I felt like we were back at school - you and me hiding behind the shed sneaking ciggies.” 

Paul giggled at the memory, and this made George smile. George said, “I didn’t like to admit that I’d done that for a long time, because I still believed then that I could master the meditation process perfectly. I’ve long since given up that notion. I can only hope to get better, but never to be perfect.” 

Paul nodded. “Well, that’s what the Maharishi claimed. He said he had reached perfection. The moment he said that, I started doubting the process. I realize that I was very narrow minded about it at the time, but even now I don’t think that the Maharishi was perfect.”

George knew that Paul was right, and for once he didn’t feel the need to defend his religion from Paul. Paul seemed to be trying hard to be open-minded about it now. “Yeah, he was human. He deluded himself in that way. But it was a lesson to me - it helped me see more clearly how impossible it is for a man to reach perfection.” George cleared his throat. He felt self-conscious all of a sudden. “Speaking of pot - you want some?”

Paul nodded enthusiastically, and George went over to the sideboard and pulled out a leather box. The box contained his drug paraphernalia. He selected some primo pot, some papers, and then gave some to Paul and kept some for himself. As they rolled their joints, George said, “Is John okay? I mean, it’s like he’s unconscious or something. He didn’t have that much to drink.”

Paul laughed. “When John is tired, John sleeps like the dead. It’s like he pulls the plug out of the wall and just turns completely off.”

“Why don’t I remember that?” George asked rhetorically.

Paul answered the question anyway. “Because he wasn’t like that when we were young. We were all burning the candles at both ends back then.” 

George took his first toke and it felt good. He watched in companionable silence while Paul took his. They exchanged a knowing smile: the drug cannabis. It was perfect, even if man wasn’t.

After a few minutes of peaceful smoking, Paul felt the courage to broach the subject. “I irritate you, don’t I?” Paul didn’t look angry. If anything, he looked sympathetic.

“At times,” George said.

“I’ve got too much nervous energy. I don’t know what to do with it all,” Paul confessed. “I know it gets annoying.”

“That’s what pot’s for,” George laughed. 

Paul held up his joint in agreement, and took another pull. “Anyway,” Paul continued, “somewhere along the way we took different paths. I didn’t take a different one from you because I disrespected your choice. I did it because I’m a different person than you, and I needed to grow in another direction.” Paul sometimes became a philosopher when he was high.

This apology appealed to George; it was existential in a way. “I guess I knew that,” George said, finally feeling the full sway of the drug in his system. Life was good in that moment, and he had a warm glowing feeling about his friend, Paul. “But it seemed like you were against me at the time.”

“It was a pigfuck, the whole bloody thing,” Paul concluded. “I don’t think any of us covered ourselves in glory.”

“Shiite, more like,” George giggled. “Covered in it, I meant.”

Paul giggled too and began to sing, charmingly off key,“Have you seen the little piggies, crawling in the dirt...”

George guffawed. The pot in him thought that was just hilarious. He found it hard to stop giggling over it. He finally managed to stop, and said what he had been thinking while giggling, “I didn’t know it was autobiographical when I wrote it.” 

“Is there anything I can do or say which will allow you to forgive me?” Paul asked after another pregnant silence. The giggles were gone from his voice, and his eyes looked huge, bruised. 

George felt bad to see Paul at that level. It wasn’t exactly groveling, but he had abased himself in his attempt to apologize for inflicting past injuries. George asked, “Do you even know what you did to hurt me?”

It was a precarious moment. Paul honestly didn’t know if he knew. He thought he knew, but he didn’t know. “I think I do, but I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“And?” George asked.

“I know you’re upset because you didn’t get enough space on the albums...”

“Yeah, but that was just the consequence of what you did.” George’s words were blunt, but then that was his personality. “We were once equals, and suddenly you were acting as though you were bigger than me, more important. You didn’t see me as a worthy equal any more. It was very insulting.” 

Part of Paul wanted to shout, ‘no I didn’t!’ but the wiser part of his mind told him George needed to vent his grievances. It didn’t matter if Paul didn’t see it that way; it was how George saw it, and it was real to him. Paul decided to keep it simple. “I’m sorry, George. I really am. I don’t even know where my head was at back then. It was a whirlwind, and I know I often lost my way and behaved badly.” Paul could only take responsibility for how he had behaved; George would either take the opportunity to do likewise, or he would not. That was beyond Paul’s control.

George wondered if he could let go of his resentments so easily. His resentments were part of him now; they actually had built a home in his mind, and he didn’t think they’d be willing to move out. So long as George could blame John and Paul for not giving him more space on the records, he could maintain the version of truth he wanted to keep - that but for John and Paul’s obstructive behavior, he would have been just as successful as they had been. He didn’t like to give in to the other, niggling fear that even if he’d had the space on the albums maybe he wouldn’t have been as successful as they had been. In short: if he didn’t have his resentment against Paul, he would lose part of himself. 

Paul felt the long silence, and wondered if George was going to reject his apology. His heart beat a little stronger, even with the influence of the pot. But, finally, George spoke.

“I appreciate the apology.” George felt he owed Paul as much. He would do what he could to control his resentful behavior, and maybe over time he could dispense with it altogether. Still, there was no reason for Paul to know that he had these residual feelings. 

Paul took another long toke and then said to George, “You know, you’ve hurt me too.”

George looked up. Paul’s face was sincere and a little fearful. He didn’t look or sound angry or vindictive. George decided to wait for the other shoe to drop before reacting. “Yeah?” He asked.

Paul sighed. He never would be able to say this stuff if he weren’t high. Even high, Paul understood this much. But since he was high, he might as well take advantage of it. “In the last few years, I’ve called you several times, but you don’t take my calls and you never call me back. Why don’t you call me back?” 

George was surprised. He had expected the whole Allen Klein debacle to raise its ugly head. He had not been prepared for this new indictment at all. He was thrown back on his pace a bit, and his head was cloudy from the pot, but the truth had floated to the top of his head and so he might as well say it:

“I didn’t want to hear more of your self-interested bullshit.” 

Well. Paul took the words like a direct blow to his solar plexus. He was stunned into silence. Paul’s hurt silence was a goad to George, and he went on the defensive.

“You have to admit, for years every time you called me it was about money, business, promoting the Beatles, lawsuits...I just assume when you call me, it’s one of those things, and I have no interest in talking with you about any of them. We can talk about Beatles business at the Apple meetings. Otherwise, I really don’t want to be bothered.”

Paul’s mellowness had left the room. What was left was a slightly muddy-headed man, hurt beyond words. He couldn’t speak. He knew he would cry if he spoke. “I see.” 

George read accusation in those simple words. “You asked, and I answered. Sorry you don’t like the answer.”

Paul was torn. Part of him wanted to get up, rouse John, and retreat to their bedroom with as much dignity as he could muster. The other part of him yelled ‘foul’ and wanted to finish what he had started. The other part won.

“So you assumed what I wanted to talk about, and judged me accordingly,” Paul said. He didn’t feel high at all anymore. He felt depressingly sober. “That isn’t very 'enlightened' of you, Geo.” This last was said gently, not sarcastically. 

“What else would you want to talk to me about?” George asked stubbornly.

“Each time I called I wanted to know how you were, how was your family, what you were up to, and maybe we could all have dinner together.” Paul put it out there. That was indeed all he had wanted from George.

George sat still, only his eyes blinking, as he digested this information. A brief thought ran through his mind, which was reluctant to hear it. John never called me, but Paul did. Repeatedly. Eventually, George allowed his face to relax, and that endearing sardonic expression came in to his eyes again. “I guess now it’s my turn to apologize,” he said. 

Paul laughed and leaned back in his chair again. Drama over. As blunt and judgmental as George could be, he also moved through life with a considerable amount of grace. Paul had always known and appreciated that about George. “Well, George,” Paul said. “I think we should go to our beds before we say something else to piss each other off.”

George laughed as he got up. “Deal. Hey - you want some help with John?” 

“That would be appreciated,” Paul said. “He’s a dead weight when he’s like this.” 

George leaned over and declared very loudly in to John’s face, “Get up John! We don’t want to carry you upstairs!”

John woke up with a vengeance, and with the shock of it he knocked his wine glass off the table, and then he yelped, “What???”

“Thanks for your ‘help’, George,” Paul sang, his eyes alight with mischief. 

 

*****

 

“We could do another song of mine - Paul wrote the music - unless you gits have a better idea,” John said, as they finished listening to the playback demo of ‘Now and Then.’ They were now satisfied with it, and later on they would go in to the studio with a real live producer (George had picked him: Jeff Lynne) and record it.

George cleared his throat. “I have some crap songs laying about,” he drawled.

“Well, good, that’s what we’re looking for - ‘crap songs’,” John said sarcastically. 

Ringo said, “You know, I was thinking...”

“Oh watch out!” John interjected loudly.

“...that maybe we should record one song written by each of us. Four songs. We’ve done one of John’s, why not work on one of George’s?”

“I think that’s a grand idea,” Paul said in whole-hearted agreement. 

“I don’t know,” John said in a theatrical manner. “George, doesn’t that sound like too much of a commitment for you to make to the rest of us - four whole songs? Doesn’t that make you worry that it’ll be too much like a Beatles reunion for real?” John had grown tired of George’s griping about the Beatles, and what a drag the Beatles were, and what a drag fame was, and how sick he was of the whole Beatles thing. He decided he’d poke George a little bit about it.

George turned a laconic eye in John’s direction. He was completely un-insulted and un-intimidated. “Of course, if we only do two songs, we all know whose two songs would be chosen, don’t we? So I’m with Ringo: four is fair.”

John sighed dramatically. “You’re so sensitive, George, honestly...” But it was clear he was teasing. “So, bring out your crap songs, George, and let’s have a listen.” 

 

*****

 

George had brought out a song, but it wasn’t crap at all. It was called ‘Any Road.’ He had thought about using the song on his last album, but there were parts that were unfinished. He was actually very proud of it, and hadn’t wanted to record it until it was at it’s best. 

“I like this,” Paul opined freely. “It’s got a kind of ironic jauntiness. It will contrast well with ‘Now and Then.’”

John was privately appalled at the deftness and cleverness of some of the lyrics as he read them. He felt that his own forte had been usurped. Of course, that ‘watery grottoes’ line had to go, and what was a ‘mountainous cave?’

“I want some ukulele on this,” George announced apropos of nothing, as he played the song’s main chords on his acoustic guitar. 

“Uku-fuckin-lele?” John repeated in mock horror. 

“Yeah, you gotta problem with that?” George roared back, jokingly.

“No,” John responded in a fake scared voice. 

Paul laughed. “I’ll play a ukulele too, George. We’ll lay it on thick just to piss off John.” 

John noticed that George and Paul were getting along again: he supposed he was happy about it, but he had enjoyed being Paul’s protector and comforter, as he didn’t often get that opportunity. Still, Paul was all chirpy again, and this always led to a very randy sex life. All in all, John supposed he was pleased with the rapprochement. 

“Love these lines,” Paul was saying, as he cast his eye over George’s lyrics sheet. “Sometimes you’re lame, sometimes you’re cool... Ain’t that the truth.” The two men chuckled together as they tuned their ukuleles. 

“You were lamer longer than I was,” George cracked to Paul. 

“Perhaps,” Paul said slowly, as if he were seriously weighing George’s comment. “But you were lamer more often.”

As George and Paul chuckled, John was chatting with Ringo.

“Have you got a song up your sleeve, too?” John asked.

“I wouldn’t come empty handed,” Ringo responded carefully. “I’ve been writing songs for years now, on my own.”

This surprised John, but he tried not to show it. John was an existentialist. If he wasn’t in the picture, the picture was blank: John had never seen Ringo write a song, ergo Ringo never wrote any songs. “Well, I’d like to hear one,” John said softly.

“Let’s finish George’s song first,” Ringo said firmly.

John shrugged and assumed he would have to buckle down and actually work on George’s song. It was just that his sensibilities were so different from George’s, and he couldn’t help reading into George’s lyrics his religious beliefs. John was quite skeptical about George’s religious opinions. He had never felt that George actually acted in a kind and accepting way, and that didn't seem too religious to John's way of thinking. Grumpy now, John gazed across the home studio to where George and Paul were working out their guitar parts. 

At that moment Paul looked up. “John, what are you doing over there? Come over here and help us.” 

George had noted John’s standoffishness, and he had been trying not to resent it. Still, John approached with what seemed to be a modicum of enthusiasm, and he dragged a chair over until it was in between George and Paul’s chairs. 

“So what’re we doin’?” John asked cheerfully. 

George found that he could not stay mad at John. He patiently explained the status of their work as Paul focused on his bass. 

Some time later, the three men had got their guitar parts down, and were starting to play together, in stops and starts. Within a half hour they had practiced sufficiently to get through the whole song without too many mistakes. George began to sing.

 

“But I've been traveling on a boat and a plane...”

 

“Whoa!” John declared, bringing the music to an abrupt stop. 

“What?” George asked.

“You’re going to start a song with ‘but’?”

“Yeah, so?”

“It sounds like you’ve left off the first verse or something,” John opined.

“That’s my point,” George said impatiently.

“Your point is to confuse the listener?” John did not like that George was resisting his superior lyricist skills.

“Let’s start over. I’m leaving in the ‘but’,” George said with impressive authority. Paul’s eyebrows flew up on his forehead, and then he quickly wiped the fugitive grin off his face. That’s telling ‘im, Geo...Paul thought.

George cleared his throat and tapped the time as they started again.

“But I've been traveling on a boat and a plane  
In a car on a bike with a bus and a train  
Traveling there, traveling here  
Everywhere in every gear...”

“Whoa!” John stopped again. George turned impatiently to John.

“What now?” He asked.

“There, here and everywhere? Where have I heard that before?” 

George sighed heavily. “The words aren’t copyrighted, John.”

“It just seems a bit derivative, though, given the fact that we’re Beatles singing together again; or was that your point?”

“If it makes you feel better, let’s say it is an homage to Paul, okay? I’m leaving it in.” George’s chin looked pretty rigid at this point, and Paul started counting the beat in order to cut off any more comments on the subject.

 

“But oh Lord we pay the price  
With the spin of the wheel with the roll of the dice  
Ah yeah you pay your fare  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there

And I've been traveling through the dirt and the grime  
From the past to the future through the space and the time  
Traveling deep beneath the waves  
In watery grottoes and mountainous caves...

 

“Okay!” John shouted and they all came to a screeching halt. “This time I’m holding the line. The waves and the caves and the grottoes are too corny, George. It’s embarrassing. Why don’t you just lose this verse?”

“I like the first two lines a lot,” Paul interjected. “Maybe you can pair them with two other lines.”

George considered Paul’s contribution. Then he said, “Where would you put it?”

John noted that George was willing to take Paul’s input, but not his. What the fuck was going on? Whatever it was, John didn’t like it too much.

Paul was reading quickly through George’s verses. “Well...there are two lines further down that feel a little bit formulaic: ‘Traveling where the four winds blow / With the sun on my face / in the ice and the snow.’ You could take those lines out and replace them with the other two lines and have a full verse.”

Paul sang it out for George’s ear:

“I've been traveling on a wing and a prayer  
By the skin of my teeth, by the breadth of a hair  
And I've been traveling through the dirt and the grime  
From the past to the future through the space and the time...”

 

“That sounds a lot better,” John agreed. 

George hated to admit it, but he thought it was better too. “I’ll think about that,” he finally said. “But can I get through the damn thing once without being interrupted?” He asked querulously.

“Yeah, sorry,” Paul said with a sheepish grin. “I’m being bossy again.” 

George looked up and saw the twinkle in Paul’s eyes. He grinned. “Actually, John’s the bossy one now.” He then looked at John and said, “Do you mind if I sing my song?” He then started the count in again.

But I've been traveling on a boat and a plane  
In a car on a bike with a bus and a train  
Traveling there, traveling here  
Everywhere in every gear...”

“But oh Lord we pay the price  
With the spin of the wheel with the roll of the dice  
Ah yeah you pay your fare  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there

I've been traveling on a wing and a prayer  
By the skin of my teeth, by the breadth of a hair  
And I've been traveling through the dirt and the grime  
From the past to the future through the space and the time”

But oh Lord we've got to fight  
With the thoughts in the head with the dark and the light  
No use to stop and stare  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there

You may not know where you came from  
May not know who you are  
May not have even wondered  
How you got this far

But ohhhh, it's a game  
Sometimes you're cool, sometimes you're lame  
Ah yeah it's somewhere  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there

But oh Lord we pay the price  
With the spin of the wheel with the roll of the dice  
Ah yeah you pay your fare  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there

I keep traveling around the bend  
There was no beginning, there is no end  
It wasn't born and never dies  
There are no edges, there is no sides

Oh yeah you just don't win  
It's so far out, the way out is in  
Bow to God and call him Sir  
But if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there  
And if you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there  
If you don't know where you're going  
Any road will take you there...


	74. Chapter 74

John and Paul were in bed. They were naked, and smoking dope. Paul was feeling relaxed and happy. Today had been a good day. One way or another he and George had taken some steps forward in healing their friendship. The two demos they had recorded in two days were good. The four of them still seemed able to read each other’s musical shorthand, and the day had seemed to fly by. They had then enjoyed a great dinner, and told stories to each other about their days on the road during Beatlemania. They had all laughed until their faces were sore. Then he and John had engaged in some really hot sex, and now they were blowing weed. From Paul’s point of view, how could a day be better?

John was relaxed, too, but felt a little uneasy. He hadn’t liked to see Paul enjoying the Beatle reunion so much. He was a little afraid Paul would want to reunite for real. John really didn’t want to do that, although he didn’t know why he felt that way. He’d have to discuss it with Fiona if he ever got out of this insane castle. Two more days. Two more days. It had become a kind of mantra for John. Of course, John had found some of the moments to be entertaining. He enjoyed the meals together, and shooting the bull in George’s garden during the breaks. It was just the studio work that he was finding difficult to enjoy. He didn’t feel in control of it, and he was having a hard time catching Paul’s attention. He much preferred working side by side with Paul, without all the distractions of two other partners getting in the way, especially two newly empowered former partners with delusions of grandeur. Tomorrow they’d be tackling a Ringo song apparently. That reminded John of a complaint he had.

“I don’t like the way they are disrespecting you, Paul,” John said drowsily.

“Hmmm?” Paul tried to bring his floating mind back into the room long enough to hear and understand what John had said. “Whatcha talkin’ about?”

“The assumption that you should have to wait until the end to do your song. What the fuck is that all about?”

Paul hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t mind,” he said. “I’m having fun. And besides, maybe they’re saving the best for last.”

Paul’s giggle had made John smile, and then he stared at Paul for a few moments. He was so easy to stare at. Then he said, “I think you’ve overdosed on pot, because you’re too laid back. Or else someone has slipped in a Faul on me.”

Paul’s smile reflected his risqué thoughts. “That sounds like fun. I could be someone else. I could be a tall, dark stranger.” He pursed his lips, sucked in the smoke, and then let loose with an exaggeratedly sexy plume of used smoke. “How would you like that?”

John’s bent arm and palm was supporting the left side of his face, and he was staring at Paul with a goofy expression. So fucking cute. Paul sure could be mouth-wateringly appealing when he was high. This was certainly not the first time John had just sat back and stared at Paul being high and cute, but somehow it was twisting his heart this time.

“I would like that fine,” John responded pertly. His eyes were lit with mischief. He had come to George’s house prepared to do the ‘Beatles’ thing, and had decided it was important that the four of them take back their own narrative. But what he hadn’t expected was to have Paul to himself as a kind of captive in George’s echoing house. It was as if they were cut off from the rest of the world, and it was just the two of them again, albeit with frequent interactions with George and Ringo: just like the old days. John could get used to this. Of course, he knew it would not last beyond the four or five days. He knew they’d go back to London, and Paul would be back at Cavendish with Linda and this little bubble they were living in now would have to burst. But he was going to enjoy every second of it while he could.

Paul suddenly sat up and looked around the room as if he were thinking furiously. John watched with amusement and interest. What was this adorable man up to now? John could watch Paul in this mood for hours on end.

“I have an idea!” Paul announced.

A-oh, John thought. But even the trepidation he felt inside couldn’t wipe the goofy smile off his face. “What idea is this?” He asked, encouraging Paul’s childlike enthusiasm with a wicked gleam in his eye.

Paul was getting out of bed. John watched eagerly at the welcome sight of Paul’s bottom sashaying into the bathroom. Paul hadn’t answered him. John laughed and fell backwards on the bed. He folded his arms above and behind his head, and smiled at the ceiling. God only knew what Paul was up to in the bathroom, but John could hear cabinet doors opening and closing and a faucet running. The boy was full of surprises - that was for sure.

After a few moments, the bathroom door was flung open, and standing in the aperture, dressed only in one of John’s silk bathrobes, was a tall, dark stranger. He had wet black hair brushed sleekly back from his forehead, and his voice was pure fruity camp as he belted out in true Broadway fashion:

 

“Let me entertain you!  
Let me make you smile!  
Let me do a few tricks  
Some old and then some new tricks -  
I'm very versatile”

With this, the dark stranger approached the bed, his arms extravagantly floating around him.

 

“And if you're real good  
I'll make you feel good  
I want your - ‘spirits’ - to climb!”

 

The stranger had now climbed up on the bed, and had straddled John, who was still lying on his back with his arms behind his head, laughing in delight.

 

“So let me entertain you -  
And we'll have a real good time, yes sir  
We'll have a real good time!”

 

John couldn’t resist the stranger any longer, so he pulled the ‘stranger’ downward and, holding the back of the man’s head with a firm hand, forced his tongue down the man’s throat. When he finally allowed this strange new lover his freedom, he discovered that the blasted man was not the least bit fazed by the interruption, because he immediately burst into a big finish! 

 

“And if you're real good  
I'll make you feel good  
I want your ‘spirits’ to climb!  
So let me entertain you,  
And we'll have a real good time!”

 

Paul’s voice cracked at the last word, and John rose up, pushing Paul off him and then moving over him, so that soon their positions were reversed. John was fumbling with the damn bathrobe tie that had become a troublesome knot. Paul was enjoying John’s frustration, and kept humming the tune until finally John had freed the knot in the tie, and had begun to plunder Paul’s now revealed body. 

“Should I be calling you ‘Gypsy’ from now on? Is that your new name?” John’s wicked whisper was aimed directly in one of Paul’s ears. 

Paul snickered. “You can call me anything you like, so long as you don’t stop doing what you’re doing,” he responded.

“Not sure if my - ‘spirits’ - have climbed enough! Too close in time to their last climb,” John joked, causing Paul to giggle.

“It’s okay, babe. A little touchy feely by itself is good too,” Paul said softly. “No pressure.” 

“Oh, I’ll ‘pressure’ you,” John groaned. His ‘spirits’ had suddenly, miraculously, reached the summit.

 

*****

 

It was Day Three in the studio, (although the fourth day of their ‘reunion.’) Ringo had brought a tape with him, and was playing it. 

“I wrote this with Johnny Warman and Gary Grainger,” Ringo explained. The others knew of Warman, late of Ringo’s Ring O’Records (and the hit song, Screaming Jets), and they also knew Grainger, who once worked with Rod Stewart. “It was going to be on my album a few years ago, but for whatever reason, I held it back,” he said. “I felt like it was a very good song, but it wasn’t ready yet. Something was missing.”

“Gary’s a real good bass player,” Paul commented as he listened to the tape. 

Ringo smiled gently. “Not as good as you, by any measure,” he said sweetly.

“Ahhhh, aren’t we nice?” John asked. He was always made uncomfortable by anything that could be interpreted as overt sentimentality. 

“Shurrup, John,” Paul scolded. “Not everyone is a cynic like you.” 

John’s eyes lit up with mischief. “I don’t recall my being cynical late last night,” he said suggestively. He then began picking out the tune (badly) of ‘Let Me Entertain You’ on his guitar.

Paul blushed. He didn’t want the others to know how swishy he allowed himself to be around John sometimes. That would be just too embarrassing to live through. John’s eyes acknowledged his victory with a wicked wink, which caused Paul to blush all the more. Paul felt he was at the mercy of John’s quixotic temperament. At any moment he could be stripped naked - figuratively - in front of Ringo and George! 

John, however, was willing to keep Paul’s bedroom secrets ... up to a point. 

George had heard the transaction between John and Paul, and decided not to think about it too much. He figured this was yet another sexual innuendo, and the less he knew about that the better! It was kind of interesting that Paul had blushed though. Never mind! He didn’t want to think about it!

Ringo had taken the time to write the lyrics down on a sheet of paper, and had made a few copies of it on George’s copy machine. He handed one to each of the three ex-Beatles.

John began to read ostentatiously out loud.

“’I woke up from a bad dream to the howling of a lonely night, but the walls came closing in like the victim of a one-way fight.’ Hmmmm. Did you write this Ringo? Can a wall be a victim?” John thought it was a bit ambitious for Ringo’s style, but who knew? They’d all grown and changed in the last 22 years. Maybe Ringo had suddenly stumbled on a wider vocabulary. 

“I wrote the lyrics with Johnny,” Ringo said defensively. He suspected John was judging him, and in John’s mind he was coming up wanting. 

“It sounds promising,” Paul said affirmatively. Paul glared at John across their guitars. The “glare” said, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ John subsided into an obedient silence, guilted by Paul’s bossy expression. 

Ringo had noted this interaction, and was amused by it. Yup, he remembered this from the old days. John being naughty, Paul shushing him like a nanny, and John quieting down immediately like a chastened child. The interplay was so sweet between them that it made Ringo smile with nostalgia. How often had he and George exchanged ironic glances that seemed to say, ‘There they go again’? But Ringo had an odd reaction to John’s taunting attitude and Paul’s bossy reaction. He felt that finally - finally - the four of them were starting to get comfortable enough to show each other their true selves, instead of tiptoeing around as if on eggshells.

The three guitarists sat in a circle trying to find the right chords. The musicians Ringo worked with while on tour had made the demo, and the irony of this was not lost on John, at least. “Hey, Ritchie,” John called across the cavernous room to where Ringo sat at his drums. “The three of us must be the Real All Star Band!”

“I guess you guys’ll do,” Ringo drawled reluctantly. “Although the other guys don’t give me half as much grief.”

“But you need grief, Ritchie,” John insisted. “To keep you grounded.”

“I don’t! I like being treated like a living god!” Ringo protested.

“You’re not a god, you’re from Liverpool,” George opined flatly from across the room. This wisecrack pretty much ended the debate, as the others cracked up. No one could argue with that logic: clearly, if there were a god, he wasn’t going to have the cheek to come from Liverpool.

It was a couple of hours later that the guitarists had figured out their parts, so it was time for Ringo to try the lyrics out to their playing. Ringo was shy about singing in front of other people in a studio. He didn’t think he was very good at it. Back in the Beatles, the other three had given him rousing pep talks until he’d managed to collect the courage. But he didn’t want the three of them to realize he still suffered from such fears, so he stepped up to the mic with as much panache as he could muster. 

 

I woke up from a bad dream to the howling of a lonely night  
But the walls come closing in like the victim of a one way fight  
I don't remember many yesterdays, I left a lot of things undone  
Now l'm back and l'm here to say I'm looking after number one  
Don't go, don't go where the road don't go  
Don't go, don't go where the road don't go

 

John stopped playing, and leant his forearm against his guitar. He leaned forward towards Ringo as he waited for all the music to peter out. (Paul was the last one to notice the others had stopped. He finally looked up questioningly.) Once John had a full audience, he said conversationally to George and Ringo, “By the way, what is it with you two and roads? Are all your songs about roads? Will we be hearing about the Autobahn next? The M1?”

Ringo laughed. “No, we’ll be hearing about the L.A. freeway next.” With that, Ringo pushed his glasses back down his nose, and turned his attention to his lyrics sheet. Paul laughed and counted out the beat again, and the three guitars started once more.

 

“Seeing people on the freeway   
Takes me back to where I started from.  
I was riding on the big wheel,   
I was walking in a midnight sun  
Well, l did a lot of favors then,   
I asked for nothing in return  
Now those friends have all disappeared  
I guess there's still so much to learn

Don't go, don't go where the road don't go  
Don't go, don't go where the road don't go  
Don't go, don't you go where the road don't go  
'Cause you'll never run, you'll never outrun the gun

Well, l said it don't come easy  
Well, l sure know how it feels

Don't go, don't go where the road don't go  
Don't go, don't go where the road don't go  
'Cause you'll never run, you'll never outrun the gun...”

 

Ringo stopped singing and said, ‘Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...”

“I’ve always wanted to put ‘etcetera’ in a lyric," John announced. "How very clever of you to have managed it, Ringo, it is hard to make it sound natural like.”

Ringo chuckled and ignored John’s teasing. He was fairly confident of the song, although until John had commented, he hadn’t realized that he had botched that line about walls closing in and thus becoming victims of one-way fights. He’d have to give that some thought. It didn’t really make sense, did it? But there was no need to acknowledge this to John just yet. The man already had an unbelievable ego. 

 

*****

 

Dinner was over, and John, Ringo and George were stretched out in comfortable chairs and sofas in George’s favorite sitting room. They were all a bit drunk. Paul had been exhausted and had gone up to bed long before getting drunk, and was sawing innocent logs in bed even as the other three spoke. 

“Paul seems subdued,” George assayed. “I’ve never known him to be so laid back in a studio.”

Ringo nodded and added, “He’s a lot more open to others’ points of view.”

John heard this and found that his hackles were rising. “Paul is just feeling constrained by your judgmental attitudes,” he finally said. “You’re both obviously doing whatever you can to ‘contain’ him. He feels left out and not one of us. It's gonna backfire on you, you know, because he can't help you do your best work that way.”

There was a deep, surprised silence upon John’s frank announcement. Not hearing any comment, John continued.  
“He has more talent in his pinky finger than the both of you have in your whole bodies together. You’re missing out on a good thing. He could help you both do better work.” John yawned and then turned to George. “Like how he transformed the music to ‘Something,’ George.”

George looked up in alarmed anger. But before he could say anything, John continued. 

“You never gave him credit for all the brilliant work he did on your records, George. In several of the songs, he transformed them and made them brilliant. He didn’t ask for credit, and heaped you with praise. Why don’t you remember those things, instead of the times when he let you down?” John’s voice was lazy, and managed to sound only vaguely curious.

George, however, did not take this well. “You and Paul did nothing but hold me back!” He declared dramatically.

“Really? What about ‘Something,’ George? The bass line and the harmonies? And the piano and background vocals in ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps?’ Don’t you get that the piano is just as important as Eric Clapton’s guitar? Why don’t you just accept that Paul knocked himself out to help you, George? Will your whole fucking world fall apart if you do?” 

George felt as though he had been sucker-punched. One moment he had been enjoying a lazy drunken evening with his old mates, and the next he was being attacked. His muddled brain struggled for a rational response. “I did what I did on my own, without any help from you!”

John stretched and responded in his own good time. “Well, you may be right about me. But you’re not right about Paul. The work he did on some of your songs was more than the work he did on some of my songs, and at least with my songs he got equal credit. You not only didn’t give him credit, but you claimed to the world that he didn’t help you at all. That was a blatant lie.” 

George felt as though he had been bitch-slapped. He thought they had all been getting along well, and his original comment about Paul being ‘laid back’ had been meant as a compliment. He certainly hadn’t expected a backlash like this. This made him defensive and, truthfully, a little bitchy. 

“Of course you will say that,” George drawled insultingly, “because you’re fucking each other. What else can be expected?”

There was a dangerous silence for several moments. Ringo was thinking, oh shit. He knew this was not going to end well. He looked quickly to John in an ineffective attempt to intercept John’s reaction. But John surprised him and George.

“You can insult me all you want, George,” John said. “You can display your homophobia. It doesn’t change the facts. Paul was always dedicated to the best possible recordings for the Beatles, and that included your recordings, too. It’s time you recognized and accepted that fact, and got over your infantile jealousies. Until you do, the four of us will never be at ease with each other again. It’s all in your hands, George, whether we’re all friends again, or we’re not.”

Ringo suddenly realized that what John said was true. George was the reason they were all still walking on eggshells. God forbid if George should feel the least bit marginalized! He found himself in sympathy with John’s remarks, and hoped that the difficult words would be digested and accepted by George. All he wanted was for him and his three brothers to be close again: a solid unit, Beatles vs. the world. 

George felt defensive. He had been pushed into a corner. Part of him was acknowledging that John had made some good points, but that part of him was being shushed and pushed aside by George’s injured pride. Too much was riding on his version of what happened when he was recording his last Beatles songs. But George had to admit that Paul had attended every single recording session involving his songs, and had put his all into every one. He had also been willing to take explicit instructions from George on what he wanted without acting insulted or peevish when corrected. In truth, John was the one who had not come to the recording sessions. And John was the one who had never taken George’s songs seriously. In fact, George felt that John still didn’t respect his work. This caused him to change his target.

“Maybe Paul helped me with my songs,” George snapped angrily. “But where the fuck were you, John? At home doing H and fucking Yoko?”

Ringo gasped at the ferocity of George’s return fire. But John was not noticeably moved by it.

“That’s right, George,” he sneered. “Instead of admitting where you wrongly blamed Paul, shift the subject from Paul to me! That way you think you can win, right? Well, it doesn’t work with me,” John said with great disdain. “I never saw promise in your work. Paul did. You blamed him for your troubles, but I was the one who didn’t - and still don’t - believe in your alleged songwriting ‘genius’, George. So what are you going to do about that? I’d be fine if you’d stick to playing guitar. You’re great at that. But unless Paul adds harmony and melody to your music, I don’t really ‘get’ your songs.”

George was surprised to find that his eyes had filled with tears. He told himself it was based on anger, not on hurt feelings. At times like these, his rational mind did not control. Instead, his Id took over.

“Listen, you hopped up fucking queer,” George sneered. “You have been riding on the work you did in nineteen-fucking-sixty-four for decades now! Without Paul to support you, you’re basically a hack! How dare you tell me that my stuff is bad without Paul. You’re the textbook example of someone who has leaned on Paul for success!”

John heard this, and was not moved. He chuckled. “So we both agree that being Paul’s partner is a great thing. Too bad for you he’s my partner, and not yours. That’s what you’re really pissed about, isn’t it George? You’re mad that Paul picked me over you!”

“Well, I was at a disadvantage since I wasn’t willing to fuck him!” George responded in anger. John was leaning on his last nerve.

John took in what George intended as an insult and then laughed. “Paul would never have fucked you, George. You’re not nearly attractive enough!” 

Ringo covered his eyes in distress. This whole thing was getting out of control. He thought he should intervene and do something, but he couldn’t think what!

John continued. “Paul is beautiful. Gorgeous. Juicy. So fucking juicy. You resent that he fucks me and not you, don’t you Geo?” John’s voice was as silky as can be.

George’s face filled with an expression of disgust. “I’m not a fuckin’ queer like you are, John!” He shouted. 

Ringo winced.

George was not finished. “I don’t know what kind of crap you pulled on Paul, because he started out normal, wanting girls, like normal blokes do! You took advantage of him in some way!” George didn’t care that he was now treating Paul as an ally, and John as the enemy. He was that upset.

“You wanted him for yourself, didn’t you Geo?” John asked in a taunting but silky voice.

“Shut the fuck up John!” George shouted. “You’re a deviant! So is Paul!”

After this declaration there was a significant silence. Ringo was the first to break the silence.

“I think we’ve all gotten a little out of control. I think we’ve all said things that we shouldn’t have.” 

John chuckled. “You mean George and me, don’t you Ritchie? You’ve been admirably quiet and neutral.” There was a ringing kind of insult in the word “neutral”, but Ringo tried desperately to ignore it. He didn’t want to be dragged into a fight between John and Paul on the one side, and George on the other. He had spent much of the time since 1962 trying not to get between the other three Beatles and their emotional ups and downs. Ringo laughed in response to John’s comment and said, “Don’t drag me into this mess. I think you’re both daft. Maybe we should shut up now, and wait until tomorrow when we’re all sober.”

John heard this and frowned. “I don’t want to wait until we’ve ‘digested’ everything. I want to deal with this fucking issue now! George is jealous of Paul and me - of our closeness and our partnership. Yet all he needs to do is ask, and Paul is willing to help him for nothing - no credit, no nothing. I don’t want to hear George complaining about this anymore, since he is the beneficiary of it all.”

George sighed. He was tired, a little drunk, and confused. He didn’t really blame Paul anymore for all the alleged wrongs, but he wasn’t ready to accept John’s arrogant summary of the situation. He didn’t want to have any more litigation or ‘he said/he said’, but he didn’t want to have to admit there was no merit to his position. John was difficult because he expected complete surrender from his opponents, but life was never that simple. There was usually a healthy mix of all sides when it came to ‘truth.’ He finally said,

“You and Paul had a conflict of interest during the Beatles because of your ‘relationship.’” George’s delivery of the word ‘relationship’ made it clear that he found the ‘relationship’ to be disgusting. “You didn’t disclose this to Ritchie and me. And you used your combined interest to push your own agenda, and to minimize the contributions of me and Ritchie.”

John was irritated by this speech. “First, George,” John said, witheringly, “My relationship with Paul had nothing to do with the quality of the songs you wrote. I mean, ‘I Need You?’ What a piece of crap! There was no melody in that fuckin’ song at all! It sounds like a fuckin’ screed!” John forced himself to regain control of his emotions. “Anyway, you and Ritchie were lucky to hook up with Paul and me! I love you both, but if Paul and I had chosen another guitarist and another drummer back in 1962, we would still have made it. It’s Paul and me - we’re the Beatles! You were lucky to be along for the ride, and instead of appreciating it you do nothing but complain! I find that I lose my patience with your attitude of entitlement.”

Ringo glared at John. He had done nothing to encourage this indictment. Maybe George asked for it, but not Ringo! In the urgency of the moment, Ringo felt as though he should do something to stop the inevitable ego-war that would follow. But he himself had a hard time hearing what was the hard truth - he and George had been lucky to be attached to John and Paul and their ineffable talent. Yes, George had latched on to their magic earlier, and he added his own talent to the Beatles elixir, but that didn’t abnegate the fact that George was lucky to have been paired with them. Ringo at least knew that he had been lucky to be adopted by the group. Nevertheless, it was hard on the ego to hear John’s crushing diagnosis. 

Notwithstanding Ringo’s more humble analysis, George was outraged by John’s comments. He could think of nothing else but to strike back with equal intensity. “You try to turn the spotlight on to me,” George said, catching his breath and trying to sound in control, “but the fact is that you are the unnatural one. You and Paul - It’s disgusting!”

Ringo sucked in his breath. He wasn’t all that thrilled about John’s attitude, but George’s retaliation was beyond the pale. “George!” He barked. “That’s going too far!” 

“Why?” George demanded of Ringo. “Why do we have to tiptoe around the fuckin’ truth? You don’t understand this disgusting crap any more than I do!”

“I don’t think it is disgusting, George, just because I can’t personally identify with it. Why are you so negative about it? What’s it to you any way?” Ringo’s voice shook with anger.

George’s head jerked over to Ringo, back to John, and then back to Ringo. He found himself striking back. “Ritchie! You must realize the disgusting things they do to each other, right? How can you pretend otherwise?” 

Ringo didn’t like to be on the opposite side of George. He and George had bonded long ago as the two lesser lights in the Beatles firmament. He decided to try to smooth the waters. “Come on, Geo, I know we’re all a little emotional right now. But let’s don’t get too personal.”

“Ritchie! They’re fucking each other!” George shouted.

This embarrassed Ringo. He subsided in to silence. He really didn’t want to be associated with George’s homophobia.

John finally spoke. “George, I feel sorry for you, man. You’re still imprisoned by the mores of our childhood. Paul and I love each other. There is nothing disgusting about it. I’d do anything for him, and he’d do anything for me. Tell me why you think that is disgusting.”

Ringo wanted to salvage something of their earlier comradery. “John, George has had too much to drink. In the morning, he is going to realize that what he said just now was wrong. I think he is just hurt because of the awful stuff you said about his work, and so he is striking out.”

“Don’t speak for me!” George shouted loudly. “I can speak for myself!”

“You’re best off letting Ringo speak for you, because you’re not doing real well for yourself,” John drawled.

George stood up. “I’m through with this crap. I’m going up to bed. I don’t need to hear your patronizing shit, John. You’re a fucking queer and an egomaniac, and I’m not intimated by your bullshit.” 

John sighed. “I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself, babe,” John called after George, as George stomped out of the room. 

There was a deep silence in the room until Ringo said, “That was tense,” he said slowly. "You were baiting him, John. You said some pretty mean things to him."

John turned to Ringo and faced him. “Do you think like George? Do you think it is ‘disgusting’ just because Paul and I love each other? You might as well be honest - we shouldn’t lie to each other at this stage in life.”

Ringo sighed. “I don’t pretend to understand the whole thing. But you’re still John to me, and Paul’s still Paul. I don’t think of you as anything other than the two blokes I’ve known for decades. I can’t concern myself with your personal lives. It isn’t any of my business.” 

John smiled at Ringo. There was no being angry with Ringo. He was one of god’s sweetest creatures. “I’m sorry Rich about this,” John said sincerely. “But I’ve been biting it back since we got here. He has been so patronizing and obnoxious to Paul. I could take it for myself, but I can’t bear to watch him to do it to Paul.”

Ringo smiled. “I don’t pretend to understand all this,” he said, “but I can’t make myself believe there is anything wrong about two people loving each other.’

John looked down at his hand. “George wants to blame Paul for everything,” he said in a low voice. “But that’s because he is really mad at me, but he doesn’t want to confront me. It pisses me off, because Paul is so easily hurt.”

Ringo’s eyes were filled with compassion. He had never seen John in this particular light: as an advocate for someone else, who he obviously loved very much. It softened his heart. “John, I don’t judge you. And I don’t think George really means the things he said. He is just upset - you pushed him into a corner - so he let off a bunch of insults. He doesn’t really mean it.” 

“I don’t really give a fuck what he thinks,” John drawled. “The whole thing bores me. I just refuse to sit here and let him denigrate Paul. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair.”

Ringo smiled. “George loves Paul, you know, like a brother. But it means that there is some resentment and jealousy there, too. I don’t think you need to worry that much about it. George would be there if Paul needed him.”

John felt his hackles rise. “George doesn’t need to be there if Paul needs something, because I will be there for him. I at least have apologized to him for the crappy things I did. George likes to pretend that nothing is his fault, and he isn’t accountable for what he did whatsoever. I’m so over it. Paul doesn’t need his forgiveness, and would be upset if he knew about the things I’ve done and said tonight, but the thing is - I can’t stand by and watch while George tries to minimize Paul.”

Ringo nodded in sympathetic response. “Still,” he said softly, “I think George was just blowing hot air. I don’t think he really has an issue with Paul...”

“An issue with me? What issue is this?”

Both John and Ringo turned abruptly to see that Paul was standing in the door of the sitting room, drowning in a heavy wool dressing gown.

“Paul!” “Paul!” John and Ringo’s reactions were identical and in harmony. 

“What about me?” Paul, his face alive with anxiety, wondered out loud. “What’s going on?”


	75. Chapter 75

Paul awakened from a dead sleep and felt that something was wrong. As his head cleared away its cobwebs, he finally realized that the ‘wrong’ thing was that he was alone in bed. Where was John? Paul really hated to sleep alone. He had hated it so much that when he was with Jane Asher, in the ‘60s, he had slept with any woman he could find (or with John) whenever she was out of town on one of her acting jobs. He’d never felt this was a bad thing to do, since it was her fault for leaving him alone. Paul had never really come to terms with how tortured this logic had been, but now he was in his fifties and he still needed someone in bed with him at night in order to sleep properly!

What’s more, he had also heard something that had startled him out of his sleep - a slammed door. Overcome with curiosity as to John’s whereabouts, he mentally retraced his steps. He remembered being dead on his feet after dinner, and going up to bed, but had thought that John would be right behind him, as usual; but apparently John had not followed him up. Paul pulled on his brown wool dressing gown (so much more practical and prosaic than John’s preferred colorful silk ones) and headed downstairs.

As he approached the sitting room, he heard serious voices. These were not joyful drunken exchanges, or lazy, comfortable exchanges. The tone of the voices was freighted with tension. Concerned, Paul had stood in the doorway of the sitting room while his eyes adjusted to the dim light, finally making out the forms of Ringo and John there, slumped in easy chairs and talking to each other. He could also finally make out what they were saying.

“...I don’t think he really has an issue with Paul,” Ringo had just said. 

“An issue with me? What issue is this?” The words had left Paul’s mouth involuntarily.

Both John and Ringo had abruptly turned to face him, obviously shocked to find him there. They had then both shouted out his name in worried surprise, almost as if in harmony. Their expressions of caught-out guilt were virtually identical.

“What about me?” Paul demanded. “What’s going on?” 

“Babe! I thought you were asleep,” John said stupidly. He was just using up time while he thought furiously how to handle this.

“Well, I’m obviously not,” Paul said, his irritation showing. “What are you saying about me? Who has an issue with me?”

“No one has an issue with you,” Ringo said softly. “That’s what I was just saying to John. He thinks George has an issue with you, but I don’t agree.”

John looked gratefully at Ringo for this well thought out response. 

Paul entered the room, and stood nearer to them. “Why are you talking about me behind my back?” He asked. This question was directed at John, Ringo could see.

“I wasn’t talking about you behind your back, Paul,” John said patiently. “I was talking about George behind his back - at least for the last few minutes, ever since he stormed out of here...”

The slammed door, Paul thought. 

“...Before he stormed out of here,” John had continued, “I was talking about him to his face.” 

“About him and me,” Paul accused, pouting slightly. 

“About his treatment of you,” John corrected. “I just got tired of his patronizing bullshit, and I told him what I thought about it.”

Paul sighed and plopped down on the sofa that George had recently occupied. “Crap. We were getting along so well,” he said. “I suppose now George is all pissed off again.” 

“Well, gee, I was defending you, Paul. You could show a little gratitude,” John snapped.

Paul looked up and saw that John’s feelings were hurt. He smiled at John. “My hero,” he said in a joking simper. 

Ringo laughed. “He was defending you, Paul, it’s true. He feels that George has been patronizing to you, and that maybe I’ve not been as accepting of you as I should have been.”

Paul was surprised by this suggestion. “When we first got here, yes, George was just poisonous to me, but I thought we’d gotten past that. And Ritchie you’ve been perfectly lovely to me.”

John said, “I’m not talking about how they’ve acted at the dinner table, Paul. I’m talking about the studio. You’ve been slinking around there trying not to stand out too much, desperately hoping not to step on their toes, and in the process you’ve been forced to hold back your own ideas and suggestions. It is pissing me off, and since tomorrow - or, I guess it is today, given the time - we’re going to work on one of your songs, I needed to make it clear to everyone that you should be allowed to be yourself without them judging you all the time.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was doing that,” Ringo said softly.

Paul smiled at Ringo. “Me either. But I see what John is saying. I guess I have been holding myself back. I only did it because apparently you all hated that pushiness about me, and I’ve been trying not to do that anymore.” 

“If you were pushy, Paul, it was always in service of making the best possible recordings,” John said loyally. “And anyway, if you’re talking about the White Album, hell, we were all behaving like jackasses. You don’t have to take all the blame for that on your shoulders.”

“Absolutely not!” Ringo agreed.

Paul said, “So you might as well tell me. What did George say before he stormed out of here? I mean, he must have been very upset. Was it something about me?”

“He was mad at me, because I told him the unvarnished truth,” John said. “He didn’t like to hear it, so he decided to throw some homophobic slurs at me instead.”

Paul heard the word ‘homophobic’ and his stomach dropped. He really wished that his personal relationship with John could be kept out of the band. From Paul’s perspective, it was irrelevant to their music, except to the extent it inspired John and him to write songs. What the songs were about, though, had never been an important issue in the Beatles’ recording process before. They had treated each and every song as though it were a piece of art that they needed to perfect without regard to what it meant personally to the songwriter. 

Ringo could see that Paul was distressed by this news. He said gently, “He really didn’t mean it. John said some appalling things to him, and he was just hitting back.”

Paul’s eyes lightened with amusement. “‘Appalling things’? John - what have you done now?”

John was feeling more cheerful now. He said with a kind of lopsided smile, “I told him I didn’t really like his songwriting, and that he was lucky to have been in a group with you and me, so he should just shut up and get over himself.” John was completely unrepentant as he said this.

Paul, meanwhile, hissed his disapproval, although his face was clearly full of affection. “Honestly, John. Did you go to the Margaret Thatcher School of Diplomacy?”

Ringo laughed heartily at that, as John said, “Hell, I could teach her a thing or two!” 

“So what are we going to do?” Paul asked. He was always the one to first see the consequences of a risk wrongly taken, and to seek a solution to the problem created thereby. 

“First, I think we should all go to bed and get a good night’s sleep,” Ringo said. 

Paul laughed. “Yeah, and tomorrow we can all apologize to each other sheepishly over the breakfast table. Or pretend like nothing happened.”

“Works for me!” John declared. “I especially like the ‘going to bed’ part!” John again waggled his eyebrows at Paul suggestively, who sighed and shook his head. It was getting to the point where John’s attempts to embarrass him in front of the others hardly drew a blush out of him. 

 

*****

 

Paul had been glad about the going to bed part too, but for a different reason than John. He wanted to quiz John to find out exactly what George had said. For obvious reasons he hadn’t wanted to hear much detail about it while Ringo was in the room. So the two men were at cross-purposes as they prepared for bed: John, his head full of the ‘tall, dark Gypsy stranger’ and Paul, his head full of curiosity about the homophobic insults that George had hurled. These cross-purposes quickly became noticeable to the both of them, when John immediately scooted over to Paul’s side of the bed, and pulled Paul into his arms. Even as this happened, Paul was asking,

“So what did George say about us?”

John groaned. “Not now, Pud, I want to play.”

Paul brushed this aside. “No really. I want to know. What did he say?”

John sighed heavily and pushed himself a tiny bit away from Paul so he could see his face while they spoke. He knew his lover too well; the infuriating man would not be able to focus on sex until his curiosity was satisfied. No point in fighting it. “He said,” John drawled, “that you and I are ‘deviants’, and that the ‘things we do together,’ as he so eloquently put it, are ‘disgusting.’”

Paul’s face made an ‘ouch’ expression, as his eyebrows slanted down, his nose crinkled, and his mouth puckered into an angry pout. John loved that face. He called it Paul’s ‘angry puppy’ face. 

“That’s harsh,” Paul finally said. “Do you think he really believes that? Ringo doesn’t think so.”

“Oh, he believes it alright,” John said flatly. “Ringo just wants us all to be one big happy family.”

“So do I,” Paul mused.

“Yeah - but not at any cost. At least I don’t want it at any cost. I think George is terrified of homosexuality. I wonder if he is a closet case?” 

Paul was remembering something from the past again. “He never wanted Brian around if he was in any state of undress, I remember that.”

John barked with laughter. “Yeah - poor Bri had to knock before he came in our dressing rooms, remember?” John laughed some more. “As if George was so fucking irresistible that Brian wouldn’t be able to contain himself at the sight of his scrawny little naked chest.”

Paul couldn’t help but chuckle over that, although he felt a little ungenerous doing so. “But I used to feel that way about it, too,” Paul confessed. “It’s why I was so...” Paul was stumped for words, but John was quite happy to complete the sentence for him.

“...It’s why you were so prickly about sex with me back then. You wouldn’t let me kiss you! And I couldn’t fuck you! And only rarely would you go down on me. You wouldn’t whisper sweet nothings in my ear, and wouldn’t let me whisper ‘em in your ear, either. I’m pretty sure you even had to pretend I was a girl before you could bring yourself to fuck me.” John’s words were lighthearted, but in truth there were painful memories lurking behind them like a restless crowd.

Paul felt bad. “I’m sorry I was so hung up about it,” he said sincerely. “It went against everything I was taught that a man was supposed to be...”

“Yeah, I know. But you were open to at least trying it for my sake, which I wasn’t sufficiently grateful for. I kept wanting more...” John shook his head to chase away the desperate memories of those mostly unrequited days of passion and love. “Anyway, the point is, George has never allowed himself to grow beyond his old provincial attitudes. He’s still a macho northern man at his core, and I for one don’t think he’ll ever have enough self-awareness to change.” 

“People don’t change if they don’t want to,” Paul opined. “I think he likes himself this way. And who are we to judge?”

John was thoroughly engrossed in the subject now that his sexual desire was no longer nagging him like a child pulling on it’s mother’s coat. “Well,” he said firmly, “the homo-hating thing has been lingering over our heads since we got here, like a heavy grey cloud. I’ve wanted to go after him over it, but I’ve held myself back because I didn’t want to embarrass you. But I’ve concluded that we can never work together as four people as long as George has that prejudice. Just because when he’s sober he doesn’t make smart remarks out loud about us doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking them the whole time. It makes me feel like a fucking hypocrite for accepting his so-called ‘hospitality’ under the circumstances, and so I’m glad the subject got outed. He either has to truly get over it, or you and I should get the hell out of here and never come back.”

“We’re in the middle of a project though...” Paul said anxiously.

“They need us more than we need them,” John said gently, referring to George and Ringo. He reached his hand out, and allowed his thumb to smooth out the worry wrinkles around Paul’s mouth. 

“That’s no reason to leave them high and dry. We made a business commitment.” Paul’s words were much firmer now.

John said, “Of course we’ll finish the project. But it will be strictly business from now on. No more of this pretending to still be friends and partners. Tomorrow you need to take charge of that fucking studio and don’t let them mess with you at all. I’ll take their fucking heads off if they try. We’ll finish your bleeding song, and we’ll get the hell out of here. When it is time to record the four songs, we’ll record the four songs. We’ll do the group interviews. But we won’t be staying over at George’s house or have him at our house. If he thinks we’re ‘deviants’ then I don’t want him in our life.” 

Paul remained silent for a long time. His beautiful eyes looked particularly sorrowful, so John gently stroked his face again. “It will be okay, baby,” John soothed ever so softly, “it won’t be the end of the world if that happens. Sometimes you have to leave people behind if they refuse to move forward with you.”

“I still hope that George didn’t really mean it...” Paul’s voice was uncharacteristically meek and unsure. 

But now John was through with the conversation. He again pulled Paul tighter and began raining kisses on Paul’s face. Gradually, and only a little reluctantly, Paul felt himself loosening up and reacting to John’s ministrations. Soon their mutual passion took over.

 

*****

 

George woke up late the next morning with a horrific hangover. He had tossed and turned for at least an hour after storming off to his room the night before. He was very angry. So angry that he didn’t know what to do with it all. He needed to talk to Olivia. She was the only one who could help him at a time like this. So, after brushing his teeth and pouring himself a cup of coffee from the set up in his adjacent dressing room, he dialed the number Olivia had left for him in case of emergencies. She was staying with some girlfriends in London, but was expected home the next day. When he heard her voice on the phone, George felt real relief, although his macho pride would not let him show any weakness to her at all.

“I’ve had enough of John and Paul!” He declared angrily into the phone. “I never should have agreed to this travesty!”

Olivia sighed. She had been having such a lovely, relaxing time with her girlfriends, away from the sometimes dark and paranoid world the four ex-Beatles seemed to continuously inhabit. But, like the saying went, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you, and all four of them had been betrayed by so many people they had trusted in so many ways for so many years that they’d all lost count. Still, it was sometimes exhausting to live in that mindset, and Olivia had been enjoying her break. She jerked herself back to reality. 

“What’s happened?” She always asked open-ended questions when George was in this mood. He would always eventually lay it out for her in sufficient detail if she waited patiently. 

“Fucking Lennon. Do you know what he said to me?” George’s voice was vibrating with anger. Olivia knew that the question was a rhetorical one, so she remained patiently silent as George answered his own question. “He said I was a lousy songwriter, that I was ‘lucky’ to have been in the Beatles, and any other guitarist would have done just as well!” 

“Did you have a fight over something?” Olivia figured John wouldn’t have just suddenly said that apropos of nothing. There must have been something that had provoked it.

“We weren’t fighting at all! He suddenly started ripping into me about Paul.”

“Paul?” Olivia asked. No point in giving in to confusion. She knew to hold on fast and all would be revealed in time.

“I’ve tried to be open-minded about this, Livy, but their fucking sex life keeps intruding! John just has to always stick up for Paul, as if Ringo and I are the bad guys and will hurt his precious Paul if he wasn’t there to fend us off.”

Olivia had heard the words ‘sex life’ and something clicked in her head. She knew that George had extremely old-world ideas about human sexuality, and if he had somehow let them show, she could imagine John Lennon striking out at him over it. She wondered if that is what happened. 

But George was still talking. “All I said was that Paul was being very laid-back in the studio, and I meant it as a compliment, and the next thing I know John is all over me, accusing me of - well, basically, he was accusing me of bullying Paul, I guess. I guess that’s what it amounted to.”

Olivia had her own opinion about that. She had often thought that George had been unfair to Paul, and had tended to read impure motives into Paul’s comments and actions when there was no evidence to support his suspicions. She’d never dared to actually confront George on this issue, but she had tried - through gentle advice when George was open to it - to encourage George to get past his resentment of Paul, if only for his own peace of mind. She waited for more information, and it was not long in coming.

“That’s when he told me he had no respect for my songwriting, and that I had been ‘lucky’ to hook up with him and Paul. What an ass! Anyway, I hooked up with Paul before John did!”

“John must have been very upset on Paul’s behalf to say those things. I wonder why,” Olivia said in a neutral voice.

George stopped to think. “He’s so quick to assume I’m having a bash at Paul. But it’s just that he doesn’t want anyone to have any kind of relationship with Paul that he isn’t in control of! He’s been that way since the beginning - I knew Paul first, but John would sort of push me out. I didn’t know then that they were fucking each other, though. No wonder I didn’t have a chance with them!”

Olivia winced at George’s angry words. She tried some soothing oil. “John tends to be extremely possessive of all of the people closest to him, I’ve always thought. I don’t think it has to be related to sex at all. He’s just a very insecure man.”

George grumbled inarticulately in response, but Olivia’s words seemed to have gotten through to him. “Well, that may be. But he should just stay out of it, and let me and Paul work it out ourselves. We were doing pretty well, I thought.”

Olivia wondered if that is what triggered John’s reaction. Perhaps he was jealous and insecure of George’s renewing friendship with Paul. She wouldn’t be surprised if that would be the one true remaining fact left standing, once all the smoke had cleared. 

George had calmed down considerably. Olivia had worked her magic again. Somehow she had helped him see that the situation was a lot more complex than he had at first assumed. Because he was calm now, he was able to remember his own bad behavior. He said in a far less haughty voice, “I really fucked up though. I lost my temper and I said some things...”

Olivia was silent. She waited quietly.

“I made some comments about their.... relationship,” George finished.

Inwardly, Olivia sighed again. Oh, George. How she loved the man, but how odd his opinions were at times! “I take it these were not very nice comments,” Olivia said with a softly amused voice.

George chuckled. “No, they weren’t. I don’t see how John will ever be able to overlook what I said.”

Olivia didn’t know if George was going to tell her what he said. She wasn’t going to ask, and part of her didn’t want to know. She hated it when George behaved like less of a man than he really was inside. Instead, she proffered some good advice. “If you didn’t mean what you said, and you’re sorry, all you can do is tell him that. Apologize for it.”

“Well, I do mean it. I mean, the thought of it makes my skin crawl. But I am sorry I said it. I was just so angry at him for what he said...”

Olivia realized that George was starting to get back on his high horse, so she intervened quickly. “John is entitled not to like your songwriting, and you’re entitled not to agree with his lifestyle. But neither of you should taunt each other about it. You owe each other an apology, but since you can only control yourself and not John, you should be the bigger man and apologize for your part in it. He may apologize back. You never know.” 

While George knew Olivia’s words were true, it still hurt him on several different levels to know that John did not respect him as a songwriter. At bottom, John’s respect is what he had always sought and never got. “Thanks, Livy, for talking about this. Can you come home today? If today goes bad, I’m going to need you here.”

Olivia was disappointed. She had wanted to stay and have a last fun night out with her girlfriends. But she was a wife first, and in any case, George was her best friend. “I’ll get Dhani packed, and we’ll be on our way in a few hours.”

After he hung up, George felt he was now capable of meditating for a while. Perhaps the right words would come to him if he allowed his mind to be free first. 

 

*****

 

Ringo was alone at the breakfast table. He couldn’t help surveying the empty room and thinking that it was a reflection of how everything had so suddenly gone wrong. One drink too many, one night too late, one word put wrong, and everything they had built in the last four days was in shambles. In the intervening years he had forgotten the heavy emotional price he’d paid to be a Beatle. Now it was all coming back to him. Egos, insecurities, money, drugs, alcohol, sex, fame: it was a lethal cocktail; too lethal, apparently, to allow the four of them to ever really be friends again. It was terribly sad. But then, the boys they had been in the ‘60s were only nascent human beings. They’d done all their growing up in the absence of each other during the ‘70s, so it was not surprising that they had grown apart. Well, except for John and Paul. All their decade apart had done for them was to make them cling all the more together once they found each other again.

Ringo had sympathy for George. After all, George had been there through the earliest days too. He certainly felt left out of the power circle, and perhaps he was right to resent this. Since Ringo hadn’t joined the band until four years later, he had never developed a sense of entitlement to ‘equality’ with the others the way George had. Still, it was kind of ridiculous for George to be so upset about John and Paul’s relationship. To Ringo, the relationship seemed right somehow, despite all of the prejudices he had been taught. George might as well be tilting at windmills, or trying to catch sunrays in a butterfly net as trying to fight the “truth” of John’nPaul. Being a bigot was a useless and frustrating pastime, Ringo had always thought, because reality had this annoying tendency to keep showing the bigot the flaws in his beliefs with successful real life examples. He imagined it must get harder and harder with each glaring example for a bigot to hold on to such archaic beliefs. 

At that moment, Paul popped in looking spruce and purposeful. John followed less confidently behind him. Both of them appeared to be relieved to find only Ringo there. 

“So His Nibs isn’t up yet?” John asked Ringo.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Ringo responded. Paul was putting food on his plate in his thoughtful way. Every item Paul chose for a plate was seriously considered before it was deposited. While Ringo had always been the pickiest and lightest eater, Paul was not that far behind him. Ringo had a lot of warm memories of George secretly pilfering food off Paul’s plate when Paul’s attention was directed elsewhere. George had loved food the most, but John wasn’t far behind George. Funny how the Beatles’ eating habits - like just about everything else about them - ran the gamut from A to Zed. John, meanwhile, was piling food on his plate with abandon. Ringo smiled.

Paul sat down across from Ringo and asked very quietly, “Well, last night was ‘fun’, wasn’t it?”

Ringo nodded heavily. 

John came and sat next to Paul. He said loudly, “I wonder if George is going to join us, or stage a disappearance, like he’s done in the past.” 

“We should just go to the music room at the regular time,” Paul suggested bossily, “and I’ll play the song for you both, and show John a few chords. Hopefully, he’ll join us, and we can all behave professionally.”

“Dream on,” John snorted. 

Ringo said, “Maybe so John, but it is the only thing we can do to try to salvage the process.” 

So that is what the three of them did. They went to the music room, and Paul spent some time tuning his acoustic guitar. 

“I thought it would be appropriate for us to work on that song I wrote in Rishikesh - Cosmically Conscious. I really hoped George would be here for this,” Paul said. 

John had known in advance which song Paul had selected, but it was a surprise to Ringo. “I think that’s a fantastic idea!” Ringo declared. “I can’t think why we didn’t record it back then.”

“I thought it was embarrassing, so I put me foot down,” John confessed. “It was too soon after the Maharishi let me down.”

Paul smiled. “Whatever the reason, I think we should record it because it feels right for a Beatles reunion song,” Paul continued. “The words are ridiculously simple, and there are only a few chords to learn. We can easily do this in a few hours, and it should be fun.” Paul looked up from his frets to the studio door, hoping to see George there. But no George was there. “Anyway,” Paul continued distractedly, “why don’t you two get started on your bits. I’m going to see if I can find George.”

John’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I’m going to go find George. I want him here for this. We’re all four on your song, and on George’s, and on Ringo’s. I want him on my song, too.” Paul’s expression was fierce as he said this, so John decided not to object. But he did have an order he expected Paul to obey:

“Don’t apologize to him Paul! You’re too quick to take the blame for stuff. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the asshole, not you, so don’t you dare apologize!”

Paul heard this, weighed it, and took it for good advice. He hadn’t really thought about what he would say, though. He had kind of hoped the right words would come to him at the right moment. 

It took him a while to find George’s bedroom in the vast house. He knocked tremulously on the door, not knowing what to expect. He was just about to give up and leave, under the assumption that George must not be there, when the door opened. 

“Oh, it’s you,” George said upon seeing Paul.

“Can we talk for a few moments?” Paul asked anxiously.

George blinked, but nodded ever so slightly, allowing his bedroom door to open wider. Paul followed him in, and then into the adjoining dressing room, where Paul noted a meditation set up. Instead, George sat on a nicely upholstered chair and pointed to the identical one opposite him. Paul sat. “I was meditating,” George said.

“Did it help?” Paul asked, his eyes smiled and a nervous chuckle escaped.

George chuckled too. “Yes. It always helps.”

“I hear there was a whole lot of excitement last night after I went up to bed,” Paul said jokingly.

“You could say that, yes,” George responded.

“John told me what he said about your songwriting,” Paul said softly. “I hope you know that I don’t agree with him about that.”

“You don’t?” George asked. The question sounded haughty, but George was actually surprised and a little bit touched by what Paul had said. 

“John and I are not the same person, Geo, although everyone seems to think we are. We don’t always agree on everything.” Paul was looking George steadily in the face. He supposed he was going to have to address the ‘relationship’ issue with George in as direct a way as he could manage, given his own shyness on the subject. After all, one of them had to behave like an adult every once in a while!

“He also said I was ‘lucky’ to be in the band,” George said, his face a study in wounded-ness.

“Well, that’s just John going to extremes again, George, you know how he does that - takes an argument and stretches it until it breaks.” Paul searched for the right words, and they miraculously came. “Of course it isn’t true. Sometimes you were the one who dragged us back at it again when John and I gave up. We all had our down moments, but we got each other through the tough times, didn’t we?”

A hint of a smile appeared on George’s face. “We sure did,” was all he said. 

“So, I’m wondering how we’re going to get through this tough time,” Paul said. “I’m sure there’s a way.” George was uncomfortably quiet, so Paul added, “John also told me what you said about us.”

George looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry about that, Paul,” he said sincerely. “He pushed me to my breaking point.”

Paul chuckled. George heard the chuckle and looked up at Paul in surprise. “Well,” Paul explained to George’s wordless question, “he pushes me to the breaking point quite regularly. Last night it was just your turn!”

George laughed. He felt a little more comfortable now.

“What we need to know, George, is...” Paul struggled for the courage to continue. “...Did you mean it? Do you really think our relationship is ‘disgusting?’”

George winced at the repeat of the word. “I had no business using that word,” he said eventually. “I’m not comfortable with the whole idea, really, but I should have kept my opinion to myself. It’s not like you’re hurting anyone else.”

Paul heard the words George did not say and responded to them. “We’re not hurting ourselves, either. It isn’t a sin and we’re not going to hell. If I thought it was wrong I wouldn’t do it - I’m a pretty moral person, I think.” 

George couldn’t look Paul in the eye. He asked, “How can you do that? I know you love women.” 

Paul sighed. “You sound like my brother,” he said. “He doesn’t understand it either, although he’s trying to understand it. He’s working on it.”

“Mike disapproves too?” George asked.

“Yeah. It was bad for a while. We didn’t talk for over a year. We still haven’t fully bridged the gap I’m afraid.”

George looked up and for the first time felt real sympathy for Paul’s situation, even if Paul was the author of his own sad song. He didn’t have to choose to be John’s lover, after all. But since he had, it must be hard to be shunned by his own brother. “Is this thing with John really worth that much to you?” George finally asked. “And what about Linda?”

“I love Linda too, and our kids. I know it is hard to understand, but John and Linda and I - we somehow make it work. Sometimes it’s a bit off, with one or the other of us feeling left out for a while, but it always evens out in the end, and then we remember why we’re doing this. If you don’t believe me, you should talk to Linda. I wouldn’t object. She would tell you the truth.” 

George had no intention of talking to Linda about it. He already felt as though he had intruded enough. “Well, I guess I’m hung up on the fact that our past was a lie. I thought we were living one life, and the whole time you and John were living a whole other life.”

Paul heard George out, and then said, “We didn’t tell anyone, and we didn’t even talk about it with each other. I was very uptight about it, and anyway - we knew how you felt about the subject - you’d said a lot of things about it in our hearing...”

“John said the worst things,” George defended.

Paul laughed. “Yeah, but John was faking it. He was trying to blend in. He didn’t really mean it. You did mean it though, didn’t you?”

George nodded in the affirmative. He couldn’t deny it. 

“So, I know we’ve told you this before: we were afraid to tell you, and apparently for good reason.”

George said, “I get that, I do. But I still am left with the feeling that I was living in a parallel universe that whole time. It makes me wonder what was true and what was not true.” 

This was the true crux of his problem, George decided - eternally being left out of the magic circle.


	76. Chapter 76

George and Paul were at the moment of truth. 

George said, “I get that, I do. But I still am left with the feeling that I was living in a parallel universe that whole time. It makes me wonder what was true and what was not true.” 

Paul responded. “Everything was ‘true,’ George. I’m sure there were parts of your life that John and I didn’t know about. And there were lots of things in John’s life that I didn’t know about. Like when he went to art college and started hanging out with Stu and his crowd. Suddenly I was like chopped liver or something; he had hardly any time for me. Of course, that was before we were...” Paul had almost said “lovers”, but he caught himself because he thought that George would not be comfortable with the word; “...together,” he finished tactfully. “But I was very jealous of his friendship with Stu. Later on, after John and me got together, I wondered if Stu had been his lover first.”

George blushed a little. His heart actually went out to Paul. “Were they?” He asked.

“Hmmm?” Paul’s eyebrows asked the question.

“Lovers. Him and Stu.”

Paul looked down at his hands and considered before speaking. “He says not.” 

“You sound as if you don’t believe him.” 

“I’m not sure I do.”

“That’s got to hurt,” George said sweetly. He suddenly realized that Paul’s open jealousy of and spitefulness to Stu finally made total sense.

Paul quickly changed the subject. “So, my point is that all of us had our secrets, didn’t we? We were not about to reveal these things to each other at that young age, when we were so afraid of being judged. It wasn’t just John and me having secrets; it was all of us. But what we shared together - the three of us - that was our reality, right? And it wasn’t fake.”

“Yeah. I need to put that behind me,” George finally admitted. “It’s weighing me down.”

“It’s easy to do. Like any old baggage, all you do is dump it by the side of the road and keep on truckin’.” Paul’s eyes danced with warmth.

“I should try that some time,” George chuckled.

“In the meantime, while you’re thinking about it, do you mind joining us in the studio? We’re working on that song I wrote in Rishikesh ... Cosmically Conscious.”

George’s eyes lit up. “Really? I thought John had nixed that one.”

“He’s okay with it now. I thought it was a very appropriate choice, given the situation.” Paul said lightly.

“But John - how’s he gonna react if I show up?”

“It’s your house, George. You can go into any room you want,” Paul teased. “And John will probably give you some grief. Can you take it?”

“I’ve been known to in the past.” George said proudly.

“You were always quite good at that, I thought: giving John his own back. Only this time, don’t drag me into it, will you? Ix-nay on the queer remarks, okay? They embarrass me.” 

George laughed out loud. He felt so much better. He got up. “Let’s go, then,” he said, and he led Paul out of the room and down the stairs to the studio.

 

*****

 

“Well, look who finally decided to join us!” John crowed from his seat in the middle of the room as George and Paul came into the room.

George made a face to show no hard feelings, and went over to the corner to find a guitar, which he quickly began to tune.

John, meanwhile, was making meaningful faces at Paul. He was trying to figure out what happened. Paul just gave him a reassuring smile and whispered, “Let’s just work. We can talk later.”

George then joined them. Paul showed him the chords, and soon the three of them were finding their musical voice. Ringo came in on the drums. The thing came together so quickly that they were done within two hours. When they finished, Paul stood up and engaged in a slow, long stretch - just like a cat. John watched with lusty admiration. I’ve always loved cats, John thought enthusiastically, as he reminded himself to shut his gaping mouth.

Paul felt all the emotional stress in his body had reached a crescendo. He desperately needed to find a way to relieve himself of that negative energy. “Let’s go out on the patio and have drinks with umbrellas in ‘em!” He cried joyfully, causing the others to laugh derisively. But it didn’t stop them from enjoying the strawberry daiquiris Paul made for them (sans miniature umbrellas, unfortunately, because George didn’t have any). 

“This is a smart idea, Paul,” John snarked, holding up his ridiculously fruity drink. “There’s no way we’re getting drunk on this shit. There’s not enough alcohol. Ergo, no repeat of last night.”

“From your mouth to god’s ear,” Paul responded promptly. But John was wrong about that - Paul had laced the drinks quite liberally with rum. 

George laughed. Things were going much better than he feared they would, but he still felt something was a little false. John wasn’t being real with him. John was hiding his feelings by joking and making smartass remarks. George could tell that John wasn’t really communicating with him. And on one level, George could understand. He had said some pretty unforgiveable things to him about the ‘thing’ with Paul. But then, John had cut him to the quick with his remarks about his songwriting talent. Olivia’s advice came back to haunt him, so he forced himself to walk across the patio and sit next to John.

At first, John pretended not to notice. But it got to be awkward, since George was clearly trying to get his attention, so he finally turned to George and said, “What do you want, George?”

Not the most auspicious of starts, George thought, but here goes. “I’m sorry about what I said the other night.”

John sat stone silent, listening. He said nothing. George tried again.

“I shouldn’t have said that stuff about you and Paul.”

“But?” John finally asked. “I know there’s a ‘but’ here.”

“But,” George said, unwisely taking John up on his angry taunt, “the things you said about me. You pushed me to the brink.”

“I said some things I shouldn’t ’ve,” John admitted. “But they were things I actually believe. And you did the same, didn’t you? You just said the things you’ve been dying to say for years, right? What I said just gave you ‘permission’ to do it.”

George glared at John. “That’s not an apology. I’m sorry I lost my temper, but apparently you’re not sorry you called me a no-talent.”

John shrugged. “I didn’t call you a no-talent. I said you were a great guitarist, and you are. I’m just saying that without Paul’s additions to your songs, I just wouldn’t have fancied them. In return, you called me and the person I love ‘deviants’ and said that our love was ‘disgusting.’ Isn’t that how it went?”

George smacked his thigh with his hand. “I should have known there was no point in trying to reason with you.”

At just that moment, Olivia showed up on the patio, and Dhani came running out from behind her and into his father’s arms. George was incredibly relieved to see his wife and son. Paul had noticed Olivia, and had gone over to greet her. He was quite tipsy as he held his frothy drink in the air and hugged her with his free arm. He was on this third. Or was it his fourth? He’d lost track. It was just that he was so fucking relieved to have the ‘reunion’ mostly behind him.

Olivia giggled. Paul seemed almost girlish sometimes with his cute mannerisms and light-footed movements. She had to smile at his giddiness. It probably meant that the session went well. Olivia certainly hoped so. But her next view was George’s anxious face. Oh, no. She looked to George’s right and saw John sitting there with that fool’s grin he gave when his smile was insincere. Looks like things had not been healed after all, at least between George and John. Seamlessly, she melted into George’s welcoming arms, and gave him an extra long reassuring squeeze. She figured he needed it.

“So what are you four up to?” She asked playfully, not really expecting an answer. 

“No good,” Ringo quipped from a few seats away. He held his silly glass aloft in salute, and also as a reminder to Paul to refill it. Paul quickly obliged, and then poured himself some more for good measure. Next, he poured Olivia a drink. 

John was strangely quiet. Fortified with a drink, Olivia strategically sat next to John. 

“How are you, John?” She asked. 

John thought that Olivia was kind and sincere, and he smiled at her question because he knew that - unlike a lot of people - she really meant it when she asked that question. So he blessed her with one of his beautiful genuine beaming smiles. “I’m pretty good,” he said. “And you?”

“I’m sorry I came home early. I missed my husband,” Olivia said.

“No, it’s good you came. Things are getting a little tricky here,” John whispered, moving in closely so only Olivia could hear.

“Oh?” She asked, all innocence.

“George and I - we’re at daggers drawn,” John said with exaggerated drama, his eyebrows bopping up and down.

“So what is it this time?” She asked, an all-knowing smile on her face.

John laughed. “Oh, the usual. I told him I didn’t like his songwriting, and he called me and Paul deviants.”

Olivia was taken a little aback. She felt a loyalty to George rising in her throat, even though she also was shocked that George had used the word ‘deviant’ in connection with John and Paul’s relationship. “That wasn’t a kind thing to say, John - about George’s songwriting. You might think that, but why would you say it?”

John did a double take. Olivia was one tough chick. John had the good grace to look ashamed. “He was patronizing Paul in the studio. It pissed me off. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“And then George insulted you and Paul in return, I hear.”

“He told you?”

“Of course he told me. He feels terrible about it. Do you feel bad about what you said to him?” Olivia’s expression was shrewd.

George, meanwhile, was watching from several feet away. Dhani was talking excitedly to Ringo, and Ringo was goofing around in return. But George could only wonder what Olivia was saying to John.

“I am sorry I said it, yeah,” John finally admitted. “But he can be such a dick.” 

Olivia said, staunchly, “So can you.”

“Touche!” John responded. “But I don’t really want to be friends with someone who thinks what Paul and I have together is ‘disgusting.’ That was his actual word, by the way.” 

“If he said that, he was wrong too. But you have to admit you have a way of provoking people,” Olivia reasoned. 

George couldn’t stand it any more, so he moved over to where his wife sat next to John, and pulled a chair up so he was facing both of them. “Livy, you don’t have to fight my battles for me,” George said fiercely. 

“George, she’s a credit to you,” John said softly. “I’m sorry for the things I said. I was upset because of the way you were treating Paul. He’s actually a little peeved with me that I said those things.”

George was surprised by how much Olivia had softened John up in so short a time. He wasn’t quite sure John was sincere, so he said slowly, “I think we should just forget we ever said those things.”

“No, we can’t forget them. No hope for that,” John said firmly. “And maybe we can’t even forgive each other, since we both meant what we said, even if we both admit that we shouldn’t have expressed it the way we did. I still do not think of you as an equal talent to Paul - no one else in the fucking world is either, by the way - and you still disapprove of the fact that Paul is my lover. Those are real opinions we have, and we can’t just pretend them away.”

“John?” 

Everyone looked up and saw a tipsy but angsty Paul, his shirt open at the neck and loose at the tails, his hair all over the place, looking down at them all. He had a precarious grasp on his daiquiri glass.

“Come here, baby,” John drawled, patting his lap and grinning lasciviously. “Have a seat.” 

Paul decided a funny camp moment was called for, so he surprised John by plopping down on John’s lap with an ‘oomph!’

Everyone laughed.

“Are you up-upsetting everyone again?” Paul asked John loudly. He looked absolutely adorable, and again everyone laughed, especially when he kind of stuttered due to his inebriated state. 

“He’s an awfully cute drunk,” Ringo opined from across the patio.

“Tell me about it,” John answered back, making a flicking-mustache motion, Groucho-like.

Paul tried to get up, thinking the joke was over, and he really didn’t want to be seen seriously sitting on John’s lap in front of his old mates. But John grasped him fiercely around his waist, and didn’t let him get up. Paul looked down and met John’s eyes. His expression asked John ‘why?’ John just squeezed him again and smiled cryptically. Paul shrugged and decided not to fuss. He was totally polluted, and it was kind of nice there on John’s lap. He wrapped an arm around John’s neck, made himself comfortable, and took another huge sip of his daiquiri.

George was watching this all with a kind of fascinated wonder. He thought he should feel more repulsed by this outrageous display of homo-affection, but it was really kind of funny and appealing in an odd sort of way. It was kind of ... innocent. He surprised himself with this thought. 

At that moment he caught John’s eye and John blatantly winked at him. John then turned to Olivia and said, “The four of us have been to hell and back several times. One way and another we get through all the shit life throws at us. We’ll be okay.”

“Amen!” Ringo shouted from the other side of the patio. 

George, in that moment, felt at one with all of them. With Ringo, John and Paul. At the thought of Paul, he looked up to see Paul’s face. The poor bloke was starting to fall asleep, his head resting on the top of John’s head. Protectively, George reached for and extricated Paul’s glass, which was beginning to waver. “I think Paul needs to go to bed,” George found himself saying fondly. “He’s falling asleep.”

“Fuckin’ Paul,” John said, laughing. “He’s the only man on earth who can get drunk on girl drinks while drinking the rest of us under the table with whiskey!”

 

*****

 

John had decided that a fireman’s carry was the most effective way to get a completely plastered Paul up the stairs and to their bedroom. Tomorrow morning they would be in their car and on their way back to London; part of John was relieved by this thought, and part of him was sad and worried. At least while they were here, he had Paul to himself. Once they were back in London, the whole Linda thing would loom large again. 

Anyway, he had thrown Paul down on the bed, and Paul had bounced slightly when he hit the mattress. “Whoaaaa...” Paul said, and then he giggled. “The room is whirling; it’s upside down!” 

John smiled at Paul with love and affection. He began to remove Paul’s clothes. First the shirt. John began to painstakingly unbutton Paul’s shirt. He pulled the shirt off each arm, even though Paul was kind of a restless, dead weight. Then he turned his attention to the trousers. John focused on the waist button and the zipper. This was the best part: the big reveal. John unbuttoned, and he unzipped, and then slowly - oh so slowly - he pulled the trousers down and way from Paul’s hips, all the way down to his ankles. This revealed Paul’s underpants, but it also revealed what could only be described as a rather large boner. John laughed. Paul was the best lover ever: even when plowed out of his mind he had erections! How lucky could one guy get? 

Paul stirred, and he cracked his eyes open. He caught sight of John and his face lit up with an incandescent expression. John caught his breath. Paul really loves me! The thought was flashing in John’s brain as if it were a neon sign. In that moment - at least for that moment - John knew that Paul loved him. There was no other explanation for Paul’s reaction to seeing him other than Paul adored the very sight of him! 

Meanwhile, Paul was reaching out his arms to John. He wanted a hug, and he wanted some physical attention now!

“Okay, okay,” John was chuckling as he quickly removed Paul’s underpants, and then quickly divested himself of his own clothes. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” John jumped enthusiastically on to the bed, making Paul bounce again.

“Ooh, the room is spinning again,” Paul commented in a lazy, meandering voice. “I love when that happens,” he added.

John cuddled Paul in his arms. He was so totally happy in this moment - in fact, he hadn’t remembered any time when he had felt so contented and sure of his lover as he did in that moment. How strange life was. Just a few months ago he had felt disconnected from Paul, and had worried that their love was dying. And now it was a hotter flame than it had ever been before. 

 

*****

 

All things must pass, as a wise man once said. John was thinking of that as he and Paul gave mostly sincere hugs to George, Ringo and Olivia as they departed the enshrined weirdness of Friar Park. As their car emerged from the gatehouse drive, John actually felt that centuries had fallen away, and suddenly he was back in 1994 again. Real life. What a bummer. But also such a relief.

Paul was at the wheel, and he had shaken off the previous night’s drunkenness. He was all seriousness and businesslike again. John managed to keep his smile to himself. He still had a strong memory of Paul’s molten hotness from the night before - how Paul had melted in his arms, and moaned with pleasure when John’s mouth had pleasured him. Paul could pretend to be all proper and serious now, but John knew the truth. John knew that Paul was one sexy pussycat when it came time to fuck.

“Well, John, that was an interesting five days,” Paul said as he found the motorway entrance which would eventually bring them back to London. 

“It certainly was,” John agreed, a double entendre clearly echoing in his voice.

Paul blushed a little. “I was drunk last night. The way everyone was looking at me this morning, I have a bad feeling I exposed myself in some way.”

“Oh, baby,” John moaned jokingly. “You exposed yourself in every way. We may never get over it.”

“John, really. I’m worried. I didn’t make a spectacle of myself, did I? I only very vaguely remember last night.”

John said, “Paul, don’t worry. We were all a little tipsy, and very relieved that it was all over and that none of us were dead or maimed. You were really very cute.”

“Cute?” Paul’s voice almost peaked in its high intensity.

“Oh, yeah. Especially when you were sitting on my lap, hugging my neck.”

“I was sitting on your lap? Did anyone see me?” Paul was horrified at the thought.

“Oh, they all saw you, Paul. They all thought you were adorable.”

“Oh my god!” Paul cried. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Why would I want to stop you from sitting on my lap and hugging my neck? I enjoyed every second of it,” John responded reasonably.

“Oh, good lord...” Paul muttered, as he executed a merge on to the London ring road. Now it was just a matter of catching the right exit, and soon they would be home. 

John laughed expansively. “Yeah, and they really enjoyed it when I put you over my shoulder and carried you upstairs.”

“Oh no! Oh stop!” Paul protested. John just laughed harder.

“Give it up, Paul. They all know you’re my fuck bunny. Why stress over it?”

Paul could feel himself blushing with embarrassment. He had wanted to comport himself with dignity during the whole Beatles reunion. How sad that he should finally let loose on their last night (the stress had been incredible that day after all), and make a complete spectacle of himself as a result. He figured he’d be hearing about this forever from George and Ringo. Damn! 

 

*****

 

Linda had enjoyed a lovely five days in Paul’s absence. Her daughters Mary and Stella had come to stay with her, and the three of them had spent the whole time doing girl things: chick flicks with popcorn, a spa day at the Ritz, days sitting around gossiping and talking about dreams, and baking extravagances. Now it was time for Paul to get home, and she was looking forward to seeing him. The separation had been just long enough to create a sense of longing to be together again. Thus, when Paul pulled into the driveway Linda was rested and happy to see him, greeting him at the front door. ‘

John was with him. He gave Linda a hug, too, and entered the house and dumped his luggage in the hallway, while Paul lost himself in a heavy embrace with Linda. At least John had left them alone for a moment. Linda didn’t understand why John hadn’t been dropped at his home. She had figured that when Paul came home, he’d be hers alone.

“Hey, luv,” Paul whispered in Linda’s ear. He thought about saying he had missed her, but sadly, he hadn’t thought about her at all while he had been with John. This was a jarring thought for a second. But he didn’t want Linda to feel his discomfiture, so he redoubled the ferocity of his embrace.

Something’s not right, Linda thought, as she felt Paul’s intense grasp. It was just a fleeting feeling, and then it was gone, because James came down the stairs and said,

“Hey pop” in a bored voice before asking Linda if lunch was almost ready. 

Paul said, “Your mum’s not your servant, son. I’m sure you can make your own lunch.”

Linda started to move towards the kitchen, but Paul held her back. Seeing this, James shrugged and headed for the kitchen.

“I don’t mind,” Linda said to Paul. “I love cooking for you all.” 

Paul smiled. “I know, Lin, but there was something in James’s tone. He sounded a bit like some kind of prince or something. Best he learns that’s not on.” He pulled her into the sitting room, where John had already made himself at home on the light blue sofa. One leg was up on the coffee table, and he was flipping impatiently through one of Linda’s magazines.

“There seem to be an endless supply of shoes and purses,” John observed critically. “Why can’t women ever have enough?”

Linda grabbed the magazine away from him and tossed it on to a side table. “I have exactly 3 purses and 12 pairs of shoes. I’ll bet you have more pairs of shoes than I do,” she told John tartly, but with amusement in her eyes. 

“Oh, John has the hugest wardrobe I’ve ever seen,” Paul confirmed, as he settled in his favorite armchair. “I swear he only wears a t-shirt once and then never wears it again.”

“Well, I think that’s a sight better than having four pairs of corduroys - brown, grey, navy and tan - and pairing them with oddball sweaters that are worn until they’re fraying.” John’s eyes were locked with Paul’s in an intimate tug-of-war. Linda noted this and the amusement in her face slowly drained. “Linda, what do you think of that?” John prodded, after dragging his eyes away from Paul’s. “Does he have the same 4 pairs of corduroys in his closet here as well? I swear he wears them until they fall apart, and then he goes out and buys 4 more pairs exactly like them.”

“They’re comfortable,” Paul pouted. “And they match with everything. I don’t have to worry about putting the wrong things together.”

“You have a great body, Paul. You ought to wear more form-fitting clothes. Instead, you walk around in sacks. Don’t you agree Linda?”

Linda did not agree. Linda thought Paul was fine the way he was. Yes, he was a bit dowdy when hanging around the house, but she admired his lack of vanity about clothes. On the other hand, she didn’t want to disagree about Paul having a great body. “He does have a great body,” she said, catching Paul’s eye and smiling naughtily at him. Two could play at this game. “Personally, I think he looks best without any clothes at all.”

“Ooohhhh!” John trumpeted in the higher registers of his vocal range. “Let’s do that Lin! Let’s make him walk around naked, and we can just look at him all the time!”

“This is going too far,” Paul grumbled. He was blushing quite brightly. He was also worried that James might overhear this nonsense.

Linda softened first. “We’re just teasing,” she said. 

“Yeah,” John jumped in with both flat feet. “Mainly because of all that drama a few months ago when you were freaking out about your looks and avoiding mirrors and shit. What was that all about, anyway? Have you figured it out yet?” 

“I’d let myself go,” Paul said succinctly. “And then I did something about it.” No point in elaborating on the dark period he’d gone through, when he’d felt that everything sure in his life had betrayed him. John and Linda hadn't understood, and probably would never understand. No point in trying to explain.

“Well,” John said, yawning loudly. “I’m going to get you some new clothes. The ones you’re wearing all hang off of you since you lost that weight. And I’m gonna pick them.” John said this with such a ring of possessive authority, that Linda found herself resenting it. She felt it necessary to retaliate.

“Of course, when you’re home with me, you can wear anything you like. Or not.” Linda had come back strong with a very flirtatious expression. 

Paul chuckled nervously. This was weird. There was a strange dynamic in the room. He knew the “triangle” was never the easiest type of relationship to manage, but just now it felt like he was stuck in a triangle on steroids. It felt as though John and Linda were competing for his ... what? They didn’t really seem to be vying for his attention. No, it was about his physical person: as if we were an object to be fought over, or, perhaps more precisely, a possession.

John had finally become aware that he had competition. He turned to look at Linda, who was sitting on the other end of the sofa, and when their eyes met there was a definite challenge in her eyes: hands off my property. John’s first reaction was to hide from that challenge. He was acutely aware that Linda had the wedding ring, and she had the title of “Mrs.”, and she had the kids. But his second reaction was to remind himself that while Linda had the outward stuff, he alone had Paul’s creative soul. This was a much better deal to John’s way of thinking. Consequently, he had no intention of backing down. He smiled back at Linda with smug confidence. 

Paul felt the awkward silence and said, “Well, John, do you need help with your luggage?” This was his not-so-subtle way of hinting to John that he needed some time alone with Linda.

John felt irked by this, because it felt as though Linda had scored a point on him. But he got up and said, “I can drag my own luggage, thank you.” He went to the hallway where he’d dumped his suitcases, and then lugged them back through the sitting room in a hurt silence. 

Paul sighed deeply and tried not to roll his eyes as John’s stiff back receded through the French door. “Excuse me, Lin,” Paul said softly, and then he followed John out into the garden. “John!” Paul called.

John stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around at first. 

“Hey, don’t go away mad,” Paul said softly. 

John turned around, and Paul was right there next to him. Paul engulfed him in a hug, and placed his nose precisely on John’s nose. It was a very brief but very intimate gesture. “We had such a great time away. Let’s don’t spoil it. Why don’t you come over and join us for dinner later? Maybe we’ll order pizza so Lin doesn’t have to cook.” Paul paused and used the moment to give John a very naughty look. “Unless you have something better to do?” Paul’s eyebrows rose with mock suspiciousness, and this made John finally crack a smile.

“Give me a call when it’s ready, and maybe I’ll come over,” John mumbled, although he still looked kind of pouty. This was because John knew who was going to be having sex with Paul that night, and it wasn’t him.

Paul gave him a kiss on the tip of his nose, and then squeezed him once more. “Luv ya, Johnny,” he whispered. He gave John a spank on the bum and then turned away and bopped back into the house.

Linda had been waiting in stony silence in the sitting room. She saw the clock on the mantle, and realized it was just a little past noon. She imagined she could hear the blasted thing ticking. Something had passed between Paul and John while they were gone - that was clear to Linda. They had come back changed in some way. They seemed united in a kind of secret conspiracy. John had gained confidence in his hold over Paul. And she also had noticed that Paul had seemed so passive as John had bossed him around about his wardrobe. It was almost as if Paul had enjoyed being the subject of John’s possessiveness. This was a new thing - a new dynamic between them, Linda thought. She wondered what had happened in their five days away. 

Paul came back in the room with a cheerful step. Linda could swear he had been whistling under his breath. He came over to the sofa, and insinuated himself next to her, pulling her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder, and felt comforted in his arms. Still, she couldn’t help but notice that Paul’s shirt smelled like John’s spicy aftershave lotion. 

“I’m so relieved that’s over,” Paul said to her, referring to the Beatles ‘reunion’. “It was so stressful.” 

“Really? I thought you were looking forward to it,” Linda said.

“It was so intense. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There were some really great times, too. But it was rocky at times - unpleasantly so.” 

“In what way?” Linda asked.

Paul sighed. “George.” That one name held a wealth of meaning in it, the way that Paul had pronounced it.

“What about George?”

“Well, at first he was horrible to me. That first day - man, I just wanted to turn around and come home. It was terrible.”

“What did he do?”

“It’s hard to explain. He was just being kind of cold to me, cutting me off. I didn’t feel welcome at all.”

“Did you confront him about it?” Linda asked staunchly.

“Not in so many words - not at first, no. I just decided not to let him intimidate me, and then the next few days were better. Once we started working in the studio it got a little better. But I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, putting a foot wrong, you know? I couldn’t really be myself...”

“That does sound stressful.”

“It was horribly stressful. But John and me got along real well. I mean, he was very supportive of me. He actually got into a really bad fight with George near the end of our stay over it.”

“Oh?” Linda’s curiosity was now turned up to high. Maybe she was going to get some insight into what had passed between John and Paul while they had been away. “Did it end okay?”

“Emmmm, not sure. Well, at least we didn’t fight anymore. But it was still touch and go at the end between John and George. Oh - You’ll never believe it! I was so stressed last night that I got totally blasted on rum, and so I had to be carried off to bed! I don’t remember any of it!”

Linda flinched at the ‘carried off to bed’ remark, because she had a strong suspicion about who had done the ‘carrying.’ 

“Anyway, we all left each other this morning saying all the right things, but while we were driving back, John and I discussed it, and we aren’t so sure we can get over the things that George said to us.”

Linda’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. “What did he say?”

Paul was too embarrassed to elaborate. “He said worse things even than Mike said.” Paul’s voice was low, and he seemed pained to relay even this much information. “Of course, he told me he was sorry he said them, but John thinks that George really believes those things about us. If so, how can we continue to be friends with someone who thinks of us that way?”


	77. Chapter 77

Things were moving forward on the Anthology project. In six weeks’ time John and Paul would be joining George and Ringo in the old Abbey Road EMI studio no. 2 to finalize their four recordings. It was an odd number of songs to release, and Paul already envisioned the unpleasant maneuverings ahead when it came time to decide which song would lead. He had chosen ‘Cosmically Conscious’ for his contribution in part because he knew it would never be chosen as the principal song of the four, and thus he could leave himself out of the inevitable feeding frenzy. He figured George would want it the most, and that John would want it too, but mainly to annoy George, and that Ringo would defer to the other two, just as he, Paul, intended to do this time ‘round. So he and Ringo would be left with the ugly task of tiebreaking. No matter whose song they voted for, they would end up with one enemy and one ingrate. It was not going to be pretty, of that much Paul was sure.

Paul was relaxing in his office at McLen as he had these thoughts. He had spent the last hour planning a getaway vacation for John and him. He had promised John he would surprise him, and it was early May now. If he didn’t fit the vacation in now, it would be months before they could get away, since the recording and interviews for Anthology were scheduled starting in late June and would run through the remaining summer months and into the fall. Paul had decided that making the plans from his office was safest: if he had done it had home, Linda would have overheard and he didn’t want to make such plans right in front of her. That would be rude. And if he had done it in the office John had set aside for him in his house, then it certainly would not be a surprise! He had tried to get a sense from John where he wanted to go without signaling outright that he was in the actual process of planning a trip, but John had been less than helpful. “If we go away,” he’d said, “it will just be the idea of us being alone that I will be happy about.” This was very sweet, of course, but not terribly helpful. Linda was the one who had done the research to find the fun holiday places for the past several years, although Paul used to do it by himself in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. He was out of practice. At first he thought he’d ask the secretaries for ideas, but then he remembered that they’d gossip about it amongst themselves, and it might get back to Linda or John. After all of these frustrating threads of thought, Paul had finally given himself a good shake and decided to do the research himself.

There were, in fact, people called “travel agents” that you could consult with. Frank, his manager, had recommended one. So Paul had spent a frustrating 30 minutes on the phone with the travel agent: frustrating, because there were so many different possibilities, and they all involved ‘5 star’ this and ‘5 star’ that. Paul didn’t want to go to 5-star places. He wanted somewhere totally off the beaten path and utterly private with no one to bother them for miles around. The last thing on earth he needed at this point - just before Anthology - was a slew of paparazzi photos of him and John cavorting solo (without women) at some international hotspot. The agent finally seemed to get what he really wanted, and said she would come up with a list of villas for rent in various tropical locales and call him back later. It wasn’t until he’d hung up that he remembered the very romantic time he and John had experienced in South America on their last world concert tour. He called the agent back with a few targeted ideas.

 

*****

 

John was seated in the backyard terrace of an Italian restaurant in South Kensington. Joining him was Declan McManis, also known as Elvis Costello. They were sipping limoncello as they waited for Paul to join them for lunch. John was explaining the status of the Beatles’ project.

“We’re going to go in to the studio - they’re going to film us doing it. I keep having flash backs of ‘Let It Be.’” John made a face. “I think it’s a terrible idea, and Paul managed to talk them into only filming a couple of hours on one day. Less chance we’ll act up in front of the cameras that way.”

Elvis smiled sympathetically. “It’s so much easier to be a solo act, or a lead singer. Trying to satisfy four stars simultaneously must be very difficult.” 

“I could never do it again on a permanent basis,” John said definitively. “I’m too old and too used to having my own way. You know, Paul and I think alike, and we support each other, but even with us there is push and pull sometimes. So it’s just too hard to deal with these two other guys who have all sorts of opinions and demands that don’t mesh with ours.” 

Elvis was wondering how big of an asshole he would be if he gave John Lennon corrective advice. He meant: this was John Fucking Lennon! How could he possibly point out that the divergent viewpoints and clear personality differences between the four Beatles is what had made them so great, so irreplaceable. The very thing John was complaining of was the thing that framed the picture. Elvis decided against opening his mouth because he didn't know the legend well enough. 

John looked around impatiently. “Where the fuck is Paul?” He asked rhetorically. Elvis had known Paul a little longer than he had known John. They had met at a studio once, and had spent a few hours talking about music together. Paul was actually Elvis’s favorite of the two, although he would never tell John that. It was because he found Paul more modest, and easier to talk to. Talking to John was nerve-wracking. You never knew when you might say something to set him off. Elvis had seen it happen to others, and had no desire for it to happen to him. 

“He said he’d be here by half past one, and it’s only one fifteen now,” Elvis soothed. He noted that John seemed very nervous and twitchy. He hoped the man wasn’t on drugs. 

John was eager to see Paul. For John, the last few months had been like the early days of his love affair with Paul. An absence of even a few hours caused John a low level anxiety where his fertile imagination would start constructing disastrous scenarios: Maybe Paul was with Linda right now, having sex. Maybe Paul was tired of him, and sitting in the office dreading the moment when he had to leave to see him. Maybe he was having an affair with one of the secretaries! Oh god - maybe he was in a car accident? Maybe he was lying in a hospital right now - or - what if he was dead? To stop these cascading fantasy calamities from starting all over again, John forced himself to engage Elvis in conversation. 

“It’s frustrating for me to have to finish this Anthology thing, because I’m really ready to work with Paul again. It’s time for us to sit down and write together again. It’s funny. I might spend months at a time with no impulse to write, and then one day I’ll wake up and know that the time is ripe.” 

“I know what you mean,” Elvis sympathized. “A creative impulse is a fickle thing. It’s either, ‘I’m not in the mood’, or it’s ‘now or never.’” 

John laughed. He liked the way Elvis talked - his phrasing, his word choices. 

“Here’s Paul,” Elvis said nodding in a direction over John’s shoulder. John turned and watched as Paul did his bouncy walk through the restaurant. Immediately John felt first a rush of sexual attraction, and then a huge wave of relief. He doubted he would ever 100% believe that he had captured Paul’s love and desire. His thoughts usually ran the course of: Paul is so perfect. Why would such a perfect specimen be attracted to me? Even as John acknowledged that fear to himself, Paul’s hand patted him reassuringly on the back. 

“Finally!” John said as Paul greeted Elvis and then got comfortable in his seat. 

“Am I late?” Paul asked, looking concerned. He had left the office with plenty of time. 

“No,” Elvis said. “You’re a few minutes early, actually.”

John said defensively, “It’s just felt like I’ve waited ages.”

Paul gave John an affectionate ‘what am I gonna do with you?’ smile and changed the subject tactfully. “Have you ordered yet?”

“No, we haven’t bloody ordered yet! We were waiting for you!” John declared. 

Elvis smiled into his limoncello glass and thought, ‘Poor Paul. He can’t put a foot right.’ Elvis - like everyone else in the British music world - had been known to occasionally speculate about the John/Paul relationship. The two men, together or each alone, were fascinating, gossip-worthy subjects, and most everyone believed that they were now - or at least at some point in the past - lovers. The fact that there seemed to be an are-they, aren’t-they quality to their public interactions just added to the confusion. Elvis hadn’t spent much time with the both of them together, at least not alone in an intimate situation like this one, but here he was less than 5 minutes in and he already knew they were lovers. It was John’s anxious nagging, and Paul’s patient and affectionate reaction to it that had made the true nature of their relationship obvious to Elvis.

The food was ordered, and Paul’s positive energy changed the course of the conversation. Paul always asked about other people - what they were up to, how was their work going - rather than talking about his own life. The shift in focus over to Elvis’s projects brought a different energy from John as well, who - once prompted - showed great interest in Elvis’s conversation. Still, when that conversation petered out, John brought the subject matter right back to square one. He had been wondering about Paul’s disappearing act all day. 

“Paul, what were you doing in the office this morning?” 

“Just some business,” Paul said lightly. 

“What kind of business?” John persisted. 

“If you must know, I’ve made some plans that concern you.” Paul’s eyes were dancing with mischief.

“Oh?” John was suspicious now. Something was up.

“Yes.” Paul turned his attention back to his plate as if leaving John hanging like that wasn’t a maddening thing to do. 

John sputtered a little and then demanded, “Well, what is it then?” 

Paul’s eyes shifted over to meet Elvis’s, and then he winked. Elvis smiled back. Paul then turned to John, whose face was starting to look like a thundercloud. “Oh, it’s just that little business trip we have to do...I put the finishing touches on that.”

“Business trip?” John asked, stumped. Business trip? He asked himself. What business trip? John could see that Paul’s eyes were full of mischief and meaning, and finally the penny dropped. “Oh! - the business trip!” He cried gleefully. “When are we leaving?”

“In two days. I’m sorry for the short notice.” Paul said, as if he were sincerely sorry for the inconvenience.

John kicked him under the table and Paul laughed. John's curiosity boiled over. “Where are - what should ...” John caught himself. He noted that Elvis Costello was trying desperately to appear fascinated with his food. John was going to have to punish Paul for doing this to him - surprising him like this when there was a witness, so that he couldn’t react appropriately. 

Elvis was thinking, well, they certainly don’t seem too shy about letting me in on their secret. Either they’re not worried about the rumors, or - and this was the eye-opening thought - or else maybe they trust me with their secret! Elvis hoped it was the latter. John and Paul were his idols and mentors, and he would very much like it if they trusted him enough to be open with him. 

Paul, meanwhile, felt comfortable in Elvis’s presence. He really liked and trusted him. Lately, he had enjoyed spending time with him, and a friendship was budding. “To answer your question, John, the one you didn’t finish - the Caribbean, so pack for sun, sand, and sea.”

John was shocked that Paul had made this disclosure in front of an outsider. His face reflected that shock. He was actually speechless for a few moments. 

Elvis, meanwhile, decided that he needed to say something to show that he wasn’t embarrassed or uncomfortable. “That sounds like a great business trip guys,” he said, looking up blandly from his plate. “All of my business trips end up in Dorking, or places like that.”

Paul laughed. “Well, we need ‘plausible deniability’, don’t you know.” He winked at Elvis again, who smiled back at Paul with open gratitude. The great impassive McCartney was letting him in to the inner circle! 

John was beside himself. He was looking from Paul to Elvis, and back to Paul again. Paul had just told Elvis that they were going away on a romantic vacation together! What did this mean? John’s stomach was dancing with butterflies. He didn’t know how to react. But then Paul reached over and squeezed his hand. It was a brief gesture, but it served to relax John, who sat back in his chair and smiled at Paul, but his smile was a whole conversation that seemed to say, ‘What crazy shit are you going to pull next? You’re just full of fucking surprises!’

Paul obviously interpreted that ‘conversation’, because he laughed in a carefree way. Inside he felt ... liberated. He knew it was a tiny, calculated step. Elvis was a friend, and he was trustworthy and non-judgmental. He was ‘safe’. But still, Paul had wanted to do this for John. To show him that he wasn’t just a dirty little secret in his life. And Paul felt liberated by how easy it had been to let his fear of disclosure go. The world hadn’t come screeching to a halt, the sky hadn’t fallen, and the walls hadn’t come crashing in. 

Feeling the vibe now, John decided to tease back to see if he could chase Paul back into his shell. Of course he had to test Paul. He wouldn’t be John if he didn’t. “So, where in the Caribbean exactly?” His tone was deeply suggestive.

Paul was not embarrassed. “That is a surprise. And don’t think you’ll wheedle it out of me, no matter what you try. You’ll find out when we land.” Paul had waggled his finger at John with mock sternness as he spoke.

John’s eyebrows flew up. Paul was engaging with him on this naughty level in front of a relative outsider! This was incredibly sexy. 

Elvis wanted popcorn just then. It was like watching a scene in a great romantic film: like one of those films from the ‘30s or ‘40s, with great double entendre dialog between Cary Grant (Paul) and Katherine Hepburn (John). It filled him with a kind of sexual longing. He gave thought to pouncing on his wife when he got home, but somehow Elvis knew that wouldn’t scratch where he itched. The exciting thing he was experiencing was the chemistry between these two men, and that could never be replicated and he was not a part of it - just a witness. He could only have these reactions while watching John and Paul flirt with each other. Pity that. Too bad a bloke couldn’t bottle that sexual tension, and have some to take home to his wife. 

Paul tired of the cat and mouse game, and turned back to Elvis. “So did John tell you about our ‘Beatles reunion’ a few weeks ago?”

“He briefly mentioned it, yes, although we spoke more about how you’re going back in the studio together again.” Elvis was careful with each word choice. He was in unchartered territory in his relationship with these two men at the moment, and desperately did not want to put a foot wrong.

“So what do you think of it, Elvis? Do you think it is a good idea or a stupid idea?” Paul’s expression was objective and sincerely curious, which emboldened Elvis somewhat.

“I think it is a fantastic idea!” Elton enthused. 

“We might suck,” Paul pointed out reasonably. “I mean - times have changed. Peoples’ taste in music has changed. We’ve all changed, and gotten set in our ways. Maybe if we do this it will turn out badly, and we’ll put a black mark next to the band’s name.” Paul was musing out loud, but he truly wanted Elvis’s honest opinion.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” John muttered darkly. “That the whole thing will fizzle, and we’ll all look stupid.” 

Paul laughed. “Oh, we all look stupid anyway, John, nothing we can do about that.” 

This joke did cause John to brighten up; Elvis saw in a blinding moment of clarity how Paul could so easily influence John’s moods and reactions. It was like a light - oh so light - magic touch. Elvis decided to refer to it from then on as ‘the Paul Effect.’ Thus, Elvis felt brave enough to tell his honest opinion now that Paul was there. He knew that Paul would manage any bad Lennon reactions that might result.

“There is that risk,” Elvis agreed. “As Thomas Wolfe wrote, ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’, and all that. But maybe you’ll find something different - something subtler. Maybe you’ll find that the different ways you have grown in the last 25 years will bring new insight into the work. When you met last month, did you write any new material together?”

Paul had been listening intently to Elvis, and was chewing on what he had said, so John was the first to respond. “No. We each brought a song that he’d already written, and then we helped each other finish and arrange it.” 

“So maybe,” Elvis said, “when you go in to record those tracks, you should also try to write some new material together. If it sucks, you don’t have to record it. But maybe you will find that you still know how to talk to each other musically, and that the conversation is worth having.” 

John looked at Paul, who sensed this, and so he met John’s gaze. “It’s not a bad idea generally,” Paul pointed out slowly, gauging John’s reaction as he spoke. “Although we have those personal issues hanging out there still...” 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to get over that,” John grumbled. 

Paul shrugged. He felt a little uncomfortable talking about this in front of Elvis, but then decided - as he always did after he’d taken a breathtaking leap into the unknown - if I’m in for a dime, I’m in for the whole dollar. Paul was not a half-ass kind of person: all or nothing at all. He turned to Elvis, his expression serious and his tone of voice low and confidential. “George disapproves of our relationship,” he said. “He made some - unkind - remarks about it. John and I don’t 100% agree on whether he really means it, or if he was just striking out in resentment.”

Elvis felt humbled by Paul’s confession. The man was putting dynamite in his hands and trusting him with it. If he dropped the dynamite, it would blow up Paul’s world. That was a trusting...and even a loving thing to do, Elvis thought. Elvis knew about George’s bitterness. The whole fucking world knew about it. He’d never understood it himself. Elvis knew that his own talent was considerable, but if he were in a band with John and Paul he would never resent the fact that they were so much more brilliant. It would, for him, be an honor to work with them. It wouldn’t take one iota away from what he produced himself. Still, he didn’t know George - had never met him. No doubt the guy had a version of his own that informed his actions. No point in judging. 

“Anyway,” John said to Elvis, still surprised that Paul had disclosed this information, but willing to go along with it, “you can see how that would complicate matters. How do I sincerely sit there and share my creative thoughts with him, when he has that opinion of me?” 

Elvis was out of his depth just then. He barely knew these people, and he couldn’t solve their problem. All he could do was sympathize and hope they’d work it out with their former band mate. So he bounced the conversational ball back to Paul. “So you and John don’t entirely agree that George means the things he says?” 

Paul nodded. “I talked to George about it. He apologized. He was upset about some things John had said about him, which were - truthfully” - Paul turned to engage John’s eyes with an amused tolerance - “harsh. He retaliated and he regretted it. I came away believing him to be sincere.”

“You wanted to believe him, babe,” John said in a low voice. “You hate it when there is discord between the four of us, you always have, and you’re always trying to make peace.” 

There was an uncomfortable silence until Elvis broke it. “I have found that if I just decide to ignore someone’s disapproval of me, and I just go ahead and treat them as though I didn’t know, that eventually the barriers come down, and we’re able to be friends. Not always, but often. It might be worth a try.” 

John and Paul were both hanging on his words. Elvis felt that. And it was a humbling experience. Neither of them spoke, so Elvis went for the coup de grace. “You have so much history together - you go so far back. You grew up together. Think of what you went through together. If you were going to give anyone a chance to get over his prejudices and grow to accept you the way you are, wouldn’t it be someone like that? Someone who has earned another chance by virtue of all that you’ve been through together?”

Paul’s eyes lit up, because that is exactly how he felt, although Elvis had put it so much better than Paul ever could. Paul turned to John hopefully. He wanted John to be touched by Elvis’s opinion, and hoped to see it in John’s face. And, indeed, John’s tense expression had melted into a somewhat soft and sympathetic one. 

“I do see your point,” John said.

 

******

 

John had wanted to show Paul his appreciation for the surprises he had given him. The surprise of him speaking openly about their relationship in front of someone who was not one of their inner circle, and the surprise of actually following through by planning a romantic getaway. However, the thoughtful way that the luncheon had ended caused him (and Paul) to be very quiet on the drive back to Cavendish as they digested all that Elvis had said about George. And then, as soon as they arrived, Linda was at the door waving Paul inside excitedly. 

“What now,” John actually groaned as he caught sight of Linda. He hadn’t realized he had said it out loud until he noticed that Paul had turned to look at him curiously. He looked a little hurt. “I’m sorry, Pud, but every time I want to be alone with you, she shows up.”

Paul chuckled. “Well, yeah, she’s my wife. And you always want to be alone with me. At some point she has to have my attention, don’t you think?”

John sighed and nodded ‘yes’ in a resigned way. “I know, I know. It gets old, but I know.” 

“Oh cheer up Johnny. If you had me all the time you’d soon tire of me.” With that mysterious remark, Paul freed himself from his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. 

What the fuck did he mean by that? John growled to himself as he followed Paul into the house. 

When he stepped into the vestibule he could hear excited voices. He stepped in to the sitting room and saw Paul ensconced in a huge embrace with his brother, Michael. Michael’s wife and his three youngest children were all there, and the house was buzzing with noise and life. John felt awkward, and wasn’t sure what to do. He knew how Michael felt about him, and here he was in Linda’s house while the McCartney men acted all family-mannish together. John had always felt left out of that Jim/Paul/Michael dynamic, and the memories always brought up a kind of acid feeling in his stomach: feelings of insecurity and inferiority because he had no male role model, and he had never had a close connection to a loving father figure as he grew up. Paul and Mike had that together, and it was something John could never share.

Linda noticed John first, and her tender heart gave way. “John! Why are you standing over there! Come in here and get your quota of hugs!” 

John chuckled nervously, but gratefully approached Linda. Although they had seen each other just the other day, they hugged each other. John somehow understood that Linda was doing this out of loyalty to him - to him and Paul. She wanted Mike and his wife to see that he, John, was a welcome member of her household. It was just the sort of selfless, loving, empathetic thing that Linda would do, and it caused John to feel ashamed of the thoughts he’d had about her just moments before. 

Next, Mike’s wife Rowena hugged him. It seemed warm, genuine, unforced. Then he was standing in front of Mike, with Paul to one side of him. John could feel Paul’s nervousness as if it were his own. He knew he would have to be the bigger man, because Paul loved and needed to be in harmony with his brother. He held out his hand for a shake, and Mike took it. “Hey Mike, you look great! This is quite a surprise! What’s up?” John forced himself to sound casual and warmly surprised.

“We’re passing through on our way to our holidays. Sorry to just land on you like this, but our flight to the South of France got cancelled, and we rescheduled it for tomorrow. Linda has just agreed to let us stay for the night.”

Paul said, “South of France, eh? Sounds delish.” 

“Well, we’ve been saving for two years, so this is the big payoff,” Mike said. He always needed to make it clear to Paul and his friends that he, Mike, was independent, and always paid his own way. Paul felt reproved. He hadn’t meant to imply the holiday was too posh. He kicked himself mentally for being so insensitive. He knew how proud Mike was about such things. 

“Aren’t the girls going too?” Linda asked, breaking the slight uncomfortable silence. 

“They’ve got men in their lives now,” Mike said jokingly as the adults all took seats. “Rowena and I are now just default net company.” 

Paul and Linda laughed knowingly. “We laugh,” Paul said, “but it is with pain. How well we know.”

“Anyway, the youngest one said she’d come for the second week ‘probably,’” Rowena said.

“Which means ‘if nothing better turns up’,” Linda finished. “Yes, we know, we know.”

John wasn’t sure whether he should contribute to the conversation. He certainly often felt the same way about Sean, whose preference for hanging out in New York with his club and artist friends was now in full bloom. The difference was that John was sincerely hurt and rejected by Sean’s cavalier treatment of him, whereas Mike, Rowena, Paul and Linda seemed to be amused and even a little proud of their children’s independence. John supposed it was because they were all more secure about their kids’ love. None of them had ever left their children for a lover. Mike’s first wife had left him, but Mike had stayed and raised their girls, and then provided them with a first-class stepmother. And Linda had left her husband, but she had taken her daughter with her to her new life, and then provided Heather with a first class stepfather. Paul had refused to live anywhere without his children readily available, even after they’d started their ménage a trois, whereas John had moved to London, and had put the Atlantic Ocean between himself and his son - as he had done once before to his older son, Julian. These choices often haunted John, probably because he didn’t regret them. He had made the choices he felt he had to make for his own sanity and happiness, and he never once had thought he should have stayed with Cynthia, or he should have stayed with Yoko. 

Paul noticed that John had gotten somber, and suspected the happy-family-altogether thing was at the bottom of John’s sadness. Paul’s heart always went out to John at such moments, because he had always known - it had always been so clear to him, from the time they first met - that John didn’t have a real childhood, and he had never had a reliable and stable adult in his life who was willing to put John’s needs above his or her own. John just didn’t know how that felt, so he couldn’t replicate it for his own children, and thus he always felt alone and apart. As Paul always did in such moments, he moved to include John in the circle.

“John and I are working with George and Ringo again on a big project,” Paul suddenly announced.

“I read that! How is it going?” Mike asked. His interest was genuine, John thought.

“We’ve finished four demos,” Paul said in a chatty way. “And we’re going into the studio to record in about six weeks.”

“How did the music flow after all these years?” Mike asked, politely including John in on his question.

“It was kind of awkward at times,” John contributed.

“But also really good at times too,” Paul added.

Mike smiled. That was John and Paul for you: sour and sweet; dark and light; hard and soft. He remembered this dynamic so well - it went all the way back to his teens - and it was comforting, somehow, that even though they had chosen to live such an unorthodox lifestyle, at least in mixed company they were still the same John and Paul he’d known as a kid.

John felt that his presence was a hindrance to a cheerful family reunion, and that he’d hung around long enough so as not to be rude when he said he had to go, so he stood up and said he’d be off “home,” as he had some chores to do. He would leave the McCartney family reunion to its own devices. Paul was sorry to see John go, and worried about his feelings, so he followed John to the back door and into the garden.

“You okay Johnny?” Paul asked the gathering darkness as his eyes focused, since late afternoon darkness had snuck in while they’d all been talking inside. He was finally able to make out John’s silhouette.

“I’ll survive,” John said with a certain amount of pluck. “I think I do better with it when I’m not a direct witness.”

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” Paul said softly, wistfully. “I wish you could be comfortable with my family.” This had come out of Paul, and he had no idea it was coming, or he would have tried to stop it. Paul asked himself, what is up with me today? I keep saying stuff out loud that I normally would have kept tightly close to my chest! It was like suddenly I’m mainlining truth serum or something! 

Wow - that was a revelation again, John was thinking. It’s like that comment Paul had made in the car about me tiring of him if I had him to myself. I had no idea he thought that! John softened at Paul’s vulnerable words. It seemed like Paul was opening up his chest, and letting all his pent up feelings out. John wondered what had triggered this change. Well, he didn’t want to do anything to discourage it. “It’s okay, baby,” John said in low, throbbing voice. He approached Paul, and pulled him close by his coat lapels. “I’m just gonna go home, have something to eat, and think about what I’m gonna pack for our ‘business trip’.” 

Paul chuckled. He felt himself physically responding to John’s voice and touch. He didn’t want to go back in to the sitting room with a huge hard on (although wearing the hated baggy trousers helped in that regard), so he steadied his wandering thoughts. He lightly pushed John away and said in a flirtatious way, “It shouldn’t take you long to pack, John. You’re gonna be naked most of the time.” With that saucy remark, he turned on his heel and hopped back into the house, closing the French door firmly behind him. 

John was suddenly flooded with delight, and his answering laugh was more like a bark of joy. He, too, turned on his heel, and headed for the bottom of the garden, and the trip down the mews to his house.

 

*****

 

When Paul returned to the sitting room, he noticed that his brother, wife and sister-in-law were well into their second glasses of wine, and they all looked relaxed and happy. Both women had kicked their shoes off, and had tucked their legs under them, and Mike’s long legs were stretched out and crossed on the coffee table. 

Paul sat back and listened to their casual chat, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His thoughts were out in the dusky garden, with John’s nose practically touching his, and John’s beautiful hands grasping his coat in a fiercely possessive gesture. Paul hadn’t felt this kind of scary, all-encompassing love before. He’d thought he had, but what did he know? Squat. Nil. Nothin’. And how could he have this dizzying reaction to a man he’d known his entire adult life? Wasn’t this kind of scatterbrained infatuation more appropriate for brand new, love-at-first-sight affairs? Paul didn’t know any of the answers to any of these questions. And there were more questions. Why were revealing thoughts escaping from his mouth before his brain even knew they were leaving? Why was he so fearful - terrified, really - that now that he was apparently letting his guard all the way down, that John would lose interest in him? Paul wondered if the reason he had kept so much of himself back all these years was this precise fear: that John loved the chase, but as soon as the chase was done, he became bored and would look for new prey. It had happened many times. Paul had experienced it himself on a number of occasions: with Stu, with Cynthia, with Brian, even with George sometimes, with Allen Klein, with Yoko of course, with Nigel, with Brad... How many more objects of desire were still out there for John to find and fondle when he got bored? 

Given all this, Paul finally concluded, he was crazy to give all to John. Fucking crazy, out of his mind.


	78. Chapter 78

Linda and Rowena had decamped to the kitchen, where they were going to make dinner together. The little boys had been shepherded into James’s room, where he very generously was playing video games with them, and trying to keep them distracted. Paul and Mike were in the sitting room, facing each other - Mike on the sofa, legs outstretched; Paul in his favorite easy chair, legs neatly crossed.

“John seemed a little down,” Mike assayed. “Is he okay?”

Paul was surprised by Mike’s kind concern, but tried not to show it. “It is hard for him, being around you,” Paul said honestly. Again! Paul’s outraged conscious mind shouted. Again the truth came out without a warning!

Mike caught the slight edge in Paul’s voice, and had the good grace to feel bad. “I have been rough on him,” he said. “I can understand how he feels.”

Paul sighed. “You asked about our reunion with George and Ringo. The truth is that it wasn’t a match made in heaven. Everyone was trying too hard, except George. He was, well, in the beginning he treated me badly, and so John got angry, and while sticking up for me he said some hurtful things to George. So, of course, George responded with some hurtful remarks. He said some stuff about John and me. About our relationship.” Paul’s voice was flat. He didn’t want to play nice anymore. He had decided, after what Elvis had said, that he was going to be completely honest about his feelings, and he was then going to let Mike (and George) take him or leave him the way he was. He hoped they would both ‘take’ him, but he didn’t hold out all that much hope.

Mike listened painfully. He wished none of this were true - that things were like he’d always thought they were, with John and Paul just really close friends. But since it was true, the sex part, he had to learn to live with it. He had to accept it for what it was. He sympathized with George, and figured they were going through much the same thing. Mike felt it was time to make the first meaningful step in the journey towards full acceptance.

“I love you Paul, and I love John too. Nothing will ever change that. I just have to learn to see you both in a different light. I liked the light I saw you in before; it was a really cool light. But now I have to adjust to the new light. I’m sure I’ll get there, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Paul’s eyes had filled with tears during Mike’s remarks. They meant a lot to Paul. But, still. “The one you need to say this to is John, Mike,” Paul said softly. “I’m your brother, and I’m always going to love you, even if you don’t love me. But John - he thinks you blame him, and you hate him for ‘making me’ love him.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I can see that.”

“He didn’t ‘make me’, Mike. Just so you know. You of all people should know that no one can ‘make’ me do anything I don’t already want to do. There was never force involved, or even emotional blackmail. It was his idea - of course it was. I was 19. What did I know? But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t go along willingly, because I did.”

“I’d kind of figured that out by myself over the last several months. I had to say goodbye to one image of you in order to welcome a new one.”

Paul’s reactive sniff was one of irony, not amusement. “It’s really sad, isn’t it, that something so simple as two people loving each other can be turned into something sinful and degrading. I’ll never understand it. Not that I haven’t had thoughts like those, myself, I have, but then I always chastise myself and chase those thoughts away as quickly as possible. They’re whispers from the devil.”

“’Whispers from the devil,’” Mike repeated softly under his breath. “What should I do? I don’t want John to feel bad, and I’d like to be his friend again.”

“Well, for starters, there’s a bottle of Scotch on the table there,” Paul pointed to the sideboard that held the liquors tray. “Why don’t you take it and go visit John? I’ll stay here and keep the ladies company.”

Mike immediately put his feet down on the ground and got up. He grabbed the whiskey bottle by its throat, and headed for the door. “I’m just going to keep moving so I don’t lose my nerve,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared.

Paul smiled. Part of him was worried about Mike’s reception. But he knew his brother had just as much social skill and emotional fortitude as he did, and could ultimately withstand the withering first reaction of John Lennon, so he decided not to worry about it. Mike could handle himself, and John would ultimately hear him out. 

 

******

 

John had spent the previous hour lolling on his sofa, half dreaming and half fretting. Here it started again: the anxiety when Paul was out of his sight. Maybe he and Mike and the wives were sitting around laughing about him right now! Or maybe Mike was convincing Paul that he should leave me! Or maybe it was worse than that - maybe Paul had forgotten my existence as soon as he had gone back into the house, and was having a glorious time with his family and not missing me at all! John didn’t know why he suddenly felt entirely bereft and then fearful as soon as Paul went away. He hadn’t been this bad about it before! John tried to trace in his mind when he had started to have these anxious feelings, and realized they had started after they’d gotten back from Friar Park. He then tried to figure out why what happened there should cause him to become so intensely insecure. Paul had been utterly his for those 5 days. John had known it then, and had felt Paul’s love as if it were a comfy warm coat. He had seen a side of Paul he had never seen before - not since they were teens, before they’d become lovers.

John did remember those years before they were lovers. In the first few years, Paul had hero-worshipped him. He had felt Paul’s adoration even though it was unspoken, and was invisible perhaps to others. It was in Paul’s adoring expression whenever he caught Paul’s face unaware. But after they became lovers, he felt as though Paul had locked parts of himself away, and had become more cautious with and more controlling of their personal interactions. There had been times when he had looked deep in Paul’s eyes, and could see a long way in, but would then suddenly be confronted with a locked and barricaded door. Like in a castle keep.

But lately ... just lately ... Paul had swung open that door on repeated occasions, for minutes and even sometimes hours at a time, and had let John in. What John had seen in there was beautiful and serene, achingly beautiful and addictively serene, and so, when Paul gently escorted him out again, and the door was locked and barricaded once more, John had felt the chill and loneliness even more than he’d ever felt it before - before he knew what was behind that door. John was extremely glad that tomorrow was his weekly appointment with Fiona. He needed her help in picking his way through this bewildering development.

Just then the doorbell rang. John involuntarily smiled, and his heart jumped. Paul has come! He has felt my need and desire, and he’s come! Excitedly he rushed to the kitchen door, and had already started talking before he opened the door.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away from me for long, you blighter! Back for more?” John stopped stock still when the kitchen door revealed a McCartney, but not Paul. His surprise was obvious to Mike.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Mike said as cheerfully as he could under the circs, “but at least I’ve brought liquor with me, to soften the blow!” Mike was trying hard not to be affected by the triumphant tone of John’s voice when he thought it was his brother behind the door; and, more specifically, by the obvious sexual overtones of John’s remark.

John was shoving his excitement back into its jar, and struggling with making the lid secure. He should have known it wasn’t Paul. Paul had a key, and would have used it. Although, he thought next, these days he wasn’t so sure anymore. The way Paul had been acting lately, maybe he would have rung the doorbell, and John would have found a ‘tall, dark stranger’ naked under a dressing gown on the other side! He pushed this lovely thought aside, and took the bottle proffered by Mike. He stepped backwards, and said, “Come in.”

Mike came in, and moved in the direction of that intimidatingly modern and gleaming kitchen again. He remembered the time he had stayed at John’s home before - the time of that party; that is, the time when Linda had told him the truth about John and Paul. Mike cringed at the memory. He had handled it very badly. He knew old Jim McCartney would not have been proud of the way he had handled that situation.

John waved the bottle in the direction of the sitting room, so Mike preceded John into that room. He noted where John had been sitting (the sofa edge was smashed down from frequent occupation, and there was a lived in look to it) so he chose an easy chair, facing John’s edge of the sofa. John, meanwhile, had plucked some whiskey tumblers out of a drinks cabinet, and had poured them each a long one.

“I figure,” John said, as he handed a neat triple to Mike, “that this is a three finger conversation we’re about to have.”

Mike laughed, feeling more relaxed than ever. “Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as all that, although I’ll never say no to three fingers of excellent Scotch.”

“Did Paul send you over?” John asked abruptly, as he took a swill of the whiskey.

“In a way, yes. I asked him what I could do to make it better with you, after all the stuff I said, and he suggested that I should take this bottle and come and ask you that question.”

John smiled slightly. “That sounds like our kid, doesn’t it.” John said it, but not as a question.

Mike nodded. “So? Where should I start? With an abject apology? A nuanced explanation? A lot of bravado and Liverpudlian cheekiness?”

John sat back, enjoying himself now. “That abject apology thing. That appeals to me for some reason.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that,” Mike chided. Mike took a sizeable gulp of his whiskey, and winced as it went down his throat. “Look, John, there really is no excuse for the things I said, and the way I behaved. I was just thinking, as I came down the mews, how my dad would have been ashamed of my behavior.”

John was surprised by this. “Jim? Wouldn’t he have agreed with you? With bells on?”

Mike studied John for a while, and then said simply, “No.” He paused to think over what he was going to say. “Dad would have been open and accepting. He loved me and Paul, and he wanted us to be happy. Anything that made us happy, made him happy.”

John was skeptical. He was looking at Mike sideways out of squinted eyes. Mike read the body language correctly.

“Remember that time when Dot got pregnant?” Mike asked, apparently apropos of nothing.

“Yeah, so?” John said, intrigued now.

“Her mother was furious and threw her out of the house. But dad said she could live with us. He was very sweet to her, and welcomed her to our family. He was actually sad when she lost the baby, and the engagement fell through.” Mike let that sit for a while. “That was extremely unusual for the times, John. Unmarried girls who got pregnant were not welcomed openly into other people’s homes, you know? Dad didn’t care. It was his blood, you know. And you don’t turn your own blood away. All you can do is love, and hope the love is returned.”

John said softly, “So you’re saying that if Jim knew about your brother and me, he would have welcomed me into his family? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. No part of Paul could ever be hateful to him. Nothing he could do would make Dad turn away. Same for me. And Paul and me felt the same about him. We were like the three musketeers after mum died.”

John gave this some thought. He had a hard time believing it. “It’s just that he was always trying to get Paul to dump me - as a friend, and as a band partner. Always. He wouldn’t let me hang in your house.”

Mike laughed. “You were a terrible influence on a 15 year-old, you know. He was just protecting his young. None of us knew or understood where the two of you were headed. To us, it looked like you were headed for the clinker!”

John laughed out loud. And it turned into a belly laugh that lasted for a few moments. Mike, relieved, laughed too. “Well, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” John said skeptically, “as incredible as it all sounds.”

Mike wondered if he should tell John the secret he had kept to himself since 1967. It was something he had never shared with anyone, especially not Paul. Mike was looking at John shrewdly.

“What?” John asked, after enduring the shrewd stare for several seconds.

“I’m trying to decide whether to tell you something Dad said to me, way back in the ‘60s.”

“So? Are you gonna tell me?”

“I haven’t even told Paul. I never repeated it because I so disagreed with it, and I wanted to push it out of my head.”

Now John was curious. “And?” He asked encouragingly. He was turning on the charm now, because he really wanted to know.

“Remember when you and Paul showed up at dad’s for Easter that time, in - I think it was 1967. You hadn’t really met our stepmother yet.”

“Oh, yeah. She was a piece of work,” John drawled.

“Paul and I suffered her for our father’s sake. But we both felt she was using him to get at Paul’s money.”

“Fat lot of good that did her,” John chuckled, remembering how tight Paul had been with a pound, back in the day.

“Anyway, I wasn’t there for Easter. My wife - well, she was my girlfriend then - we were at her family’s house. But I came to see Dad the day after you and Paul had left.”

John’s mind transported him back in time. He remembered sharing the guest room with Paul - it had two single beds - and he remembered how Angie, Paul’s stepmother, was always poking around in there seeing what she could find. One time he had deliberately walked in on her while she was poking and said loudly, “Have you found anything interesting yet?” She had jumped as if she’d seen a ghost, and then hustled out of there, making excuses about clean towels. Later, that night, when he and Paul were snuggling together in one of the twin beds, he had told him about it, and they had nearly split a gut, giggling so hard but trying not to make too much noise. He pulled his memory back and regarded Mike once more. Mike was continuing.

“Dad and I were sitting in front of the fire after dinner, and we were alone in his sitting room. He suddenly said to me, ‘Do you know about Paul and John?’” Mike’s mind had gone back to that evening. He could hear the fire snapping as the wood burned, he could smell the burning wood, and he could see his dad in his chair with the blanket in his lap, and the fingers already aching with the severe arthritis that had just begun to attack him. “I asked him, ‘know what?’ And he said to me, ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, son. There’s nothing new under the sun.’” Mike looked up and could see John’s intrigued expression. “That was me dad, you know. He had all these homegrown expressions and sayings. They would sound like clichés coming from someone else, but somehow, when he said them, they didn’t sound meaningless.”

John nodded, encouraging Mike to continue.

“Anyway, I asked him what he was on about. He clearly thought I knew something, but I didn’t. Because he said, ‘I don’t approve, because it’s going to hurt Paul in the end.’ So I finally said, ‘Dad, I haven’t got a clue what you’re on about. What are you saying?’ And he seemingly changed the subject. He asked me, ‘Why do you suppose your brother hasn’t married yet?’ I said, ‘Well, he says the timing isn’t right.’ Dad sighed and said, ‘And the timing never will be right, so long as John is in the picture.’”

At this point John gasped. “No!”

Mike nodded. “That was my reaction. I said, ‘What nonsense is this? What has John got to do with it?’ And he said, ‘The fact is, Paul will never be happy without a wife and children. He needs to have a family. I wish it were otherwise, for his and John’s sake, but I worry about it. I want my son to be happy.’ By now it was beginning to dawn on me - just barely - what my father was hinting at. I rejected it out of hand. ‘Dad - you’re going lame in your old age! Paul has lots of girls in his life - he just isn’t ready to settle down! And John is married - he’s...well...he’s not that way...’ My Dad just smiled at me and said, ‘Paul has plenty of girls, but no woman. He needs a woman.’ I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I said, ‘John is Paul’s best friend, they’re partners. Paul wouldn’t want to lose his friendship, and I don’t see why he should have to. When he’s ready to get married, he’ll get married.’ But my Dad said, and I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘Your brother is a piece of rare and valuable china. And John is a bull in a china shop. It is just a matter of time before John carelessly smashes the china.’”

There was a deep silence as John digested this information, and Mike ruminated over his memory for a few more moments. Then Mike’s voice changed into something more brisk, and less intimate. “The weirdest thing about the whole conversation was that Dad didn’t seem worried that you were both blokes - that didn’t seem to bother him at all. What worried him was that he didn’t believe that you could make my brother happy, because you were - in those days - so seemingly careless and reckless with other people’s feelings, and also because Dad knew how much Paul wanted children.”

John had nothing to say. This was an awful lot to think about. In fact, today he had heard one intensely tough truth after the other, starting with Paul himself, followed by Elvis Costello, and ending with his long since dead nemesis, Jim McCartney.

Mike continued. “I tell you this to explain that Dad did know that you were lovers, and the fact of it - the sex part - didn’t bother him much. He just didn’t think you would make my brother happy. I think, though, if he were alive today, he would see that whatever may have gone on in the past, at least now you appear to make each other happy. And he would be at peace with that. So, I’m telling you, if my old-fashioned dad could be that open and loving, then I should be as well. I hope you will think of yourself as my brother from now on, and that you will feel comfortable and at home with the family.”

 

*****

 

The room was familiar. Comforting. It felt good to him, because the rest of the world suddenly seemed strange and unfamiliar. John took a deep breath and sat back.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said, as Fiona smiled at him from her chair across from him. “We only spoke last week, but it is as if my whole fucking world changed - or at least the way I view it - during that short time.”

Fiona said, “It’s been an eventful week, then.”

“I don’t know what is up or down anymore,” John complained. But there was an edge to his voice - of excitement merging with expectation - that made Fiona think that this ‘change’ was not all bad.

“So you are disoriented,” she restated quietly.

“First, I should tell you that I won’t be seeing you again until 5 weeks from now.” John was leaning forward, and there was indeed a kind of excited anticipation in his voice.

“Oh?” She asked. She didn’t like it, of course, when John took long breaks from his therapy. He was one of her patients who seemed to need therapy regularly to keep them balanced.

“Yeah,” John said, his face an irresistible combination of excitement and joy. “Paul is taking me away - for a whole month. Somewhere in the Caribbean, but he won’t say where exactly. It’s a surprise. We’re leaving the day after tomorrow.”

Fiona was not surprised. Based on what she’d picked up during the last few weeks’ sessions, it was clear that John and Paul’s romantic life had suddenly shifted into full throttle. They certainly were an unpredictable pair. Just six months earlier she had been wondering how she was going to pick up John’s pieces when the inevitable split came. She often felt bad that Paul had stopped coming. She tried to understand if this feeling was caused by her curiosity about his side of the story, or if she really thought he needed therapy. In her more honest moments she acknowledged that it was probably more of the former rather than the latter, which was not okay for a therapist. Thus, it was no doubt much better that he no longer came - at least to her. These thoughts had raced through her mind so quickly, that when she responded to John’s comment, he didn’t even notice a lag time.

“It seems like you and Paul have rejuvenated your relationship,” she said.

John was glad that Fiona had said this. He was hoping she would think so. It was sometimes hard to know what Fiona thought about his disclosures. “It feels that way, yes, but...”

Fiona waited patiently.

“It’s weird. It’s like Paul suddenly changed. Like something clicked in his head - while we were at George’s house - and he isn’t withholding things from me as much.”

“Paul being more open with you is something you’ve wanted for a long time,” Fiona commented.

“All sorts of surprising shit is happening. It’s like when a logjam finally moves, all the flotsam and jetsam starts rushing down the river.”

“Logjam?” Fiona repeated.

“Like when Paul opened up a little, suddenly other people started opening up too. Like George, and Paul’s brother Mike, and we had lunch with this friend of ours... I’m learning stuff about Paul and even myself that I didn’t know before.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Well the one that is messing with my mind is what Mike told me last night - that Paul’s dad knew about me and Paul. Way back in the ‘60s he knew, and according to Mike he didn’t object to the fact of us so much as he didn’t trust me to treat his son right.” John thought for a moment. “And he was right. Back then I didn’t treat Paul right, because I simply didn’t know how to treat anyone right. I was too fucked up.”

Fiona was interested and surprised by this revelation. “How did that make you feel - to hear Mike saying that?”

“I didn’t know what to think. I still don’t! It shocked me. I even asked myself if Mike made it up just to make a point, but then I don’t think so. It sounded so believable, the way he said it.”

“What made Mike tell you about this? What was the context?”

“He stopped by Paul’s house last night with his family, and I kind of went to my house, because I didn’t think he’d want me there. You know how against our relationship he has been. Anyway, he showed up at my door with a bottle of whiskey, and he apologized to me, and told me that his father would have been disappointed in him, and then he told me this story. The point was, blood is thicker than water, and Paul’s dad loved him so much that he wouldn’t have been able to be upset about it.”

“Paul’s father sounds like a mature man,” Fiona opined carefully.

“I never really gave him a chance,” John admitted, “because when we were teenagers he didn’t trust me and he was always trying to keep his precious son away from me.”

Fiona smiled. “I suppose he had his reasons.”

John looked up at her, and then smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess. I was a lot older than Paul - almost 2 years. And a lot of my friends were older, too. So as soon as Paul joins my band he is smoking, and drinking, and swearing, and cutting his pants into drainies, and growing his hair long and then putting it up in a pompadour, and sneaking out nights, and ditching school, and his grades started slipping. Paul also lied to him, because he’d skip school and we’d go to his house and eat all the eggs, and then I’d hie off before Jim got home. Not sure if Jim ever knew that.”

“If I had been Paul’s father, I wouldn’t have wanted you around my son either,” Fiona said, laughing. “You sound like a parent’s worst nightmare.”

John laughed. “I suppose so. But of course, when I was younger, I didn’t see it that way. I never understood the point of authority figures. They were just an annoyance to me. I didn’t really have any of those in my life; even Mimi was an unpredictable disciplinarian. One day she’d laugh her ass off if I swore at her and was rude, and the next she’d go into a cold fury. It felt more like being with another adolescent rather than with an adult.”

Fiona had heard this many times before. She had concluded long ago that some adults should never be parents, and Mimi was one of them. It was honorable of Mimi to take John in, though, given the circumstances, and he probably would have been much worse off without her. The older Fiona got, and the more experienced, the less she found herself falling into fixed judgments about people.

“What does Paul think of Mike’s revelation?” Fiona asked, turning the conversation back to the issue that John seemed most concerned about.

“I don’t know,” John said, shrugging. “Mike had never told Paul, and I haven’t said anything to him yet. Maybe I’ll tell him while we’re away.”

“How do you think he will receive that information?”

John made a face - it reflected clueless futility. “There’s no point in guessing. Paul is unpredictable when it comes to family. He can be horribly hurt by them, I’ve seen, even when it is clear to me that they were just thoughtless, not malicious. His expectations of them are very high. And he idealizes his father. He gets very touchy if anyone criticizes him. I’m thinking there was a reason why Mike never told Paul - maybe he knows that Paul would not take it well.”

“You seem to be unsure about whether you should mention it to Paul,” Fiona said.

“My reflex is to tell him. You know, no lies or secrets between us! But I don’t want to cause him emotional harm when there is nothing he can do about it. His dad died 18 years ago. There is no way Paul can work this out, or have that conversation with his dad. It might fuck him up. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know.”

“I suspect that you will know the right thing to do once you have thought about it for a while,” Fiona said. “Either way carries risk with it.”

“One of the risks I worry about is if this will cause Paul to clam up on me again. What if he thinks, ‘dad was right. John can’t be trusted not to hurt me?’ He thinks the world of his father’s opinion.”

“Yet when it came down to it, he chose smoking, and drinking, and swearing, and skipping school, and becoming a rock and roll star - not to mention becoming your lover. In the end, your influence was very much greater, don’t you think?”

John looked up at Fiona in surprise. She smiled at him and said: “You remember the struggle for supremacy. It’s natural. You remember the times Paul resisted your ideas, and felt guilt over hurting his father. But apparently you don’t remember that in the long and even in the short run, you won far more battles than Paul’s dad did.”

“I never thought of it that way.” John said flatly. “But once you say it, it seems obvious to me.”

“This shouldn’t surprise you, John,” Fiona said gently. “You and I have been over this ground many times but with different details. You have a hard time believing people could love you enough to choose you. To everyone else it is as clear as day that you’re funny, and charismatic, and talented and passionate. Everyone else sees how attractive you are, and feels lucky to be near you. You’re the only one who sells yourself short.” 

John’s face was still. “I chase people away. I don’t want to chase Paul away.”

Fiona wouldn’t normally stick her neck out this far, but in this case she felt pretty confident. “You won’t.”

 

******

 

The night before, after Mike and Rowena had gone to bed, Paul had laid next to Linda working up the nerve to tell her about the getaway trip with John. He knew with each second that went by, he was making it harder on himself. So he finally cleared his throat and said,

“Baby, I’ve got some news. I’m afraid it is kind of a last minute thing.”

Linda put her book aside and asked, “Oh?”

Paul conjured up a brave smile. “Yeah. See, I’d promised John a few months ago - after you and I had gone away for a month - that I’d go away with him too.”

Linda was silent for a few moments and then said, “I see.”

Paul pushed himself ahead. He could feel a slight chill, but he had to get the words out. “So, it dawned on me if I didn’t plan it right away it would be months before I could make good my promise, because starting in a little over a month we’re going to be doing the Anthology thing.”

“Okay,” Linda said. “So, what’s the plan?” She was trying to sound neutral, but was finding it hard. She couldn’t help feeling that this whole idea was coming from this new secret place John and Paul seemed to be in.

“Thursday. We’re leaving Thursday.”

“Thursday! But Paul, you only just got back from George’s place 10 days ago!”

“That was a busman’s holiday, Linda. We were working, and it was very stressful.”

“I see,” Linda said again.

Paul could tell she didn’t see. “I haven’t taken John away in years,” Paul said softly. “But you and I go away for a month at least once a year. He was very hurt by that.”

“I don’t understand the rush, though,” Linda said. “It’s awfully sudden.”

“Well, when you and I went away last time, it was sudden too. In fact,” Paul said, snuggling up to Linda and plying her with his charm, “I got the same reaction out of John then that I’m getting from you now!” He tickled her a little, and despite her disappointment and fear, Linda giggled.

“So how long will you be gone?” Linda asked. She was hoping it would be for only a few weeks.

“A month,” Paul said. He held his breath. He felt Linda still beneath his arms.

“A whole month,” Linda repeated.

“You should have your sister come and stay - or go visit her in the Hamptons,” Paul suggested. “Or maybe you want to go away with the girls to some fun place.”

Linda sighed heavily. She was trying to see the bright side, although it was hard. “So where are you going?” Linda was terrified it was going to be one of the secret places Paul had taken her.

Somehow Paul understood what her real fear was. “None of ‘our’ places, Lin. Some things are sacred.”


	79. Chapter 79

The private jet had taken off from a back runway at Luton Airport. John had over-packed in his excitement to ensure that he had just la bonne chose for each and every holiday possibility. Paul, meanwhile, had packed a single suitcase in his economical way. Of course, John had checked it over before they left, since he wanted to make sure it included the wardrobe of new clothes that John had accumulated for Paul since their return from Friar Park. Of course, these were clothes that Paul had ignored in preference for his sloppy baggy cords and bulky pullover sweaters. When John had opened Paul’s suitcase he had found a riot of underwear, socks, corduroys, old t-shirts...everything thrown in willy-nilly. John had disposed of the old, replaced with the new, and folded them in his exquisitely neat and organized way. By the time John was finished, nothing of Paul’s old clothing - down to the underwear - remained in his luggage.

Now John luxuriated in the leather reclining seat in the Learjet, and looked across a short divide to Paul, who was reclining in his seat with his eyes closed and earphones on. Listening to music again. The boy never stops working. John smiled. He’d make sure Paul didn’t work for the next month. He had a plethora of tricks up his sleeve to keep his lover diverted. Some of these tricks were packed deep in one of his suitcases. He was hoping that customs officials wouldn’t choose to search that bag, but if they did - John snickered at the thought - it ought to get real interesting real fast!

The lovely stewardess brought him a chilled drink featuring tropical fruits and an umbrella. This reminded John of the Night of the Strawberry Daiquiris and he couldn’t help chuckling to himself. Paul had been so utterly adorable and fuckable that night. John hoped there’d be more nights like those during their holiday. One of his planned “tricks” was to ensure that Paul imbibed plenty of rum in the next four weeks. Rum appeared to be a magic elixir, which set Paul’s soul free. John took a sip of his own rum drink and closed his eyes. He allowed free reign to his anticipatory expectations, and the time sped by.

It was only upon landing that John discovered that he was on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, in Central America. The jet landed on a tiny private airstrip in what appeared to be a jungle clearing on a wide plateau. May was the beginning of the rainy season in Costa Rica, and things were just beginning to green up. The breeze was cool but refreshing, and there was a kind of wild, wet smell coming from the vegetation, which threatened to encroach on to the airstrip.

John was surprised that the officials who met their plane made little to no effort to behave like custom officers. One man, wearing a white linen shirt and dark glasses and carrying a clipboard, seemed more interested in getting a photo with them and autographs than he did in what contraband they might be bringing in to his country. Another man brought the passport stamp right up to the plane, and hastily stamped both passports. A moment later they were in a waiting jeep, and then the jeep began bumping down the rutted track leading through a valley and then underneath jungle canopy towards the beach. It was impossible to talk, because the sound of the engine and the tires bumping over rocks were too loud. But John was thinking, I hope he hasn’t rented a fucking tree house in the jungle - complete with huge vine to swing on. On the other hand, John thought, he could get behind the idea of Paul in a loincloth...

The jeep finally turned into a driveway, which seemed all but invisible from the road. For a moment John thought that the driver had plunged straight into a hedge, only to be relieved when he saw it was a small, jeep-sized opening. More rutted road wended it’s way through tall tropical plantings, and after about a mile, they pulled up to a stone-paved drive. John climbed out of the back seat with some awkward difficulty, his palms supporting his lower back, and his legs gradually coming back to life. He looked up at the white stucco wall surrounding the edifice in front of him. Beyond the wall and camouflaged by tropical plantings, he could see dark wood beams and a thatched roof. It looked very Robinson Crusoe. He was beginning to wonder if they’d be sleeping in canvas hammocks while tarantulas and gekkos climbed over them. For a fevered moment he pictured them in filthy wife-beater t-shirts, sweating profusely, like the dying British POWs in Bridge on the River Kwai.

Paul paid off the driver, and the car disappeared in a cloud of dust. He then turned to John and said, “So what do you think?”

“Not sure yet,” John said. “I’m hoping there are some mod cons inside.”

Paul laughed. Of course he knew it was breathtaking inside, especially the swimming pool that hovered just yards away from a path to the ocean in one direction, and to a private jungle waterfall pool in the other direction. He was in possession of the key, so he led the way through a little gate in the wall that surrounded the house, across a short terraced patio, and up to the huge wooden door. He unlocked the door unceremoniously, and gestured with his arm for John to go first. 

John, looking at him suspiciously, obeyed. He stepped into a huge room - about 500 square feet - with terra cotta tiled floors. The enclosed living room was all floor length windows on two sides, looking out on to a covered living space - still with tiled floors, but no walls - and this outdoor room looked out onto a breathtakingly beautiful swimming pool surrounded by tropical plants and encased in shade. Perfect for a skin cancer survivor. 

“Wow.” Was all he could think to say.

“There’s only the one bedroom and bathroom,” Paul said, “it should be this way.” Paul walked down a hallway, and entered the bedroom. It featured a huge round bed, with an 8’ diameter, and a round hoop above it held the mosquito netting that would - at night - surround the bed. There was a huge fan undulating on the tall ceiling, and there were sliding glass doors that led on to the pool deck. There was a nice hot tub directly in front of the bedroom, and some lounging chaises. “You like?” Paul asked.

John laughed. “You’re so full of surprises - how did you find this place?”

“The travel agent I used knew about it. The owner is a friend and client of hers, and doesn’t usually rent it out. It is surrounded by 15 acres of privately owned jungle, and there are no other homes within 10 square miles of here. It’s down in a hollow next to a private cove...”

“So no paparazzi,” John finished. “My hat’s off to you mate,” John said sincerely. “This place is special.”

“I believe that the ocean’s just down that path,” Paul continued (having seen the photos). They walked back from the bedroom to the large living area, and John noticed the kitchen at one end of it, with a large bar-like island separating it from the huge comfy sofas of the living room. John opened the fridge door and saw that it was fully stocked, the freezer had a huge bag of purified ice cubes, and the pantry showed that Paul’s food plans had been thorough. The liquor cabinet, too, was groaning with new bottles (including the dozen bottles of rum John had stipulated). 

John gave Paul a grateful smile and said, “Why don’t you mix me a drink?” 

Paul jumped to it, while John carried the suitcases into the bedroom, and placed them on the bed. He washed his face and hands in the large, colorfully tiled bathroom (it had a lovely great sunken tub, John noted with pleasure), and then went back to find Paul in the midst of making Margaritas with real limes. 

They took their drinks out on to the pool deck, and sat on the edge of the pool, trouser legs pulled up, dangling their legs in the water. About that time a light drizzle started, but it was a warm drizzle. Evening was just beginning its careful stroll into night, and in the late afternoon light a rainbow appeared on top of the tree canopy beyond the pool. Just then a toucan landed on the back of a patio chair. It had an incredible green, yellow, orange, turquoise and red beak, a yellow-feathered breast, black ‘trousers’, and bright blue claws and tail feathers. It was alight there for only seconds when it noted there were humans about, and so took off towards the canopy.

“This place can’t be real!” John commented with awe, as Paul pointed in astonishment in the direction of their departing visitor. “Thanks for doing this,” John said softly a few moments later. “I know it isn’t easy for you to get away from your family for so long.”

Paul was watching his legs as he moved them back and forth under the water, and said, “I’ve been remiss. I should have thought of this years ago.”

“Well, you’ve thought about it now, and that’s all that matters,” John said. He reached over and took Paul’s drink away, setting it on the patio. Using the fingers of his left hand, he gripped Paul’s chin, and directed Paul’s face toward his own. He leaned in and allowed his lips to just hover over Paul’s for a few seconds. John’s eyes were like slowly burning coals as he started at Paul’s moist, plump mouth. He had to visually bathe in the moment before he could finally capture those lips with his own. 

Paul, meanwhile, was breathless as John’s possessive fingers held his chin, and felt a melting sensation inside as John kissed him. There it was again: that feeling of free-fall. How could he still feel this way after so many years? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to analyze it just then. Instead, He kissed John back with a fierce kind of passion that John met breath for breath. 

“Ummmmm,” John groaned as he pulled away. “I wish I wasn’t so hungry. How ‘bout I make something for us to eat, and then we can relax?” 

Paul was a little disappointed, but figured they had a whole month ahead of them, so there was no reason to rush things. He followed John back in to the living area, and as John headed for the kitchen, Paul headed for the bedroom, calling over his shoulder, “I’m going to unpack and take a shower.” Probably a cold one, he thought to himself.

He saw his suitcase on the bed, unlocked it, and then threw it open. He took one look and shouted “Oh shit!”

John heard this, and, worried, followed Paul’s shout into the bedroom. “What’s wrong?” He asked, his heart beating. Was it a tarantula? 

Paul said - “I’ve got the wrong suitcase! How could that have happened?” 

John was alarmed, but only for a second. He looked down and saw his expert packing job, and all the stylish clothes he had packed for Paul. He laughed out loud. “That’s your suitcase, Pud.”

“It’s not! I didn’t pack any of this stu...” Paul stopped in mid-sentence and looked up to see John, doubled over in laughter. “Did you do this? Did you repack my suitcase?” Paul asked angrily. He had that angry puppy look that John found so adorably amusing. 

“I cannot tell a lie. It was I!” He announced proudly.

“There’s nothing here that I recognize!” Paul declared, pulling out a few items, looking at them as if they were dead rats, and then throwing them down again. He picked up a pair of black bikini jockey shorts, and immediately threw them down. “I’m not wearing those!” He said.

“Paul, you’ve gotten prudish in your old age. Remember when you used to wear lavender bikini shorts? The ones Linda would buy for you?”

“I stopped wearing bikini underwear a few years ago, John. It’s too constricting.”

“That’s when you had gained weight. Now you’re very slender. Anyway, if you wear underwear at all - these are the ones I want you to wear!” John picked up a handful of brightly colored bikini briefs. 

“Good lord. I’ll look like that toucan we just saw...” Paul grumbled.

“Well, baby, you don’t wear them all at the same time,” John laughed. 

Paul was pawing through the blue jeans, the black jeans, the white pants, the black t-shirts, the white cotton shirts, and the other trendy clothes that John had purchased for him. “They don’t look very comfortable,” he said, a petulant look on his face.

“They’re like the clothes you wore in the ‘60s. You were quite happy to wear them then,” John pointed out reasonably. “And if you need to be more comfortable, you can just walk around naked.” 

Paul had to smile at that. He realized he was taking the whole matter of his clothing a little too seriously. “This is your holiday, John,” he finally said, a little sheepishly. “I’ll wear whatever you want me to wear.”

John felt an answering stir in his loins, but forced himself to push that aside. He had to make dinner first. He returned to the kitchen, and Paul returned to his task of unpacking and showering. 

John plunged into the fridge and the pantry, and decided to stir-fry some brown rice with vegetables. Something light and easy after a long day’s traveling. When Paul joined him, he smelled fresh, and was wearing the silk bathrobe John had packed for him. “Much nicer than brown terrycloth,” John commented, as he smacked Paul on his rump, and turned to stir the vegies. 

Paul stuck his nose in the pan and said, “Ginger. It needs ginger.” He proceeded to shred some fresh ginger and add it to the pan. Immediately the smell of the wonderful spice filled the air. It was evocative of their visits to Asia while on tour. The two men quietly worked side by side as they finished and then dished up their dinner. Paul poured two glasses of red wine, and they decided to sit at the table in the outdoor room. While Paul had been opening and pouring the wine, John set the table, and lit the mint-scented candles on the table. He stood back proudly. He had cut some bougainvillea from the side of the patio, and had decorated the table with the bright magenta blooms. He wiped his hands on his white apron, and then Paul came out of the house carrying two platters of aromatic steaming food. They settled contentedly into their chairs, snapping their napkins out on their laps simultaneously.

Paul held his glass up, and John did too. “To four weeks alone!” Paul toasted. 

They clinked glasses and John said, “Amen!” 

After they’d eaten, and were halfway through their second glass of wine, John said, “You know, babe, I have a question.” 

Paul’s eyebrows rose in friendly curiosity.

“You said something the other day - it kind of took me aback, but then I thought it must have just been a joke. It had to be.” John was struggling with how to ask. He was a little angry with himself that he had raised the subject so soon. He had a whole month to ask whatever questions he wanted answered. But this particular one had been haunting him for a few days now. 

“What’s that?” Paul said politely. He was curious of course, but mainly his mind was already grooving ahead to what was going to happen when they finally bestirred themselves from their chairs.

“Well, let me put it this way. You don’t really think I could ever get tired of you, do you?” The words stumbled out.

Paul was silent. This fear of course had haunted Paul subconsciously for decades, and only very recently had he begun to worry about it consciously. He was very surprised that John had spoken that anxiety out loud! Paul laughed nervously. “What makes you say that?” He asked.

“You said it the other day - that if I ever had you to myself that I’d soon tire of you. I think those were your words,” John’s voice was serious and his tone was soft.

Paul remembered the moment when he’d let that out. It was just one of many Tourette’s moments he’d had in the last few weeks. He sighed. “I sometimes think you prefer chasing to catching,” Paul said in a resigned voice.

John chuckled. “I can assure you that I love to chase you, but I love it a whole lot better when I catch you!” 

Paul blushed a little. “I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Maybe not, but ohhhh ... the image!” John was laughing now. 

Paul couldn’t help giggling a little. John was absolutely enchanting in this mood. 

“But Paul, tell me. Do you think I’m so fickle that at the first sign of boredom I’ll walk out?” John was serious now.

Paul looked down at his wine. “You did do that already, many times.”

John stared at Paul with a perplexed look on his face as he digested this disclosure. “What do you mean? I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Paul really didn’t want to open this can of worms. He wished John hadn’t raised it on their romantic getaway. But he didn’t want to shut down completely, or he would upset John, and then things would really go south. “I’m just saying, that I kind of felt you were bored with me when you went away to New York and did the whole Brad thing.” 

John winced at the mention of his latest blip. He said, “I wasn’t bored, Paul. I was frustrated by the Linda thing, which is why I had to get away for awhile.” 

Paul wanted to believe it, but he wasn’t able to let go of his suspicions so easily. “It’s just that you have lost interest in me a number of times over the years.”

John felt a twang of anxiety. Was this bad? Was this a bad thing he had started? He had only wanted to reassure Paul that he wasn’t going to tire of their relationship. He hadn’t expected it to go off in this weird, dangerous direction. “Paul, I never lost interest in you,” John argued. He was serious, and he was even truthful, but he felt as though he had been caught in a compromising position. 

Paul smiled and said, “Let’s don’t talk about this anymore. We should be whispering sweet nothings instead.”

“No, Pud, I have to reassure you. It’s true I sometimes do stupid shit. I get distracted sometimes. But I wouldn’t do it at all if I thought I would lose you!” John’s words came gushing out, and even as they came out he was wishing he could reel them back in. “Mainly, I just want your attention!”

Paul was looking at John strangely. He finally asked, “What do you mean by ‘distracted’?”

John was silent. That word had just slipped out. He hadn’t even thought about it. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it. He desperately searched his mind for the right words. When John felt cornered his usual go-to emotion was anger, but he was actively counseling himself (in Fiona’s voice) not to go there. Not to get angry. Not to strike out. This moment was too important for him to blow it with his ridiculous defensive temper. 

“It’s when I feel neglected, if I’m really feeling that way, I start getting thoughts and I need to quiet the thoughts, so I do something stupid, and then I’m upset that I did the stupid stuff.” 

Paul was stumped. He managed to prompt himself to repeat, “’Neglected.’” 

John sighed in frustration, and a sinewy hand ran through his hair. “I’m saying it badly. But when I feel like you’ve closed me out...well...it is like when the sun goes behind the clouds. I convince myself that maybe someone else will shine on me all the time, not just some of the time.” John’s ever-more-frantic explanations were only digging him deeper, but he didn’t realize this.

Paul was speechless. He didn’t know what to say. John had just told him that if he couldn’t have Paul’s full attention all the time he was liable to look around for someone else! But it didn’t really surprise Paul, since he had always known that this was John’s M.O. Still, to have it acknowledged so bluntly - it was hard to hear. 

John could see that Paul was struggling. He quickly added the more important part: “But then I find out that, maybe they will shine on me all the time, but I don’t like the way they shine! You know - it isn’t the same as when you shine on me. So then I remember I’d rather have you shining on me 50% of the time, than anyone else shining on me 100% of the time.” He searched Paul’s face for a sign of what he was thinking. “Does that make any sense? I’m trying to explain...it’s hard.” 

Paul’s confused face was at least not looking hostile now. He was trying to digest what he heard. He kept coming back to the same place: “This is about Linda, isn’t it. You really can’t share.” 

John felt his heart starting to race. This was bad. He should never have brought this up. He’d thought he would say a few comforting words to Paul, and Paul would melt with gratitude. He hadn’t factored in that Paul might actually have based his fear on something real - like John’s apparent fickleness. John said, “I really admire Linda, Paul. She’s a trooper and she’s kind and loving. This isn’t really about Linda. But, you’re right - I do have a problem with sharing. But I hated sharing with Jane far more than I hate sharing with Linda, if it makes you feel any better.” John’s expression was hopeful. 

Paul couldn’t help but chuckle at that comment. He did remember the tense relationship between John and Jane, and almost shuddered at the memory. He forced himself to take a deep sigh and take stock. What had happened here? John had just admitted that he tended to look elsewhere when he was feeling ‘neglected.’ But Paul already knew this! He had known it all along! Except, before when he ‘knew’ it, it had felt like a heavy, dreadful thing. Somehow, by hearing John admit it, and explain it for what it was, Paul was surprised to find that he wasn’t overly upset by it. It certainly wasn’t worse than what he already ‘knew’, and in some ways it was better. At least John had admitted that his forays with other lovers were ultimately unsatisfying, and he preferred to be with him. Paul reflected. Was this bad news? He decided if John really meant it, it was not bad news. But there was always that ‘what if’ - as in, ‘what if John is just saying he prefers me to make me feel better.’ Paul supposed there was nothing he could do about that possibility. He sighed.

“Well, John,” Paul finally said, his face looking frantically comic, “I really want to believe you, and so I guess I will!” 

John cocked his head at the strangeness of this pronouncement. He then laughed. “You’re bent in the head, you know,” he accused, as his eyes came alive with humor. “But I love you that way.”

Paul made a face and took a sip of wine. “Can we leave off on this subject now? I’m really horny.” Paul figured he’d be taking this worry out and studying it again - preferably when he was alone - but he had as much intense ‘communication’ as he could stand for one evening, and now he wanted to get physical. Anyway, he always felt that touching was a far better communication tool than words.

John suddenly pushed back his chair. “I say we leave the plates here and head straight for the bed!”

Paul suddenly got practical. “They’ll be filled with insects in the morning. Let’s at least rinse them off first.”

Well, that’s true. “Good point,” John said cheerfully, as he grabbed his dish, his silverware and his glass and headed quickly for the kitchen. “Get a move on man!” He shouted to Paul over his shoulder. “Don’t drag your feet!” (Paul really didn’t need to be nagged. He was right behind John.)

John felt liberated by the unbelievably functional resolution of their tense discussion. Paul hadn’t shut down on him, and he himself had not lost his temper and gotten hostile. It was a fucking MIRACLE!!!!!! John was light-hearted and he ran into the bedroom and took a flying leap on to the huge 8’ bed, landing on his stomach in the middle with a huge ‘oophf!’ He then immediately turned over on to his back, and held out his arms while shouting, “Get your ass over here!”

Paul, only steps behind him, was caught unawares, and stopped in his tracks, bent over at the waist, laughing giddily. John may be the most unpredictable and infuriating lover on the face of the planet, but he was also the most fun! 

“I want you to ravish me!” John shouted playfully, scissoring his arms and legs wildly.

Paul managed to rip off his silk robe, and then climbed up on to the bed while still laughing. “This ravishing thing,” Paul said calmly, leaning over as he straddled John, “do you want it fast or slow, hard or gentle?”

“Hard and fast!” John yelled enthusiastically. 

“In that case,” Paul said calmly, “this needs to go!” He grabbed the hem of John’s t-shirt, and ripped it right off John’s torso. “And this too!” He had scooched down so he could unzip John’s jeans, and then pulled them off in two mighty tugs. He threw the jeans dramatically across the room after waving them around in the air for a few moments. 

John was now nude, and that was just the way Paul wanted him. He moved until his face was hovering over John’s face, and in a quick movement leaned down and caught John’s mouth with his own, and allowed his tongue free reign. One had held the back of John’s head firmly, and the other was caressing the side of John’s cheek. Paul’s dick got harder when he heard the moans emanating from the bottom of John’s throat. This, of course, sounded like jungle drums to the aroused Paul, who felt driven to plunge his tongue deeper, and grasp his fingers tighter around John’s face. 

Tonight was going to be a rubbing night, Paul decided, thinking that for two men in their early fifties the travel day had been long and tiring. Plenty of time for more strenuous sex in the days to come...

The friction was intense, and John felt his pelvis lifting up in a steady rhythm to meet Paul’s thrusts. Paul’s hand had made its way around John’s cock, so John grabbed Paul’s. It was almost without warning that John came, and this surprised Paul so much that he came too. Both men found their hands to be covered in gooey cum. There was intermingled sweat and the tropical evening had a layer of humidity laying over it - it felt like the sky was about to open up and start slashing with rain. But it was that oppressive moment before the storm that seemed to hover over John and Paul as they sprawled on the big round bed. Both men were exhausted.

“I’m sticky,” John pronounced suddenly. After all, he had been on the bottom when all the cum went off. It was mostly on him. 

Paul knew the rules. The one on top has to minister to the one on the bottom. Groaning, he dragged himself up from the bed, and it seemed like forever before he made it to one of the sides. He stumbled through the dark into the bathroom, where he turned on a sconce light. He found some hand towels, and wetted them with warm water, first cleaning his own hand and pelvic area. He brought the other towel into the bedroom, and, after climbing on to the bed, “walked” on his knees over to John, where he became wiping him down. 

“Ahhh, that feels heavenly,” John whispered as Paul washed away the stickiness. “It’s warm in here,” he added. 

Without a word, Paul noted the ceiling fan and got out of the bed again, and played with switches until he found the right one. He also opened up the balcony door, and then put the mosquito nets down. He crawled back over to John and said, “This bed is a pain in the ass.” 

John barked with laughter. “How’s that?” He asked.

“You’ve got to scoot yourself forever just to get out of it, and just to get into it,” Paul pouted.

“Well, come ‘ere baby, I’ll give you a cuddle and you can put the trauma behind you,” John crooned.

“I can’t help but feel you’re making fun of me,” Paul grumbled as he snuggled up to John, “but even so, it sounds heavenly.”

 

*****

 

The light was pouring through the open balcony door, and birds were cawing, whistling, and singing loudly. And maybe those were monkey shrieks calling down from higher up in the hills? Paul awakened first, as he usually did. He turned a bit to his right, and saw John’s face. John was sound asleep, and looking far more angelic than he ever looked when he was awake. Paul felt a melting sensation in his loins. John always did that to him. He couldn’t bear waking John up, but also couldn’t bear to stay in bed. The jungle and ocean was beckoning to him. He struggled out of the infuriating bed, and made it to the bathroom. When he turned on the light the mustard yellow and red tiles seemed to scream at him. He quickly turned off the light again: too early for such loud colors. After brushing his teeth, he rooted as quietly as he could through his wardrobe, and found a pair of halfway decent swim trunks John had packed for him (they actually covered his bum and part of his upper thighs), although the color was a bit much. (An international shade of orange.) He found his flip-flops, and, pulling a t-shirt over his head, he headed for the yard. He thought he’d head for the beach - there was supposedly a very secluded cove with emerald-to-turquoise waters (depending on the degree of the sun in the sky). He had thoughtfully left a little note on the bathroom mirror: “Gone exploring down the path to the beach,” in case John awoke while he was gone. 

The pathway to the beach was overgrown with tropical plants, and Paul heard all manner of scurrying sounds in the plant life around him. There were probably all sorts of creatures hiding there. More afraid of me, than I am of them, Paul thought as he meandered down the path. The jungle that had been so vocal a few moments before quietened as he passed through it. Finally, a clearing was visible, and soon Paul found himself on a beautiful private beach, surrounded by cliffs, with perfect white sand, and beautiful turquoise water glowing in the morning sun. His eyes vibrated with the beauty of it. He was pulled as if by a magnet towards the water’s edge. The first cold water enveloping his feet and ankles sent an alarming chill down his spine, but soon he found it refreshing. He started walking along the cove, kicking the water and enjoying the resultant spray. 

A swim in the ocean seemed like just the right idea, so Paul stripped off his t-shirt, and dumped it on the sand. He then strode into the ocean until he was waist deep, and then plunged in and began to swim. The ocean was fairly warm, although Paul could see - as he lay on his back and stared up at the sky - rainclouds moving in from the north. It was so fucking peaceful that he wasn’t worried about the rain at all. He paddled around carelessly for a good 30 to 40 minutes, and then decided to go back to the house, and make some breakfast for John. 

The air felt humid with impending rain as he picked up the beach towel, flip-flops and t-shirt from the sand. He wrapped the beach towel around his waist like a sarong, and headed back up the path, back towards the house. It was so well hidden that from the beach you could not tell there was even a path, much less a house. This was the perfect getaway place. Maybe he should try to buy the place as a surprise for John? Most likely the owner would not want to sell it, though. 

Once back at the house, Paul puttered around the kitchen, pulling out the eggs, along with some tomatoes, feathery fennel leaves, shallots and fresh dried and crumbled queso. He heated the griddle, and began whipping up the eggs with just a splash of milk. 

It was the smell of the eggs on the griddle that finally awakened John. His eyes flew open after a few lazy seconds of surfacing, and he noted that there was no Paul. Then he smelled the food, and a grin crossed his face. A month alone with Paul in the middle of fucking nowhere, and now Paul was making him breakfast! It was almost too good to be true. John sat up, and took in his surroundings: the open balcony door, the first drizzles of rain hitting the lid of the hot top outside on the balcony, the sounds of birds and monkeys. This was like being in paradise. 

Memories from the night before infiltrated John’s mind, and he remembered the hilarious vision of Paul trying to cross the huge bed on bended knees. John chuckled at the thought of it. Then he tried to get out of the bed and decided that Paul was right - an 8-foot span was hard to maneuver on your bum or your knees. Once finally on terra firma, John decided to take a quick shower before heading to the kitchen. He figured breakfast would be done by then. 

Paul had finished cooking and was about to go awaken John, when John suddenly appeared before him, dressed in t-shirt and swim trunks. Paul, similarly attired (he had eschewed the towel once his trunks had dried sufficiently), was overjoyed to see the huge smile on John’s face.

“This place is paradise!” John announced cheerfully. “And I’m starving!”

They took their plates back out to the outdoor room. By now the rain was falling steadily, and John and Paul watched as it landed in the pool and on the lounge furniture. The air was humid, but was less so with each passing minute as the rain increased. 

“I’m glad we’re here in the rainy season,” John said softly. “It’s so fucking romantic.” 

Paul gestured to the large, comfy leather sofa. “We can get some blankets and curl up with books,” he suggested. 

John laughed. He laughed because this was such a far cry from what the young John and Paul of Hamburg days would have found exciting and romantic. Still, he wouldn’t change his present outlook to gain back his youth. He’d rather be a bit creaky about the knees, than callow in his tastes and pleasures. 

“That sounds great,” John agreed.


	80. Chapter 80

In the late afternoon, the rain stopped. The plantings around the pool looked vibrantly green and the raindrops were trickling down to the ground beneath, where insects and lizards enjoyed the wealth. The soil, too, was waking up as the rain saturated the hard packed surface, and gradually, far beneath the surface, tendrils of various plants and trees suddenly woke up. Rainy season! It was a quiet natural celebration going on in the jungle, and all of this unheard by the unwitting humans who were padding around the swimming pool.

“I had all sorts of plans for when we got here,” John was saying in a lazy voice as he leaned up against the pool wall, and paddled to keep his head above water. “But now all I want to do is go from the bed, to the table, to the sofa, to the table, to the pool, to the table, to the bed...”

Paul was more energetic. He was floating on his back, and periodically kicking to keep himself from sinking. “It’s fine, you know, if we never leave the house. But the cove is really beautiful...”

“Let’s take a walk there after dinner!” John suggested suddenly. 

“Done.” Paul turned over on to his stomach, and disappeared under the surface of the water. He swiftly made it over to where John was leaning, and pulled him down under the water. 

John popped to the surface sputtering. “That’s it!” He declared, and the two of them began wrestling, trying to dunk each other. John decided he needed to strip Paul of his orange trunks. Paul, noting this, decided John’s blue trunks needed to go too! There was laughter amongst the splashing, and gasping for air, but after a few moments, the splashing stopped and passion kicked in. John was looking forward to sex-in-pool. He hadn’t done that since the wild Hollywood parties in the 1960’s. But he was destined to be disappointed. When he started making gestures that indicated his intent, Paul pulled away.

“No, John! Not in this man’s pool! It’s disrespectful!” Paul’s reaction was so Midwife-Mary-McCartney that John laughed. 

“He won’t know, so it can’t hurt him,” John wheedled, pulling Paul back towards him.

“It’s unhygienic, and we’re his guests. He doesn’t rent this place often, and if we treat his home with disrespect, we won’t be allowed back again!” Paul’s words were strong and firm. 

“You’re no fun,” John chuckled. But he gave in with good humor. In truth, he remembered it had been very difficult to have sex in the pool even when he was a young man and his virility was still 100% intact. The water had a tendency to dry up the orifices, he supposed.

They climbed out of the pool at peace with one another, and after changing into dry clothes went about the motions of making dinner. For whatever reason, neither man was very hungry, and they chose a light vegetable frittata. As Paul chopped, he watched how skillful John was with the kitchen tools. One of John’s past-times when Paul was with Linda was to hire chefs to come over to his house and provide him with private cooking classes. Thus, John had become extremely competent in the kitchen. Paul was more sous chef than master chef, and - as happened when he was with Linda - he found himself in the position of chopping and slicing. Salads and mashed potatoes were his specialties.

After dinner, they took each other up on their promise to walk along the shore, and traveled down the path to the cove. There was still a little light in the air when they started, but as they strolled slowly along the sand the evening gave way to night. It was so pitch black that without the moonlight they’d not be able to see even a foot in front of their faces. Paul was glad he had remembered to bring a torch for when they had to go back up the path through the jungle to the house.

“It’s so bloody peaceful here,” John said softly, as if he were repeating a prayer. “You can almost believe there is no one else in the world.” 

“Instead of motors we hear creatures up in the trees,” Paul agreed. “Animals are far quieter and less intrusive than humans when going about their business.” 

There was a companionable silence for another few moments until John spoke again.

“You know, Paul, we’ve got more money than we could ever spend,” John said, and then quickly appended with a chuckle: “Especially you.” He had been meaning to bring this subject up for some time, but had never found the right moment. There couldn’t be a better moment than this one, John supposed. 

Paul was surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation. “Yes - but the point is not to spend it. You’re supposed to reinvest it.” Paul’s answer was reflexive. He had been well trained by the Eastmans in financial matters. 

“So, you reinvest it and then what? You have even more money you can never spend,” John rejoined. 

Paul stopped walking and turned to John. “What are you saying? You must have a point.” 

“My point,” John said with exaggerated patience, “is that we should be using the money for good.”

Paul started walking again, and said thoughtfully, “We both have charitable trusts, John, and donate money through those trusts.” Paul was a little confused about where John was going with this subject.

“For tax purposes, mainly, right? I mean, the accountant explained to me that I should dedicate a certain percentage of my income to the charitable trust each year as that percentage would have the most tax benefit.” John felt a little out of his depth talking about money matters, but there was that uncompromising part inside him that felt bad about giving just enough money to save himself from paying more in taxes.

“You make it sound so nefarious,” Paul chuckled. “It seems like a win-win situation to me. Any anyway, if you pay the taxes instead of into a trust, the money goes to causes and agendas pushed by politicians. At least if you’re putting the money into a trust, you can actually give to causes that are meaningful to you, and you can hold the recipients accountable for how they handle the funds.”

“Oh, I don’t suggest we should stop doing what we’re doing. I’m suggesting we should do more than what we’re doing. We should sacrifice a little, is what I’m saying.” John’s voice had grown gradually louder, and with this last comment it virtually rang.

“I think perhaps you should just tell me what’s on your mind, John, because I’m getting the idea that you have some kind of scheme in mind.” Paul’s eyes were dancing with amused affection, although John could not see this in the dark. And anyway, his eyes were turned inward as he finally gave voice to the thoughts he’d been nurturing for years. 

“I think we should start a joint trust, and tithe our royalties into it. I think we should divert more of our earnings - the stuff we get from our partnership - into that trust. Then we could also devote real time to investing in charities that mean the most to us.” John’s mind was alive with possibilities. 

“So, this trust would be in addition to your charitable trust and the one Linda and I have?” Paul was trying to get John’s idea straight in his mind.

“Well, yes - you and Linda can still give money to your animal rights and environmental causes...” John started.

“We do more than that, John,” Paul interjected, feeling as though John was understating his and Linda’s charitable giving.

“I’m just using those two as an example. I mean you and Linda have things you believe in, and you can still have a trust together and continue on with what you believe in. But I’m saying I want to have a trust with you that are for causes you and I believe in. I won’t need my trust anymore - we can merge it into ours. We could try to work on causes that will help humanity - you know, medical care for war refuges, other ways to promote peace and healing; education - there are a lot of things we could do!” John was on a roll now. “And how about music and art? We could do a lot to promote things we believe in!”

With the mention of promoting musicians and artists, Paul had a sudden unwelcome memory of the failed Apple experiment, and winced. But of course, that experiment had failed for reasons other than the idea itself. The true success of a project was in its implementation, and not always in the idea behind it. And Apple had been very poorly implemented, because none of them had known what the hell they were doing. 

Paul moved on to a different issue. “I have always treated my income as being community income with Linda,” he said reluctantly. This was an issue that John would have to understand. “She owns everything I own equally. I made a few exceptions - like when I bought our loft in New York, and when you and I bought your house in London. Those are the only assets I have that I share equally with you, as opposed to with Linda. And you and I each have a 50% share of McLen - but my 50% is shared fully with Linda. I can’t divert monies away from the community without her knowledge and written consent.”

John’s head was swimming with all those unfamiliar words and concepts. But there was one thing he knew pretty well. “I can’t see Linda objecting to your diverting funds from McLen earnings to a charitable trust, Paul. I can’t see her ever objecting to that.”

Paul couldn’t argue with that. No - Linda would not object. Linda wasn’t all that interested in money, or the things one could buy with money. She loved family, animals, plants and people - in approximately that order. Things were not of great interest to her unless they genuinely enriched the lives of the family, animals, plants and people that she loved. Paul supposed that his and Linda’s trust could use MPL funds - from Wings and his solo years- whereas funds from McLen (his work with John) could go to the new trust. “So, what was your idea about how much we would divert of our McLen earnings? Presently, we’re each diverting a percentage into our personal charitable trusts. How did you see it working?” Paul’s able mind was trying to sketch out the boundaries of John’s idea.

“Oh, Christ, Paul - I have no fuckin’ idea! I was hoping you would figure out that part! Clearly, whatever I’m sending to my personal trust should go into it, but more than I’m giving now. I want us to give more to our trusts - even if it doesn’t benefit us tax-wise.” John was gesticulating wildly as they walked and talked. This physical movement reminded Paul that they had walked quite a way.

“Let’s turn back, John. We must have walked a mile by now, and it will be another mile back.” With that Paul turned around and headed back in the direction from whence they’d come. John obediently followed. After several moments of purposeful walking, Paul finally weighed in. “Well, it is an interesting idea, John. I see what you’re saying. And it isn’t even a bad idea financially. The ideal advice is that, as you get older, you put more and more of your assets and income into tax-free family and charitable trusts so that when you die you have almost nothing left in your name. No death duties. And you will have directed your funds to places where you think they will do the most good. I suppose we could increase the percentage we divert to the trusts periodically as we grow older.” Now Paul, too, was excited about John’s idea.

John was literally vibrating with excitement. Paul was on his side! He was going to help John make it happen! And there was yet another thing that John knew well: if Paul wanted a thing done, the thing got done!

The rest of the walk went quickly, as the two men exchanged ideas both ridiculous and sublime about the proposed new Lennon & McCartney Charitable Trust. 

 

*****

 

It was another rainstorm hitting the thatched roof. Fortunately for John and Paul, the thatching was mainly for looks. Underneath the thatching was a corrugated tin roof, and underneath the tin roof was framing and insulation. Underneath that layer was the plaster ceiling of the home’s interior. Thus, the home was dry and insulated, but one could still hear the sound of rain hitting the tin roof, which hid behind the thatching. It was oddly comforting, and John and Paul were stretched out on their backs, naked, on the huge round bed. The sweat from their sexual encounter felt cool against their skin as the fan blew air cool over them. Their eyes were closed, and they were each listening to the rhythmic beat of the rain on the roof above them. It was another magic moment in this magic place, and individually and together they experienced the peaceful moment.

“That was amazing,” John mumbled, his eyes still closed. “No one does it like you do.” John was briefly reliving the incredible blowjob Paul had performed. 

Paul, meanwhile, was exhausted from John’s spirited hand-job. He smiled at John’s comment but said nothing. Instead, his hand lazily reached across the small divide between them, and rested itself on John’s stomach. It was a loving gesture, and John, fully satisfied, took it as such. 

 

*****

 

“You know, John,” Paul said, looking up from his breakfast of muesli, yoghurt, and fresh fruit, “there is supposedly a waterfall on the property. There’s a path off the pool patio that leads to it, apparently.” 

John looked up from his own bowl of cereal. “Oh yeah? I feel up to a bit of exercise.” In truth, John was sore from the long walk he and Paul had taken on the beach the night before. Walking barefoot on sand worked aspects of the muscles that did not see use in any other way. All of those little twitch muscles were aching this morning. He felt stiff, and hoped going on another walk would loosen up his muscles again. 

Paul was none-the-worse for the walk, but then he had been a devoted gym rat for almost a year now, running on the treadmill and lifting weights to strengthen his legs. Consequently, the 2-mile walk on the beach had barely affected him. So, after breakfast they sauntered down the other secluded path off the pool patio, in the direction of the rumored waterfall. Of course, Paul had seen photos of the waterfall - which emptied out into a quiet pool of water which was surrounded by tall trees and ferns, but somehow he had a hard time believing in it. It seemed to be too much for one property to possess: both the cove and the waterfall! So Paul was a bit skeptical as they managed the poorly maintained path that went on for at least three quarters of a mile - winding and switching back as it went down. John had already tripped over two protruding tree roots and was sweating profusely. It was humid in the jungle.

“Gawd it’s humid!” He complained loudly as he followed Paul downward into what felt like a giant hole in the hillside. “I thought this was supposed to be the rainy season.”

“It is rainy season, John,” Paul chided. “Rain is nothing but 100% humidity, so of course it’s humid when it’s not raining. Once it gets to 100% it will start to rain, and then everything will cool off.” Paul recited this information pedantically as he led the way down the path, pushing aside leaves and branches and holding them back until John grasped them in turn. 

John swore at Paul underneath his breath: “Know-it-all.”

“I heard that!” Paul shouted over his shoulder. But he laughed gaily. 

Just before they found the opening to the pond they began to hear the sound of falling water. “We’re near!” Paul shouted over the sound as he excitedly picked up his pace.

“It’s about fuckin’ time,” John groused under his voice. This time Paul let the grumpy comment go. He was too excited about finally bursting through the vegetation and seeing the waterfall in its full glory, crashing down from 50 yards above into a pool of water, about forty feet in diameter. The canopy above blocked out almost all of the sun, but here and there victorious individual rays of sunlight seemed to penetrate the forest and thus dappled the water with playful golden light. Small insects could be seen flitting about in the rays of light. Paul stood on the edge of the pond, transfixed, as John finally caught up with him. 

Huffing and bent over at the waist, it took a few moments for John to catch on to the natural wonder that was all around him. But when he did finally stretch to his full height and looked around, his reaction was priceless. “Holy shit!” He shouted. 

Paul laughed. “My thoughts, precisely,” he agreed. He stuck an adventurous toe into the pond water. “It’s very cool,” Paul said. “Like an unheated swimming pool.” He pulled off his t-shirt and started wading into the pond.

“Paul, you don’t know if there are insects and worms with tropical diseases! Or malaria-bearing mosquitoes!” John shouted in alarm.

“No, I don’t,” Paul said cheerfully, and then plunged under the water. He came up a moment later holding his nose and shaking his hair out of his face. “It’s great! Very clean water - I can see where I’m going under water. Come in, John...”

John hesitated for a few panicky moments.

“You only live once, you know,” Paul teased as he kicked away on his back into the middle of the pond and in the direction of the waterfall. “It’s fresh water - direct from the sky, to the rocks, to the pond...”

John finally decided to give in to the temptation, and ripped off his t-shirt. “Is it deep enough to jump?” He asked Paul.

“I think a cannonball will be safe,” Paul responded. 

John put Paul’s suggestion into immediate action, and leapt off the side of the pond, pulled into the cannonball shape, and disappeared in a giant splash into the pond. A moment later his head burst through the surface. “Woo-hoo! This is really great!” He felt immediately refreshed. All the sweat and sticky thistles that his body had accumulated on the hike down to the pond were washed away, and he felt clean and cool. He dog-paddled towards Paul, who was treading water under the waterfall, as if he were in a shower. Soon, John joined him there. They held hands under the water, treading water to stay afloat as the cool water pounded down on them. After a few moments, they stroked away from the spray. 

In a leisurely manner, they both kicked around the pond, making light-hearted conversation.

“I could get used to this,” John joked. 

Paul smiled and said, “We could just stay here and never go back.” It was a joke-comment, but a pang of wistfulness washed over John. 

“That would be heaven,” John said, moving close to Paul. He pulled Paul close to him by his waist, and soon they were nose to nose in the lush, secret pool. 

“I think the owner of the place would have something to say about that,” Paul pointed out regretfully, as he allowed a casual hand to sweep across John’s forehead, gently pushing the hair off John’s face. “But I already know I’ll want to come back here again if he’ll have us.”

John felt a jolt of jealous alarm. “Not with Linda!” He responded sharply.

Paul was surprised by John’s unexpectedly strong reaction. “Of course not, John, no. This is our place,” he soothed as he allowed his nose to nuzzle John’s neck. 

John was ashamed of his over-reaction, and felt the thrill go down his spine as Paul started to nuzzle him. Soon Paul’s nuzzling turned into butterfly kisses along John’s jawline, and then they were kissing each other deeply. John moaned with pleasure and desire. Then he grunted in dismay.

“What?” Paul asked, concerned.

“It just occurred to me: we have to walk back up that fuckin’ path to the house!” 

“We should make our way back up soon and make some lunch,” Paul suggested in a soft voice.

“Right now I want to just wish my way back! We’re gonna be all sweaty and dirty again by the time we get there.” John was genuinely pouting as he thought about this.

“Well, the way I see it is, we will have an excuse to get naked in that giant bathtub,” Paul said cheerfully. “We can also turn on the shower, and it will be like under the waterfall again.”

Paul was very convincing when he put his mind to it, so although John groaned a little, he had decided that this suggestion was motivation enough for him to climb out of the pool and start hiking out.

 

*****

 

The next day, Paul suffered from a little cabin fever. He left the house and found his way to the driveway, and then to the garage. Inside he found what he already knew was there: a Vespa. It was a light mint green color, and had to be at least 10 years old. But allegedly it worked. (At least, that is what the travel agent had assured him.) Also in the garage was a little mini jeep that was supposedly in working order. But today the Vespa had captured Paul’s fancy. He led it out of the garage, and turned on the ignition. He could see that the fuel gauge reflected almost a full tank, and the little engine purred like a kitty. Paul was very excited by this. He turned it off and propped it up by its kickstand. He then went into the house in search of John. He found John lying under an umbrella on a chaise beside the pool. John had fallen asleep with a book open on his chest. Paul hesitated about waking John, but only momentarily.

“Hey, Johnny,” he said softly, crouched down by the chaise and directing his voice into John’s ear. 

John woke with a start. “Huh?”

Paul said, “It’s me.”

John dredged his mind back from the weird dream he’d been experiencing, and asked, “What do you need?” 

“I thought we could take the Vespa into the village. The guidebook the owner left indicates that it is only about 20 miles from here. Maybe we can look around the village, and have a meal in a local place.”

John had to resist the urge to sharply refuse. He was enjoying just lying there. But he could sense with his highly developed Paul-dar that his partner was in one of his (many) hyper moods, and would soon start bouncing off the walls if his energy was not redirected constructively. Sometimes it was like having a very bright, very inquisitive, very active 9-year old son again. He sighed deeply. “Can you wait about 30 minutes until I wake up a bit?” He asked, trying not to sound churlish.

An impish grin danced across Paul’s face. He knew that John was ‘humoring’ him, but he would take John’s acquiescence any way he could get it. “Sure! I’m gonna go ride it down the track a bit to see how it operates while I’m waiting for you.” He was up and on his way before John could react.

Grumbling under his breath, John put his book aside, and slowly rose from the chaise. He made his way to the bedroom to change into some jeans and a nice t-shirt and then remembered to wonder what Paul was wearing. By the time he got to the driveway, however, Paul was gone. Shrugging, John went back into the house and collected his wallet and a straw hat. Soon he heard the Vespa’s motor, and he returned to the driveway in time to see Paul in his ¾ length grey sweatpants, a grey t-shirt, and black espadrilles. 

Trust Paul. John shook his head is disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it!” He shouted over the sound of the engine. “It’s some kind of fuckin’ gift you have! I pack a whole selection of tasteful items, and you manage to put on the only two pieces that look horrible together!”

“They’re both grey,” Paul said, an expression of innocent surprise on his face. “They match.”

“They match too well, Pud. I’m not going off this property with you unless you put something else on.” John’s voice was firm and unyielding.

Paul made a great show of turning off the engine, and struggling off the seat. He flounced past John with a great sigh, and John quickly followed him, training his lips not to smile too victoriously. Paul got to the bedroom and then stared at the wardrobe. He had no clue what to wear.

Sensing Paul’s confusion, John stepped in and handed Paul a pair of jeans. “You can wear these with that t-shirt and you’ll look fine.”

Paul did as he was told, but found the whole episode annoying in the extreme. Who the fuck cared what he wore? They would be wearing sunglasses and hats and avoiding crowds, and he doubted they’d be identified in the tiny backwater village. Still, Paul had learned long ago that it was easier to just go along with John’s fancies than to fight them. He zipped up the pants and turned to stare at John, standing at rigid attention. “Do I pass inspection sir?” He asked in hoity-toity Sandhurst tones. 

“You will, after you run a comb through your hair,” John responded with a smartass look on his face. 

Thus primped, Paul led the way back to the Vespa, very much looking forward to the coming adventure. John was far less enthusiastic, and prepared for a bumpy and perhaps even harrowing ride up the pitted track to the road, which (if he remembered properly) was not much better than the track. He took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around Paul’s waist as the beast was brought to life. 

It only took a few moments for John to see the humor in it all. The “beast” was a fairly sedate creature, with not much in the way of horsepower as it struggled manfully down the rutted path. Paul weaved expertly between the potholes, and eventually addressed himself to the slightly flatter verge until they finally made their way through the hole in the hedge and on to the road. Paul took a wide left, and picked up a little speed. By that it is meant that the Vespa was now going at least a shocking 35 miles per hour. Woo-hoo! John thought. Dangerous living! The slower speed was necessary, though, because the actual road itself was made of a crumbly and uneven macadam that had clearly seen better days (perhaps the road had been new when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1524). 

In this leisurely manner they swanned into the local village, and putt-putted up to a local “restaurant.” It was more in the nature of an open-air chips shop, although the fare was very different. The eating area was sheltered under a kind of gazebo made out of clearly rotting wood, but painted a cheerful bright green. The kitchen was sheltered in an attached adjacent shack, and the food plates on offer were displayed in aged and yellowing placards above the ordering window: Lots of beans and rice. Not much in the way of vegetables, though: corn, carrots, tomatoes, and of all things - cabbage - were displayed rather unappetizingly in the faded placards. Seeing this, Paul took a rather large and involuntary swallow.

“Slim pickings for you, chum!” John announced cheerfully. “I’m going for some of that roast pork with rice and beans!” This would be his first shot at meat since he had arrived in Costa Rica, and he didn’t have the courage to meet Paul’s eyes as he stepped forward and made hand gestures with the woman taking the orders (he ultimately had to point to the placard after she had come out of her hidey-hole to stand next to him.) 

Paul looked miserable. He had a little Spanish. A very little Spanish; and what he had smacked of Spain, not Central America. Still, by pointing one by one at the available vegetables in the pictures and saying “y” each time, the lady’s eyes suddenly lit up and cried “Vegetariano!” as if she were playing charades and had just guessed the right answer. 

Paul’s face lit up with delight and, grabbing her wrists, danced her around in little circles while singing a little Hispanic rhythmic tune with made up on the spot words: “Si, si, senorita, yo también te quiero piezas...” He planted a kiss on her cheek, which made her giggle, and then she scampered back thru the side door to her rightful place behind the counter where she once again looked like the Woman In Charge. 

John stood back and watched all of this nonsense with a huge silly grin on his face. It was hard for him, sometimes, to contain all the overflowing infatuation inside him. Sometimes he thought he might just burst with it all. How could there be so much adorableness in one person? It was a conundrum he had struggled with for decades, yet he had never stumbled across a serviceable answer.

The food arrived, and it was piping hot. Paul very politely ignored the meat on John’s plate, although all the while he could hear Linda’s dry laconic voice in the back of his mind, saying, ‘Why are you eating that rotting flesh?’ He knew that if he ever tried saying that to John, he would get back something along the order of, ‘And why are you eating those dead weeds?’ Paul wished he was as stalwart a defender of animals as was Linda, but he was afraid if John were to aim those dancing, mirthful eyes at him and make such a comment, that he, Paul, would only have to give John his points. Paul was a fugitive rebel, which meant that underneath it all he really didn’t like having people dictating what was right. Still, while Paul might be a rebel, he absolutely needed a cause. None of those James-Dean-without-a-cause shenanigans for Paul. He’d leave that sort of thing up to John. Perhaps vegetarianism was Paul’s little rebellion. 

John savored his carnitas, but was watching Paul’s face. He saw that Paul was in a good, stable mood. Just the right time to talk about the future, John thought. 

“Babe,” John said, looking with sympathy at Paul’s plate of rather sad looking wilted and steamed vegetables, “I want to talk about what we’re going to do next.”

Paul, who had just finished reminding himself for the tenth time that once the food was eaten, he’d be just as full as John and more virtuous, looked up in cordial inquiry. 

“It’s just that this whole Beatles thing has got me at sixes and sevens,” John said, allowing his fork to dance in the air in time with his words.

Paul’s eyes warmed with mirth. John was such a drama queen. “Oh?” Paul asked, looking blasé, but all the while wondering what form of entertainment was soon to be laid out for him.

“I think you and I should be working on our own music, don’t you? This Anthology thing has just distracted us.” John tried to look neutral and unconcerned as he expressed his opinion.

“I have no objection,” Paul said sincerely, missing the serious undertones of John’s pronouncement. “But we really do have to also finish the Anthology. We’ve contracted to do it, and Ritchie and George are relying on us both to play nice with the promoters.” Paul looked up, as if finally realizing that perhaps John had something specific in mind. “Why, do you want to work while we’re here?” 

“I wouldn’t mind it if we did some old-fashioned eyeball-to-eyeball composing again. It’s been a while.” John was keeping his voice as light and neutral as possible. “I think we have a few weeks here where we can take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going, and it might be interesting material when we're done with it” he added, almost as if it were an afterthought. But of course, it wasn’t an afterthought. That phrase was the whole reason he had raised the topic.

Paul heard the unspoken question, and answered it. “So you think we need to talk about us? Is something wrong?”


	81. Chapter 81

Paul had stilled - his fork halfway up to his mouth - when it occurred to him that John was trying to tell him something serious again. The words had come unbidden out of his mouth: “So you think we need to talk about us? Is something wrong?”

John saw the growing worry in Paul’s eyes and smiled warmly at him. “No. Nothing wrong. I just want to take a page out of your book, and ‘make it better.’” John chuckled at his own pun.

Paul allowed the frisson of alarm to dissipate, and readdressed himself to his plate. “How are we going to do that, then?” He asked. He figured there was something up John’s sleeve yet again. First the discussion about Paul’s lack of trust in John’s loyalty, then the discussion about the charitable trust, and now...what? Paul was beginning to think that John was going to use this holiday as a way to force him into a whole series of deeply tricky conversations that Paul had been unconsciously avoiding for years.

“We’re going to do it by leaving our armor behind us when we go home.” John’s eyes reflected a curious combination of sure and unsure as he delivered himself of this pronouncement.

Paul put his fork down for that one. “Armor? What are you on about?”

“It’s the armor we wear only for each other,” John responded, enjoying the opaqueness of his approach if he did think so himself. “I think we should take it off and leave it behind us. We can finally be absolutely naked with each other emotionally as well as physically.”

Paul quickly looked around the little restaurant, suddenly afraid of eavesdroppers. All this talk of nakedness! In public!

“See - there you go - into your shell. Armor.” John had seen Paul’s panicky reaction to exposure in those few brief seconds, and it was so obviously instinctive with him. Letting go of that instinctive fear was going to be very difficult for Paul. John sighed. Where to start? “Look, babe, I know that you like having layers between you and other people. I’ve known that almost from the moment we met. The only part I don’t like is that you insist on having layers between you and me.”

Paul was listening with round eyes. The food had lost all of its hold on him. He silently willed John to explain through his steady gaze. First armor, and now layers. He was totally lost.

“I do it too,” John was quick to assure. “In my case it’s that whole abandonment fear that Fiona is always rambling on about.”

This made Paul chuckle. Poor Fiona. “Rambling.” If she could hear John now, she’d probably start banging her head on a table in frustration.

“I’m not suggesting it will be easy,” John continued, at once confused and relieved by Paul’s amusement.

“Hold up, John. I still don’t know what ‘it’ is. What are we talking about - ‘layers’? What sort of layers are you talking about?” Paul had a deadly feeling that John was referring to Paul’s innate need for privacy and independence. John never did like those things about him, but Paul felt they were integral to his personality. Why would he want to change that about himself? He’d be someone else entirely if he even tried!

“It’s this tendency we have not to trust each other, and it manifests itself in a hundred different ways.” John stopped for a moment. He suddenly felt eloquent. He loved it when the right words just flowed from his brain without having to be willed out. “We have this insatiable attraction to each other, but I think it scares us. That much need and desire is a bit frightening, I think, so we come up with barriers - armor, if you will - to protect ourselves from each other. It’s stupid, really, because no matter how badly we treat each other, we always forgive and we still remain abject subjects of this ‘attraction.’”

“Magnetized,” Paul murmured in agreement.

“Yes! And it’s scary. I feel it too.” John was warming to his subject. “You know, it’s funny. But if anyone from the outside shows dislike or distrust for one of us, we both stick together and run them off. We are absolutely unequivocal when it comes to defending each other from outsiders. It’s just us - we can’t seem to trust each other enough to put our guards down, or at least not for long.”

He is talking about privacy and independence, Paul thought glumly. It was that phrase “put our guards down” that gave it away. Still, there might be room for compromise, if he had a better idea of what John was asking of him.

“If you give me an example of what you mean,” Paul said slowly, “then perhaps I’d have a better idea of what you’re asking for.”

“At this point I’m not ‘asking for’ anything. I’m trying to have an open discussion about it...” John began, but was interrupted by Paul.

“Can you tell me specifically what I’m doing that annoys you? I’m lost.”

John sighed. Paul was being impossibly dense. It was one of his many defense mechanisms. From John’s point of view, Paul was prickly with defense mechanisms. How to get past all of Paul’s early warning systems and anti-aircraft gun batteries? It was the age-old question for John. He decided to try a different tack. “I thought we might find it easier to have this conversation through song lyrics, actually, which was my original comment. I was hoping that you...we...would find it easier to discuss this subject that way, as we have in the past.”

Paul had heard the “you” before the “we”, and it squared with his suspicion that John saw the “armor” problem as primarily being his - Paul’s - and this whole ‘us’ business was a way to make the discussion more palatable to Paul. It didn’t occur to Paul as he had these thoughts that he was engaging in the precise thing that John was talking about. In fact, it was the perfect example.

John could see the bland expression come down over Paul’s face. Over the years John had grown to loath that expression - or, more accurately, that lack of expression - it stripped the beloved face of all its vital motility. His first impulse was to ignore the fact that Paul had just pulled down the shades on his brain, but then he decided that - no - this was the perfect example that Paul had asked for.

“You’re doing it now,” John said in as moderate a voice as he could muster. “You’ve closed me off. You don’t trust my motives - you think I’m up to something. Don’t you?”

Paul was not surprised that John had sussed this out. It was his blasted face. Paul’s face had always given him away. Every thought in his fucking head was displayed on his face as if it were a written sign. How often had he tried to still those expressions, only to find that John could read them anyway? How to explain to John how defenseless he felt? John was so powerful, so influential, so present. Paul always feared he would be swallowed whole by all that John-ness. He, almost alone of all of John’s friends and lovers, had never given in completely to John’s pull and sway. He had always reserved a part of himself that was separate. This was important to Paul, who somehow knew that although John was special and incredible, he - Paul - was also special and incredible, in a contrasting but complimentary way. Thus, he had to husband that Paul-ness, so that it wouldn’t get diluted and ultimately disappear. Too much John-ness was bad, and it needed to be held in balance.

It was as if John could read every thought in Paul’s head. He was watching the expressions that were dancing across Paul’s face. It was remarkable, really. He had just figured out how to defeat the blank expression! Call it out and name it directly, and it would collapse and he’d get his Paul back! John stored this knowledge away for future reference. “What do you think I’m up to, Paul? I’d like to know.” John coached his face and voice to be soft and vulnerable.

He’s aiming for my soft underbelly, Paul thought. And it’s true - I have a very soft underbelly, although only a few people know that about me.

He thinks I’m manipulating him, John translated from Paul’s face. John said, “I really want to know. I’m not playing a game - I’m sincere and my intentions are good. But I want to know what you think I’m going to do to you if you let me through your defenses.”

Paul’s laugh in response was just nervous twittering. Paul didn’t know how to react to this odd question. “John, this is getting a bit too deep for a post prandial chat in the middle of a village. I think we should head back to the house.”

Ah, decoy tactics are up now, John thought. Avoid the conversation at all cost. Yes, this was yet another familiar McCartney special. “If you want to go back to the house to finish the discussion, I’m willing.” Check and checkmate.

Paul worried that he was out of the frying pan into the fire, but since it had been his suggestion he figured he’d have to agree. At least they wouldn’t be able to continue the conversation on the frickin’ Vespa, and there was always a chance that by the time they got back to the house he could distract John with sex. Over the years, sex may have created many difficult situations for Paul, but it had also gotten Paul out of at least as many. Maybe this would be one of the times it would work for him.

He’s coming up with his next strategy, John noted as he saw the intense look on Paul’s face replaced with a twinkle of hope. But I’ll be ready for it.

The two men got on the Vespa, and headed back along the rutted road toward the house. It was a bumpy ride.

 

*****

 

Upon their return, Paul headed for the bedroom. He was going to get naked and suggest a dip in the pool, which might lead to sex. But John cut him off at the pass. He entered the bedroom behind Paul, and sat on the bed while Paul started to undress.

“I would have thought you’d prefer to be fully clothed while having this deep discussion,” John opined, his voice dry with satire. “More armor.”

Paul, already shirtless, stopped just as he was about to remove his jeans. That was a good point, actually, Paul considered. Being naked while John was fully clothed was not a good idea under the circumstances. For the first time it began to dawn on Paul that none of his usual methods of avoiding difficult topics was going to work today. John was that determined. And though it was true that Paul could behave like an organism under the microscope reacting to an unwanted stimulus, he also knew when it was time to endure the worst the stimulus had to offer, and just get it over with. He picked up his t-shirt, and put it back on.

John saw Paul’s surrender, and although he felt glad he had defeated Paul’s last defense, part of him felt that it was a pyrrhic victory. Paul wasn’t really surrendering. He was just playing dead. Still, John could work with that. He had his own ways of provoking reactions out of Paul when he was in a withholding mode, and John supposed he’d have to deploy a few of those before he’d managed to say all he needed to say.

“Let’s make some tea, and curl up on the sofa,” John suggested, getting up without waiting for a response and heading for the kitchenette. The mere act of putting a kettle on the boil had a calming effect on Paul, John noted. Paul pulled two cups down, and brought out the tea things from the cupboard. It was in a companionable silence that they prepared their Earl Grey, and then they each took an opposite corner of the sofa, and put their feet up.

Paul propped himself up literally and figuratively. “So you were saying?” He asked John with a brave twinkle in his eye.

“I asked you what you thought I’d do to you if I got thru your defenses. But on the ride back to the house I realized I should have shown you my hand first. My great fear is that if I give all to you, you’ll reject it and abandon me.” John said this in a rush. He had actually rehearsed this disclosure while on the back of the Vespa, and hoped now that it didn’t sound too canned.

Paul observed John from underneath lowered eyelids. He could only see John’s beautiful hands holding the teacup, but the hands looked tense. Despite his determination to have this discussion, John didn’t appear to be enjoying it much. This triggered Paul’s empathy, and his defenses lowered a tiny bit. “I guess this is surprising to me only in one way. Of course I would never reject or abandon you, John, but the bit that surprises me is that you think you haven’t given it ‘all’ to me. I think you have given ‘all’ to me, many times.” Paul stopped for a moment and then said with gentle humor, “Sometimes you’ve given me too much.”

John chuckled at Paul’s surprising response. He had not expected this. “You think I’m not holding anything back from you?” His voice reflected his incredulity.

Paul thought more about it and said, “Well, it would be more accurate to say that you give me all, then you take it back, then you give me all, then you take it back. I never know from one month to the next whether I’m ‘in’ or whether I’m ‘out.’ But I always figured you were doing it out of fear, and not out of malice. Still, hard to live with at times.” Paul allowed his eyes to meet John’s as he finished this expose. “It may go a ways to explaining why I have what you call ‘armor.’”

John was struck silent by this wise observation: but not for long. “Here we are again, at ground zero,” he said. “I’m afraid of how much I love you, and so I put you off. You can’t rely confidently on my love, so you pull back. We’ve discussed this so many times, Paul, and though we understand it intellectually, we appear unable to break the cycle. I want to try to change that. Isn’t 37 years of dysfunction long enough?”

Paul, reluctantly, felt himself drawn to the discussion. He couldn’t completely rid himself of the unsettling image of snake charmer and dancing cobra, but he leaned ever so slightly more in John’s direction nevertheless.

He’s finally engaged, John thought, relief running through him.

“I think I know what you mean,” Paul said in a conciliatory tone. “But the ‘armor’ bit - I think I’d be like that anyway, even without a reason. I need a space of my own. It’s important to me.”

John was thrilled at this modest opening. It was something John had always known, and although he and Paul had often joked about “Paul Land,” and his tendency to float off on his own, they had never really had a serious but calm and direct discussion about it. “I don’t want to take that ‘space’ away, Pud,” John responded. “I feel hurt though when you put it between us when I’m trying to be close to you. I mean, sometimes, you drift off into one of your moods, and I can tell it is driven by something inside yourself - a need to be alone, or maybe it’s your muse demanding attention - and I don’t mind that at all. But at times like these, when I’m trying to talk to you and get close to you, I feel as though you go to your private space to protect yourself from me. That hurts me, because the implication is that I am someone you have to defend against.”

“And so we’re back to our chicken-or-egg situation again,” Paul said, seeing the clear truth in John’s point of view.

“I’ll be the chicken, or I’ll be the egg - I don’t care which. You pick! I want to put down my defenses. I don’t want to push you away any more. Maybe I have to show you that I can do that for a while before you can put down your armor, but I was hoping you would agree to trust me and just try operating without it for a while.” John’s voice was almost messianic in its fervor. 

Paul thought before he spoke. “The hard bit is - I think the behavior is kind of ingrained in me, now. Like it happens without me consciously ordering it. How do you stop habits of a lifetime when you don’t even realize when you’re doing it?”

John nodded enthusiastically in agreement. “Yes! That’s precisely it! But if Fiona were here, she would say we have to be ‘mindful’ of why we are doing things. She’s been nattering on at me to do that for years now.”

Paul’s bark of laughter brightened John’s mood significantly. “I know!” John crowed. “I’m a terrible therapy patient. I intellectually grasp it all, and enthusiastically endorse it, but where I fall to the ground is in the application.”

“So what is this ‘mindfulness’ thing when it’s at home?” Paul asked, his eyes still filled with amusement.

“Well, it always comes up in therapy when I’m saying I don’t know why I did something - usually it’s something hurtful to you. And she will say I shouldn’t concentrate so much on what I did, but rather on why I did it. The ‘why’ is what you have to identify, preferably as soon as you have the thought, you should challenge yourself. ‘Why do you want to say that hurtful thing? What do you expect to gain out of it? Will it really bring you what you want?’ The point is, once you’ve asked yourself the questions, you find you don’t like the answers, and you will not do the hurtful thing.”

“Such as?” Paul asked, intrigued.

“Such as, let’s say I’m hurt by something you’ve said or done. I’ve read something into it that has hurt me. So, my immediate reaction is to respond in kind. I can feel that moment when the words are in my throat. If I could stop myself for a few seconds then, and ask myself, ‘why do you want to say that?’ I can answer, ‘because he hurt me I want to hurt him back.’ So then I should ask myself, ‘What do you expect to gain out of it?’ This answer will be harder to come by. It will be something like, ‘I can’t be seen to be the weak one.’ So then I ask myself, ‘Will it bring you what you want?’ And the truthful answer is - ‘I want to be closer to him, but in fact I am pushing him away.’ So then maybe I will never say those words, because I will realize it is counter-productive. That’s the theory as I understand it,” John concluded.

Paul was impressed, because he never thought he ‘d hear John express such thoughts. Paul himself frequently used this inner questioning method to stop from saying hurtful things when he was hurt or angry. He wasn’t always successful, and when he wasn’t successful his words were particularly hurtful because no one expected that kind of thing from him. But overall, Paul’s problem wasn’t with holding back words. Paul knew his instinctive reaction was to withdraw emotionally from people who had hurt him, or were in danger of hurting him. How can I be ‘mindful’ about that reaction? Paul wondered.

“I think that makes a lot of sense,” is what Paul actually said to John. “But I am usually pretty careful with what I say. When I hurt or insult people with words it is usually completely unintentional, with me just saying a thing too baldly or thoughtlessly.”

“Yeah - you go for the clam up and cold chill routine,” John chuckled. “I swear, sometimes I think you could freeze water with your eyes when you’re angry.”

Paul smiled and accepted the critique. It was fair. “So, how can I be ‘mindful’ about that?” The question was tossed off lightly, but John could see that Paul’s intent was serious, and he appreciated it.

“When you feel yourself pulling away from me because I said or did something mean, just ask the questions. In fact, I’ll ask you the questions, and you answer them!”

Paul had role-played difficult conversational situations with Linda on occasion (usually she was coaching him on how to communicate effectively with John), but he’d never done it with John before. This was a strange day. It was like the other side of the looking glass. Oh well, he liked going off at odd angles. He was willing to play. Okay.

“So why are you pulling away?” John asked.

“Because I was hurt by what you said,” Paul responded awkwardly.

“And what do you hope to gain by it?” John asked.

“...Ummmm... Not to be hurt any more, I guess...” Paul’s voice was uncertain. It felt like the wrong answer, but he couldn’t think of a better one.

“Will it bring you what you want?” John asked. This last question came in the form of an almost somnolent whisper.

Paul lapsed into a deep silence. What does it bring me? The image of a man safely tucked up in his private tower where no one could hurt him briefly flitted across his mind. Is that what he really wanted - complete autonomy? No, what he wanted was to be loved, and not to be hurt by the one he loved.

“No,” Paul said tentatively. “It won’t bring me what I want.” This latter phrase was more confident.

“So there you go. At that moment you could choose to engage with me - even if it means getting angry or making me angrier - instead of pulling away. You could do that, if you tried, couldn’t you?”

Paul let the question linger for a few moments before responding. “I can try,” he said honestly, “but I will probably be manning my defenses before I even realize what I’m doing.”

John laughed. “It’s okay, baby. This is me, remember? You know I’ll point it out to you when it happens. And then you’ll have the choice - whether to either stick through the difficult moment with me, or withdraw from it. It will still be entirely your independent decision.”

As if to punctuate this succinct summary, there was a mighty clash of thunder, and soon rain was pouring down from the heavens in droves. Shrugging, John noticed that the tea had gone cold. He got up, collected Paul’s cup, and headed for the kitchen. “How about some hot chocolate?” He asked.

 

*****

 

The weeks had gone so quickly, so seamlessly, that it was shocking to Paul to wake up one morning and realize there was only one day left of his holiday with John. One eye opened first, and he welcomed the familiar sight of the ceiling fan. A little turn to the right and he could see - both eyes open now - the familiar sight of the balcony door, open, and the familiar sound of rain on the patio and on the tin roof above. Tomorrow morning they’d be on their way back to England. Back to “civilization.” Paul wasn’t sure he would remember how to talk to anyone other than John. What had transpired between them on this holiday had been magical and miraculous. He moved his legs under the sheet, and urged himself to move on to his side so he could face John, who was sleeping peacefully beside him. He stared for several long moments at John’s face. He felt a deep longing inside him. Had he said enough and done enough to show John his love? Paul had a fear that when they got back to England their carefully negotiated and maintained emotional détente would fall victim to the usual relentless routines of their everyday life. Paul had to actively force himself to stop thinking in such a defeatist way. Surely, what they had learned about and given to each other in the last four weeks was enough to sustain them forever!

It was at that moment that John’s eyes flew open. As his pupils focused, John’s face softened. His hand had been resting on the mattress, but now he brought it up to Paul’s cheek and just left it there for a few seconds - a gentle caress. It made Paul smile. And, of course, whenever Paul smiled at him in that warm and intimate way, John involuntarily smiled back. It was a reflexive cause and effect sort of thing.

“Good morning sleepyhead,” Paul said in his deep and catchy early morning voice.

“’Morning,” John said back, winking in a Paul-like imitation.

Not a very ambitious conversation, but all the really important and challenging things had already been said and digested. Now all they had to do was smile at each other, and they knew all was well.

“What’ll it be today, do you think?” Paul finally asked. “The cove? The waterfall? The Vespa and the village? The pool?”

“I vote for The Bed,” John joked. “I think we should have an entire Sex Day. I think we should spend every fucking second in each other’s company, fucking.”

There had been a time when hearing something like this would have filled Paul with anxiety over the fear of being trapped in a corner and possessed. But he asked himself three questions about why he felt that way, and soon he had kicked the anxiety to the curb. “The Bed sounds lovely,” Paul agreed. He turned on his back and engaged in an enormous stretch and yawn.

John laughed. “Very sexy,” John teased. “Especially the yawning part.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint. More in store I’m afraid, because now I have to pee.” Paul announced this to the ceiling, and then pulled himself up out of the bed and headed for the toilet. John could hear the pissing coming from the other room and he laughed. Paul was pissing in a specific rhythm, and obviously doing so to make him laugh. He figured he’d have to match that pissing rhyme spray for spray when it was his turn.

Not surprisingly, this line of thought led John to consider the songs they had written together in the last 3 weeks. They’d finished 6, and John was very excited about them - especially Paul’s. The beautiful man was unfolding for him, like a flower on time lapsed camera. This was a fulfilling closeness with Paul that he had felt many times before, but this time without the fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop. The other shoe had dropped, and nothing bad had happened. 

As Paul climbed back into bed, John said, “My turn.”

“I’d like to see you top mine,” Paul called after him cheerfully as he headed for the loo.

“You’re a bloody amateur compared to me!” John responded, leaning against the doorjamb and leering dramatically at Paul.

“Don’t know about that John,” Paul said calmly. “I’m the rhythm section in this duet after all.”

John laughed and soon proved that Paul was right. He wasn’t able to piss to an original rhythm, and found himself repeating Paul’s arrangement, but without nearly as much vivace.

Back in bed, he decided a cuddle was called for. “Come ‘ere my little chickadee,” John urged with a W.C. Fields accent.

Paul giggled as he scooted over. Soon he was wrapped in John’s arms: just where he most loved to be. “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Paul crooned in his best Mae West intonations. 

John leaned in until his mouth was poised over Paul’s ear. “I’m just glad to see you,” he whispered.

Paul’s left arm found it’s way around John’s back as John leaned in to capture Paul’s mouth. Paul allowed the invasion with no sign of hesitance, and it thrilled him sexually - this knowledge that John needed and wanted him so much. It was a bit like being...ravished...although he had heard women found ravishment to be an unpleasant sensation, and likened it to being raped. Paul, however, found the sensation to be overwhelmingly a positive one when it was John doing it to him. Slowly, ever so slowly - as if falling in slow motion backwards on to a cloud - Paul felt John pushing him on to his back. John was on top, and he clearly intended to stay there throughout the proceedings. Paul adjusted his expectations accordingly, in perfect harmony with John’s preference.

John was again intoxicated by the feel and scent of Paul’s body. It was a heady mix for John, who had never once tired of it. The beautiful and expressive face, the long, arms and elegant hands, the thin hips but well defined ass, the impossibly long and hairy legs, and even the remarkably high arched feet - he was just an incredible package of perfect body parts, and it never truly felt to John as though he was worthy of being the one entitled to it. He felt a little guilty about it, actually. It was as if he had taken one look at the 15 year-old school boy and shouted ‘mine!’ at the top of his lungs, beating off all comers, and thus had claimed the precious prize for his own before anyone else could get a try in. Of course, now he had to share him with Linda, as over the years he had to share him with dozens if not hundreds of other women, but Paul was his in a way that he wasn’t anyone else’s. John was his only male lover, and John was certain that Paul had never allowed anyone else to possess him physically the way he was allowing John to do. It was an exhilarating power, and John gave in to its urges completely.

His finger was already probing the ‘forbidden’ area. This was the secret place that was his alone. Well, it was Paul’s too, but Paul’s use of it was far less erotic than John’s. John chuckled as he felt Paul jerking with pleasure. He inserted another finger, and actively began to tease Paul with swipes in the direction of his prostate gland. He was elated by how Paul seemed to squirm in a mixture of frustration and anticipation as John’s fingers probed in the secret place. 

Paul groaned deep in his throat. His arms were now balanced on John’s hipbones, and he tightened his hold as he felt the probing and pressure of John’s penis on his rectum. The urge was primordial: to join and thrust together to create...something. If they were a man and woman, presumably the goal would be to create a new life. But they weren’t a man and a woman, so apparently human beings needed and wanted sex for reasons other than procreation, no matter what religion said. Was it a desire to not be alone? Or was it to symbolically merge with another human being? Or was it merely the pure physical ecstasy of the friction caused by the joining and thrusting? Who the fuck knew, and - more to the point - who the fuck cared?

John felt the pressure on the whole of his cock as he entered Paul. It was as if Paul’s body was hugging him from all angles. It was a blind, squeezing sensation that made John’s eyes roll back in his head and his toes curl. In a state of mindless bliss he began to pump.

The pumping hurt on one level, but it gave Paul pleasure all the same. It was John inside him, and it was an extremely trusting and intimate sharing. He didn’t know how to give more of himself to John, unless it was by dropping his ‘armor’, whatever the fuck that was. Paul didn’t care at that point, because he wanted to feel, see and hear John’s passion for him. It was an unending source of joy to Paul - John’s passion. He knew he would never tire of it, for so long as John expressed it. In the moment, though, he was holding his own thighs up with his hands, and breathing as deeply as he could manage in order to manage and meet John’s thrusts without too much pain. He wanted to be closer...closer...

“Ahhh fuck fuck fuck fuck!” John’s choked voice broke the morning air.

Closer...closer...and soon Paul had that sensation - the feeling one felt when just on the verge of an orgasm. One balanced on that tipping point before either falling or plunging off. Paul felt himself plunging... “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh...” He was so fucking grateful to plunge again, to feel that overpowering wave of pleasure... “Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!” and then it was overwhelming him. He felt the waves, one after the other, and then he felt the wetness running down his butt cheeks to the sheets below. John had come inside him. For whatever reason this knowledge filled him with even a greater glow. There was something about having John spend his seed on him that increased Paul’s sense of pride. This was a side of himself that he would never fully look in the face when sober, awake and not in flagrante. It was a side of himself that he kept deeply buried, and reserved for moments when he was lost in John’s arms, and no one but John could see or hear him. Then - and only then - was when he let this strange, enthusiastically submissive version of himself loose.

John was spent. He fell over on his side, and then on to his back. He emitted a huge “phew” kind of sound, and bent his knees so the flats of his feet were on the mattress. His breathing was uneven, but slowly sorted itself out. He felt as though he should say something. Something like, ‘you are the best fuck ever’, but decided it would not be appropriate. Paul already knew he was the best fuck ever. Paul had always had sexual confidence, even when he had no reason whatsoever to have it. Paul didn’t need to hear those words, because he knew that bestowing his favors on John was a gift. John was grateful for the gift. How did he rate? It really didn’t matter to John; he was going to keep Paul’s favors to himself, fair or unfair. 

 

*****

 

The suitcases were packed and lined up on the driveway. John leaned against the wall regarding them. He was waiting for their ride and feeling sorry for himself. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was to leave this private and wonderful place. Paul was inside, doing his anal-retentive checks of all the drawers, and making sure the water faucets were shut down, and the appliances were all clean and turned off. He was checking the windows to make sure they were secure, and he had even activated the automatic pool cover and waited until it had closed completely. He had turned off the ceiling fans, and emptied the refrigerator and cupboards of all the perishables. The trash bags were stacked up neatly along the wall on the driveway, for the caretaker to pick up.

Paul was soon next to John. “Ready luv?” He asked softly. He could tell that John was exorcising his depression about leaving with silent pouting, whereas he - Paul - had exorcised his depression by fevered work and checks.

John sighed deeply and nodded in the affirmative as the car arrived. He watched without energy as the driver loaded their luggage into the car trunk. When the time came, he stepped into the car, and leaned back in the seat, feeling bereft. Soon, Paul was slipping in beside him from the other door. The car idled for a few moments as the driver set his gears.

“Have we got everything?” John asked in a bored tone, trying to rally his mood.

“Well, not everything mate,” Paul responded cheerfully.

John turned to face Paul, confused by his answer.

Paul winked at him broadly and said, “I’ve left all my armor behind.”


	82. Chapter 82

The plane landed at Luton at dusk. John had always found dusk to be a particularly depressing time of the day, especially in England. He had been fighting off a depression ever since they’d left their paradise. The only thing that had sustained him on the trip was what Paul had said when they had left: ‘I left my armor behind.’ God, how he hoped that was true. Only time and events would tell.

Paul was annoyingly cheerful with the crew of the private plane, and gracious with the landing crew. John nodded a lot, trying not to bring the mood down. Soon they were in a car, and were being driven back to London. Then they’d be back at Cavendish - and Paul would be back in Linda’s arms while John would be back in his lonely bed, remembering the warmth of the hidey-hole in Costa Rica. John thought for one crushing moment that it was unbearable. The duality of his life was haunting him - the one part true and real and satisfying, the other part a fraud, empty and lonely. He could fill his “fraud” life with his friends and hobbies, but ultimately it was only a way to divert his thoughts until he felt real again. Why had life seemed at least bearable before, before the holiday, but now - afterwards - the prospect seemed so unbearable? Metaphorically shaking a finger at himself, John knew he was going to have to put a bold foot forward. He had promised Paul that he would not throw up walls against him any more under any circumstances, and he supposed it started with accepting the reality of his circumstances: Paul was married to Linda, and he would remain married to Linda until one of them died. He owed it to Paul to grin and bear it. He could still have a better life having Paul 50% of the time so long as during that 50%, he had 100% of Paul’s love and attention. And if Paul was really leaving the armor behind, having 100% of Paul 50% of the time was now a distinct possibility.

 

*****

 

Linda had spent the last four weeks doing things she loved. In truth, she had found the break fairly painless and even fun. She had spent one week in the south of France with her children Mary, Stella and James, and one week in South Hampton, New York, with her son plus her sister and other family members, and one week up at the Scottish farm with Heather and her newest boyfriend, tending to a kitchen garden and taking long horseback rides in the hills. This last week she had spent in London, by herself, trying new recipes, watching movies on the television with her son, and curled up on the light blue velvet sofa reading books. All in all, it was a refreshing time on her own, and while she had missed Paul (he was easy to miss; he was such a lively and absorbing presence), she had enjoyed that time.

She had done a great deal of thinking while Paul had been gone. She had come to a momentous decision: she realized that she didn’t really resent “sharing” Paul with John. Once she looked at it objectively, she had come to the conclusion that her marriage to Paul had probably been bulletproofed by his relationship with John. As long as John had been alive on this earth, Paul would have longed after him, and this would have eventually led to a moment of truth between Paul and her. Instead, John had been added to their ménage, and thus Paul had no need and certainly no desire to leave her. He could have it all. Meanwhile, Paul’s intensity of need - both emotional and sexual - could easily have worn her down over time. But sharing that burden with John had made it possible for her to enjoy her time with Paul even more. In short: John’s presence in their marriage had made their marriage stronger, and it also gave her the opportunity to have some time to herself. All in all, it wasn’t a bad situation at all. How silly of her to ever have thought otherwise. Why had she spent so much time stewing over such meaningless things as ‘who has the most influence over Paul?’ Did it matter? She had plenty of influence over Paul, and who could really measure the difference between her influence and John’s? It was a ridiculous thing to fret over. She was determined that once ‘the boys’ got back, she was going to approach their three-way relationship with a new sense of purpose. She was also determined to work on conquering the last remnants of her girlish insecurities. 

It was with these new resolves echoing in her brain that Linda headed toward the hallway to greet her husband, as he called out her name.

 

*****

 

John had asked to be dropped at his home. He had no desire to watch the heartwarming reunion of man and wife. Paul had been concerned and solicitous, following him into the vestibule of John’s house.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me to Cavendish?” Paul had asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Will you be okay alone? Should I drop by later?” 

John was tempted for a few evil moments to say yes, but he didn’t want to put Paul in the middle again. “No, Linda and the kids will want you to themselves after all this time,” John said bravely. He had to smile as he thought back on it: Paul had given him a classic double take, and had even looked a little suspicious of John’s motives. John had laughed and said, “This is the new me, without armor. Remember? I’m trying to be altruistic, so get your cute ass out of here immediately before I snap back to my old self!”

Paul had seemed relieved by John’s rallying humor, and had laughed and leaned forward with pursed lips, begging for a kiss. He had then breezed out of the house, and soon the car was pulling away. John had wandered around the house turning on lights and unpacking his things, sorting out laundry and making grocery lists. He felt as if part of him had been left back in Costa Rica, but perhaps it was just this ‘armor’ he was always going on about. Chuckling at his own in-joke, John pulled some of Linda’s famous lentil soup out of the freezer so that it could defrost. He felt as though a light supper would be best. He then called ‘round to the local bakery and asked for them to deliver some items, including some brown bread. That was dinner sorted.

It was with a spark of excitement that he suddenly remembered the Lennon & McCartney Trust. He grabbed some paper and a pen, and settled himself in his sitting room with a hot cup of tea. It was chilly even though it was June. John had grown accustomed to the humidity of the rainforest. He cast his gaze on to the fireplace, and wondered if he should try to start a fire. But no - that was Paul’s specialty. Fookin’ Boy Scout. Where the hell was he when he was needed, anyway?

 

*****

 

Paul and Linda were snuggled up in bed. Paul was feeling guilty. It hadn’t escaped his notice that he hadn’t missed Linda while they were apart. Well, of course he knew he would see her in a few weeks, and he had been thoroughly distracted by John and all his sex toys and the cove and the waterfall... The memory of some of those sex toys caused him to blush. His mind began to wander...

Another jolt of guilt brought him back from paradise, and into this bed with Linda. “Paul? Did you hear me?” Linda was asking.

“Ummm? Yes?” He asked.

“I asked you a question. Did you hear me?” Linda’s eyes were amused, not angry, much to Paul’s relief.

“I think I might have drifted off...it was a long travel day. What did you ask?” Paul figured a little fib wouldn’t hurt either of them.

Linda shook her head. “It’s hardly worth repeating. I just asked if you had a good time.”

“Oh! Yes, very, thanks.” Paul felt awkward. Guilty and awkward. This was a difficult position. Say too much, and Linda is upset. Say too little, and Linda is upset. How much was too much, and how little was too little? Life was so fuckin’ complicated!

Linda waited for more, but Paul didn’t seem to be volunteering anything. Of course she was curious, but she didn’t want to sound too pushy. “Where’d you go?” She asked idly. 

Oh dear. What can I say? “Aaaaa...we went to the Caribbean.” Was that generic enough? Was that too much? Too little?

Linda was thinking, the Caribbean? Not Jamaica! Not Bermuda! She and the kids had spent many a holiday there with him when the kids were young. 

Paul figured that Linda’s silence connoted dissatisfaction with his answer. He needed to add a little more detail. “I’ve never been to this place before,” he said, “and it was very...relaxing.”

Linda was relieved that Paul hadn’t taken John to one of “their” places. She didn’t have the nerve to ask more. In fact, she was annoyed with herself for so soon forgetting her new outlook on her marriage. Still, she was curious. Of course she was.

 

*****

 

A few weeks later, John came over to Cavendish to have dinner with the McCartneys. The intervening weeks had been difficult for John, because he had been advocating with Paul for a more equal distribution of Paul’s time between the two households. One night they’d had an argument about Cavendish. 

“It’s like you’re fuckin’ addicted to that house! I don’t understand it! This house is a beautiful home, I don’t know why you don’t want to spend more time here. You don’t think of this house as your home. It wasn’t supposed to be like that!”

Paul had chuckled at that point.

“What!” John had demanded.

“It reminds me of when you wrote those lyrics about me and Jane Asher. ‘That house took my love away, though it’ll regret it someday, this house wants you back again...”

“I never wrote those lyrics about you and Jane!” John objected, jumping right in to the old argument. (And of course, Paul was correct - John had written the lyrics as a kind of Jane Asher protest; and Paul had sat down immediately and written that heart-breaking music. But John had never admitted this to Paul, even though Paul had sussed it out immediately.) 

“If you say so,” Paul said, chuckling.

“And enough distraction! We’re talking about the unfair distribution of your living situation. I want you to live here part time - really live here - equal to the time you spend at Cavendish.”

“John, you can’t be jealous of a house. Really, it’s too stupid.” Paul was rolling his eyes. This was almost comical. 

John exploded. “It’s not funny! I’m serious! I want equal time. I demand it. I haven’t been clear with you about what I wanted in the past, because I was too afraid of rejection and too proud. But I promised you I wouldn’t hold back anymore! Why do you think I was always going off and doing stupid things? I think I was subconsciously reacting to the fact that you weren’t really giving me a full 50%!”

Paul’s eyes were wide. He’d never looked at John’s infidelities in this way before. He could actually see John reacting to a perceived injury in that way. It made a lot of sense. But Paul was reluctant to change his living habits. He was so comfortable at Cavendish, and in truth Cavendish had been his home even before he was with Linda. It felt like his favorite old dressing gown and slippers combined. It was hard for him to give up that comfort in order to assuage John’s insecurities: insecurities that Paul thought were silly. In truth, Linda had never demanded that Paul stay more at Cavendish; it had been Paul who preferred Cavendish, and never felt much at home anywhere else. And John’s house...well...John wanted the truth from him, and he had promised to give it. 

“John, I can never feel at home here,” Paul finally said.

John was silenced. He sat down abruptly. His mouth was open and he wasn’t sure he could breathe. He finally managed a gasp: “Why?”

Paul hadn’t realized what his comment had sounded like to John. He was momentarily confused by John’s shocked reaction. He ran the words back through his mind and then he wanted to hit himself in the head. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Paul said, leaning forward and looking desperately sorry. “What I meant to say was, this place is too posh for me. It’s like visiting a 5-star hotel. I enjoy visiting, but I can’t live here. Cavendish feels comfortable to me. It isn’t about Linda or the kids or you. It’s about how Cavendish makes me feel. It makes me feel grounded and safe. For me, it’s like the one constant in this crazy life.” 

John took this in and, while relieved to hear Paul reassure him that his living preferences were not favoritism for Linda over him, he still felt bereft that Paul could not feel comfortable and safe in the home he had created. He was trying not to cry. But then he asked himself: why? If he wanted to cry, he should cry. He had no desire to hide his feelings any more. That was the deal he had cut with Paul in Costa Rica. As soon as he gave birth to that thought, he felt the tears falling, and then his face fell into his hands and he began to sob.

Paul had been horrified. He had jumped up and run to sit next to John. He had put his arms around him and began to whisper in John’s ear. “Johnny, don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I never should have said those things! I always say the wrong things! That’s why I try not to say anything at all.”

Even in his momentary release of emotion, John could be amused by this apology. He chuckled. “Baby,” John said, putting his arm around Paul’s waist, “I know you still feel guilty about that thing you said about your mother when she died, and the thing you said to Astrid about Stu when he died, but everyone knew what you really meant. You don’t say things badly. You just cut to the chase when you’re upset. I’m glad you told me how you really feel. It makes me cry, but I’d rather know the truth, you know?” 

Paul didn’t really understand, but he nodded as though he did. He was just glad that John wasn’t crying anymore. 

In the end, Paul had agreed to spend an equal amount of time with John at his house. It was a sacrifice for Paul, but he knew, deep down, that John was due one. Now the only problem was explaining it to Linda...

So now, some days later, John sat at the McCartney dinner table. He faced James, and Linda and Paul faced each other on the shorter ends of the rectangular table. Polite conversation played all around the edges, but psychologically John and Paul were connected. John wanted to discuss Paul’s living arrangements with Linda. He wanted the three of them to discuss it like sane adults, and work out a schedule where neither Linda nor John would reign triumphant or feel ostracized. He thought it would be easier on Paul if the three negotiated an arrangement together. Paul, of course, was reluctant to do this. He wanted to discuss it privately with Linda, but felt that his new deal with John meant that he couldn’t keep his loved ones in compartments anymore. He felt very much like a condemned man eating his last dinner. 

After James had gone to his room, Linda suggested they step into the sitting room and have an after dinner drink. John said instead, “I think we should sit around the kitchen table.” 

“Oh?” Linda asked, surprised.

“Yeah, there’s something serious we all three need to talk about.”

Paul sucked in his breath. Bull in a china shop. That’s what John was.

“There is?” Linda asked, suddenly worried. She looked to Paul in sudden alarm. “Paul?”

Paul went to her and put his arm around her. “It’s nothing world shaking, Lin, don’t worry.”

Linda was still worried, but headed for the kitchen along with John and Paul. Her hands were shaking as she placed hot coffee - not alcohol - in front of John. Surprisingly, John grabbed her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. She looked down at him, caught his eye, and he gave her a silly grin. This made her laugh, and she felt very much better.

John said, “Linda, this is my idea. If it sucks, don’t blame Paul. He was totally against it.” 

Linda looked at Paul but this time her eyes held amusement along with the curiosity. Paul shook his head and rolled his eyes as if to say, I can’t take him anywhere.

“I’ve been leaning on Paul pretty hard in the last few weeks, ever since we got back from...our holiday,” John began. He had almost said ‘Costa Rica’ and was grateful he had stopped himself in time. “It’s something that I should have demanded a long time ago.”

“’Demanded?’” Linda repeated, amazed by the word. It really wasn’t in her vocabulary. 

“Yeah!” John said back pugnaciously. “I was too proud, and too afraid Paul would tell me to pound sand!”

Linda sat back. “Please, go on,” she said, even more curious now.

“Lin...” Paul started. He wanted to take some kind of control of the conversation. “John thinks I spend too much of my time at Cavendish.”

“I don’t ‘think’ it Paul, I ‘know’ it. It’s a fact,” John interrupted. 

“So? This concerns me how?” Linda was a little pissed off, because she felt that Paul might be ganging up on her with John.

“I have asked Paul to live half time with me across the mews, and he can live the other half with you here. He has agreed.”

“I agreed to discuss it with Linda,” Paul corrected. 

“And here we are, discussing it with Linda,” John said, just as tensely.

“I haven’t really said anything yet,” Linda pointed out logically. 

“So what do you think about the idea, then?” John asked expansively, leaning back in his chair lazily.

“I think it is entirely up to Paul. If he wants to live half the time with you, and half the time with me, then that is what he should do. In fact, I thought that was our original deal.” Linda had leaned back in her chair and had crossed her arms. 

John said, “That’s what I think too. Paul?” 

Paul was shooting arrows at John through lowered eyes. He gained control over his emotions, and then said, “Well, John, I think that I have had a tendency to do what is easy and comfortable for me, and that is to gravitate towards Cavendish.”

Linda tried not to smile too smugly at this remark.

“But, I see your point. Our original deal was 50/50, and I think I need to live up to that. Linda, how do you feel about it?” Paul felt as though his words were scripted. He felt a bit like a fool. 

Linda looked at him, and there was a certain amount of disappointment in her eyes. But she said, “Paul, I would never tie you down. I want you to always be exactly where you want to be, every minute of your life.” Take that John, she thought to herself. 

John heard the rebuke in Linda’s tone, but refused to be provoked by it. He was getting what he wanted - finally - and she could try to shame him all she wanted, it wouldn’t change the fact that John had won this skirmish. “Great. Then it’s decided. So, how will it look? Paul - do you prefer every other week? Every other night?”

“Oh God no, not every other night. I’d be living out of suitcases.” Paul was appalled at the thought.

“You wouldn’t need to pack, Paul, because you would have a full wardrobe in both places. You have a wardrobe across the mews, you know.” John was not going to let Paul wiggle out of this. 

“Every other week sounds better to me,” Paul said, a definite pout on his face. “What do you think, Linda?”

“Well, let’s try it, shall we? If it isn’t what we want, we can always modify it.” She was actually enjoying herself now. The fact that this wasn’t terrifying her was a great comfort to her. She no longer had a deep dark fear of losing Paul. She had gotten to that point where, if he didn’t want to be with her, she didn’t want to be with him. It was a far more comfortable place to be, she thought, although a tiny part of her mind mourned the loss of the dogged devotion she had once felt towards her husband. 

Paul was watching Linda with stress lining his face. That was too easy. She didn’t put up any kind of a fuss. Does she even care?

“I think that’s a great idea,” John said, holding his coffee cup aloft in salute. “You finish off this week, Lin, and I’ll take next week.”

“Wait a minute!” Paul interjected. “I’m not a football to be bounced back and forth!”

John laughed, and even Linda was amused. She said to John, “It did sound rather proprietary, John.”

“Okay, soooo, Paul. What do you think - next week you live with me? You’ll need to move some things over to my house to be more comfortable I’d imagine...”

“That didn’t sound like much of a question John,” Paul said, folding his arms across his chest. He was pouting again.

“Because the answer is pre-ordained, my love.” 

 

*****

 

A few weeks later, John and Paul ambled into the studios at EMI. They confronted the platoon of cameramen setting up equipment to film some recording footage of the four Beatles before heading in the direction of Studio 2. It felt weird. 

Ringo had arrived first, much to his embarrassment. He didn’t want to look like the most eager, but apparently he was. This bummed him out. He was relieved when John and Paul arrived just moments later. The three men greeted each other with hugs all around. 

“So good old George is playing hardest to get, is he?” John joked theatrically to the room at large. “Typical.”

“He’s only a little late, and he has the farthest to come,” Paul said soothingly. He didn’t want any undercurrents circulating when George arrived: they had cameramen and soundmen and god knows who and what else watching them. Instead he headed for the piano. “I think we should just start warming up individually, and when George gets here, he gets here.”

John and Ringo exchanged an amused glance: Mr. Bossypants in charge again. It felt good; like old times.

George arrived 20 minutes later, having made his point. He strode in slowly, as if he was in no particular hurry. John mumbled something under his breath, and Ringo looked anxiously at John. But Paul was oblivious; he was lost in the playing of some chords on the piano. These were new chords, as he had an idea for a song: a song about fame. He was going to suggest that all four of them work on the lyrics and arrangement together. They could add that song to the four they had arranged while at George’s house a few months earlier. 

George had decided he was going to try to get along with John. And, in order to get along with John, he would have to be pleasant to Paul. There was no other way around it. In truth, George had been pleasantly surprised by Paul’s behavior at Friar Park, and how he had tried so hard to accommodate George’s preferences. He had decided that it was time for him to stop “punishing” Paul for the failure to support his music in the late ‘60s. At some point, it was important to move on, if only just to keep the peace. George approached Paul at the piano, since John seemed to be deliberately ignoring him as he played chords on his guitar.

“Hey, Paul,” George said softly.

Paul jumped in surprise, and then his face lit with delight.

George could not ignore this. Paul had shown his love for him so clearly, that it could not be ignored. 

“George!” Paul cried. He pushed the piano bench away and jumped up, holding his arms out and moving in for a hug. George obliged, and moved in. There was something solid and reassuring about Paul’s hug, George thought. No matter what craziness might be afoot, Paul’s hug was an anchor. It held everything together. Paul whispered in George’s ear: “I’ve missed you - I’ve really missed you.” 

George was touched by this unusual show of emotion from Paul. At least to George it seemed unusual - he didn’t know how much Paul had changed - how he had grown, and matured, and learned how to express his feelings in positive ways. This confession by Paul filled George with gratitude and love. It was easy to be mad at Paul and all of his cavalier talents when he was not in the room; but once George was in the same room with Paul, it was impossible to be angry or bitter. “I’ve missed you too,” George said back.

Paul had decided he was going to follow Declan McManus’s advice and give George the benefit of the doubt when it came to his reaction to John and Paul’s relationship. If they just worked together and kept their personal relationship out of the studio, then maybe George could find his way back to trusting them as friends. John had given in to Paul’s blandishments, and agreed not to start any provocations. But he didn’t agree to mind his tongue if George made any snide remarks about their love life. Paul supposed that was the best that he could hope for given the volatile nature of the John/George relationship at the moment. Paul didn’t care if they argued about music, religion or politics, but he didn’t want any more poison to be spread about his relationship with John. That poison would erode all hope of reconciliation, Paul knew, so it was to be avoided at all cost. What’s more, he remained convinced that George wasn’t really against it; George had just felt hurt and left out, and so his comments were a way of striking back. 

“Paul has an idea about a song we can all work on together,” John announced as soon as George had finished tuning his guitar. 

“Oh? Is it already written then?” George asked.

John ignored the implied insult. “Actually, he has some music, and an idea for a theme: fame. That’s all. I think it is a great idea. We can start from scratch.”

“And if you don’t like the music, we can change that, too,” Paul jumped in. “There’s no magic to it. Maybe something else will be better.” He smiled warmly at George to show him no hurt feelings, and George, a little ashamed, smiled sheepishly back. 

“Actually, that’s a good idea for a song,” George agreed. “Fame has turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. I’d like to express my thoughts on that.”

Ringo was relieved, and suddenly felt cheerful and encouraged. Looks like everyone was trying his hardest to remain civil. 

The four men had already forgotten they were being filmed. In fact, they had thought someone would tell them when the filming started. The camera techniques had improved in the 26 years since Let It Be. They were far less intrusive. In fact, it was the boom that gave it away. Ringo noticed it moving over his drum set first. 

“Hey! Are you filming us?” He was quite angry.

The young director halted the filming with a quick ‘cut’, and said, “Yes.”

“You need to warn us first!” Ringo said angrily. 

John laughed. He turned to the director and said in a snide voice, “You’re a sneaky bastard, aren’t you?” 

“I thought that was the point,” the director said defensively. “That we were to record the four of you working together.”

“It’s a brand new song,” Paul said in his familiar calming and diplomatic voice. “We’re a bit embarrassed to have people filming this bit. Later, when we’re more sure where we’re going with it, we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” John said in support. “We don’t want to trot out any stupid ideas in front of a camera. Let us work our way through the shit ideas before you start filming us!”

George laughed. “Amen to that!” He concluded.

Seeing that he was surrounded by Beatle unanimity, the director gestured to his camera and soundmen to turn off their machines, and they all straggled out of the studio with their tails between their legs. George had followed them and then closed the doors behind them and locked them out. 

“I think we’re alone now,” Paul began to sing, playing the chords to the Tommy James & the Shondells song from 1968. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” This impromptu serenade caused Paul’s three compatriots to laugh. 

Now the four Beatles were alone in the studio, with only the studio engineers shut up in the control room. Paul explained his thoughts, and played his prepared chords. “I thought we could just write it together - lyrics, and any changes to the music - the middle eight. What do you think?” 

John stared at Paul with affection. Paul would ever be a hopeful, pleasing soul, and - when John gave it a moment-longer’s thought - he supposed it was one of the reasons why he loved Paul so, despite the fact that he was often annoyed by this same quality. Of course, the man was no saint. As soon as George and Ringo rose up on their hind legs and showed some outrage and independence, Paul’s face would no doubt collapse in a kind of angry but bewildered frustration. The problem with being hopeful and pleasing with human beings was, they kept confounding your generosity with their stubbornly independent behavior. Still, John had always been both bemused and fond of the fact that Paul’s initial approach to everything was hopeful. 

They had worked steadily for several hours, and at least had locked down the music, and figured out the middle eight. The lyrics still needed a lot of work, and they still had to work out the details of their instrument parts, but they had a good idea of where they were going. Afterwards, they decided to enjoy a little break. They sat around drinking tea and talking about inconsequential matters for about 30 minutes until John said,

“I guess it’s time to open the gates to the Germanic hordes.”

“I’ll let ‘em in,” George announced. He walked to the studio door, unlocked it, and said to the director’s assistant waiting outside with just the right amount of disinterested sangfroid, “You people can come in now if you like.” 

“Try not to show off too much now that they’re back again,” John said in a loud stage whisper to Ringo, as the cameramen came back in the room. 

Ringo said, “I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything.” 

Without further ado, the four musicians began to work their way through the beginnings of the song. They studiously ignored the cameras, and focused instead on their parts. And thus their first day in the studios passed smoothly and pleasantly. 

As Paul drove home, John said “That went surprisingly well.”

Paul said, “I really enjoyed myself. George and Ringo are such great musicians, and we all really understand each other.”

Paul reflexively turned on Cavendish and headed toward “home.” John cleared his throat, and Paul realized what he had done. He smiled sheepishly at John. “Sorry,” he said, as he drove past Cavendish, made a left, and then another left into the mews behind John’s...er...their house.


	83. Chapter 83

“The Beatles Are Recording Together at Abbey Road!” Read the garish tabloid headline. Accompanying the story, written in that amateurish breathless way that all tabloid stories are written, replete with over-the-top adjectives, misspellings, and split infinitives, were a few blurry photos of George and Ringo arriving separately at Abbey Road Studios, and John and Paul spilling out of a single car arriving at Abbey Road Studios. The unnecessarily obvious caption under the photo of John and Paul arriving said, “John and Paul arrived and departed together in the same car.”

John was chuckling over this as he looked through the sordidly written article in the studio. He showed the caption to Ringo and said, “They make it sound almost seditious, that Paul and I should arrive and depart in the ... wait for it... same car!”

Ringo laughed, but then said more seriously, “Well, they’re afraid to write that you’re a couple, so they’re going to hint boldly at it with every chance you give them.”

John did a slight double take. He regarded his old friend for a few moments and then said, “It’s a game Paul and I are playing. Too bad the stakes are real.”

Ringo put a comforting hand on John’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter,” he said warmly. “Funnily enough, I suspect Beatles fans would rather have the two of you together this way, than apart any other way.”

John smiled. “That may be so, but there are other people who would be hurt by it...”

“The kids...” Ringo finished.

“And Linda,” John added. “Although she’s tougher than all of us combined. I think she’ll handle it just fine if it ever really hits the fan. But Paul is understandably protective of her.”

Ringo nodded. “Fame. The ultimate double edged sword.”

Paul and George were across the studio; Paul was listening to George’s proposed lead in riff. They silently exchanged chords, heads together, both noticing simultaneously - as if it were obvious - the almost indiscernible differences between this note and that. “That one,” Paul said softly as George had thought the same thing. They moved on to the next musical phrase.

The cameramen had already gotten their film of the Beatles writing songs and working out the arrangements and recording them - at least, they had gotten enough of such film as the Beatles deemed appropriate - and so they had been banished until the group was ready to perform the songs they had recorded. The Beatles had finished the song about fame, and were working on another new song - a sixth new song. They agreed that six was a nice round number for an extended play release. Three cuts on each side.

John continued to read the tabloid article:

“The four Beatles are back in the recording studio working on new material for their upcoming documentary series which they call ‘The Beatles Anthology.’ Sources say that the former mop tops have written and are recording new material, and there are rumors that the group may be recording a new album. News of a possible Beatles reunion is creating chaos outside of the famous Abbey Road studios, where crowds of fans surround the building in hopes of a glimpse of their idols.”

John shook his head. “Idols.” He couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to idolize him. He’d just barely survived Beatlemania by the skin of his teeth, and had found himself face down in the mud in public enough times to wonder at the fact that people could still consider him an ‘idol.’ He had tried numerous times, in interviews and in personal interactions with fans met in the street, to strip the gauze from their eyes and make them see the ‘real’ him - a very flawed human being. But each and every time he had done this, it seemed that his ‘fans’ idolized him all the more! It was absurd. He only really had one secret left that the whole world didn’t know in full. He wondered if that secret would be the one disclosure that could actually make his fans stop idolizing him. Ringo apparently didn’t think so, but John was not so sure. He almost hoped Ringo was wrong, because being idolized was an unrelenting weight around his neck.

At teatime, they stopped for a break, and had the tea and cakes brought to them. They preferred to stay cooped up in Studio 2, with the door closed and locked. If they went to the canteen they’d be the sinecure of all eyes, and right now they were cherishing the delicate but growing 4-way exclusive friendship again. George had found it very easy to enjoy working with John and Paul again, now that they weren’t hogging the limelight. It felt very much like the early days, when they’d been one for all and all for one. They could maintain this sense of comradeship while suspended in the bubble of the studio. All four of them worried that the spell would be broken if they stepped outside of it. 

 

*****

 

John and Paul’s manager, Frank, had surrounded himself with the tabloid stories. They were scattered all over the desk in front of him. He was inundated with requests for interviews with not only John and Paul, but also with George and Ringo. He didn’t represent either George or Ringo, and had passed the requests on to the men who did. Still, the main crux of these requests was to set up interviews with John and Paul. Frank was not stupid; he knew what was behind this new rush of requests. The confounded tabloids, who had made not-very-well disguised insinuations about John and Paul’s living arrangements were at the bottom of it. Frank knew that this fact of them arriving in a single car by itself would never have led to so much noise. It was because of all the other rumors and stories about John and Paul’s relationship that had been raised in the past several years, which rumors and stories his clients had thus far successfully brushed aside. Still, Frank had given one quote to the tabloids in response to their insinuations: “John and Paul live across the road from each other, so they come and go in one car. Back in the late ‘60s, when George and John lived close to each other, they, too, came and went to the studio in a single car.” Nothing to see here.

George had snickered when he’d read that comment. ‘So now you’re dragging me into it,” he’d joked to John as they sat across from each other during teatime in the studio.

“Yes, George. Soon our secret will be out,” John responded, yawning theatrically. “We should be proud we’ve managed to keep it quiet all this time.”

George had to laugh. It was ridiculous, really. People were so nasty at base. They simply wanted to find dirt on others, so they could look down on them. You could blame the paparazzi and the reporters, but then, they were only doing it to get paid by the newspapers. You could blame the newspapers, but then, they were only doing it to sell advertising. You could blame the advertisers, but then, they were only placing ads to sell products. In the end you always came back to the same place: the consumers. And the “consumers” were the general public. And, George believed that the general public, at base, had an insatiable need to see other people being dragged down and humiliated. It was both ugly and nasty: tabloid journalism was the modern equivalent of the pillory. A chill went down his spine, and he spoke to break the mood he was in:

“Olivia and I were wondering if you and Paul wanted to come to dinner this Thursday evening.”

John’s eyes moved quickly to George’s face, where they stayed for a few telling moments. A slight, hopeful smile played around John’s lips. “Oh? Is it a special occasion?”

“Yes,” George said firmly. “Or, at least it will be if you both show up.”

“No Ringo?” John asked, a little confused.

“We see Ritchie and Barbara as a couple all the time. No, this time we just thought we’d have you and Paul.” George was forcing himself to sound natural, but he knew that John was unpredictable, and he may not take the offer as the olive branch it was.

John was moved. George still had the capacity to surprise him. “I will need to talk to Paul,” he said finally. “This isn’t my ‘week’ with him.” John’s eyes danced merrily.

George looked back at him with a confused look on his face.

“Linda and I - we take it by turns each week. It would be much easier to say ‘yes’ if it was for Thursday next instead.”

George was shocked. He shouldn’t have been shocked, but he was. This matter-of-fact declaration about the sharing arrangement had shocked George. So much easier to keep a bird’s eye view of the set up rather than this up-close-and-personal view. He covered his shock well, though. “I think Thursday next can be arranged,” he said with a smile. “Shall we tentatively agree on it?”

“That would be nice,” John said sincerely. “Tell Olivia thank you for me.” John suspected Olivia was the moving force behind the invitation, and he was grateful to her for it.

 

*****

 

The press was upset that no news was forthcoming from the Beatles front. No one was talking to them, and no one was hearing any interesting rumors. It was known that a documentary was in process, and that music was being worked on for that documentary, but beyond that it was a news blackout. Of course, tabloid editors are not at all pleased by such treatment, and so naturally they deployed their forces in an attempt to uncover or embroider “news” if none was on offer. The likeliest way to smoke them out was to focus on the John and Paul angle. By now, most tabloid editors were convinced there was something going on there, if for no other reason than John Lennon was never linked with a woman - or any other potential lover. Other than the rumors of the tryst in New York over a year earlier with what might have been a male hooker, there had been no further rustlings about Lennon’s sex life. This had led to the logical conclusion that Lennon had either lost his sex drive entirely, or he was “getting it” secretly from a lover whose identity had to be hidden. Add the proximity of Lennon’s house to McCartney’s - how convenient to have the mews behind their back gates! - well, tabloid editors were used to adding 2 plus ? and getting 4. They did it all the time, and did not waste too much time worrying about it if it eventually turned out that they’d had it all wrong. The consequences never fell on them, after all; the consequences always fell on the unwitting victims.

What’s more, even if their suspicions were wrong, spreading such stories did tend to draw Lennon and McCartney out of hiding long enough for them to disavow the stories. A nice quote from one or both of them denying the rumors would be a good seller for sure. An article or two based on the denials, with the reporter expressing sympathy for Lennon and McCartney would sell a few days’ worth of papers, and then the tabloid could turn around and start spreading the rumors again, just to prolong their profitability.

There was at least one group of tabloid editors who thought George Harrison was a good angle too. They could play up his obvious lack of enthusiasm for the Anthology project and insinuate that there was bad blood between him and Lennon and McCartney. And what if Harrison was so bitter about Lennon & McCartney that he cast aspersions on their masculinity or made jokes about their ‘partnership’? Surely, an “undisclosed source close to George” could be found to quote Harrison joking about their ‘songwriting.’ Yes, these storylines had real potential. 

The saddest part of the whole exercise was how absolutely unconcerned these reporters, photographers and editors were about the fates of their celebrity victims. To them, celebrities were just fodder, pure and simple. Celebrities had wanted fame, and glory, and money, and attention. And they’d received it. And part of the deal was that they offered up their private lives for general consumption. All could be adjudged, and all could be forgiven. It was completely up to the whim of the public, like the thumbs up or down sign from days of old. None of the people working for the tabloids felt any sense of shame or responsibility for causing fellow human beings real pain. To them it was part of the game, and if the unwilling participants didn’t have the stomach for it, they shouldn’t play.

 

*****

 

“If you don’t want to fan the flames, you shouldn’t live together in the same house,” Frank said seriously. He was in the sitting room of John’s house in a comfortable armchair, facing John and Paul who were next to each other on the sofa opposite him.

“They don’t know which house we’re in from the outside,” John said in an irritated voice. “Paul drops me at the front of this house, and he drives around and parks at Cavendish, and he comes through his house and garden and down the mews. They can’t see what happens to us once we go in our front doors.”

Paul was quiet. He was studying his fingernails. Frank had learned that when Paul studied his fingernails he was thinking dark thoughts, and he wondered what those thoughts might be. Frank cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t underestimate the paparazzi, John. They could find a way to climb neighbors’ trees, or hang over walls with long range lenses.”

“And then what would they see? Paul walking down the mews to my house. So what?”

“And not coming out until the next day,” Frank finished, “which is the main point I’m trying to make.”

“Are you suggesting they’d camp out in a fucking tree all night?” John’s voice was incredulous.

“They have been known to do more than that. They do stakeouts in Hollywood, you know. I’m only telling you this for your own good. If you want to go public with your relationship, I’ll be there with you. But if you don’t, if you want to keep it secret, then you will have to be much more careful until after the furor has died down.”

John was frustrated and glared at Paul. “What do you think of all this?” He asked aggressively.

Paul looked up from his fingernails and said, “It’s a bit like being a spy, isn’t it? Creating false trails. Maybe we’ll have signals with window shades and mailbox flags and chalk marks on park benches.”

John and Frank both stared at Paul. They didn’t know if he was joking or if he had ‘lost it’. Paul noticed their concerned expressions and smiled.

“John and I have promised each other that we will see this through. If they’re going to take photos of me walking down the mews and not coming out, I guess we’ll just have to come up with excuses. Most likely it won’t come to that.”

John was secretly delighted. Paul had stuck up for him on this tricky subject at last! It might have been a small movement in the right direction, but it was a wonderful revelation for John. Paul’s hand was resting on his lap, and John reached over, clasped the hand, and squeezed it. 

 

*****

 

“Let’s don’t have an argument about where we are going to perform,” John said in a bored voice. “That’s so 1969.”

Paul laughed. George had been advancing the theory that they shouldn’t perform the songs at all. Ringo had thought they could go back to the rooftop at EMI. Paul thought maybe just performing the songs in the studio - as they recorded them - might be best. 

“So what’s your brilliant idea then?” George asked John laconically.

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again: an insane asylum!” John declared. “But seriously, why don’t we just release the EP, and then do music videos with us performing only two of the songs.”

“Which songs then?” George asked challengingly.

John sighed. “George, this suspicious attitude of yours is getting old.”

“Obviously, we should use the two songs that the four of us wrote together,” Paul quickly interjected, saving the peace.

“That’s the best idea,” Ringo agreed, “Although I still think we should do at least one song up on the roof.”

“We never repeated ourselves before, so why should we start now?” George asked sharply.

“We don’t have to decide now,” Paul said in a conciliatory manner to Ringo. “We can perform the two songs in the studio, and perhaps we’ll decide to do more later.”

John smiled at Paul and shook his head in bemusement. The man was a congenital pleaser.

George, meanwhile, was feeling a little guilty over his slighting remark to Ringo. He rarely felt guilty about making such remarks to John or Paul, but it was out of character for him to do so to Ringo. It was exhausting, really, keeping up his defenses all the time. But he felt as though he needed to do so to ensure that the McLennon Juggernaut didn’t take over the momentum again. George saw his role as keeping those two egos in check by presenting a series of blocking ‘checkmate’ moves. It never occurred to him to make a few advance moves of his own. All of his energy was tied up in containing John and Paul to ensure equality between the four of them.

The tentative decision made, it was time to rehearse. It was strange how, when playing their instruments most of their suspicions and resentments faded into the background. They still knew how to talk to each other fluently with music, if not with actual words. 

 

*****

 

“There are more than the usual amount of paparazzi around,” Linda remarked. She was at the breakfast table with Paul, and had wanted to bring up the subject for some time. The photographers always in wait had become her onramp on to the discussion.

Paul looked up from his newspaper, coffee cup in hand. “It’s the whole Beatles thing,” he said with a smile, and then went back to his paper.

“It’s more than that. They’ve been laying some pretty heavy hints down in the Daily Mail...” Linda pointed out.

“Oh. The Daily Mail. Yeah, that’s a surprise,” Paul joked. “Actually, I’d be disappointed if they didn’t give it a go.” His smile to Linda was meant to reassure; she took it as an avoidance tactic.

“So how long do you think you’ll be able to contain the truth, Paul?” Linda finally got down to brass tacks. She had dropped her casual voice, and had picked up an incisive one.

This, of course, got Paul’s full attention. He put his newspaper down. “Lin?” He asked. His face was a mixture of surprise, injury and fear. Linda softened.

“There’s no use ignoring the elephant in the room, is all I’m saying. I was being interviewed by a reporter on my cookbooks, and off the record she told me that it is openly speculated about in the editorial meetings.”

Paul stared at Linda. His face was inscrutable. He asked mechanically, “What did you say?”

“I told her that I was used to having people whisper behind my back, and I also said that this latest rumor about you and John was far less hurtful to me than when they were calling me a dog and a slag.”

Paul winced. His knuckles were white because he was involuntarily squeezing his fists. “I’ve given you a merry ride, haven’t I Lin?” He finally asked softly. “You would have had a better life without me I think.”

Linda sighed. Sometimes she wondered about this: would life without Paul have been better? She had no way to judge, but one thing she knew for sure was those first 12 years together - those were the best years of her life, even though she had to perform on stage when she really didn’t want to, and even though she was treated as a rock ‘n roll punching bag. The children had been young, Paul had been so devoted to her, and he had gone out and re-conquered the world - and she had helped him do it. But now it had been almost 14 years since John Lennon had come back into their lives, and she had been up, down, sideways, in between, under and over. There had been moments when she had really enjoyed having John around; there had been times when she cursed the ground he walked on. She had seen sides to Paul she had not known were there, despite the 12 years they had been alone together. What had she learned?

Well, at least she and Paul had raised their children and given them as good a start as they could. She worried a lot about Heather, and she worried a little about James. But she rarely worried about Mary and Stella. But this was par for the course in a large family. She had been one of four children, too, and she had been the unpredictable, flighty one in her family. She knew her parents had worried a lot about her, and she had turned out all right. These thoughts had flitted through her head in a few instants. She then addressed herself to her husband’s distressed face.

“You might have been happier without me, too, Paul,” Linda said. “There’s no point in trying to guess the outcome of a future that we didn’t choose. I have had the option to walk out at any time, and I chose not to. I’m happier with you than without you. If that ever changes, I would tell you.”

Paul nodded. He took what Linda said constructively. He and Linda were honest with each other. Sometimes they pulled their punches a little, but for the most part they didn’t cover each other with saccharine sentiments. They were good friends to each other. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying,” Paul said. “We’ve had mostly great times together. But sometimes I feel so guilty; if I weren’t famous no one would insult you that way.”

“If you weren’t famous, I would never have met you, seeing as how I came to London to photograph the Beatles,” Linda chuckled.

Paul chuckled too, but there was a little niggling part of his brain that was sensitive to this subject. His friends and even family members had warned him that Linda had been after him because he was rich and famous. He had rejected that thinking, and fiercely defended her. But there was that tiny bit of wonderment there: why had she pursued him so assiduously - with all the little gifts and the phone numbers slipped into his hand? Had she been looking to live in the reflected glory of some man? If that had been her plot, it sure got foiled! She’d married the bachelor prince of London, and turned into Cinderella overnight. A sort of backwards story tale. Paul quickly whisked those thoughts away and back into a locked cupboard in his brain. Whatever her original motivation, she had been faithful to him through thick and thin, and he did believe that she loved him. He had grown to admire and then to rely on her strength and warmth, and he seriously doubted he could live without her.

“Anyway, the point I was trying to make,” Linda said, “Is that you and John need to have a Plan B.”

“Plan B?” Paul asked, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“Yeah - your Plan A is that you’re both so clever you’ll be able to talk your way out of any rumor they throw at you. But what if you’re caught in flagrante? What is your Plan B?”

Paul made a face at the term ‘in flagrante’. “We don’t do PDA, Linda. We are experts at not doing PDA. There was a time when it was more than our lives were worth to have anyone even suspect us much less see us being affectionate to each other.”

Linda’s smile was a little too knowing. She had seen all the photos of John and Paul when they were younger, and it seemed pretty obvious to her, looking back, that they had been madly in love. In those still somewhat innocent days of the early ‘60s no one - including her - thought about sexual ambiguity. It wasn’t an assumption that came rushing to anyone’s mind. But now, in the mid-‘90s, things had changed. There was a lot of gender bending going on. Younger people might respond to those old photographs differently than did their parents. No point in saying this to Paul; it would only cause him unnecessary anxiety.

“Well, I think you and John should still decide what you’re going to do if, by any chance, you get caught. I’d like to know what the plan is, in any event, so I can be prepared. I don’t worry so much about Mary and Stella...”

“...but Heather and James; I know,” Paul finished, sighing sadly. 

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, at that moment, John was relaxing in his sitting room, reading Gravity’s Rainbow for the sixth or seventh time, when the phone rang.

“John! It’s Jann!”

“Jann?” John asked, momentarily perplexed.

“Wenner...” the voice said.

John had to resist the urge to hang up immediately. But he knew he couldn’t do that with the Anthology in the works. “Hello, Jann. How did you get this number?”

“I’ve had it for years...didn’t you give it to me?”

“That seems highly unlikely,” John said flatly.

“Well, I’m calling with some special news,” Jann said, sweeping aside John’s obvious skepticism and lack of enthusiasm.

“Yes?” John asked. His tone was a figurative yawn.

“The Board of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame has just voted, and I’m calling to inform you that you will be inducted in your solo capacity this coming year!”

“My solo capacity?” John asked dully.

“On the strength of your Plastic Ono Band album, in 1970. The ceremony is in January.”

“I see,” John said. He waited a few moments. “And Paul?” The words echoed down the phone line for what seemed to John like a very long time.

Wenner had been afraid John would bring up the troublesome issue of Paul McCartney. “Not Paul, no.”

“Why not?” John asked. His voice was deceptively low and soft.

“Well, ‘McCartney’ was not a great album. He really floundered for years after the Beatles. He needed your help more than you needed his,” Wenner added, hoping he could appeal to Lennon’s famous ego.

“His first album was far more successful than mine was,” John pointed out. “And ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ is an incredible song.”

“We don’t reward commercial success, John. We reward artistic excellence.”

John felt sick in the bottom of his stomach. It felt as though stomach acids were doing loop-de-loops inside him. “This was the opinion of the entire Board, was it?”

“Well, no, there was a difference of opinion, but I’m afraid that entry into the Hall of Fame has to be unanimous.” Wenner was walking carefully, since he knew that he alone had blackballed Paul over some fairly strenuous objections of other members of the Board.

“Unanimous. I see. Well, Jann,” John spat the name rather than said it, “I unanimously decline to accept this so-called ‘honor,’” he concluded.

“John, this isn’t personal. I like Paul. It’s about the work.” Wenner was faced with a dead silence for several seconds before he hastily added, “In a few years, maybe on the strength of ‘Band on the Run,’ he will be inducted too.”

“Maybe?” John repeated, his voice trembling with disbelief. “Look - don’t do us any favors, okay? I’m not going anywhere without Paul - especially not into your fucking little ego-driven hall of fame!” Then John hung up abruptly. Now his afternoon was ruined. He had felt so calm before, and now his peace was shattered. He got up and paced around the room for several moments, shouting epithets at an invisible Jann Wenner. What could he tell Paul? Nothing! He was not going to tell Paul about this call at all. No reason for him to know about this outrageous insult. Fucking Jann Wenner and his Fucking Hall of Fame. Who gave a shit anyway? 

 

*****

 

John sang the lead on ‘Gossamer Charade’, the Beatles’ song about fame. In truth, most of the lyrics had been John’s, just as most of the music had been Paul’s. But they’d let George do his thing on the guitar riffs, and had added a few lines and suggestions of George’s and Ringo’s to the lyrics. Paul had kept a low profile on the lyrics portion, and focused on his bass line instead. It was so much easier to keep one’s head under the radar at times like these.

John was at the mic, and he was waiting for the control booth to signal readiness. When the signal came, John counted under his breath, ‘one...two...three...’ and began to sing:

 

Take your places, forgotten faces of a bygone age  
Long retired, now you tread upon the gilded stage  
How could it ever cross your mind  
That the foolish games you thought you'd leave behind remain  
More or less the same today?

All fall in and join the bloody march of history  
Why die trying to stop the juggernaut of misery?  
It's enough to make you lose your mind  
For there's nothing here that you can hide behind  
To help you keep the bogeymen at bay

But don't be afraid, this masquerade  
Is just a gossamer charade  
So dare to open up your eyes  
And don't be dismayed -- this play within a play  
Is just a gossamer charade  
See through the veil and realize -- then it's okay

Seems as if there's always someone  
Who would like to steer you towards Utopia  
And the chosen few who follow  
Promptly vanish in the deserts of Myopia  
If you're worried you've been led astray  
Take off and blaze a trail -- no matter what they say  
Then watch your phobias all fade away

You won't be afraid, this masquerade  
Is just a gossamer charade  
And when the smoke gets in your eyes  
Don't be dismayed -- this play within a play  
Is just a gossamer charade  
A looking glass reflecting lies

Jealous hags and heavy clowns  
All conspire to bring you down  
But they'll evaporate  
If you can laugh at their escapades  
They become invisible  
Mannequins on parade  
Now you're invincible  
Put on those rosy shades  
Then it's okay

And in the end, who's left to chronicle our rise and fall?  
The lowly worm will likely prove the strongest of us all  
So gather rosebuds while ye may  
For tomorrow swiftly turns to yesterday  
Then fades into the endless Milky Way

But don’t be afraid, this masquerade  
Is just a gossamer charade  
So many wondrous things to know  
And don't be dismayed -- this play within a play  
Is just a gossamer charade  
Break through the veil and have a go!

 

******

 

It was a few days after the Beatles had filmed ‘Gossamer Charade’ being recorded that Paul McCartney received a phone call from Armet Ertegun, the multi-talented music executive, producer, songwriter and co-founder of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. He had caught Paul at his home in Cavendish. Paul had never received a call from Ertegun before, and in fact had never met him, so it was somewhat of a surprise.

“Hello, Paul, I’m delighted to speak with you at last,” Ertegun said sincerely. “I’m sorry to bother you at home; your manager Frank gave me your number.”

“It’s a nice surprise. So what’s up?” Paul asked in his cheery way.

“I’m sure you know what I’m calling about,” Ertegun said. He had been pleasantly surprised that McCartney had sounded so cheerful and upbeat. He had been afraid that the man would be angry over the voting snub.

Paul was completely mystified. “No, honestly, I haven’t got a clue,” he said.

“Didn’t John tell you?” Ertegun asked, suddenly afraid that he was letting the proverbial cat out of the bag. It had not occurred to him or Jann that John would not have mentioned this episode to Paul.

“Tell me what?” Paul’s voice sounded anxious.

“We invited John to be inducted in to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame this coming year on the strength of 'Plastic Ono Band', but he was a bit upset and declined,” Ertegun said.

“Why was he upset by it?” Paul asked. The question was innocent. It seemed like a wonderful honor, and Paul was sincerely surprised that John would be upset by it.

“Well, this is the difficult part. He was upset because you weren’t invited too.”


	84. Chapter 84

The silence on the other end of the phone was brief but telling. McCartney had clearly received this news as a hit to the solar plexus and was momentarily unable to speak. Ertegun knew he had to say the words - the bromide to settle the uncertain stomach.

“It was a controversial vote, and you were very strongly supported,” Ertegun said, “but the process is unanimous, and there were one or two people who felt that your first solo album was not the one that should get you into the Hall of Fame.” Ertegun kept talking now, since there was still an uncomfortable quiet on the other end of the phone. “Of course you will be invited in the future, that’s obvious...”

By this time Paul had digested enough information to find his footing again. His pride rushed to the forefront. He could not let this man know how badly hurt he was by this revelation. And he was happy for John. “So you’re saying that John declined the honor out of loyalty to me, is that it?” Paul asked. He kept his voice calm and unemotional.

“You know these things aren’t personal, they’re strictly based on the work...” Ertegun was floundering now, because he suddenly realized that calling McCartney about this had been a bad misstep. Lennon hadn’t told McCartney about the offer, and now he had blundered in...

Meanwhile, Paul was thinking how stupid it was when people said it wasn’t ‘personal.’ It was ‘personal’ to him! His work and everything to do with his work was as personal as it could get! Ertegun had just told him his work was not up to the mark... Still, he didn’t want to give these people - who believed they had the right to judge his work - the satisfaction of seeing him hurt by their careless words and actions.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Paul said as nonchalantly as possible. “But I guess I’m a little confused about why you’re calling me? Was it just to apologize for not voting me in? If so, it isn’t necessary. I don’t base my self-worth on the receipt of awards.”

Now Ertegun felt like more of a heel than he did just moments before. He hadn’t thought to call Paul to explain or apologize; he had called for an altogether less kind reason. Still, it had to be done because if Lennon declined the induction offer, it would be all over the music world in no time, and it would gravely damage the reputation of the Hall of Fame. He sucked up his courage and said, “When Jann told me about John’s reaction, I knew that you wouldn’t want to stand in John’s way. I felt that you would want him to get his just due, and I was hoping that you would encourage him to accept the honor.”

Paul was taken aback by this suggestion. The nerve of these people! Instead, he responded as neutrally as he could. “It’s awkward, Ahmet, as I’m sure you can understand. John hasn’t said a word to me about this. He apparently doesn’t want me to know. What is it that you imagine I can do?”

“Well, you can say I called and had hoped that he would reconsider. The Hall honoring him does not mean it’s dishonoring you - clearly you know that, and perhaps he just needs to hear it from you before he can be comfortable accepting the offer. We would of course ask you to give the induction speech.”

Paul was through with the conversation. Not satisfied with humiliating him publicly with their pointed exclusion of him from the induction, they now expected him to be their advocate to save their faces? But, again, Paul’s pride came to his rescue. “I will of course mention this call to John and encourage him to accept the honor,” Paul said politely. “But he rarely listens to me about such things, so I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.” Paul forced himself to chuckle to show Ertegun he had complete control over his emotions.

“Well, thank you, Paul. I hope you will give me a call when you are next in Los Angeles. I’d love to have lunch with you.”

“Yes of course,” Paul lied. 

 

*****

 

The Daily Mail editors were arguing over a potential story. There were three separate contingents. One contingent was adamant that they needed to get “out in front” of the John/Paul story, and “lead from the front.” The second contingent was just as adamant that one didn’t cavalierly publish potentially defamatory information if one didn’t have a smoking gun. The third contingent was bored by the argument, and wanted to just write about the Beatles reunion, and maybe draw out the Harrison versus McLen angle.

“Well, I’m not an idiot!” One of the editors declared. “Of course we don’t say that they are lovers. We merely quote ‘undisclosed sources’ who think that they are lovers. It is not defamation to state an opinion.”

“It’s a dangerously thin line in this case,” opined the other. “A source saying that they are lovers - this would be us stating it was a fact, and that would be defamatory. A source saying that she thinks they are lovers...what is that based on? We cannot willy-nilly publish without due diligence. It would leave us open to litigation.”

“They’re not going to sue,” snorted the first man. “It’s true - you know it’s true! And they’d be crazy to sue, because then we could do discovery...”

“You’re awfully willing to risk the paper based on what you believe to be true,” sniped the second man.

The third person, a woman, spoke up. “This is all silliness. I think we continue to highlight suspicion where suspicion is available, and focus on the Beatles reunion. That’s the bigger story. We don’t have to publish declarations of an affair - we just cast aspersions.”

Because the third person’s opinion was advice to follow the status quo, she ultimately won the argument. It is much easier for an institution to keep doing the same old thing than to choose a side and take a leap of faith that could end up disastrously. 

 

*****

 

John and Paul were in bed. They had spent the day in the studio doing the final recording of Cosmically Conscious. It had been an easy day, with free bantering between the four former Beatles and no rough moments. John had actually begun to not resent the sessions. After they got home, John and Paul had gotten high, and then they had made love, and now they were relaxing. The candles John had lit were at that stage just before the flame was drowned in the hot wax, so the shadows flickered dramatically on the walls and the ceiling. It was terribly romantic.

Paul had been trying to think of a way to raise the Hall of Fame issue with John. He had hoped for a day or two that John would bring the subject up first, but he had not. Apparently, to John, it was a closed issue. Paul was touched by John’s loyalty. It meant everything to him. But in the days since he’d received the phone call about it, Paul had focused more on what it meant to John, rather than what it meant to him. And he would not be a true friend and partner to John if he stood between John and whatever plaudits he might earn on his own.

Paul turned on his side, so he was facing John’s profile. “Johnny,” he said softly. For a moment he thought John was asleep. But no, John’s eyes flew open.

“Ummm?” He asked.

“I had a call the other day,” Paul said. “It was Ahmet Ertegun.”

John’s face turned towards Paul, and then John, too, turned on his side so he was facing Paul directly. “I didn’t know you knew Ahmet.” John had met him during his ‘lost weekend’ in Hollywood in 1974.

“I don’t know him. He called me out of the blue,” Paul said.

“And?” John prompted. He couldn’t understand why Paul would bring up Ahmet Ertegun at a time like this!

“He told me that you had been offered induction into the Hall of Fame,” Paul said as calmly as he could.

John’s eyes flew open and his face clouded over immediately in rage. “WHAAAATTT?” he shouted, suddenly sitting up. “How dare he!”

Paul had expected a bad reaction, but he hadn’t expected it to be so loud. “Shhhh, Johnny, calm down. It’s okay...” Paul patted the mattress, encouraging John to lie down again.

“It’s not okay! Those fucking assholes!” John was shouting.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” Paul asked softly.

This caused John to become quiet. He lay back down on his side, again facing Paul. “I didn’t want Jann’s stupid vendetta to come between us,” he growled.

“Nothing will come between us, John. Especially not Jann Wenner.” Paul chuckled sincerely at his last remark, and he twiddled his eyebrows suggestively.

John chuckled too. He was surprised to feel angry tears in his eyes. He was that enraged that Paul had to be bothered by this.

“I think you should say ‘yes’,” Paul said after a quiet moment of reflection. “’Plastic Ono’ was a major accomplishment. I don’t see why you shouldn’t accept credit where credit is due.”

John was watching Paul’s face, and all he could see was sincerity. But this didn’t really surprise John. Paul was a far more generous friend to him than he’d often been to Paul. Paul didn’t let dark insecurities interfere with his ability to be happy over John’s successes. John reached his hand out to caress Paul’s cheek. “Baby, I’m not going anywhere without you. That’s what I told Jann, and that’s my final word on the subject.”

Paul took this in. Something about this bothered him. He put his finger on it. “So, what if they come back and say, ‘okay John - you win. We’ll let Paul in, too.’ Would that be okay with you? Because it wouldn’t be okay with me! I don’t want them throwing me crumbs. It would be humiliating.”

John listened in all seriousness. “You know Jann is just blackballing you, don’t you? This whole ‘unanimous’ thing - that’s just his way of saying he blocked you. If they want to induct you it will be with everyone’s blessing except Jann’s, and so you shouldn’t be ashamed.”

“No, John! I don’t care if they never vote me in. It isn’t that important to me, and to the extent they ever do ask me in, I would only want it if it was earned on my own merits in the voters’ eyes.”

“See - that’s my view of it too. I don’t care about the fucking Hall of Fame. It isn’t important to me. So let’s just leave it at that, and not worry about it anymore. It’s like a stupid clique at grammar school. We don’t need their approval, and in fact - when I think about it in any detail - I actively don’t want their approval. Fucking assholes. The idiocy of a museum for rock ‘n rollers!”

Paul chuckled. “Ok, Johnny. But just so you know it’s okay by me if you accept it... Ertegun said that just because they’re honoring you doesn’t mean they’re dishonoring me. That’s the way I feel about it.”

“You’re a bigger man than me,” John said darkly. “And I will never forgive that lot for bothering you with this. They’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming into their stupid little club. They can kiss my big fat ass.”

Paul moved in closer, and put his arms around John. In a few moments his hands had found their way to John’s bum. “No one’s allowed to kiss your beautiful ass but me,” he whispered in John’s ear.

 

*****

 

The next day in the studio, the Beatles worked on the second song they’d written together, ‘Do It (For the Show),’ yet another take on the crazy world of superstardom. This song had been more of a collaboration than Gossamer Charade, since the initial idea of the song had been George’s. Thus, George was the soloist on this song.

He stood at the microphone, ready to sing. John and Paul were huddled around a microphone prepared to sing in harmony on the chorus and refrain.

George began to sing:

And so dear friends go on relax  
Though your souls remain encased in wax  
The curtain calls, the crowds still cheer  
Alas, Destiny has plugged your ears  
Do forgive us please, we can't help but stare  
Back in sadness through the years  
But that's none of your concern  
You're far beyond our tears  
All my life I've been a fool  
A prancing puppet, Fortune's tool  
Forever fixed upon the past  
No wonder happiness could never last  
Oh, but you my friends have shown me  
What it truly means to be a star  
Well, it's no picnic -- oh no, it's never been  
So there you are

When the rock 'n' roller coaster throws you overboard  
Jumps the track and lands on top of you  
If you crawl back on you might give pause  
And wonder if there are better things to do

Well, don't do it for the groupies on the road  
Don't do it for the fabled pot of gold  
No, don't wither in the wings afraid you'll miss your cue to go  
Just do it -- do it for the show

As sure as old guitar strings rust  
Our vanities will turn to dust  
And drift across this speck in time  
I hope your story turn out fine  
Oh, but you my friends have taught me  
Not to hope for karmic recompense

John and Paul jumped in and sang:

 

Just have a good time, all the time  
Nothing else makes sense

 

George joined them for the middle eight and chorus, so they sang in their famous three-party harmony:

 

When your dinghy's dashed upon that rock of ages  
And you're abandoned by a mutinous crew  
Will you tie yourself down to the mast?  
For that's what they're expecting you to do

Just don't do it for the fans you'll never know  
Don't do it for the trophies nor the clothes  
No, don't do it for the financiers who'd have you bought and sold  
Just do it -- do it for the show  
Just do it -- do it for the show

 

A moment later George’s lonely voice was heard in refrain: 

 

Just do it -- do it for the show

 

After the session was over, George said to Paul, “So, we’re going to see you and John for dinner tonight?”

Paul smiled and said, ‘Yes - 8 o’clock, right?”

The date now confirmed, the four Beatles exited the studio. 

 

*****

 

Later that night Paul was again driving up that red brick approach road towards the fantastical Friar Park house. Again, he and John lingered momentarily on the doorstep as they awaited their host. This time it was George who swung the door open to greet them. John and Paul felt a little awkward, as it was a first of sorts: they had been invited to a friend’s home, who knew about their relationship, specifically as a ‘couple.’ Of course, they had dined like this with Jason and Gerry, but tonight was different. This was a straight couple hosting them who also knew Linda. Paul, especially, felt a little naked. John could bluster his way through almost any awkward situation, but for Paul it was a little more difficult. He shyly offered himself up to George and then Olivia for hugs, and they moved into the sitting rooms, where George served them cocktails, and Olivia fussed over a selection of delicious-looking vegetarian hors d’oeuvres. Paul was relieved. It was funny how he and George (and reportedly now Ringo, too) had ended up vegetarians. John was one in name only, because Paul knew John cheated on the diet whenever his back was turned. This amused Paul, rather than upset him. He was actually grateful that John cared enough to pretend to be vegetarian when he was around.

“How is the recording going?” Olivia asked politely, momentarily stuck on what other opening gambit she might proffer.

“Great!” Paul enthused.

George and John exchanged affectionate grins over Paul’s typical animated response, and then George said, “We had a good day today.”

John added, “He says that, Livy, because he was the soloist today. Now a few days ago - that wasn’t so good, because I was the soloist, and yesterday - it was even worse - Paul was the soloist.”

Olivia giggled, and George smiled too. That was a fair enough jibe, George figured, given all the swipes he’d taken at John and Paul about their egos. Olivia turned to Paul.

“Are you soloing on any other songs?” She asked.

“Just the one I wrote myself - the one we recorded yesterday,” he said quite cheerfully. “It’s kind of fun to be a band member again, actually, adding to the soundtrack.”

Olivia smiled at him with open affection. She had always had a fugitive connection with Paul - god forbid George should find out! It was because he was such a sunny personality; he didn’t give in to self-pity and gloom, instead facing adversity with as much of a smile as he could muster. This personality trait reminded her of her mother, and she adored her mother. Olivia had pondered the appropriateness of inviting John and Paul as a couple, given her friendship with Linda. But in the end she decided to go forward because she wanted George to finally find peace with his former band-mates, and she didn’t think he would ever do so if he didn’t come to terms with the intimate nature of their relationship. George had many friends over the years who were homosexual, so it wasn’t the homosexuality that was really bothering George, Olivia thought. It was the fact that John and Paul and he had been a unit, and then he had found out that maybe he didn’t really know them as well as he thought he did. Still, Olivia knew that George loved John and Paul, albeit in a very complex and ambiguous way, and he needed to make his peace with them in order to be at peace with himself. Thus, she had suggested this get-together. She’d also made a note to have Paul and Linda over for dinner another time, soon.

In an attempt to make conversation, George asked, “So what do you two get up to when you’re not in the studio?”

John leered at him. “We have a whole lot of sex.”

George blushed, and Paul allowed his face to fall into the palm of his hand. Olivia, alone, was not discomfited. She laughed heartily. She knew that John could always be counted upon to put cats in amongst the pigeons.

“Well, sorry George,” John was saying, “but I thought I’d just get that out there and out of the way. We’re all feeling a bit awkward, aren’t we?” John asked, managing to look both guilty and innocent at the same time. Paul watched this with a kind of bemusement: it never failed to amaze him how John could look both naughty and nice simultaneously.

“I’m not feeling awkward,” Olivia said pleasantly, before getting up to check the progress of the food. After she left, John laughed at George’s embarrassment, and then George laughed too.

“I walked right into that one,” George admitted, causing Paul to laugh too.

“You know that scene in Help where I shrink down to the floor?” Paul asked them. John and George both indicated that of course they remembered it. “I always felt how appropriate it was, since so many times over the years with John that’s what I’ve wanted to do in moments like these.”

John belly-laughed. “Oh, you love it Macca, you know you do. You wouldn’t know what to do if I suddenly started behaving myself in public.”

“I’m willing to have a go at it though,” Paul snickered back.

“Look,” George said, leaning forward earnestly, and then stalling. He looked down at his hands and appeared to be struggling with what he had to say.

Paul waited patiently, and so did John - much to Paul’s surprise.

“I said some terrible things to you two, about your...well...your...”

“You can say it, George, it isn’t shameful or embarrassing to us,” John said in a low, sweet voice. “You mean our ‘relationship,’ don’t you?”

George nodded. “It isn’t... I’m not... I don’t have anything against homosexuality per se...”

“But just your old friends doing it, eh?” John chortled.

“It isn’t that. It really isn’t,” George protested.

Paul had pity for George. He intervened. “I know what you’re saying. You have a memory of us as one thing, and to find out that it was another felt like a betrayal.”

George’s eyes met Paul’s and he felt relief. “Yeah, it was like that.”

Paul nodded and said, “I said it before and I’ll say it again: the times you and John and I were together were real - it was the truth. The fact that John and I had something else going on privately, that had nothing to do with our band, you know? We didn’t bring it into the band, and we never meant it to be forever. It surprised us both very much when it turned out to be something neither one of us could - stay away from.”

John had listened intently to what Paul had said. He knew that George wasn’t really apologizing to Paul, because he already had apologized to Paul and been forgiven. This whole thing was in aid of George trying to apologize to him - John - and he had made it very hard for George to do so with his smartass remarks. “George - you don’t think I hold anything against you, do you?” He finally asked.

George looked up. “Well, I did worry that maybe you wouldn’t forgive me.”

John smiled easily. “We’re like brothers, you and me. I might get angry with you, I might fight with you, but I will never stop loving you. I assume you feel the same way about Paul and me?”

George sat back, trying not to show too plainly his sense of relief. “Yes - I think of you two as my brothers, and I still love you both.”

 

*****

 

Paul had to go in to the office the next day to sign some checks and look over some paperwork, and John took the opportunity to write a letter at home. When he finished writing it, he had a messenger deliver it to Frank with instructions. 

Paul, meanwhile, had gotten through the business stuff, and had then been accosted by his press agent.

“Any chance of an interview with the four of you?” The press agent asked him.

“We won’t be doing interviews until the Anthology is about to be released. That’s at least a year from now,” Paul said firmly.

“How about you and John? There are so many rumors, and many requests...”

“We have nothing to promote right now, and we don’t do interviews unless we have something to promote. It’s our work that’s for sale, not our private lives.” Paul gave the press agent a steady, intense gaze as he said this.

The press agent backed down. “Of course.”

Paul’s visage softened a little. “There will always be rumors and provocations from the press,” he said, not unkindly, “but we don’t respond to them unless it is in our interest to do so. And unless we have something to promote, it is not in our interest, right?” 

 

******

 

A few days later, Jann Wenner and Ahmet Ertegun were meeting in Wenner’s Manhattan offices. They were each looking at a copy of the letter John Lennon had written to the “Bored Members of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Shame”:

Dear Sirs:

I say ‘sirs’ because I am certain - without asking - that you have no women on your Board. God forbid. If there were women on the Board, Paul McCartney would have been the one nominated for induction, not me. 

A few weeks ago, Jann Wenner called me up to offer me what he called the ‘honor’ of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. He informed me that while my ‘Plastic Ono Band’ had qualified me for induction, that Paul’s ‘McCartney’ had not qualified him. Jann explained that Paul’s success was ‘commercial’ and mine was ‘artistic.’ I think that distinction is in the eye of the beholder, and since far more ‘beholders’ bought Paul’s album over mine, it casts the Board’s final vote in some doubt as to its objectivity. 

I say ‘final’ vote, because I understand that for some insane reason the votes for induction have to be ‘unanimous.’ If that is so, it seems like a lot of worthy applicants will be excluded because they won’t fit into the narrow criteria set out by the ‘Board’ - whoever you shadowy figures are. I know Jann Wenner is one, and that Armet Ertegun is another. I don’t know who else has a vote, but I suspect that it doesn’t matter because Jann Wenner casts the heaviest vote, and what he wants, he gets.

Ever since the early ‘70s, when Paul refused to kiss up to ‘Rolling Stone’, and also because he chose a different path from mine, Jann Wenner has held a grudge against Paul. I feel largely responsible for Wenner’s original grudge, since I had manipulated the facts so that Wenner would see everything my way, and because I had lied about Paul’s contributions to the band. I did it for personal reasons, based on what I thought was betrayed love as much as fear, but what was Wenner’s motive? Paul never did anything to him! Wenner is entitled not to appreciate Paul’s music, but I don’t believe it is very objective, since Paul wrote some of the Beatles’ most enduring hits, and the Beatles have been inducted. 

Anyway, not content to insult me by excluding my best friend and partner from induction, and concerned over my declining of the ‘honor’, Ahmet Ertegun - no doubt with Wenner’s urging - took it upon himself to call Paul and tell him that I’d been offered induction, and ask Paul to advocate with me to accept the induction on the Hall of Fame’s behalf! This is an appalling invasion of my privacy, and it was an unspeakable insult to Paul, who has more genius in his little finger than the rest of the world combined. Notwithstanding this outrageous request, Paul sincerely encouraged me to accept the induction. He argued that I had earned it based on my own accomplishments. He told me not to be upset about his exclusion because he didn’t spend all those years composing and performing just to accumulate accolades - he had done it for the love of music alone. 

But the thing is - so did I. I did everything I did for the love of music alone, too. 

Thus, I do not need nor do I want the ‘honor’ of induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Please stop importuning me about this, and do not - I REPEAT DO NOT - bother Paul with this crap any more! The nerve of you lot, thinking you can sit from afar and judge us! You try being us for 24 hours, and see what it feels like...

Yours with finality -

John Lennon"

 

*****

 

“He’s really pissed,” Jann said.

“It was a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have listened to you,” Armet said to Jann. “I should never have called McCartney. It was an insulting thing to do.”

“So he has a delicate ego? He should have accepted by now that he has been lucky to work with a genius like Lennon. He’s done a lot of good things, but not as a solo artist. He needs to work with John to do his best work.”

“I don’t agree with you Jann. I told you that in front of the Board. ‘Hey Jude?' John Lennon had nothing to do with that. And the ‘Abbey Road’ album was a McCartney tour de force.”

“Yes, but that was with the Beatles,” Jann protested. “I’m talking about his solo career.”

“As you know, the rest of us on the Board felt that McCartney was a seminal album, in that it scrapped all the fancy production tricks and went back to the basics. The guy recorded it by himself in his house! There are Indy artists now who worship the guy...”

“His music is okay, I guess, but the lyrics...” Jann showed his contempt in his facial expression.

“I very much enjoyed some of the songs on McCartney. ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was incredible, and so was ‘Every Night’. If what you want is self-revelatory lyrics - well, the intensity of emotion in those songs which were clearly autobiographical...I could feel his pain and his relief.”

Jann remained unrepentant. “One or two songs do not an album make.”

“Well, certainly next year - on the strength of ‘Ram’...” Ahmet began.

“’Ram!' Are you kidding me? What a piece of pop crap! Next you’ll be telling me that ‘Wild Life’ is a masterpiece!”

Ahmet was insulted. “I would much prefer to listen to Ram, the album, than Imagine, the album, although I admit that some of John’s songs on ‘Imagine’ are great. But as an album to listen to, I believe ‘Ram’ is superior. One gets tired of John Lennon - millionaire and idol - lecturing the rest of us on how disappointing and hypocritical we all are. And if we are going to talk about the weaknesses of ‘Wild Life’, what about the embarrassing ‘Some Time in New York City?’ That was the most cocked up pastiche of mismatched leftist jargon I’ve ever heard!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, because we will debate the relative merits of ‘Ram’ next year at the 25 year mark from its release. The issue is - John - do you think he will publish this letter? If he does, it will damage the Hall’s credibility...”

Ahmet sighed heavily. “What little I know about John Lennon tells me that it could go either way. If we continue to bother him about this, he will certainly go public. If we leave it be, and quietly move on, then maybe he will let it go too.”


	85. Chapter 85

It was holiday time again. Linda could not believe how quickly the years were peeling by. One moment she was making a Yule log with the help of 40 sticky little fingers, and soon she would be making one all by herself. James, who was 17, was not interested in Christmas traditions anymore. Or, perhaps it was more appropriate to say that he appeared not to take interest. With teenagers you could never really tell. If she didn’t make the Yule log, and she didn’t hang the mistletoe, and she didn’t have the Sweets Night he would probably be very upset. It didn’t matter, because at this point Linda was engaging in the traditions for her own sake. Anything that made life seem stable was a great comfort to her. She was now 53 years old, and each year that passed caused her to appreciate continuity more. It had not been very important to her in her twenties, and she had created traditions primarily for her children when in her thirties and forties. But now the traditions were for her - and for Paul. 

Paul was obscenely happy these days. It was such a change from just a short while ago, when he was mired in depression. He had taken to the one week on / one week off regimen like a duck to water, and it seemed to have given him a kind of balance in the two relationships that he hadn’t managed to strike before. Linda supposed Paul was happy mainly because John was happy. It hadn’t escaped her notice over the years that Paul’s moods either were a mirror of John’s, or, when things were going badly between them, reactive to John’s. Right now with the two of them god was in his heaven apparently. Linda was not bitter about this, because a happy Paul caused her to be happy. She supposed her moods were a reflection of or a reaction to Paul’s! She laughed at herself, and went to check the oven.

“Mom!” The loud call was definitely Stella’s, Linda thought. And sure enough, a moment later Stella came flying into the room. Having finished her training at Ravensbourne School of Design and Communication, she was now in her last year at Central Saint Marten’s College of Art and Design. She was already working on her graduation collection, which was to be presented in the following May. It seemed to Linda that Stella was a whirlwind, always on her way from something or on to something else when she stopped by her childhood home. Today she wore a soft richly scarlet woolen cape as she floated into the kitchen, her wild red hair in a halo around her. 

“Oh - Mom! I know I was supposed to do something for you, but I’ve forgotten what!” She declared. 

Linda laughed. “Oh I find that hard to believe. That never happens,” Linda chided fondly.

“Ha ha ha, so I’m not the most reliable go-fer,” Stella responded. She flopped down on a kitchen chair, and shrugged off her cape. “What was I supposed to bring?”

“I ran out of butter, and the last time I was at the store they didn’t have any white truffle oil.” 

“Ri-i-i-ght!” Stella said, smacking herself in the forehead. Linda threw her a pad and pencil.

“Write it down this time, babe,” Linda said affectionately.

As Stella scribbled, Linda asked, “How is your collection coming?”

Stella sighed heavily. “I’ve got my theme. I’m going for a modern take on the forties’ clothes including some tightly tailored suits and some slip dresses. When I come on Christmas for baking day, I’ll bring my design drafts.”

“Oh! That will be fun. Mary’s arriving by noon - how ‘bout you?” Linda asked.

“I’ll try to get here by then, too,” Stella said, thinking she’d have to force herself not to sleep in. A rare day off - but then, this was her mother’s day, and she would do anything to make her mother happy. “So how’s Pops?”

“Pops?” Linda asked incredulously, laughing.

“It occurred to me that it is an appropriate sobriquet for dear Papa,” Stella announced grandly, picking up one of Linda’s almond drop cookies and swallowing it after only one bite.

“’Pops’ is fine. He’s never been better. He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a very long time,” Linda said.

Stella stopped for a moment, and shot a keen glance at her mother. Something was off there. “Oh? Why is that, do you think?”

Linda poured two cups of hot tea, and brought them to the table. She sat down, and gave Stella a frank, direct look. “He and John are like one,” she said with amusement in her eyes, and her middle and ring fingers of her right hand crossed over each other to signify extreme closeness.

Stella didn’t know whether to laugh or to be serious. She regarded her mother briefly, trying to ascertain if she was upset. Linda’s warm smile persuaded her that her mum was not seriously upset. “Oh? Wasn’t it last year that they were at each other’s throats?”

Linda nodded absent-mindedly. “They have a very...fiery...relationship.”

Stella was both surprised and pleased that her mother was sharing this information with her. Linda had always tried to protect her children from the ménage a trois ramifications whenever possible. Stella supposed this meant that her mother now considered her to be an adult. She stilled her smile and said softly, “Are you okay Mum?” Stella only called her mother ‘mum’ when she was feeling vulnerable. Otherwise, she stuck to the American ‘mom.’ 

Linda said, “Yes, I am. But it seems that whenever your dad and John are madly in love, I’m sort of left out a little. And then, when your dad and John are on the outs, suddenly I am the one your father needs and wants. This whole situation is unpredictable and unstable. I hope you never choose an ‘open’ marriage. It is very difficult if you have real emotions, and prefer one true love.” 

Stella felt distressed, but hid it well. “Are you very unhappy, Mum?” She asked. “You can tell me.”

“I’m not ‘very unhappy’, Stella, and I really shouldn’t be confiding in you about this. It isn’t loyal to your father. Forget I said anything.” 

“Don’t be silly, Mum. I love Dad 100%, but I know he’s not perfect. You have to be able to talk to someone when you’re feeling down, and why not me?”

“I have kind of isolated myself here,” Linda admitted quietly. “You kids and your dad were my whole world. It’s occurring to me now that James is almost ready to leave the nest that I will have to look more to the outside world for companionship and interest. It’s about time I did so, I’d say.”

Stella wasn’t quite sure what to say next, but she figured she had a word or two for her father saved up for delivery in the near future.

 

*****

 

Across the mews in John’s house, Paul was lying on the sofa in the sitting room. He had been reading a magazine but had fallen asleep. John was on the phone in the kitchen, talking with Jason. He had invited Jason and Gerry to visit for at least a week over the holidays, and they were making excited plans. John intended to get box tickets for a London play, and thought they could try out all the most exciting new London restaurants. Oblivious to all this giddiness going on in the other room, Paul had drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

“How are you getting along?” Jason finally asked, after the planning had dribbled to a halt.

John heard the unspoken part of the question: “you” meant Paul and him, and “getting along” meant, “with each other.” He laughed.

“You don’t have to get all nervous Jason, Paul and I are great. We’re in a really good place – ever since we got back from our holiday last summer. We’ve had six whole months of perfect harmony. It’s a world’s record for us!” 

John’s voice, though suffused with amusement, sounded also a bit tentative to Jason. “You sound a little uncertain, though,” Jason said.

“It’s kind of scary, I guess,” John admitted ruefully. “We’ve never gone this long without a row or a bust up. I haven’t had any of my jealous tantrums, but then, Paul hasn’t given me any reason to. He is religious about the one-week here, one-week there routine, and he has stopped regaling me with Linda this and Linda that when we are together. He seems totally focused on us. It seems almost too good to be true, and that’s when I start worrying.”

Jason laughed. “You’re a tonic, John. Honestly – you’re not supposed to worry when things are going well. You’re only supposed to worry when they’re not. Don’t psych yourself out, and end up creating a self-fulfilling bad prophecy.”

“I can’t help it!” John declared. “I’m going to see Fiona later today; it’s my usual weekly appointment. I’m going to discuss this subject with her. Why do I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop? I can’t seem to trust life when it is going my way.” 

“That’s a rich person’s problem, John,” Jason chuckled. “By all means, discuss it with Fiona, but try to lighten up and enjoy the moment. You can rest assured that something will go wrong – who knows what it will be? It doesn’t have to be you and Paul, it could be something completely unexpected. So since there will be real things to worry about in the future, I suggest you enjoy the present while it lasts.”

John sighed. “I really miss you, Jason. You always give me such comforting advice. I haven’t been back to my flat in New York for months. I think, after the New Year, I’m going to want to spend some time there. The hard bit is Paul – you know, he wouldn’t agree to stay with me there. I’m afraid to raise the subject for fear of rocking the boat.”

“One thing at a time, John. Don’t jump your fences too early.” Jason’s voice was warm and patient.

“Ok, Jason. So – we’ll see you the week after Christmas?”

“Yes – I’ll call with the details of our arrival when I’ve finalized the travel arrangements.”

After John hung up, he wandered into the sitting room where he was presented with the unbelievable sight of Paul McCartney… napping. In the middle of the day! Miracles never cease! Chuckling with mischief and after covering Paul with a blanket and tucking him in, John went to find his camera. He wanted to record this auspicious moment for posterity.

 

*****

 

“So, all is well and yet you’re still worried,” Fiona said, summarizing John’s data dump in one succinct sentence.

“That’s about the size of it,” John agreed.

“Why do you think you are worried when everything is going so well?” Fiona asked.

“Why?” John repeated. He hated it when she turned it back on him. Sometimes he just wanted someone to give him the answers for a fucking change. “I have no fucking clue.”

“We’ve talked about your fear of the rug being pulled out from under you before. Do you remember the context of that discussion?” Fiona asked, giving him a fucking clue.

John thought. “Oh, yeah. That stuff about my parents.” John’s voice was grudging.

“What specifically about your parents, John?” Fiona asked gently, giving John an encouraging smile. She needed to jolly him out of his bad mood – he was sometimes so like a five year-old it was uncanny.

“They kept leaving me,” John mumbled.

“Was it the leaving that is most difficult to come to terms with? Or is it the fact that they each, separately, kept popping back into your life for short bursts and then disappearing again?” Fiona figured she’d have to do the heavy lifting today, at least for a while. 

“They were so bloody unpredictable.” John’s statement was a blanket acceptance of Fiona’s analysis. “You know, I never told you this before, but when I was a boy I used to fantasize about my mother and father. In my fantasies, some evil force was keeping me from my mother. Sometimes the evil force was my father, and sometimes it was Aunt Mimi, and later on – after I met them – I blamed her second husband and my half-sisters. I could actually feel this force between us, keeping us apart, even when she came to visit me or I went to see her. And my father – this is embarrassing – I sometimes used to fantasize that he was some kind of famous person or hero, and that he would come back and rescue me.” John stopped speaking abruptly, his face a picture of embarrassment. “I’ve never told anyone that before.” 

Fiona had been listening intently, her heart beating noticeably fast. Breakthroughs were like that. They would suddenly appear at the moment you least expected them. “Can we talk about this ‘force’ for a moment? The one you call ‘evil’ – that kept you from your mother.”

John nodded, waiting for prompting questions, because he had no idea what else to say about it. 

“You were a child then, and to you it felt like an external force – external to both you and your mother. Now you’re a man in your fifties. Can you look back at that feeling and have a better idea of what that ‘force’ really was?”

John didn’t think. The words came out unbidden: “My mother herself.” 

Fiona held John’s eyes firmly for a few long moments. Then she said, seemingly apropos of nothing, “You mentioned to me before that you think your mother might have been bipolar too.” 

John quickly made the leap. “You’re saying the ‘force’ was not necessarily my mother, but her mental illness.” 

“I’m suggesting that it may be true. What do you feel about that?” Fiona kept John’s eyes locked on hers.

“Her mental illness came between us. That’s what you’re suggesting. She couldn’t help what she did, because she was not properly diagnosed or treated.” John thought about this for a while. “It really did feel like an evil thing between us, and now that you’ve suggested it could be a mental illness, it certainly makes a lot more sense.”

“Neither one of us can say for sure whether she was ill or not. Based on what you have told me over the years, it is clear she suffered from extreme depressions – even had to be institutionalized for them – and manic highs. Since you yourself have suffered from bipolar I disorder, it is not a huge jump to say that perhaps your mother suffered too, although if she did, her disorder seems to have been much worse than yours.” 

“Is it hereditary? Could she have passed it down to me?”

“There hasn’t been a definitive link established in research yet, but they’ve only just started studying the subject. Thus far all I can tell you is that there seems to be a slightly higher incidence of the disorder in the children of those who suffer from it too. No one can say if that is because of inherited traits, or because of the effects of being raised by someone with the disorder.” 

John was stumped. He had spent his entire life outwardly idolizing a woman who had “rejected” him. It had seriously confused him, and had tainted all of his relationships with women. Because of this, although it was buried deep inside his mind, he knew she had done irreparable damage to him. He had never been able to confront the fact that his real enemy – all these years – was the very same woman that he openly worshipped. He had fallen in love with a beautiful but tortured soul, and had imbued it with all sorts of qualities the woman herself lacked, and then had kept from himself, except at the darkest of moments, the sharply edged denouement – that she rejected him; the perfect creature didn’t want him, ergo neither would anyone else. But now…if in fact the enemy was a mental illness, it meant that his mother might have wanted him. She might have needed to be with him. But perhaps she was unable to be the mother he needed her to be. This all made sense. As Fiona had said, who could ever know for sure? But it was an easier set of facts to justify: how could such a lively, warm, giving person suddenly shut him out so coldly, and then come back all warm and lively again, only to shut him out again? It made more sense if this conduct was caused by something she could not control.

“This is all very interesting,” John finally said, “but what has it got to do with my sense of unease over my relationship with Paul?”

Fiona sighed inwardly, not wanting John to see her frustration. The problem with breakthroughs was – they were few and far between.

 

*****

 

John got home as the early evening gloom was setting in. It was a foggy day in London town. He was very anxious. Fiona had ended the session with a promise to go back to his Paul problem next time, and as he sat in the back of the chauffeur driven car he had begun to worry again. Every time he left Paul at home to go to his weekly session with Fiona, he feared that Paul would run over to Cavendish to hang out there for a while. He had no proof that this happened, but he feared that it might. Paul had told him he couldn’t feel comfortable at his house, so why wouldn’t he dash over to his own house the moment John’s back was turned? Thus, he entered the house in a state of irritation, expecting to find evidence of Paul’s perfidy. He was to be disappointed. He found Paul in the kitchen, putting together the ingredients for a salad. 

“Hey John! How’d your session go?” He asked cheerfully.

John melted at the sight of Paul’s cuteness. There was no point in picking at a scab that was truly mending. “It was emotionally draining today,” John said honestly.

“Well then, I’m glad I thought to start getting dinner ready for you. Do you know I fell asleep on the sofa and slept for over 3 hours? I don’t know what came over me!” Paul was chattering as he moved around the kitchen, collecting a knife and a cutting board, lining up the vegetables for chopping. 

John laughed. “You were sleeping when I left. Where do you think the blanket came from?”

Paul suddenly remembered that he had awakened with a blanket on him. “Oh! Thanks, Mum!” Paul giggled to show he was teasing.

“Did you see my note, then?” John asked this question with a sense of trepidation as he moved towards the fridge to pull out the root vegetables he intended to cook for dinner, in a fennel sauce he thought. He was trying to look nonchalant.

“Note?” Paul asked. “No, I missed it.”

John laughed, feeling very relieved. “How could you miss it? I left it right by your face on the pillow.”

Paul shrugged as if to say, ‘search me!’ 

John made an excuse about the bathroom, and then went to the sitting room and found the note on the floor. He opened it up and re-read it, and then scrunched it into a ball and threw it in to the fire. He returned to the kitchen.

“So what did it say?” Paul asked.

“Hmm?” John asked, all innocence.

“The note you left me. What did it say?” Paul’s eyes were dancing with mischief. He obviously thought that the note’s contents might have been naughty. Well, they were, but not in the way Paul had in mind.

“It doesn’t matter,” John said as lightly as possible. “It’s one of those stupid things that you can never properly explain later.” John was quite rightly feeling ashamed of himself. His note had read: “I’m at my session with Fiona. I expect you to stay HERE while I’m gone!”

 

*****

 

The week before Christmas was Paul’s week with Linda. He decided he would help her in her efforts to make the food for the large Christmas Eve party they were hosting. Paul was looking forward to it. John and all the kids and their significant others (to the extent they had them) were coming, of course, and so was Mike McCartney and his family. To make the evening even better, Linda had invited Ritchie and Barbara, George and Olivia, and George Martin and family. Paul loved having his family around him, and he considered his Beatle brothers to be family, even if they hadn’t always returned the favor. 

“You’re very cheerful these days,” Linda said, giving Paul a hug from behind. He was so bouncy and cooperative today, diligently following her instructions and humming a happy tune while doing so.

“Am I? I guess I am!” Paul laughed. “I can’t believe that last year I was in such a state! I don’t even know who that guy was.” 

Linda smiled. “You’ve been through a lot, Paul. You have the right to have your down times. But I’m happy that you’re happy.”

This golden moment was interrupted by a grumpy 17 year old who had overheard this last comment. “You guys are disgusting,” James said as he strode across the kitchen to the fridge, opened the door, and then stood there staring at it for several moments.

Linda laughed. “There’s nothing new in the fridge, James. Nothing added since 30 minutes ago when you last came in and stared at the fridge.”

“I’m hungry,” James grumbled.

“So what else is new?” Paul asked the air. “What if I make you a sandwich? Cheese and pickle?” 

James shrugged. What he really wanted (although his parents would be upset) was a big juicy sausage drowning in gravy. He had hoped that one might miraculously materialize if he stared at the fridge long enough. “Okay,” he said unenthusiastically. He returned to the sitting room, where he was playing a video game on the television, and slumped down in the easy chair.

“That was a real vote of confidence, wasn’t it?” Paul joked to Linda. He started putting a sandwich together. He was happy to do this so Linda could focus on her party preparations.

“What’s John doing this week?” Linda asked, trying to show interest in Paul’s other life.

“Today he’s having lunch with that weirdo writer friend of his. He’s been writing poetry, did you know that? And this friend of his used to be an English professor, and is giving him notes.” Paul didn’t find it odd that Linda asked about John. She had always made an effort to keep up with John’s doings. John, on the other hand, would freeze up and become jealous if Paul mentioned Linda. He had figured that out – finally – and now managed to keep his life with Linda separate when he was with John. 

“What’s weird about him?” Linda asked, intrigued. Paul was an extremely open-minded person and rarely described people as ‘weird.’

“He’s kind of an unreconstructed hippie, except he is a cynic and a gadfly. I’m not sure what he actually does for a living. He doesn’t like me, I can tell. He thinks I’m stupid, and that John could do better.”

Linda stopped what she was doing and turned to look at Paul. Her worry was unnecessary because Paul looked completely unfazed by his disclosure. He noted Linda’s concern and smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. It doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it. Ever since I met John – I mean right from the very beginning – he always had friends around him who disliked me and the influence I had over him; they always think that I’m not worthy of him. They tend to think I’m just a ‘pretty face’ that John is infatuated with, and they also think at the same time that I’m jealous of John’s success, a money-grubber, and looking out for the main chance. They don’t like or trust me. I can’t tell you how many people like that I’ve met who virtually idolize John – John attracts that kind of person like honey attracts flies. They think they’re all intellectual and oh-too-smart for the likes of me. They also think John is a lot more cynical than he actually is. John isn’t cynical. He just pretends to be cynical. He is really a very softhearted person underneath. None of them want to see that about him; they prefer John’s armor to the real John.” Paul suddenly stopped. He hadn’t meant to go on like that! Entirely out of character! He looked up and saw that Linda was smiling at him.

“I suppose I will never understand the whole of what goes on between you and John. Sometimes it feels like you’re not two people at all – but maybe one person accidentally split in two at birth.” She then looked back at the pastry dough laid out in front of her waiting to be rolled. If this were true – if Paul and John really were one person inexplicably separated before birth by god and/or nature, then in truth there weren’t really three people in this relationship! That was a crazy thought.

 

*****

 

“You seem to have a lot of poems here about betrayal of trust,” Kevin was opining as he fingered the well-worn manuscript of poems that John had given to him a few weeks earlier in the hope of getting some helpful input.

“It is on my mind a lot right now. I’m dealing with it in therapy,” John responded. “In fact, I’ll be meeting my therapist later today.”

Kevin laughed. “I have that effect on people.” He opened the manuscript to one specific poem. “This poem, ‘Broken Ties’. You’re writing about a lover you cannot trust.”

“It’s not about a specific lover,” John disagreed. “It’s about my inability to trust. I’m beginning to see what my therapist wanted me to see – that because of my childhood I cannot trust anything or anyone. I suppose I should have realized this before, but it’s only been recently – when everything in my life has been going right – that it has finally sunk in on me that I do this to myself. I self-sabotage. Before, I always had someone or something else to blame when things were going wrong; now, it’s just down to me. Anyway, I wrote that poem before I had my epiphany, so now I guess I’m talking about a new poem I’ve yet to write.”

Kevin was a dog with a bone. “There are so many of these poems about broken trust, it makes me wonder. How is your relationship with Paul going?”

John looked up. “It’s going fine, thank you. But you don’t look convinced. Why?”

“Because you obviously don’t trust him,” Kevin pointed this out as if it were obvious.

“Kevin, haven’t I just finished telling you that I don’t trust anyone?” John’s voice reflected his consternation.

“I hear the Beatles are getting back together,” Kevin said.

“That was an abrupt segue,” John chuckled. “And no, we’re not getting back together. We got back together for a short period of time. We recorded half a dozen songs for this project we’re doing. It’s a documentary about the Beatles, and we’re telling our own story.”

“So it’s not a true reunion?” Kevin asked.

“Well, it was a reunion of sorts, I guess,” John said, wondering what Kevin was getting at. But why should he wonder? “What are you getting at Kevin? It seems like you’re trying to tell me something.”

“I was just curious about the Beatles,” Kevin said obliquely. “Personally, I think you’d be better off in the full group, rather than as just a part of a duo with Paul. I’ve always liked George Harrison’s influence. He adds to your efforts to cut down Paul’s tendencies towards bubbliness and inanity. Two against one are better odds.”

John was dumbfounded. “Well, Kevin,” John said nastily, gathering his things in preparation for an abrupt departure, “that was an unsolicited insult to my partner. You’ve been hinting at something ever since I got here. Why don’t you just spit it out instead of making these mysterious comments?” 

Kevin could see he had hit a nerve. It didn’t surprise him. Still, he felt he wouldn’t be John’s friend if he didn’t tell him the truth. He had gleaned the truth from John’s poems. (Of course, the ‘truth’ he had gleaned had been the one he had been looking for, seeing as how he himself had never trusted Paul.) “I guess what I’m trying to say is – if you cannot trust the man, there is probably a good reason. You should listen to your inner voice. And you should also talk about that with your therapist today.”

 

*****

 

John was moody again, Fiona could tell. She had hoped he would have shown up re-energized by their previous session. Oh, well. Onward and upward! “You look a bit tired and down today,” she said softly.

“I’ve just had a very disturbing conversation with a friend of mine. He’s messed with my head.” John looked and sounded grumpy.

“Oh?”

“We were talking about some poems I’d written, and I’d given them to him to read. He used to be an English professor. Anyway, he told me that my poems show that I don’t trust Paul. I was trying to explain that I don’t really trust anyone, but he kept saying it was Paul I didn’t trust, and I should listen to my gut. I don’t know why he got that message from my poems, because I wasn’t consciously writing about Paul.” John had just regurgitated this information in one fell swoop, having held it in with great effort all the way from the restaurant.

“Let’s try to parse that out, shall we?” Fiona asked. God save her from her patients’ “friends.” They had a lot to answer for! They insisted upon pretending to be therapists, and then undid all of her good work. “You say he used to be an English professor…”

“Yeah. He encouraged me to write, and I originally thought of a memoir, but then I realized I couldn’t write a memoir because…” John stopped. He didn’t need to finish his sentence though, since Fiona knew the answer. He couldn’t write about Paul, so he couldn’t tell the truth, so he couldn’t write a memoir. “I started to try to write poems. They’re a lot different from lyrics. It’s taking me a while to let go of my insistence upon meter and rhyme. Anyway, I’d shown him these poems, and he was going to give me some notes on them, and then he said that I was writing about ‘a lover I could not trust’, something like that.”

“So he’s not a therapist?” Fiona asked, her eyes brimming with mirth.

John laughed. “No. Not ‘alf.”

“So he is shooting from the hip, psychologically speaking, right?” Fiona proposed.

John chuckled at the image. “He is kind of a cowboy.”

Fiona needed to straighten this out right away, so she could get John back on the right track. “John, our friends are important parts of our lives. But it is necessary to remember they come to us with their own biases and experiences, most of which we don’t even know about. They often project things on to us that we don’t actually feel, and then give us advice about it that we don’t need. I’m not saying that he’s literally wrong. In a real sense you don’t trust Paul. But you don’t trust him because of what is going on in your head, not because of anything Paul has done. If Paul had never married Linda, and had lived with you faithfully his whole life, you would still have these problems, because you have never finished dealing with your fundamental fear of abandonment.” 

John said nothing. He just nodded slightly in acknowledgement. “And one more thing,” Fiona added. “I believe you when you said you weren’t writing about a specific person when you wrote about lack of trust. It’s a poem, and of course you personify this lack of trust for clarity’s sake. It doesn’t mean that the persona you write about is a specific person. The persona could be a stand in for anyone who would be close to you. I think your English professor friend is being overly literal when he reads your poetry.” Fiona enjoyed the irony of this. “The only question for you to answer is why does he insist upon projecting that persona on to Paul? Does he not like Paul?”

John sat back and experienced a flash of insight. “No, I don’t think he does.” 

“It is possible that he is projecting his own lack of trust of Paul on to you.”

“That makes sense,” John said, perhaps a little uncertainly. “But why wouldn’t he trust Paul? He’s only met Paul once, very briefly, so he doesn’t even know him.”

“That’s a question we’ll probably never have the answer to. I doubt if your friend even knows why he doesn’t trust Paul. My guess is that there is something about Paul that reminds him of someone else or a type of person that in the past has hurt him in some way. That is normally the reason why people have automatic negative reactions to others.”

“We’re all raving fruitcakes – everyone in the whole bleeding world - aren’t we?” John asked, with a cockeyed grin on his face. “So what Kevin said to me tells me more about Kevin than it does about Paul. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I think that is a distinct possibility. But let’s hold that thought in abeyance for now. You should give it some more thought on your own. I’d really like to go back to where we left off last time, when you asked me what your lack of trust of your mother had to do with the fear you have of something going wrong with Paul.”

“Oh, that,” John chuckled. “I figured that out by myself.” John puffed himself up and mimicked Fiona’s voice as he said, “I think I’m projecting my own lack of trust of my mother on to Paul. Poor Paul. Everyone’s projecting on to him!” 

“He’s one popular guy,” Fiona said, laughing.


	86. Chapter 86

It was the late morning of December 24th, and there was a misty rain – it didn’t fall so much as it turned into a fog as it reached the ground. In essence, it created a pervasive dampness that chilled the bone, and there was even a little frost on the windows, and on the very tips of the bushes. Inside the sitting room at Cavendish, however, it was extremely cozy, with a spirited fire snapping, and the Christmas tree aglow with strings of bright colored lights. Mike McCartney, his wife Rowena, and four of his children had arrived – his youngest daughter and the three young boys. The older girls were arriving separately with their boyfriends. They were all arrayed around the room in chairs and sofas with Paul, Linda and James. Heather had arrived earlier, but was up in the attic room, resting from the long drive. Mary and Stella were expected shortly. Seeing that everyone was settled, Linda got up and excused herself, heading for the kitchen to continue her baking. Rowena noticed, and followed.

“Can I help?”

“Of course!” Linda said, grabbing an extra apron and tossing it over to her sister-in-law. “What would you prefer? Making the nougat or whipping the merengue?”

Rowena knew nothing about nougat, and even less about merengue. “Nougat?” She asked.

Linda smiled as she gathered the ingredients. She pulled a card out of her recipes box and handed it to Rowena. “It’s my Grandmother’s recipe. It’s a German nougat, so there are no egg whites. My Grandmother came from German stock,” Linda explained.

This was more in the way of explanation than Rowena needed. At least the instructions looked simple enough.

The two women worked pleasantly together until Mary and Stella joined them. They had dragged Heather out of her room, and also pulled their female cousin in to help as well, and pretty soon there was a fairly thick estrogen haze hovering over the kitchen. None of the menfolk even considered going in there.

Paul and Mike were kicking back in the sitting room. After the usual catch-up on news and family gossip, and – perhaps more to the point – after the first glass of brandy-spiked eggnog had been downed, Mike said in an uncharacteristically shy and quiet way, “I hope you don’t mind that I told John that story about Dad without telling you first. I never could think of the right time to tell you.”

Paul’s expression was a classic example of a man perplexed. “What story is this then?”

Mike saw that the expression was genuine. “I thought John would mention to you what I told him about Dad.”

Now Paul’s face was beginning to look concerned. “What about Dad?” He demanded.

Mike was uncomfortable now. He was dumbfounded that John had not repeated the story to Paul. In his place, Mike would certainly have done so. In fact, Mike had hoped that John would tell Paul so that he - Mike – wouldn’t have to! “It was when I went over to apologize to him that night for my behavior, remember?”

Paul nodded in recognition. “You said it went well…” Paul was clearly beginning to wonder if it hadn’t gone quite so well after all.

“It did go well. Largely because I told him something I had never told anyone before.” Mike was starting to feel stressed. He looked around. This was not the kind of conversation they should have in the middle of the day in the sitting room, when any of their family members might suddenly stroll through or join them. He should have waited until after the party, when he and his brother were sitting in Paul’s study, sipping whiskey. “I don’t think we should have this conversation here,” Mike said quietly, looking around to indicate that he was worried others might join them.

“Is it that bad?” Paul asked, worried now.

“No. I used to think it was bad, but the point of telling the story to John was to show to him, as well as myself, that I no longer thought it was bad.”

“Mike – you have to tell me. I’m on pins and needles here…” Paul’s face looked very stressed.

“Well, let’s get some more eggnog, and we can go to your study then,” Mike said.

“Fuck the eggnog! Let’s go straight for the whiskey,” Paul declared, getting up and heading for his study. Michael’s bark of laughter was much like his brother’s. He followed Paul to the study, and gratefully received the tumbler of whiskey proffered by his brother. Paul closed and locked the door (just in case). “So tell me, Mike. What is it?”

“It was something Dad said to me back in the late ‘60s. Remember that time you and John visited Dad for Easter – I think it was ’67?”

Paul said, “Vaguely.” He was searching his memory but was coming up blank. Fucking pot has done a number on my memory, he thought.

“It was after you left. I came down to visit him, and I was sitting with him in front of the fire…”

 

*****

 

Later that night, with the party bustling all around him, George Harrison was leaning back in his chair, watching his son Dhani across the room hanging with James McCartney and Sean Lennon. He had to laugh. Here he was again spying on the sons of old mates who were hanging together. The last time was in - Hawaii? That was many years ago. George smiled at the memory. The boys had been stalking each other in the jungle overgrowth, pretending to be ninjas.

“Hey, mate,” John said softly, pulling George from his reverie. “You look like you’re thinking about something funny.”

George nodded his head in the direction of the three scions. John turned to look, and then laughed. “History repeats itself,” he jokes. Then he did a double take. “That’s a fucking scary thought.”

George nodded his general agreement. “I guess I’m glad I went through it once, but I sure wouldn’t want to go ‘round again.” Images flashed through his memory: screaming girls clambering over cars, and policemen grabbing, pulling, shouting...

“It was a bit like a roller coaster ride through a house of horrors, wasn’t it?” John chuckled, taking a sip of eggnog that was more nog than egg.

The two men subsided into a companionable silence. 

 

*****

 

Across the room, Paul appeared to be listening to Linda and Olivia’s conversation. In reality, he was listening to an inner voice. Because he wasn’t really paying attention, he didn’t hear when Olivia extended an invitation to Linda and Paul for dinner early in the New Year. Linda had turned to Paul for approval, and noticing this, Paul had nodded in approval, although he was not consciously agreeing to anything specific. It had just seemed to him in that moment that Linda had needed his assent, and Paul would never withhold his assent to anything that Linda truly wanted.

Paul hadn’t felt quite so cheerful since Mike had told him about what their father had said so many years ago - back when Paul had felt totally in control of his destiny: 1967. Back when he had felt invincible. Back before life had kicked the stuffing out of him. Thinking back, Paul could barely recognize himself in that cocky young blade. He wished that he could find some of that cockiness again, but what cockiness he’d had left by 1979 was knocked out of him in the ‘80s. It had been hard to be a rocker in his forties. It was such a bourgeois age, the forties: it was a ‘comfortable’ time, except for the stressful corralling of children in their teens, and all the while thickening in the waist and mellowing in the brain. Only his daring secret life had kept him from feeling like a shadow of his former self; his secret life with John is what kept him on his toes, and on the edge of his seat. But for that, he would feel like a hopelessly dulled knife. And this thought led him back to what Mike had told him. Paul was feeling around trying to understand why he was left gutted by the revelation. He remembered that when he was in his twenties, he had wanted his father to be proud of him, and to see what a strong, confident man he had become. Instead, it turned out that his father knew his secret all along, and although his father apparently loved him in spite of it, Paul knew that it had to have been a major disappointment to Jim McCartney to realize that his son was in love with a man. Paul was now seeing the cocky young blade in the eyes of his father: a gleaming ocean liner from the waves up, but a secretly unstable infrastructure from the waves down. That was not the way Paul had wanted his father to see him, and it was wrenching to learn that his belief - the belief he’d sustained that his father had been proud of his strong, successful son - had been revealed to be one last and most bitter illusion. 

 

*****

 

“Paul sure looks blue,” George said to John from his seat across the room. He hadn’t realized he had said it out loud at first. He turned towards John just in time to see John’s head whip around the room in alarm.

John didn’t say anything in response. After he had found Paul in the crowd and saw the expression on his face, he got up and went straight to Paul’s side. He poked Paul in his stomach. “You look like you just lost your best friend,” John said in a low voice and with a winning smile. “But that can’t be true, because here I am - with bells on!”

Paul’s face immediately registered John’s presence, and so went from sad to cheerful in a split second. “So you are,” he chuckled. He smiled through John’s questioning look: the look that said, ‘What is it? You’re not fooling me. Tell me what’s wrong?’ Paul kept smiling until John shrugged in frustration. Paul knew that John would be bringing this episode up later, but he also knew that this celebratory family party was not the time or the place for the thoughts that had been haunting him, so he willed them away. He could count on John to pounce on him about it later.

George Martin approached his former protégés. “I just heard from Neil that you two have created a new charitable trust,” he said warmly. “For tithing from your song catalog?”

“Yes,” John said purposefully. “And where are we on that, Paul?” He asked, turning to face his partner with a formal voice. In reaction, George Martin smiled with affection. Apparently, John was still having grand ideas, and Paul was still making them happen.

“It’s been operating for weeks. Don’t you remember those papers I had you sign a few months ago?” Paul looked only slightly exasperated - but in a fond, indulgent kind of way. “Our first board meeting is next month.”

John ignored the question and instead reacted to the news. “Great!” He crowed. He then looked around for another drink, and when one wasn’t immediately to hand, he went in search of one.

“I think it is a wonderful idea - to use your song catalog to invest in the things you believe in,” George offered.

“Yeah, I had to talk Neil into signing some releases on behalf of Apple in order to accomplish it, but all the paperwork’s done now.”

“I heard the tapes that you and the others made last week,” George said. “You all sound fantastic.”

“I hope you’re not just saying that,” Paul joked, hoping to tease out more information from the great Mr. Martin.

“I found it interesting that you kept such a low profile, Paul, although of course I heard all your bass contributions, and your harmonies, and of course all the melodic touches. It reminds me of what you did on ‘Abbey Road.’”

“You know the saying, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth?’” Paul asked, his eyes dancing. “I figured that someone should volunteer to be sous chef. Sort of like when I volunteered to take on the bass.”

“It was very generous of you, Paul, because I think you should have sung the song George sang - ‘Do It (For the Show).’ Your voice is perfect for that song.”

“That’s what John said. But I like the way George sings it. I think George sings it with more irony, and that makes it more interesting. I think I might have been too earnest.”

“Paul, you’re not too earnest. Some ignorant people just unfairly read you that way. You are a very talented and nuanced singer.”

Paul chuckled. “Okay, okay, my ego’s had its quota now, you can stop. You can hardly be an objective listener, but I know if you didn’t like the stuff we did, you’d tell me so.”

“I would indeed. Ringo’s song was surprisingly good,” George Martin added.

“He has songwriting partners now, which is smart. Ritchie has a very interesting voice when it comes to lyrics - I mean, in the way he tells a story - but he needs help in the music department, and he is getting that from his writing partners now.”

“Did I just hear my name in vain?” Ringo himself had stepped between Paul and George Martin.

“We were just praising your song on the new Beatles production,” George said.

Ringo looked suspiciously at George Martin and then at Paul.

“No, truly, we were, Ritchie,” Paul chuckled. Ringo relaxed.

“Good. I really like that song. I wanted it for my next album, but I sacrificed it for my three brothers.”

“I hope we’re worth the sacrifice,” Paul guffawed. “Somehow I wonder...” His thought was cut off when Ringo punched him in the arm.

A second later John was back, this time with a Brandy Alexander. Paul eyeballed it meaningfully, and John saw it.  
“What?” He demanded indignantly.

“Nothing,” Paul said.

“Nothing my ass! You disapprove of my drinking?” John’s voice was loud and - it had to be said - drunken. Several people turned to look at John with worried but curious expressions.

“Not the drinking so much,” Paul said in a conciliatory way, “but the mixture of drinks. I’m afraid you’ll spend the night worshipping the throne.” Paul’s soft and smiling voice caused everyone to relax and go back to the interrupted conversations. George Martin and Ringo both hid the fact that they were letting out withheld breath in relief. John was iffy again, and Paul - the John Whisperer - had turned the hard wind away yet again.

“Maybe I will, but I don’t see why it should be worrying you,” John sneered. But at least his voice was softer now.

“You don’t?” Paul asked in a chirpy voice. “Then you won’t be asking me to clean up after?”

Paul’s comical expression soothed the savage beast of John’s drunkenness, and so John relaxed into a snakelike smile (if a snake could smile). “Oh, there will be plenty for you to ‘clean up’ later, baby,” he oozed.

George Martin and Ringo might have been embarrassed if Paul hadn’t reacted with delighted laughter and said cheerfully, “There always is, isn’t there?” 

 

*****

 

“I had fun tonight, did you?” Linda was lying on her side regarding her husband, who was lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. He didn’t respond right away. “You look like you’re a million miles away,” she added.

Paul finally pulled himself out of his dark thoughts, and turned to smile at his wife. “It was a good party, Lin,” he said with a smile. His hand reached up and caressed her face. “Near the end though, just before she left, Stella read me the riot act,” he added seriously.

“Oh?” Linda’s heart beat a little harder. She had been feeling guilty about what she had said to Stella earlier. She had been momentarily deluded into thinking that she was talking to a friend, rather than a daughter. She hoped that Stella hadn’t repeated what she said to Paul. “What did she say?” Linda asked, her voice uncharacteristically insecure.

“She said that she’s worried about you; that I am too swept up in my life with John, and I’m not giving you enough. Is that how you feel?” Paul’s voice was tender, giving. And his finger continued to stroke Linda’s cheek as he spoke.

“I was feeling a bit down at the moment, and said some stuff to Stella I should never have said. I regretted it immediately. I’m sorry, Paul.” Linda’s eyes actually watered up with tears.

Paul was distressed for her. “You don’t have to apologize to me! I put you in this situation, didn’t I? I know it isn’t what you hoped for when we first got together.”

“You didn’t put me in the situation, Paul. I chose it. I chose it because I didn’t want you to myself if you were going to be longing for John the whole time, and I felt as though having you 50% of the time was better than having anyone else 100% of the time.” Linda’s voice was strong and definite. “Just occasionally, though, I find that I get weak and I start feeling sorry for myself.”

Paul was quiet for a few moments. “John said something very similar - that he’d rather be with me 50% of the time than with anyone else 100% of the time. I guess I have a hard time understanding why 50% would be enough for you two, because I have 50% of each of you, and I find myself wishing I could be there 100% for both of you.”

Linda moved over, put her arm around Paul’s chest, and rested her chin on his shoulder. “We both love you, and you love us both, and I guess we’re all much luckier than people who don’t know what love is.”

Paul’s arm circled around Linda’s shoulders, and he squeezed her closer to him. As usual, and hardly without trying, she had filled him with peace. What would he ever do if he didn’t have her? He had a worry to unload, and she had always listened to his troubles and somehow, miraculously, made them seem conquerable. “Mike told me something today, and it has thrown me off my pace,” he said.

“Oh? What was that? He isn’t being homophobic again, is he?” Linda was prepared to be angry on Paul’s behalf.

“No,” Paul chuckled. “He told me my father knew about me and John.”

Linda was still for several moments as she dealt with her surprise. But the more she thought about it, the less it surprised her. “I’m not sure why, but that doesn’t surprise me as much as you’d think,” she finally said.

“Why not?” Paul asked sharply, prepared to be insulted. What was he then - some great drag queen? Did everyone think he was queer? Was it writ large on his fucking forehead?

Linda didn’t realize that Paul was having these degrading thoughts. She was musing about her memories of Jim McCartney. “He just seemed very in tune with you and Mike. More than any other father I’d met - certainly more than my father, but that’s not saying much. But none of my friends’ fathers were like him, either. Jim just seemed to ‘get’ you and Mike on a molecular level. Maybe it was because he had to raise you after your mother died. So what did Mike say - was your father upset about you and John?”

“No,” Paul finally answered after several pregnant moments. “I get the sense it was more like he was resigned to it. He didn’t think John and I should be together though, because he thought John was too...insensitive...to make me happy. He also thought I wanted a wife and children...”

“That’s a very advanced way of thinking for a man of his generation,” Linda opined. “His disapproval wasn’t that you were both men, but that you weren’t right for each other at that point in your lives. I might also add that he turned out to be spot on in his interpretation of events, given how everything turned out.”

Paul nodded, but he still felt miserable about it. He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t wanted to look so conflicted in his father’s eyes. He had wanted his father to look at him with unalloyed pride. None of these feelings could be explained to anyone else. They were just the kind of things in life that he would have to deal with alone. No one could understand what his father meant to him, and how important it had been to Paul to make his father proud. He thought he had made his father proud, but learning that his father had seen through his efforts at obfuscation was painful in the extreme.

 

*****

 

John was trying to concentrate on his book. He was reading John Le Carre’s ‘The Russia House’, but his mind kept escaping to the evening’s events. He had drunk too much, so that when Stella had caught him in the garden as he attempted to escape down the mews, he was not fully prepared for what the young woman had to say. She had always been the one of Paul’s children who said it to him like it was. He secretly revered Stella because of her fearlessness when her sense of conviction had been aroused. It was difficult, however, when that fearlessness and sense of conviction was aimed at him. And here she was aiming those fiery blue eyes at him that were so like Paul’s, even though they were the wrong color.

“You need to learn how to share,” she said abruptly. She, too, had had a bit too much to drink, and it had loosened her tongue. She had yet to tackle her father, but she had every intention of doing that too before the night was over.

“Excuse me?” John asked, showing Stella the kind of clueless and enchanting expression he could so easily muster when confronted with people who had been injured by his own bad behavior. This look of his had always rendered his victims helpless. For Stella to be this upset, John supposed he must have done or said something during the course of the night to set her off, although he couldn’t think what it was.

“You heard me - you need to learn how to share!” Stella repeated pugnaciously.

“Share what?” John asked. He was at a loss. Perhaps if he weren’t quite so drunk, some of this would make sense.

“My father!” She declared, almost victoriously.

John was feeling his way through this tricky patch. “You want me to learn how to share your father with...you?” He asked carefully.

“No, with my mother,” she clarified.

John was silent. He thought he was sharing Paul with Linda. Isn’t that what he’d been doing for almost 14 years now? His confused and searching eyes pierced through Stella’s pique, and she becalmed herself down to John’s more mellow level.

“You may not realize it,” Stella said with far less aggressiveness, “that my mother is feeling isolated. She is losing her children, and she needs my father right now. She’ll get used to us all being grown and flown in time, but she needs him more now than she’s needed him before.”

John did not trust himself to speak. At what point would his needs be equal to Linda’s in Stella’s eyes? Never, no doubt, came the answer. Linda was, after all, Stella’s mother. Still, John could not make himself feel bad about Linda’s empty nest syndrome. He had been living alone for most of the time for 14 years now, during which time Linda had lived surrounded by a large and loving family. His son had flown the coop years ago, and John had felt isolated and adrift far more often than Linda had done. Now she was beginning to feel a little of what he had gone through for all those years, and apparently she couldn’t stand it. None of this could or would he say to Stella. He figured he would just have to be the villain of the piece in this little vignette.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Stella asked. Her words were slurred, and she looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Yes, baby, I do,” John said softly. “I will try to be more thoughtful about your mother’s needs in the future.”

Stella had been nonplussed by John’s adult reaction. She loved John - who didn’t? Indeed, who couldn’t? - but she had loved him the way one loved an older (in years) but unreliable brother, who was wild and creative but not very consistent or reliable. Thus, John’s sweet non-confrontational adult response had pushed her off her stride. She leaned in for a hug, and John returned it fiercely.

“We’ll all make it through, you know,” John had whispered in her ear. “It may not always be graceful, and it may not always be pretty, but we will make it through.”

John felt his eyes closing, and he forced them open long enough to find the bookmark to save his place in The Russia House. He set the book aside, leaned over to turn off the bedside light, and then tucked in on his side. He didn’t immediately fall asleep. He was troubled by the memory of Paul’s sad face in the midst of a joyously happy holiday party. The face had been so sad that even George Harrison had noticed it. John prayed they weren’t in for another protracted Macca depression. He wasn’t sure he and Linda could handle it, after what they’d gone through the previous year. 

 

*****

 

Christmas Day had come and gone, and Paul had accompanied John home after Christmas dinner. John’s head was full of pregnant thoughts, but it was as if the labor pains were there, but the muscles weren’t dilating, so he couldn’t squeeze the words out that he needed to say. Paul looked subdued now, even though he had been ebullient at dinner, with his brother’s family and his own family arrayed around the dining room table, with extra tables and chairs squeezed in to make room for everyone. John had actually felt part of the family that night. He had sat between Mike and James, and both of them had treated him with open affection and had laughed heartily at his smartass remarks, and his heart had melted at the wonder of being part of a large, loud, loving family.

He had tried to be a friend to Linda that day, remembering Stella’s words. He had come over early on Christmas Day and brought some vegetables and recipes, and had suggested that he and Linda cook together. “I’ll be your second,” John said cheerfully. “Just order me around!” They had spent a wonderful late morning and afternoon together, and they hadn’t spoken about anything heavy or serious; nor had they spoken about Paul. They had talked about food, and their respective children, and John had brought his manuscript and had read some of his poems out loud to Linda while they sat around the kitchen table, drinking hot tea, while their wares were baking. Linda had been transfixed by John’s poetry. She had felt that for the first time she had a window that opened right into John’s soul. She had listened intently, her chin resting on the palm of her thin, elegant hand, her long fingers caressing her cheek and her deeply set sea-blue eyes clouded over with a kind of dreaminess. John couldn’t help thinking how beautiful Linda could be; she was like a changeling. At moments like these the bone structure in the face, the elegance of long fingers, and the depth of dark blue eyes combined to make it patently clear to John what Paul had seen in Linda. Paul was a subtler connoisseur of women: he saw through the phoniness to the depth below, and had chosen a non-frivolous, well-grounded woman to love.

Now he had Paul to himself again, and he didn’t know how to broach the serious subjects that were nagging him: the mysterious mood that had descended on Paul during the party, and the confrontation with Stella. Paul just looked so tired and deflated, almost as if he had been putting on an act all the way through dinner. John was uncharacteristically reluctant to stir the waters of discontent, so he followed Paul up the stairs to their bedroom, and silently undressed, brushed his teeth, and - hoping for an exciting night - even shaved as closely as he could. Paul, meanwhile, was in the shower, and John could see his silhouette there, leaning against the shower wall. He wanted to barge in and join him, but something stopped him. Instead, he finished up at the sink, and then, disrobing, climbed into bed.

The cool marble against Paul’s forehead soothed him, even as the hot water hitting his back relaxed him. It had been a mighty effort, but he had made it through the last two days without showing his inner misery to his lovers, family and friends. He could feel the tears rolling down his face, but the shower water hid it from the world, and even - to an extent - from his own judgmental conscious mind. His darkest fear had always been to disappoint his family, and his father - in Paul’s mind - had been the symbolic representation of his family. He had comforted himself for years with the thought that his father had died without knowing about John. But it turned out that it had been a false comfort. Now he was left with regrets. Regrets that he could do nothing to assuage. His father was dead, and he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t explain to his father that his love for John had been against his better judgment, against everything he had been taught, and against everything he had been brought up to believe. And yet he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help the longings that had drained him of all self-discipline. Despite all this, when John had reached out to him - well, Paul knew that he hadn’t put up much of a fight. He had given himself up to the undertow. As it happened, nothing he’d learned as a child had prepared him to stand up to a challenge like John. If Paul had known that his father knew, then he would have wanted his father to understand that he had done everything he could do to fight that attraction. And he had found the strength to walk away, get married, and have a family. For the first time Paul allowed himself to wonder what he would have done when John came back into his life that December of 1980 if his father had still been alive. Would he have turned John away again in order to live up to the father’s expectations? Paul quaked at the thought. He didn’t want to live without John, but he in no way wanted to disappoint his father. He sighed. In the end he would have gone with John, he knew. As much as he loved his father and wanted to please him, John would always come first...

“Are you ever getting out of that shower?”

Paul’s head jerked at the sound of John’s voice. For the first time he noticed that the water was cool. He quickly turned off the faucet, and then pulled the door open. John was standing there, naked, holding up a towel for him. Paul’s smile was involuntary as he stepped out of the shower into the towel. How many times had John been there to catch him when he had been in free fall? Paul had lost count.

 

*****

 

Paul decided to spend his passion on John. He had fallen on John in the darkness with a kind of abandon he hadn’t felt in a long time. The wetness of their conjoined mouths, and the friction in their nether regions had sparked an intense ferocity in Paul’s mind. This is what it meant to be ‘feverish’ when having sex, Paul thought idly. But that thought did not detain his attention for long. He needed all of his lover’s body, mind and soul to sate his appetite.

John felt the inarticulate intensity of Paul’s needs, and gave himself up to it. He, as a man, understood how sometimes only sex could salve a man’s wounds, and he was more than willing to supply that comfort. He hoped that afterwards Paul would be able to tell him what was wrong. By now, John knew that something was wrong. He felt it in his sinews. 

Paul was on top, and he was thrusting as if his life depended on it. Paul swore under his breath. The fear and anger that had roiled inside of his mind for two days found itself exorcised by the intense thrusting and swearing. To a certain extent it could have been anybody beneath him, because the holed up emotions needed escape that badly, but there was that patina of trust that floated over his relationship with John that told Paul he could let himself go this way, and still be loved and even forgiven.


	87. Chapter 87

After the orgasm, John decided to let Paul have a peaceful night’s sleep. He could poke around in Paul’s psyche about what was wrong in the morning; that is, the morning - when everything seemed more ordinary and manageable. He chose to hold Paul close to him instead, and his lips grazed the hair on Paul’s head, and he laid light little kisses on Paul’s scalp. He wondered if his heart would break with love. He always loved and needed Paul, but he never loved him as much as when the man needed him. It was a rare enough event that John could almost count on fingers and toes the number of times it had happened. He felt a fierce protectiveness come over him, and he squeezed Paul tightly. The man seemed to have melted into his chest, and Paul’s head was resting in the nape of John’s neck. It was a very scary thing, to be this much in love with someone. One’s whole peace of mind was based on the fidelity and health of this single person, and John was an untrusting soul at base.

 

*****

 

The next morning was grey, and the mood was subdued in the kitchen, where John and Paul were quietly co-existing. John was cooking breakfast, and Paul was staring at the kitchen table while holding a cup of coffee that was largely untouched. John felt the silence like a heavy burden. He knew he would have to break the peace and quiet, and confront the IT that lay between them. He just wanted to postpone it for as long as possible.

He dished the scrambled eggs on to two plates, poured two glasses of orange juice, and plopped everything on the table. He gestured to the salt and pepper, and Paul nodded slightly in acknowledgement.

“Thanks,” Paul said in a low voice, as he picked up his fork and pushed the food around a while before taking a small bite.

John watched this performance for a few minutes and then couldn’t take it any more. He put his fork down with a clang. “Okay, I can’t avoid it any more,” he said flatly. “What’s bothering you? You’re not your cheerful self.”

Paul looked up with the expression of a condemned man. He had hoped that John had forgotten about his moodiness, but that was obviously a vain hope. John never missed the nuances of Paul’s moods, and this was both a blessing and a burden to Paul. He decided not to play games. That would just be a waste of time with John, who would never let go of a thing once he had his teeth firmly embedded in it.

Paul cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me what Mike told you about my dad?” He asked. His voice was unintentionally accusing. It was as if Paul couldn’t ask the question unless he put a hostile spin on it.

John was stumped for a moment, and then he realized what Paul was talking about. “You mean that your dad guessed about you and me?” John asked.

“Ye-e-e-s-s-s,” Paul drawled with exaggerated irritation.

“Mike told me that story in confidence. I thought it was his memory to tell, not mine,” John said as easily as he could manage. This was dangerous territory. Paul had not taken the news well apparently, although for the life of him John couldn’t figure out why.

“I don’t like you keeping secrets from me,” Paul said, his face arrayed in a perfect pout.

John laughed. “Come on Pud, this was me trying not to come between you and your brother. You can’t hold that against me!”

Paul was surprised to find himself persuaded by this logic. He didn’t respond. Instead he sat quietly, thoughtfully, and whatever collateral resentment he had felt for John drained away.

“Babe? What’s bothering you? It’s not just that I didn’t tell you what Mike said. It’s something else. What is it?” John had reached both hands across the table, and captured Paul’s two wrists in them. This somehow forced Paul to meet John’s eyes.

Paul didn’t want to say what was bothering him. He didn’t want to lay out in clear terms how pathetic he was - that he had wanted his father’s undiluted approval. Paul knew from past experience that because John had never felt a father’s love, he simply was unable to understand Paul’s deep devotion to his father. However, John’s eyes were so compelling, and his hands were gripping Paul’s wrists so forcefully, that Paul could feel his resolve dissolving.

“Paul? Baby?” John coaxed. “I’m your mate, right? We’re supposed to share our troubles, aren’t we?” John’s face was a perfect mix of strength and gentleness, and this vision pushed Paul right over the edge. He caved.

“I thought my father died believing that I was a success - a success in his terms,” Paul finally revealed.

“Yeah, so?” John asked. He allowed his thumbs to gently rub the pulses on Paul’s wrists; he noted absent-mindedly that Paul’s pulses were racing.

Against his better judgment, Paul spit it out. “I was a disappointment to him.” As soon as the words were out, his eyes filled with water and his throat constricted.

John’s face was a picture of perplexity. “How did you reach that conclusion?” He asked quietly.

“He didn’t want a queer for a son,” Paul heard himself say, his face suddenly wet with tears, and his voice suddenly throaty. “He couldn’t possibly. It’s just...in our family...we don’t...it’s not...” Paul paused for what was obviously a frustrating few moments, and then started again. “After my mum died, he wanted for me what she wanted for me, and she was Catholic. She didn’t want ... a queer for a son, for sure...” Paul’s words were coming out in stutters again now because his throat was so constricted.

John closed his eyes in pain at the words. He wasn’t angry with Paul for the patently homophobic comments. He felt only sympathy and empathy. “Oh, Pud, don’t think that! Your dad loved you enough to accept you the way you came. So many fathers could never do that! You should feel gratitude, not shame! And you’re not a ‘queer’ - you know that very well.”

Paul covered his face in his two hands, having wrestled them away from John’s grasp. “You know how we were taught! Anyone who wasn’t 100% straight was ‘queer’ back then! I wanted him to be proud of me...”

John didn’t have time to feel hurt for himself. He could only feel Paul’s hurt. He got up and moved to the other side of the table, pulling out and sitting in the chair next to Paul’s. He put his arm around Paul’s shoulders, and pulled Paul close to him. He whispered in Paul’s ear, “Your dad was incredibly proud of you, Paul. You had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in a profession where he had failed. He couldn’t have been more proud of you. And your mother - if she had lived - would have been proud too; that is, once she got over the disappointment of you not becoming a doctor.” John chuckled to make it clear he had made a little joke.

“But Dad knew about us...” Paul managed to say, his voice cracking and breaking. He didn’t seem to have noticed John’s little joke.

“After Mike told me what your dad said, I finally was able to reach peace with the old man. I thought he hated me, and all the time what he hated was the influence I had over you. He recognized that I was a threat, and so it wasn’t me - the person - he disliked. And, you know, by the time he said that stuff to Mike - it was 1967 after all - he had grown to accept me, and to accept us. And his only concern was that I would hurt you, and that I could never give you a family, which he knew you needed. This news really helped me a lot. I think that once you’ve digested it you will feel the same.” John stopped and took a deep breath. He had said a lot in a few sentences, and he was watching Paul’s face for fault lines.

Paul just wept. He had no words. John just held him, understanding by now that Paul’s relationships with his family members were beyond his ken and influence. All he could do was be there for him with as much love and comfort as possible, as Paul’s self-inflicted wounds bled out and then healed.

 

*****

 

John was beside himself. Any moment now Jason and Gerry would arrive, via chauffeur, at his front door. He had been looking forward to their arrival, knowing that they had a leveling effect not only on his mood, but also on Paul’s. 

Paul had been more or less “normal” since their emotional conversation of the morning before, but John didn’t trust the status quo. He felt there might be some heavy seismic activity below the surface slowly gathering up its internal power before ripping loose with its indifferent violence. Part of him realized that this sense of unease was fed by his own deep fear of abandonment, but he wasn’t imagining - or at least he didn’t think so - the fissures he had glimpsed in Paul, and through Stella’s comments, Linda. If the two of them were out of whack at the same time, would it fall on him to be the strong one? John doubted his ability to (coining a phrase) ‘carry that weight.’ As a result, Jason and Gerry’s anticipated presence had begun to take on very important dimensions for John, who felt they would help him stabilize his moods, and perhaps even talk Paul out of his blues. So when their car finally drove up, John literally rushed out the door to greet them.

“Jay!” John shouted, as Jason got out of the backseat. John soon had Jason engulfed in a huge hug. Gerry, meanwhile, had gotten out of the other side of the car, and had come around the back of it until he was standing next to the two hugging men. He laughed.

“Whoa! John! Don’t swallow him!” Gerry said, chuckling. “Leave some for me!”

“I can’t help it!” John cried in a mixture of joy and humor. “I’m so glad to see you both!”

Gerry, of course, was no match for that declaration, so he held out his arms for John’s hug.

A few moments later, Paul came out of the front door shyly. He stood there awkwardly, unsure of Jason and Gerry’s reaction to seeing him because it had been a while since they’d last met. He needn’t have worried. Gerry saw him first, and headed up the few steps to the porch where Paul stood. Gerry was not as effulgent as Jason, so he approached Paul with his hand outstretched for a handshake. But Paul opened his arms for a hug, and the hug he gave Gerry was warm and firm. Gerry felt again that little thrill of surprise - the one he experienced whenever it became obvious that Paul was the antithesis of what his appearance would suggest. Paul wasn’t standoffish and cool; he was actually warm and approachable.

Soon Jason, too, had greeted Paul and they had moved into the sitting room. John’s house was so large, yet he occupied only 4 rooms of it - the kitchen and the sitting room on the ground floor, and the master suite on the middle floor, and the attic on the top floor, which had been turned into one huge space - the music room. Left almost like museum pieces (although dutifully cleaned by John’s maid) were the dining room, the living room, the library, the study on the ground floor, and the four other bedrooms and en suites on the middle floor. Because John (and Paul) spent so much time in the sitting room, however, it was a very warm and comfortable room. It was “lived in.” It was a perfect balance of John and Paul, this room, with a mixture of the books, music, and movies that they each loved stored on the built in shelves, a huge comfortable sofa (it used to be white, but after a few years of regular use John had it reupholstered in a warm beige); the sofa had a much-used corner on each side. The corner on the right as one faced it was where John always sat. The corner on the left was Paul’s, which looked far less lived in. On either side of the sofa were side tables with matching lamps on them, and also on those side tables were the little comfort items each man liked to have near to him when lolling about on a sofa. In addition to a small collection of reading material, Paul had a cassette player and headphones sitting on his table, for example; on John’s table were a sketchpad and some charcoal pencils, and the ever-present set of remote control devices (for stereo, TV, and VCR) and his headache pills. It looked very much like a little command post.

Jason noticed all this as he fell into one of the two easy chairs that sat perpendicular to the sofa, one on either side. The chairs were placed so that they wouldn’t block the sofa from the large-sized television placed strategically on the fourth wall built-in, and so that anyone sitting in those chairs could also see the screen. There was also a very elaborate sound system set up on the built-in, and Jason had no doubt that it would feature the best that technology had to offer in that particular moment in time. He also noted an old fashioned record player, and wondered what he would find in the vast record collection that was arrayed in such an organized way on the bottom shelf of the built in. He figured there would be a quiet moment or two when he could poke through the records and see what was there.

Gerry, too, had been interested in the transformation of the sitting room. It had been a far less interesting room on his last visit here. It had previously featured a vast white sofa with beautifully embroidered throw pillows, and all detritus had been tucked away out of sight. Now there were snuggly blankets hanging in unceremonious heaps along the back of the sofa, and the pillows were indented due to human occupation. Somehow the room was much warmer and more cheerful now. Gerry collapsed on the other chair - the one closer to Paul’s side - and allowed himself to relax. A moment later John came in carrying a tray with tea things on it. Gerry looked at his watch, and it was indeed around 4 p.m. The English habit of tea at 4 p.m. was a very civilized one, he thought. John set the tray down on the round glass table that was equidistant from the sofa and the chairs. He assiduously poured tea first for Jason and then for Gerry, asking each in turn for instructions as he did so. (“Milk? Sugar?”) He knew how Paul took his tea, so he handed Paul his cup, and then made his own. Jason watched all this with an expression of deep affection on his face, which Paul noticed. Paul agreed with Jason that no sight was quite as endearing as John Lennon being earnestly punctilious.

“So, tell us what you’ve been up to lately?” John asked his guests politely.

“Ooooh, aren’t we the perfect hostess now?” Jason teased with an affected effeminate tone.

“Shuddup Jay,” John grumbled with a contrasting uber- masculine growl. “I get no respect,” he said to Paul and Gerry, who laughed at him.

“Respect is earned,” Gerry said with an undulating voice.

“Oh, I’m scared of you,” responded John. Everyone laughed.

After a pause, Paul said very sincerely, “But we really would like to know what you’ve both been up to.”

Jason smiled warmly at Paul. “I’ve written a number of critical reviews of fiction releases in the last year, and Gerry is fully retired as of December 31st.”

This news galvanized the energy in the room. “Fantastic!” Declared John. And, “Really?” Quizzed Paul. John was thinking how great it was for Gerry not to have to work anymore. Paul was wondering if Gerry was going to be able to stand not working anymore.

Gerry chuckled and said, “It’s time for the young Turks to take over. I’ve looked after more than enough family fortunes over the years. Time to focus solely on Jason’s and mine.”

“This calls for a toast!” John announced, feeling unaccountably happy and festive. He had seen in Jason’s eyes a joy and freedom when he’d announced Gerry’s retirement, and John felt that it needed to be appropriately celebrated. “I’ve got some Cristol Roederer, and I think this is the perfect occasion to pop it!” John declared. He headed for the kitchen’s wine fridge.

Paul said to Gerry softly, “Is retirement what you wanted?” He asked because Paul doubted he himself would ever want to retire. ‘Die with your boots on’ was Paul’s motto. 

“Yes,’ Gerry said in response, addressing his response to Paul. Jason had already left the room to assist John. “I really can’t get excited about yet another wealthy widow’s retirement plans,” he added jokingly.

Paul was silent for a few moments, and then he said, “You shouldn’t make fun of what you did. You have made it possible for many people to enjoy their older years in peace and contentment, freeing up their children to live privileged lives. Very few people have done that much for others in their lifetime.” 

Gerry actually felt his eyes welling up with tears. That was a surprise. He should be used to being surprised by Paul’s depths by now, but he was constantly reminded that he was still capable of being caught unawares by it. “You are very kind to say so,” Gerry told Paul as he grabbed across the void to grasp Paul’s hand. “I never really looked at it that way before.”

Paul said, “I am extremely grateful to the Eastmans. They set me up for life, and never asked more than 10% when they managed me. There are damn few managers who would have done the same.”

Gerry knew that 20% was the gauging fee percentage of creative artist producers. 15% was more the norm. He was impressed that the Eastmans took only 10%. He supposed it was a family thing because of Paul’s relationship with Linda. “That is a generous management fee,” he said softly.

Paul said, as if this were not an extraordinary disclosure, “Well, Lee and John Eastman felt that it would be like robbery to take more than that from me, or the other Beatles for that matter. We were already a major commercial success, so there wasn’t much of a risk.” Paul was channeling his memories from those days. “None of the others - I mean John, George or Ringo - understood. They very blindly agreed to pay Allen Klein 20% rather than pay Eastman & Eastman 10%. We know what Klein did to the others, and we know what the Eastmans have done for me. I’m very much richer than they are because I was well advised. The Eastmans were happy to just get their reasonable fee - they did this not just for me, but for all the writers and other artists they represented - because they never resented the success of their clients, and knew that the clients were the ones who created the wealth. That kind of integrity is very rare in this business.” Paul stopped, suddenly aware that he may have said too much. He looked around quickly to make sure that John hadn’t overheard. Still, after all these years, he feared that John would take such comments as ‘I told you so,’ when all he wanted to do was express simple gratitude to his in-laws.

Meanwhile, John was with Jason in the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to unload his worry. “So Paul found out some information about his Dad, and he’s not taking it well,” John said in a low voice as he removed the Cristol from the wine fridge. He pointed at an overhead cabinet that held champagne glasses, and Jason went to get them. 

Jason noted idly that the glasses had white gold rims. Fancy. “Oh?” He prompted. 

“I don’t want to go into detail about it right now,” John said quietly. “But I think he might feel better if he talked with you about it - maybe in a day or two. Later tonight when we're alone I’ll explain.”

 

*****

 

The next day, John got up early and was bustling around the kitchen with uncommon energy. Paul, who had roused himself at the same time, was shaking his head with affectionate amusement as he left the house to go to the gym. John was so happy to have Jason and Gerry under his roof, he couldn’t contain himself, so he just had to get up and get moving. He started making an elaborate breakfast. He had snuck in some sausages for Jason and Gerry, and knew he would have to cook and serve them before Paul got back from the gym. The smell drew Gerry down first. John insisted that Gerry take the Times and a fragrant cup of coffee, and relax in the sitting room while he cooked, and Gerry had no real argument with this proposal. He was quietly and pleasantly surprised that John took the Times. He would have expected at least the Guardian if not something more subversive, like an underground paper. Since Gerry was definitely a Times man himself, he was relieved as he settled himself in for a bit of a read.

Jason followed the smell of frying breakfast meat down to the kitchen, where he exchanged a morning hug with John. “Do I smell meat?” He asked in a shocked whisper.

“He’s at the gym. So the three of us are going to have to scarf this meat down as quickly as possible,” John explained, his demeanor completely serious. Jason noticed that the food was all ready and set out like a buffet on a kitchen counter. John urged, “Go get Gerry and tell him to hurry up. I’m gonna open these windows to get the meat smell out. It might be a little chilly, but...”

Jason chuckled as he went to get Gerry. “John’s breaking every rule in the book, so get a move on. We have to eat the evidence before Paul gets back.”

Gerry did get up, and did move towards the kitchen, but he grumbled as he went. “We are capable of going a week without meat, Jason. I don’t see why John should have to break any rules at all...”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Jason had stopped, and turned to face Gerry at the entrance to the kitchen and hushed his voice to a whisper. “It’s John who wants the meat! We’re the excuse if Paul finds out!”

“You mean when Paul finds out,” Gerry whispered back in irritation. “The whole house is redolent...”

 

*****

 

Paul’s walk back from the gym was peaceful. It was a typically overcast January morning, a chill in the wet air, but the fog tended to absorb sound, so no sharp sounds assailed the ear. He was looking forward to spending time with Jason and Gerry. He couldn’t help but feel they were more John’s friends than his, but he had grown very fond of both of them as the years had passed. He not only enjoyed their company, but there was a particular kind of solidity to their characters that Paul appreciated. There were never any tales told out of school, no cheap shots taken, no shouting over each other during arguments, and no judgmental gossiping. They were funny, very well read, interesting and discreet. As he ducked down the mews street to head for John’s back door, Paul noted a paparazzi waiting at the corner of John’s road. The man’s back was to Paul, so he quickly nipped down the mews and moved towards John’s house. The unlucky photographer had been staking out John’s front door. Too bad for him, Paul chuckled to himself.

He smelled the sausage half way down the mews and instinctively knew that John had broken out the meat as soon as he’d left that morning. Paul laughed out loud. Linda would have been furious, but Paul thought it was amusing that John snuck around eating meat behind his back. It reminded Paul of how he’d sneak around with cigarettes behind his father’s back....

Paul’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt at that point. His father. No doubt his dad had smelled the cigarette smell just like he could smell the meat... And like his dad knew about him and John... He stopped for a moment just outside the backdoor while he willed himself back into a cheerful mood. Then he made a whole lot of noise on the back porch, in case John needed a warning in order to hide the remnants of the forbidden meal, and then he bounced into the kitchen cheerfully, as if he didn’t notice that it smelled like a charcuterie.

“Morning all!” He declared. “I’m not going to hug anyone. I’ve got sweaty gym clothes on - I’m off to the shower!” He grabbed a stray piece of toast sitting on the bread rack on the table, took a big bite, winked, and bustled away.

“Phew,” John said to his guests in exaggerated relief after Paul had departed. “We got away with it.”

Sure we did, thought Gerry to himself wryly.

“So can we close the windows now?” Jason asked plaintively. He had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders at the table, because he wasn’t accustomed to the chill that accompanied London fog.

 

*****

 

John had booked a table at his favorite Italian restaurant for a fashionable 8 p.m. meal. While Paul had been in the sitting room talking with Gerry, John had been up in their bedroom, choosing what Paul should wear. It had become routine for John to do this when they were going out; Paul didn’t even bother to cavil at it any more. He chose a charcoal grey suit to pair with a soft cashmere cream-colored polo-neck sweater. Understated but elegant, John thought. With a face and body like Paul’s, there was no point in overdoing the clothes. Everyone was going to notice him regardless. Instead of using the intercom, John went into the stairwell and shouted, “Paul! It’s time to get ready!”

Paul and Gerry’s conversation came to an abrupt halt. “What did he say?” Gerry asked.

Paul, whose hearing was exceptionally acute, said, “He’s telling me I have to get my ass upstairs to dress.”

“Oh, is it that time?” Gerry asked. He had so enjoyed his conversation with Paul that he had lost track. “I wonder where Jason is?” He thought to ask.

Paul was groaning as he pulled himself up from the sofa. “Maybe he’s picking out your clothes for you and laying them on the bed.”

Gerry looked up sharply and then laughed. “Is that what John does to you?”

“Yes, apparently not only am I incapable of smelling cooked meat, but I’m also incapable of dressing myself.”

Gerry laughed. “I figured you could smell it.”

“Hell, half of London could smell it!” Paul laughed. “Need help up?” He offered his hand, and pulled Gerry up from his chair.

“It sucks getting old,” Gerry complained.

 

*****

 

Paul joined John in the bedroom. John was buzzing around grooming himself, and talking at the same time in a kind of nervous, non-stop manner. Paul looked glumly at the clothes set out for him, and longed for something baggier and more comfortable. Sighing, he proceeded to change his clothes. Then he remembered something.

“John, you’ve got a pap on your tail,” he said.

“What?” John’s activities came to a halt and he was staring at Paul.

“A pap. I saw him hiding on the corner behind a tree. He was staking out your front door.”

“Oh, crap. Why can’t those idiots get a life? How boring does your life have to be, that you find it entertaining to stand around on a corner waiting for me to go about my boring life?”

Paul laughed. “Boring-life-by-proxy,” he agreed. “Anyway, they do it for money, not out of boredom. I wonder what’s got him interested in you all of a sudden?”

John hadn’t thought of that angle. That’s why he had Paul: to think of the odd angles. “Do you suppose they’re gearing up for another go at us?” He asked. It had been a few months since they’d been in the tabloids over the Anthology recording sessions. It was so easy to fall into a false sense of security after a few months of peace.

“Maybe someone noticed Jason and Gerry’s arrival, and is wondering what is going on,” Paul mused. “Whatever it is, remind me to warn Jason and Gerry so they aren’t taken by surprise.” 

 

*****

 

The restaurant was dark enough to provide a comforting sense of intimacy, but not so dark that a man in his fifties couldn’t read the menu. The four men in their fifties were settled in a quiet corner, away from most other diners, and had been left alone to enjoy the food and each other’s company. John had watched while Jason had ordered osso bucco, and Gerry had ordered sautéed rosemary chicken in a pink sauce. Sighing, he had unenthusiastically ordered a meatless pasta dish like Paul.

Paul said softly, “John - you can order what you want.”

John’s eyes lit up with happy surprise. “Really?” Not too long ago, Paul had routinely lectured him about meat when he ordered it.

“It’s a special occasion, and I won’t be offended,” Paul answered. “But,” Paul added, leaning in closer to John in order to whisper, “don’t tell Linda.”

Gleefully, John returned to the menu with far more enthusiasm. In the end, he compromised, and ordered seafood on a bed of lasagnette in an oyster sauce.

Jason and Gerry had both noted this sweet interaction, and their eyes met in gentle amusement. “No greater love hath no man...” Gerry whispered in Jason’s ear, making him giggle.

As they ate, Paul explained to Jason and Gerry the issue of the paparazzi staking out the front of John’s house.

“Is that why we left out the back?” Jason asked curiously.

“We always leave out the back,” Paul said, “because that is where the car is parked. But the reason we always park the car there is to avoid photographers and sightseers as much as possible; the mews is a private street, but the front road isn’t.”

“I thought you always had paparazzi after you,” Gerry said. “But you seem to be saying that this is unusual.”

“They usually only come around when there is some controversy about us in the paper.” John stopped and exchanged a glance with Paul. “Our point is that we don’t know why we’re suddenly of interest to a pap - it might just be a one off. But we’re naturally suspicious that they’re up to something.”

“The main thing,” Paul added, “Is that we don’t want you to be unpleasantly surprised by someone following you or taking your photograph. It’s best to be prepared.”

“And sometimes they shout provocative things at you to get a reaction, so you need to just keep a blank look on your face no matter what they say, and don’t answer back,” John added.

“Or you should smile. They hate it when you smile. They get more money for photos that are candid and where you look terrible or angry,” Paul pointed out.

“These people sound odious,” Gerry said flatly.

“They are,” warned John. 

 

*****

 

As they left the restaurant they were confronted with the flashes of several strobe lights. The paparazzi were out in force now. Paul led the way, walking very quickly, his head a little down, hands in pockets, a pleasant smile on his face. Gerry and Jason followed Paul, and then John took up the rear, walking the same way - head a little down, hands in pockets. Paul quickly unlocked the car, and all four men got in, Paul behind the wheel. He expertly drove out of the car park, managing by some miracle not to run over anyone’s feet, since the paps were leaning in towards the car with their cameras out in front of them. One of them shouted so loud that the comment could be heard in the car, along with the coarse guffaws the remark drew out of the other paps:

“Two couples out for a nice din din, eh?”


	88. Chapter 88

Gerry had gone to bed disturbed by the ugliness of the interaction with the paparazzi the night before. He had tossed and turned a bit, his head full of the nastiness of it. He wondered how John and Paul could tolerate living like this - hounded by baying crowds of Cro-Magnons everywhere they went. He even imagined the paps with big thick bark clubs instead of their cameras: same thing, really, to Gerry’s way of thinking. The camera was simply an updated version of the wooden weapons of old. He woke early, and still felt restless, and so he got up quietly so as not to disturb Jason. He decided to take a walk to the nearby high street cafe, buy a cup of coffee, and read the newspaper in peace while looking out on a London street. The thought cheered him up. 

All was quiet downstairs. Gerry left a note taped to the fridge, and went to pick up the newspaper on the front circular driveway. As he bent to pick up the paper he could hear a whirring sound. Curious, he looked up and saw three men with cameras across the road, leaning on the roofs of cars, taking continuous fast-frame photos of him and the newspaper. Cretins, he grumbled to himself. He reminded himself to look nonchalant, and then went back into the house. He decided to leave the house via the mews, instead. He came out of the mews and was relieved to see there were no paparazzi waiting for him there. He knew he would have to pass the Wellington Road on his way to the High Street, but figured they would not recognize him so he could risk it. Indeed, as he crossed the street he could see them halfway down the road, concentrating on the front of John’s house and not on him. He felt a little thrill of victory having escaped them, and wondered if John and Paul felt that way too when they’d managed to elude the paparazzi.

As he strolled down the High Street he saw a newspaper kiosk. He decided to stop and get a few other papers to read. While perusing the papers on display, his eye fell on the Daily Mail. On the bottom half of the front page was a photo of John, Paul, Jason and him in the car, their faces looking strained and dazed by the camera flashes. He read the caption:

“A double date? John Lennon and Paul McCartney shared an intimate evening with a couple of friends...” 

“Oh good god,” Gerry uttered. What was so suspicious about a group of four men having dinner together? Did none of these cretins have friends? Probably not. They were too odious to have friends. Disgusted, he replaced the paper, and bought a copy of the Economist instead. Good, levelheaded British thinking, that’s what he was in the mood for - not that travesty of a paper masquerading as news.

 

*****

 

Paul was in the kitchen buttering his toast when Jason joined him. 

“Good morning, Paul. John still asleep?” Jason asked pleasantly.

“Yes. He looks down for the count,” Paul chuckled. “By the way, Gerry’s gone to the café for a bit - he left a note on the fridge.” 

“He had a bad night, so I’m surprised he woke up so early,” Jason confided. “Especially with the jet lag and all.”

Paul nodded sympathetically and asked, “Was he upset about what happened at the restaurant last night?”

“That might have been it,” Jason agreed. “It was disgraceful. Sometimes I think we Americans have this idealized opinion of you Brits. We think you have better manners than us. Last night was a rude reminder that there are uncouth people here, as well.”

“There are nobs everywhere,” Paul agreed as he pulled out a chair and sat across from Jason at the table. “I’ve met ‘em in every country of the world. What’re ya gonna do?”

Jason sighed, realizing that since this was no doubt the sad truth, Paul’s resigned approach to the problem was probably the most effective way to deal with it. 

After a brief silence, Jason asked gently, “Does this talk about you and John bother you?”

Paul thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said.

“For yourself, or for your family?” Jason asked shrewdly.

Paul thought about prevaricating, but chose not to. One had to be honest with Jason - he was that kind of person. “Both.”

Jason took this in. It didn’t surprise him. He was completely at ease with the fact that he was gay, and had been fairly at ease with it his whole life. But almost every gay or bisexual person he had known had some homophobia in them. They hid it or expressed it in differing ways, but it all amounted to the same thing: that Ego voice in your head reading the riot act, which was comprised of all of the deeply ingrained teachings from childhood. Apparently, if John was to be believed, (and Jason did believe John), Paul’s teachings came from his parents, and the parental voice was strong in Paul’s subconscious thinking. 

“Coming to terms with being an ‘other’ - that is especially difficult for people who have spent much of their lives as a member of the accepted majority,” Jason said, seemingly apropos of nothing. “It’s like they know what they’re missing when they suddenly become an outcast, as opposed to those of us who knew we were different from an early age, and are used to it. It reminds me of how my mother’s family must have felt at the start of the Hitler years. They lived in Munich, you know, and my grandfather was a jeweler. A very successful jeweler, and very much respected in the town. My mother told me that she and her sister were very popular at school, and that her parents had many Christian friends from amongst their community, and then suddenly - within a very few weeks or months after Hitler’s rise to power - they all became pariahs. Fortunately for me, my grandfather saw which way the wind was blowing, and used his connections in the New York diamond district to help him immigrate to America. Otherwise, my mother would most likely have died in a camp, and there would be no me.”

Paul was listening to Jason’s story with intense interest, forgetting - or maybe he was just not realizing - that Jason’s comments were aimed at him. “I’m always amazed at how many people I know who were directly affected by the Holocaust,” Paul said respectfully. 

“I was using an extreme example to make a point,” Jason said after another loaded silence. 

“What point then?” Paul asked.

“Correct me when I say something untrue: you don’t identify as a gay or bisexual person. You identify as a heterosexual person. But you know the truth about yourself, and this creates a terrible tension inside you. You can’t help missing how uncomplicated it was when you are living life as a heterosexual, but your feelings for John are too strong to resist.”

Paul, stuck dumb, sat across from Jason, his eyes wide open in surprise. He was very still. 

“Am I right so far?” Jason asked gently. 

Paul was non-responsive. Jason took that as a “yes.”

“You’re not alone in those feelings, of course. Almost every gay and bisexual person I have known has feelings like those at some point in his or her life.”

Paul finally stirred. “John told you about my father, then,” he said dully, having finally realized what was going on. 

“He did. He’s very worried about you. He thinks that you wind yourself up in knots when you think you’ve done something to disappoint a loved one. He expressed frustration that he couldn’t help walk you through it because he himself never really had a father.”

“And he thought that you could walk me through it?” Paul asked, a slight challenge in his eyes.

Jason laughed. “He has a high regard for my comforting skills - too high, probably. But I thought it was worth giving it a go. In some ways you remind me of Gerry. And Gerry has often struggled with his homosexuality. He had a much harder time of it with his father than I did with mine, or maybe it was just that he took what his father said or did more seriously than I took what mine said or did. My mother loved me so lavishly, with such enthusiasm, that it made up for whatever disappointment my father might have felt about me.” 

“The worse bit is,” Paul said, poking his head a ways out of his shell, “that I never knew he suspected. I didn’t get to talk to him about it.”

“I can see how that would be hard to live with,” Jason agreed. “But it is an interesting subject. What would you have said to him if you could have?”

Paul had not sketched that out in any detail, so was at a loss. “I honestly don’t know. I’d like to think I’d explain it all, and be very open and sure of myself, and reassure him, but I’m afraid what I would have done is lied about it, or made it seem like John wasn’t as important to me as he truly was. I’m afraid I would have tried to convince him he was wrong. At that point in my life I had convinced myself I wasn’t really that attached to John, although later I figured out how wrong I was.” Paul surprised himself with what he had said.

Jason nodded wisely. “Well, then, in that case, aren’t you glad you never had that conversation with him? Isn’t it clear that you were not comfortable enough with it to talk about it when your father was alive? And isn’t it possible that your father understood that about you, which is why he never let on to you that he knew?” 

Paul pondered the weight of these questions for several moments. “You’re saying it would have been a bad interaction - one that I would have regretted having - because I wasn’t mature enough at the time to discuss it with him honestly before he died.”

“I don’t know if ‘maturity’ has anything to do with it, but yes, I am suggesting that the conversation didn’t happen because it was the wrong time for the conversation to happen. You’re better off not having lied to your father, or gotten all defensive and short with him. You would have regretted that forever.” 

Paul nodded in silent assent. But then he said, “It still doesn’t change the fact that he was - I’m sure he was - disappointed in me over it.”

“I don’t know your father; I don’t know anything about him. But, for argument’s sake, let’s say you’re right - he was disappointed about your love for John. Does that mean he was disappointed in everything else about you too?”

Paul knew the answer to that one without having to think. “He was very proud of my success in the music business. That had been his dream as a young man, and he was over the moon about it.”

“That seems like a pretty good memory to me,” Jason said. “My father was very disappointed in me, and Gerry has struggled getting his father to accept who he really is. He continues to pretend that I’m just Gerry’s ‘friend.’ Of course, he’s senile now, and it isn’t quite so offensive as it used to be as a result. He lives with Gerry’s sister now, and he thinks she’s the maid.” Jason chuckled, and Paul did too. “But we all get set up for these impossible expectations of our parents. That ‘unconditional love’ thing that parents are supposed to have for their children - that’s a lie. All human beings have conditions. What parents should do, though, is love their children even when they’re disappointed in them. You might not understand your child, but you should love him in spite of what you don’t understand. It seems to me that is exactly what your father did. He was quite extraordinary for his time, as well, all things considered. You shouldn’t expect him to be perfect. It really isn’t fair to his memory.”

 

*****

 

They were going to the theatre that night. John had selected the long-running “Neville’s Island” by Tim Firth, playing at the Apollo Shaftesbury. The play was the story of four middle-management types sent on a wilderness trip by their employer to build team spirit. Of course, things go wrong and they are stranded on an island in the Lake District. The four men begin to devolve as events go from bad to worse. It was a play John had wanted to see for a few years; it had extremely good reviews, and was supposedly both dark and funny - two things that he believed he and Paul, as well as Jason and Gerry, deeply enjoyed. For dinner first, John had chosen a new French restaurant not far from the theatre. 

Unfortunately, one of the paps had figured out about the mews, and as the mews gate closed behind their car, John and Paul could plainly see the flashbulbs going off. 

“Here we go again!” John cried raucously from his passenger seat upfront. “Hold on for dear life!” He added, as their car pealed away to the left with gathering speed.

“Oh, fuck them all!” Jason shouted with a raised fist, making everyone laugh.

“They were bound to figure it out eventually,” Paul pointed out philosophically from the driver’s seat. 

“Maybe we should return through the front,” Gerry quipped.

The car - having lost the lone pursuing motorcyclist - continued on its way at a more sedate speed.

 

*****

 

They were able to eat their dinner in peace, although a few diners were craning their necks periodically to stare at Paul McCartney. Paul’s was the only famous face they could see, since John was tucked into a corner and hidden by the wall of a booth. This night, John looked up questioningly at Paul as they perused their menus. Paul saw the look and nodded his head very slightly with a small smile, thus allowing John to choose the cassoulet he’d been craving. Paul chose onion soup, a warm chevre spinach salad, and rolled stuffed aubergine. 

The play was everything it was cracked up to be - hilarious, but with a growing sense of foreboding. As they spilled out of the theatre, there was only one paparazzo following the four of them as they walked a few blocks to a nearby pub. John walked with Jason, and Paul with Gerry. No point in stretching the “two couples having a nice din din” image. They all studiously continued their casual remarks about the play, and valiantly ignored the constant flashbulbs. Once in the pub, they were left alone, because when the pap tried to follow them in, the ‘bouncer’ (who rarely had anything to do, and generally was to be found hanging out at the bar) showed him the door. He pointed to a sign in the window: ‘NO PAPS ALLOWED!’ and then slammed the door. Turns out that the pub was heavily frequented by the actors from the nearby plays, and by the celebrities who came to watch the plays, so the pub had hired an oversized man with tattoos to watch the door. 

As they settled in their nook with their brews, Paul knew what was going to happen next. They were going to sit there and talk about the play they had just seen. When he’d first started living with John years earlier, he had found this process to be mind numbing. He would have preferred to hammer his thumb for 20 minutes instead. But over the years, Paul had learned to accept this ritual as something that John greatly enjoyed, and it was also something that John obviously wanted to share with him. So Paul kept his qualms to himself, and listened with apparent interest as the others began to dissect the play. He even contributed an opinion or two, when it seemed to him that his lack of participation was becoming awkward. 

They were faced with the pap when they left the pub and walked to their car, and then faced a group of them at the mews gate, but by now all four of them were entirely accustomed to it. Jason and Gerry were handling it like pros after only two days’ exposure. 

As they climbed into bed, John said to Paul, “I wonder what stories they are spinning in their fevered little brains.”

Paul laughed. “We’re having a foursome, John. In one jolly great bed.” 

“Not sure my heart could take it,” John joked. “But a twosome would hit the spot nicely...” With this he yanked Paul’s arm and pulled him over until they were face to face. “Hello, baby,” he crooned. “Long time no see.”

Paul was vastly amused by John’s oozy voice. “Yeah, it’s been at least 16 whole hours since the last time...” 

“You may think that isn’t very long, but I’ve been hankering after you all evening. You look fantastic in those new blue jeans...” John was saying as he ran his hand up and down Paul’s side.

“Ah yes...” Paul sighed, “...the blue jeans from hell. At one point during the play I thought the blood had been cut off to my foot.” 

John laughed out loud, and suddenly moved to the bottom of the bed. “Which foot?” He asked playfully, as though he intended to start massaging the stricken appendage. Paul gave John’s arm a gentle push with his foot, and John’s expression moved from playful to intense in a few short seconds. He worked his way up Paul’s body until he was eye to eye with his cock. He looked up and saw that Paul was watching him with a naughty look on his face. John waggled his eyebrows, and then his mouth began a slow but relentless assault. At that point Paul’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his chin went up a few inches as he felt his whole body reacting to the strength and the slurpiness of John’s wicked mouth. 

 

*****

 

Paul was at the gym, and Jason was having a lie-in. Thus it was John and Gerry who faced each other across the coffee and toast in John’s kitchen the next morning. 

“I’m in awe of Paul’s self-discipline,” Gerry commented. “I’d rather do ballroom dancing than work out in a gym.” He waited a plump moment and added, “And I despise dancing...”

John’s reaction was a snort, because he was in the midst of a sip of coffee. He swallowed and said, “I am glad he does it. He has so much energy, he needs to burn it off.”

“So what’s on the boards for today?” Gerry asked.

“This is a day for you and Jason to be alone. Later this morning Paul and I have to go to a board meeting for our new charitable trust - it’s our first one! And then in the afternoon, I have my therapy appointment, and Paul has some work to do at the office.” 

“I had wanted to visit the British Museum - there is a temporary exhibit there about the Bronze Age that’s ending soon that I’ve been wanting to see. And Jason wants to do the shops - you know, Harrods - so this seems like the right day for that,” Gerry decided.

“When you get back, I’ll make dinner for us all. We can give the paps a rest. I’m sure it has been very stressful for them, with all the long hours, the fear of losing our car in city traffic...”

Gerry was chortling. 

John quieted for a moment and then said, “I’m really happy you’re here: for myself, but also for Paul. He’s been much more cheerful since you two showed up.”

“Jason told me about that whole thing with his father. Really, what was his brother thinking of to tell him?”

John made a face. “Apparently, he thought I had told Paul myself. But Mike sometimes is extremely untactful. Don’t tell Paul I said this, but as long as I’ve known the two of them, I’ve sensed that Mike was jealous of Paul. Paul was the beauty of the two of them. Paul was by far the smarter - he did far better at school than Mike did. Paul was their mother’s favorite - I’m convinced of this. She had high expectations for him that she apparently didn’t have for Mike. Paul was the one with the inexplicable talent - the music genius. Paul was the one who became rich and famous, and changed the world. Although I do believe Mike loves Paul, and I know that Paul loves Mike, every once in a while Mike makes a disclosure about Paul publicly that is embarrassing to Paul. He covers it up as if it was just harmless brotherly teasing, or he presents it as a back-handed compliment, but each time it happens it pisses me off.”

“I have a brother and a sister. Sibling relationships can be complex.” Gerry said. 

“Considering what he has had to contend with, I suppose Mike has handled being Paul’s brother as best as anyone could expect. But there are these telling little moments, when he makes these little cutting remarks to reporters.”

“Like what?” Gerry asked, curiously. 

“Well, he makes a point to say publicly that Paul doesn’t help him financially. He sometimes plays up how hard that has been for him. He doesn’t point out that Paul paid for his house, or that all of their father’s expenses were paid by Paul, and that he’s had lots of family holidays at Paul’s expense. He is quick to say that he doesn’t want Paul’s help, and that he is fine with it, but there is something left hanging in the air...”

Gerry nodded wearily. “I know the kind of comment. As a probate lawyer I’ve seen it time and time again. Damning with faint praise.” 

“And then he’ll find the most embarrassing childhood memories to share - ones in which he looks like a good bloke, and Paul looks a bit of a fool. Paul thinks he does it just to take the mickey out, but it drives me fucking crazy. I keep my thoughts to myself, though. One thing I’ve learned in all these years is to never get between Paul McCartney and his family.”

“That’s wise,” Gerry agreed. “So you think Mike might have told Paul this anecdote in order to rub it in?”

John shrugged. “I really don’t know. I do believe he couldn’t have raised it at a worse time. I mean, right in the middle of a fucking family Christmas party! If he had been trying to pull Paul down into the dumps, he couldn’t have picked a better time or place.”

“I take it you haven’t ever said this to Paul.”

“No,” John said firmly. “Paul only ever sees the best in the people he loves. Including me. No one is allowed to say anything negative about me to him, either. His loyalty is intense, but...”

“But what?” Gerry asked after a significant pause.

“But I worry that sometimes it is based on a view of the loved one as seen through rose colored glasses.” 

Gerry sighed. “You think he might trust a loved one more than the loved one might deserve?”

“Exactly. It’s funny, because outsiders can’t get close to him. You know from your own experience that it takes a long time to get close to him. He is full of all kinds of defenses. But against his loved ones, he has no defenses whatsoever. He is completely at our mercy, and not all of us deserve the blind trust; not even me.”

 

*****

 

The board of The Lennon & McCartney Charitable Trust consisted of John, Paul, their accountant Leonard Fisher, their money manager John Eastman, and their old and much-trusted friend, Neil Aspinall. They met at One Soho Square, McLen headquarters, and enjoyed an early lunch spread (all vegetarian) as they sprawled around the table. Fisher was head trustee, and he had come with his secretary ready to take a whole lot of instructions and information from the trustors (John and Paul). 

Uncharacteristically, John had come prepared with a long list of ideas and desires. Paul had looked it over the night before, and had added a few notes of his own. John had pretty much covered the waterfront, and Paul didn’t want to revise John’s wish list, but he also didn’t want it to be impossibly long. He handed it over to Neil, who took one look and then raised his eyebrow to Paul, who winked back. Neil figured he’d have to break the news to John. It was the least he could do for his old comrade, Paul.

“Errrr, this list is a little ambitious,” he said as though it had just occurred to him.

“What do you mean?” John asked tensely. 

“We need to prioritize these ideas,” Neil said evenly, “because as of now there certainly isn’t enough money in the fund to do meaningful work in all of these areas.”

Paul made a silent prayer and hoped that Neil heard it. He was grateful to Neil that he had made this pronouncement, so that he didn’t have to. He said to John in a calm voice, “One step at a time, John. We’re just starting up. You have to decide what is the one item on your list that most matters to you.”

John saw them all looking at him with stress in their eyes. They thought he was going to act out. Well, they were going to be very disappointed. He sat back in his chair and said, “Very well. The thing that most matters to me is world peace.”

The other 4 men in the room fell silent. They looked at Paul helplessly. Paul cleared his throat. “We can’t very well equip an army to slay all the combatants,” he pointed out. “But maybe we can help war refuges? And education in areas where the hate is spread?” 

John heard what Paul was saying, and bowed to his superior logic. “Refuges and education. What kind of education? And which refuges?” John asked.

“I was thinking,” Fisher said, “that we should appoint a few NGO CEOs to the board. They could help us target the best places to invest.”

John turned to Paul and whispered, “What the fuck is an NGOCEO?” 

Paul whispered back, “Non-governmental organization, chief executive officer.”

“Why don’t they say what they mean?” John snarked. 

Paul chuckled and winked at John. “What they mean is, we shouldn’t let our eyes get bigger than our stomach. So what do you think - getting advice from some NGO experts?”

John nodded his approval to Paul.

Paul turned to Fisher. “Find us two upstanding NGO CEOs, and next meeting we’ll take their advice about where to best place our resources.”

“And while you’re at it, please find some ABC DEF’s, too,” John ordered. 

 

*****

 

“So, it’s been a very long and eventful eight days,” John said to Fiona. Fiona had been out of town with her family for the Christmas holidays, so she had not been available for sessions. 

“Please tell.”

“My friends Jason and Gerry are here. They’re spending the week with us.”

“So I saw - in the paper,” Fiona teased. “Did you have a nice dinner out?”

“Very funny,” John grumbled. But he was in good humor. He had felt really good about getting his feelings about Mike McCartney out to Gerry. Gerry was the perfect person to talk to about such things, because he was so unemotional and logical. John had fugitive suspicions for years - decades, really. He was sure that Paul must have behaved like a dick as an older brother on occasion, but he also helped his brother a lot. John remembered how the first expensive gift Paul had ever purchased - a Hasselblad camera - was for his brother. Paul had brought the camera back from Hamburg. Yes, Mike had then acted as a kind of photographer for the group for a while, so there was something that Paul got out of it, but it was an incredibly generous thing to do, John thought. He remembered how Paul had supported Mike’s comedy group the Scaffold so enthusiastically in 1963 and 1964. John had never thought their comedy was that funny, and could only assume that fraternal love had blinded Paul to that fact. Rose colored glasses again.

“We haven’t talked much about how it feels to be provoked by the press.”

John shrugged. “I’m used to it. I can’t take it seriously anymore.” 

“It doesn’t bother you?” Fiona asked.

“Only to the extent that I fear it bothers Paul.”

“So it bothers Paul?”

“Not on the surface, no. No one could be more accommodating and graceful in that kind of situation, and he doesn’t whine about it, or fall into a faint. But on some level it bothers him that people make slighting remarks about him in the press that he cannot respond to, and that his wife and children have to be exposed to it.” 

“So, this stuff in the tabloid isn’t upsetting you?” Fiona asked it one more way, just to be sure.

“No. Not me. It’s kind of amusing, really. Jason and Gerry are getting kind of a kick out of playing hide and seek. But for Paul’s sake, I hope it dies down again soon. It will. It always does.”

“And then it comes back?”

“It is like that, yes: night following day. You just have to suck it up when you’re under attack, and then learn how to relax when they go away for a while.”

“This seems like an extremely high price to pay just for a recording career.”

John thought about that for a while. He sighed. “Yeah - if the four of us knew what it was going to be like...I honestly don’t know if all four of us would have chosen it. But we did choose it, and we fed it, and we benefitted from it, and we paid for it, and we’re still benefitting from it and paying for it. It’s part of the deal.”

Fiona was satisfied that John truly was not overly bothered by the intrusiveness of the press and public. He had plenty of other neuroses to work on, however. 

“How are you and Paul doing?” Fiona asked. She assumed the answer was ‘good’, because the status of that relationship was like a litmus test for John’s moods, and today John’s mood seemed calm. 

“We had a slight bobble over the holidays. Paul’s brother told him about what his father said.”

“How did Paul take it?” Fiona asked carefully.

“He was thrown for a loop. I continue to believe he will eventually see that it was a good thing, but there is so much more going on there that he is struggling with.”

“Like what?”

“He is conflicted...about his sexuality. It’s a big damn deal to him. He has never fully dealt with it.” John was speaking softly, while focusing heavily on a fingernail. Fiona interpreted that to mean he was trying to distance himself from Paul’s struggle. He obviously wanted Paul to be 100% accepting of their love, but he also obviously knew that what he wanted was not a reality. At least not yet. “I think finding out about his father, well, I think it unleashed some of those demons...”

“Does that worry you?” Fiona asked.

John was quiet for a long time. “I was about to answer that in a dishonest way.”

“How so?”

“I was going to say that I’m worried about it because I’m worried about Paul. I don’t want him to be all wound up and I don’t like to see him beating himself up over stuff he can’t control.”

“And that is a dishonest answer, how?”

“It’s a half-truth.”

“And the whole truth?”

“The truth is that I’m more worried for myself. What it means to me. I feel as though I’m living in a world where I’m constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I get close to Paul, I get close to contentment, but it always feels to me that there is a denouement in store for me around the next corner, and it will be unpleasant.”

“And what is the unpleasant denouement you see hanging over you now?”

“That Paul will be driven back into his shell; that he will pull away from me again, and wrap himself in virtue and comfort in Linda’s arms. It isn’t just his reaction to what his father said. It’s also that Linda is making demands on him right now, because her children are moving out. She needs him more. And it’s also because of the Beatles thing, all of the renewed publicity, and so much at stake. And it’s also because of the tabloids and their insinuations. It’s a whole host of things going on that make me afraid that he will...” John stopped. The room was silent for several seconds, except for the ticking of the clock until Fiona finished the sentence: 

“...abandon you?”


	89. Chapter 89

It was a bright May morning in 1995, and the house on Cavendish Avenue was bustling with excitement. That afternoon Stella McCartney’s graduation collection was to debut, and Linda had a party planned for family and friends after the show ended. Trucks were backing up through the gates, and sound equipment and party tables and chairs were being unloaded simultaneously. Stella, of course, was nowhere to be seen. She had been completely wrapped up in her collection for months, and was no doubt sewing and scrutinizing and stressing over at the show’s situs. Linda was in her element, directing the caterer on the one hand, and the workmen on the other. The food spread would of course be all vegetarian, and she had prepared a number of her own items to be added to the caterer’s choices, because they were Stella’s favorites. Her daughter Mary was in charge of the decorating, and along with a few of Stella and Mary’s friends, was fussing with flowers, streamers, balloons, and funny signs. James - who had just finished school that week (thank the lord!) had holed himself up in his room and donned headphones to listen to his head banging music, distancing himself as far as possible from all the female goings-on downstairs.

Paul had come back from the gym to find the house in an uproar. He wanted to help in some way, but was clearly a fifth wheel. After wandering around in the chaos for a while, seeking a job and finding none, he decided he’d head down the mews and see what John was up to. 

John was relaxing in his sitting room, listening to the Bends album, by Radiohead. He found the music relaxing, but perhaps a little on the soporific side. Everything was either at a mid or slow tempo. Still, John could hear the melodic influence of Lennon/McCartney music below the surface. It never ceased to amaze him how often he heard himself and Paul in other people’s music. Of course, John sneered, I am a raging egomaniac, and that probably explains it. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the back door buzzer ring, and a moment later he heard Paul’s voice.

“John?” 

John turned off the stereo with his remote and shouted, “In here!” He was irked by the fact that Paul still sometimes rang the buzzer, and still entered as though he was a visitor to the house, and not one of it’s primary occupants. The possibility that Paul was simply trying to respect his privacy by not barging in unannounced when he wasn’t expected didn’t occur to John. But a moment later, Paul breezed into the room, and John’s irritation melted. He could only maintain irritation with Paul when Paul wasn’t in his presence. “How’s it going over there?” John asked laconically.

Paul plopped down on his side of the sofa and said, “It’s chaos. It seemed like everywhere I went I was in the way.” There was a kind of mock pout on Paul’s face that made John smile. 

“Well, you came to the right place,” John teased, urging Paul with a wave of his hand to sit closer to him. “You’re not in the way here.” 

Paul moved closer to John, and soon felt John’s hand caressing the back of his head. That was nice. He relaxed. “What were you doing before I interrupted you?” He asked, his eyes closed.

“Listening to music, and reading a book,” John said. “Although I have plans to meet Kevin for lunch in an hour,” he added. Since this was Paul’s week with Linda, John had made plans of his own. 

Kevin, Paul thought. Ugh. He certainly would be in the way there.

John felt Paul stiffen beside him.

“Look, the guy’s an ass, but he’s helping me with my poetry. He’s actually very knowledgeable about it.”

“He’s not an ass to you, John, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t enjoy his company.” 

“You’re welcome to come with me,” John offered, knowing that Paul would never agree. 

“Linda has something planned for lunch I’m sure,” Paul said, grateful for a credible and ready excuse. 

“He doesn’t even know you, Paul, and he’ll never get to know you if you don’t hang out with him.”

Paul shrugged. “We don’t need to have all the same friends, do we?” He asked. “You should be able to have your own friends.” 

John should have been thankful that Paul wasn’t trying to control his every friendship, but he couldn’t help turning over the coin and seeing the flip side. He didn’t like the idea of Paul going off and having friendships with other men: especially not men who didn’t like him. That would bother John a lot. He reminded himself quickly that Paul didn’t really have the time or inclination to go off and cultivate more friendships. His life was pretty much dictated by the needs of his two life mates, not to mention four children and a very busy career and creative life. “Well, if not today, then some other day. I’d really appreciate it if you’d make an effort to connect with Kevin, for my sake,” John said glumly. “He’s been instrumental in getting me off my ass and writing again.”

Paul didn’t want to argue. He didn’t see the need to do so in that exact moment. He decided to ease himself out of this corner. “Yes, of course, if you really want me to, I’m sure there will be an opportunity in the future.” 

John knew he was being shined on, but he also knew that in the end he could talk Paul into almost anything if he tried hard enough. Sometimes Paul dragged his feet. He was annoyingly independent at times. But John had figured out if he stuck to it, waited long enough, and kept nagging, that Paul would eventually come along. 

 

*****

 

“I think you need to stop fussing, and send the manuscript to the agent I told you about,” Kevin said to John as he eyed his plate of seafood pasta hungrily. “I get that you’re insecure about it, but I’m telling you your work is good on it’s own, and you need to take that risk now.” 

John was both thrilled and terrified at the thought of letting go of these poems, and showing them to an honest-to-god agent and editor. Writing the poems had been like solving jigsaw puzzles - both a challenge and an outlet - but when he had written them he hadn’t really been thinking about publishing them for the whole world to read. The poems were deeply personal, and John worried that they were self-indulgent. What is so fucking important about me and my insecurities? John roughly asked himself that question every time he considered publishing his poetry. Now Kevin was telling him that it was time to confront that fear and fish or cut bait. 

“I’m worried that they’ll publish it but only because I’m John Lennon,” he said, exposing his strongest fear.

“Yes, they will publish the poems because you are John Lennon,” Kevin repeated, while simultaneously and expertly twirling the linguine around his fork. “So most people will buy the poems because you wrote them. But there is really only a very small market for poetry. Most people don’t read poetry, but those who do are connoisseurs. Those readers will appreciate your work on its merits.” 

John hadn’t really heard Kevin’s point. “And they’re so personal. I know what is going to happen. The tabloids are going to take them out of context, and claim that the poems are about me and Paul.”

“Well, aren’t they?” Kevin asked. His face had a challenging expression on it - as if he was willing John to contradict him.

“No,” John said irritably. “I told you - I was exploring my own fear of abandonment. It has nothing to do with the people in my life; it has to do with my inability to trust anyone, regardless of who they are. You’re taking the poems too literally. And if you - an expert - takes them literally, I can only imagine how the general public will take them.” 

“John, I know the poems aren’t literally about your relationship with Paul,” Kevin said impatiently. He was eager to have this debate with John, because he knew he’d expressed himself badly when the subject came up the last time. “But he is the person who has been the primary influence in your life, isn’t he? How could these poems not have something to say about Paul?”

“I did not write these poems as a critique of Paul, or of our relationship. I don’t know how else to express it, Kevin! I was exploring what is for me my deepest fear - abandonment - and that comes from my childhood, at a time when I didn’t even know Paul.”

“I’m not suggesting that you have written a critique, John,” Kevin said more patiently. “I’m suggesting that these feelings of lack of trust - they are still with you. And I believe, from what I read in your poetry, that Paul is a catalyst for your lack of trust. His personality and his interactions with you exacerbate your fear of abandonment rather than calm them.”

John became indignant on Paul’s behalf. “You don’t even know Paul,” he growled. “Don’t talk about him like that or I can’t be your friend.”

Kevin was frustrated. He was trying to have an intellectual discussion with John but the subject was too emotional for the man. Kevin realized that he was going to have to change his approach. “I am saying it badly again, like I did last time. I don’t know Paul - you’re right - but maybe that is why I can see it more clearly. I’m not biased by his world-famous charm...”

“He is charming, Kevin. It isn’t a fucking act. He just is charming - like you were born with blue eyes? Paul was born with charm. I don’t see why you persist in seeing him as some kind of Machiavellian maneuverer...”

“Let me finish my sentence. I am not trying to say anything about Paul or who he is. I am trying to talk about your reaction to him, which is out of Paul’s control, and - as you pointed out - probably has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with how the chemistry works in your relationship.” 

John sat back in his chair and stared at Kevin in a kind of perplexed hostility. He said nothing. 

Kevin tried again. “I was hoping that we could talk about this - not to bash Paul - but to get you to examine why you react the way you do; why you live in constant fear of him abandoning you.”

“I don’t live in constant fear...” John snapped.

“I think you do, John,” Kevin said softly. 

“So what’s your answer then, Kevin?” John asked with a nasty sarcastic tinge to his voice.

“No answers,” Kevin said, smiling. “Just questions.”

“Well that’s fucking annoying,” John grumbled. 

“But let’s get back to the point,” Kevin said in his best professorial tone. “You were saying that you were afraid that the general public and the press would interpret your poems literally, and would say they were about you and Paul.”

“Yes - to the exclusion of everything else. Like I couldn’t possibly be inspired by an emotion or an idea not linked to Paul. They do it to Paul, too. It’s like they want us to be a single entity: John’nPaul. And we’re not allowed to be just John, or just Paul. It’s maddening at times. And worse than that, the fallout for Paul - to be the sinecure of all eyes on such an intimate level! It would be humiliating to him, and he would be worried about his wife and children...”

“And this would push him further away from you - right?” Kevin asked. “Isn’t that what the base worry is?”

John sighed. “I can’t talk to you about this. You’re being willfully obtuse.”

Kevin laughed loudly at the insult. “I think that’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. So, are you going to contact that agent, or not?”

“I’ve got to think about it,” John said. “I have to talk to Paul. He has been encouraging me to publish the poems, but I don’t think he realizes how this is going to impact him and his family.”

“It may be that he is better able to deal with it than you give him credit for,” Kevin suggested. “Why not do what he says and throw caution to the wind? It may be that it is you holding you back, not him.”

 

*****

 

The last few months had been busy ones for Paul. Between the periodic interviews for the Anthology, getting the new charitable trust off the ground, working on some new material and on his private hobby, and just living his life, there had been little time to pause and reflect. Although the Jason and Gerry visit had stirred up the tabloids for a bit back in January, that storm in a teacup had died down fairly quickly after they returned home. And now his family was all in an uproar over Stella’s debut. 

After leaving John’s place, Paul had wandered listlessly back to Cavendish. The garden was engulfed in a huge canopy, and people were laying down electrical wire and moving equipment to and fro. The workmen, however, were quite happy to see Paul. He moved through the tent, signing quick autographs (before the supervisors could catch the workers dawdling) as he went. The living room was bustling, too, and so was just about every room on the ground floor. He thought about retiring to his study, but then remembered what awaited him up in his attic studio. 

For the last two years, Paul had been nurturing that voice in his head that told him to express himself with paint. He had a great deal of sensitivity about it, because he didn’t have much self-confidence in himself as an artist. That had always been the territory John had mapped out for himself - John and Stu and Astrid and Klaus and Jurgen and Yoko... They had all made him feel less than them creatively. They had all made it clear to him that they thought he was a mere journeyman, and not a true artist. And they also made it clear that even if he was undeniably a great musician and performer, these were lesser talents, surely, than the fine arts? Music - well, at least pop music - lacked the charisma of talents that were viewed to be more...deep, and more...intellectual. While Paul had always been artistically inclined, his ability to grow in that area had been stunted by the burden of mediocrity that had been placed on his back by all the “real” artists he had been tolerated by as a teen and a young man. He had taken their slighting remarks to heart, and had been afraid to experiment with his artistic vision. 

A few years earlier, when Paul and Linda had been visiting the old Eastman family friend and client, Willem de Kooning, Linda had mentioned to de Kooning that Paul was quite talented artistically, but didn’t think he was. De Kooning encouraged Paul to work with him side by side in his studio while the McCartneys were visiting the Hamptons for a few weeks. John had been off doing his own thing in New York City at the time, going through his post-cancer meltdown, and Paul had needed some creative project to lift him out of his depression. What had begun as something to do to fill the lonely hours had become a comfort to Paul. He had set up an art studio in the attic at Cavendish, adjacent to his music room, and he would steal away there for a few hours at a time when he needed to be alone with his own creative impulses. 

Paul had allowed Linda to see some of his work, and of course de Kooning had seen some of it. But Paul had not told John about it. He was afraid that John would scoff at his work, make belittling comments about it, or think it was just Paul trying to be competitive or something. Way back during his school days, Paul had been very hurt by John’s insistence that he stay out of John and Stu’s little group of art school friends; later, in the late sixties, he had resented that John had publicly hijacked his interest in avant garde art as if John were the one who had spent three years learning about it, and being involved in it, and not Paul. Still, what had kept Paul from raising the subject with John all these years later was his remaining fear that his work was substandard, and he didn’t want to see that judgment reflected in John’s eyes, even if John was kind enough to say all the right things about it. So Paul’s painting was his own private pleasure, and it existed separate and apart from his life with John and even - to an extent - from his life with Linda. Somehow, Linda had understood that this was something Paul needed for himself, and so she had given her husband the privacy and space that he needed to indulge in it. 

Once the door to the studio closed behind him, Paul felt the stress and pressures of his life falling away from him. He knew, at one level, that they all awaited him on the other side of the door, but his art studio - like his music room - was a safe place for Paul, where he could live openly in his mind without having to make other people happy. Lately, this kind of relief was more necessary to him than it ever had been before. Paul spent 90% of his waking hours trying to make other people happy, be it John, or Linda, or his children, or his friends, or his business associates, or his record company, or the press, or his fans... At times it was overwhelming, especially since he was constitutionally unable to ask anyone for help. Consequently, this modest little 10% of time he spared for his art is what had helped to keep Paul sane over the last two years - especially during the previous year’s depression - and as he pulled on a ratty old t-shirt (having pulled off the nicer one he had been wearing before), it was as if he was changing from Paul the Pleaser, into Paul the Hedonist. It was a warm and freeing feeling and Paul luxuriated in it. He unveiled the piece he had completed the previous week, when he had last come to the studio. It was a dark piece. This was his way of describing how it felt to be stuck in a corner with no room to breathe. The painting did create the aura of a dead weight hanging; parts of the canvas seemed to pulse with the tension of it, Paul imagined. 

Paul wondered what inspiration had drawn him to his art studio today. He didn’t always know what he was painting about until after he had finished a piece. Sometimes he never figured out what he was painting about. This contributed to Paul’s insecurities: sometimes he worried that his lack of knowledge of his subject matter meant he was just being self-indulgent - as if his interpretations of emotion and longing were more important than they actually were. 

No one really knew what mattered to Paul, except of course for his music and family; he had not been very articulate about his needs and desires beyond these topics. Linda came the closest to knowing and understanding his insecurities - the closest anyone had, his whole life. Paul wasn’t sure why everyone thought he was so smug, so self-contained, and so ignorant of the undercurrents of life. Even when he was a child, his relatives thought he was as solid as a rock. One of his aunts had actually said to a reporter once that she had never worried about Paul; she worried more about Michael. 22 year-old Paul had read this in an article and it had felt like a knife plunging into his chest. He was certain his aunt meant it as a kind of compliment - that Paul was strong, Paul was certain, and Paul could take care of himself. But it hurt to know that even the people closest to him thought he was so sure of himself. He wasn’t! He had loads of insecurities, just like everyone else! Why couldn’t anyone see that about him?

That must be what I want to paint about, Paul thought to himself. But what did this free-floating anxiety look like to him visually? And how to replicate it on canvas? Paul went to work, determined not to overthink anything. He was just going to let it be.

 

*****

 

The crowd was giving Stella a standing ovation as she sashayed down the runway hand in hand with her pals Kate Moss, Yasmin Le Bon, and Naomi Campbell. The models had strutted to a piece of original music - Stella May Day - that had been composed by her father. The press was out in force, and the fashion critics were pleasantly surprised, having thought she was just a celebrity’s daughter. Apparently, she had some talent of her own, in addition to her famous heritage.

The audience was as star-studded as the runway. Earlier, the press outside had been excited beyond words when John Lennon arrived, accompanied by his sons Julian and Sean. George Harrison had not come, but his wife Olivia did. Ringo and his wife Barbara and daughter Lee had arrived next. Everyone had waved nicely for the cameras, and a real Beatles - family feeling was in the air. Heather, Mary and James were already seated when - last of all - Paul and Linda arrived. 

Linda was so proud of her daughter she thought she might burst. She was fighting off tears brought on by all the fraught emotions charging through her all at once. Her husband, as usual, was there for her. He was squeezing her hand protectively, and when they were seated, and the lights went down and the music came up, he had moved her hand - now secure in both of his - on to his lap. 

John was further down the front row, on the other side of Mary. There were photographers during the show, he noticed, who were photographing the front row at times, and not the clothes. He knew how that felt, given his current struggles over whether to publish his poems; Stella had worked so hard for so long and had accomplished a whole collection, but many of the people there just wanted to gawk at her father and his friends. John smiled ironically as he thought what the front row would look like in photographs tomorrow. They were seated in this order, from left to right: Julian, Sean, John, Mary, Linda, Paul, Heather and James. He knew that Stella had made the seating arrangements. It was generous of her to share the front row with him and his sons. It was her acknowledgement to him that he was a part of her family, and deserving of sitting in the family row. Still, how the tabloids would interpret that! He imagined a prototype headline: One big happy family...

 

*****

 

The party raged on until 3 a.m. Paul had invited his neighbors in order to keep the peace, but by midnight the remaining partiers were largely under the age of 30 - except for Paul, of course. He was having a blast, dancing in his own eccentric way, and enjoying the kids’ music. This did not annoy or surprise his children or their friends: they were well used to the fact that Paul McCartney was a party animal and could keep up with the best of them both energy-wise and alcohol-wise. 

John had gone home at about 1:30 a.m., after he found it impossible to keep his eyes open any longer. He’d had too much to drink, too, and he’d never been one to dance. He watched while Paul danced, sometimes with girls, sometimes with boys, sometimes by himself, and smiled. Back when they were in their teens and twenties, John had felt it was uncool to dance to pop music, or in clubs, and he had laid that guilt trip on Paul, so that Paul wouldn’t dance either. It was okay for George and Ringo - they could acquit themselves well on the dance floor. But Paul was not so well coordinated... In fact, the few times back then when Paul had dared to get up and dance to pop music, John had made some cutting remarks about ‘too many elbows and ankles’, and Paul would immediately sit down. As he watched Paul party, he asked himself now if - as a young man - he’d been a damper on Paul’s spirit in more ways than just dancing. It was just that John had viewed Paul as an extension of himself, and if Paul did something dorky or overly enthusiastic John felt it would reflect badly on him. Not for the first time did John feel bad about how he had treated Paul in their first years together. He had been controlling and judgmental, rimming Paul in on all sides with expectations and - yes, it had to be said - rules. The rule-hating John Lennon had conjured up lots of rules for his friends to abide by - especially Paul. And Paul’s nature lent itself to be treated that way. He was so eager to please, and wanted John’s approbation so much, that he allowed himself, at times, to be bullied out of his own emotions and reactions. Apparently now, however, Paul had sufficient confidence occasionally to let it all hang out.

These thoughts were following John in and out of little snatched moments of sleep, ultimately causing John to feel down on himself, and so he had to leave the party. He’d spent a little time earlier with Linda, trying to talk to her about his poetry - and the dilemma of whether to publish - but they kept getting interrupted by others, and he had finally given it up. But as he had turned away from Linda, she had grabbed his wrist. He turned back to look at her, and she said, “Come around tomorrow for brunch - I want to finish this conversation.” John had nodded gratefully, and melted away.

Linda had gone up to bed at around 1 a.m., exhausted and headachy from all the loud music and joyful shouting. She felt so tired. She could really feel her age now. She decided to take a long, hot shower to relax, and then climbed into bed. She picked up the program from Stella’s show, and pored over it for the thousandth time, filled with pride for her daughter. Soon her eyes closed, and the program fell out of her loosened fingers as she dropped off to sleep. 

Paul had seen the last guests off the property at just after 3 a.m. He’d encouraged Mary and Stella to leave everything the way it was, and just go up to bed. They were staying overnight at Cavendish, along with some cousins and friends, and soon Paul was locking doors and windows, and turning off lights. He entered the master bedroom to find Linda asleep, but sitting up in bed with the bedside lamp on. He smiled gently at the sight, and then got ready for bed. He climbed in on his side, and leaned over to kiss Linda on her forehead as he reached for the chain on the lamp to turn off the light. Linda’s eyes flew open as he did so.

“What time is it?” She asked, her voice slurred with sleep. 

“About 3:30,” Paul whispered. “You should go back to sleep.”

“I’ve got a splitting headache,” she moaned. “And I’m so exhausted.”

“Well, you worked your ass off for the last week, and it was relentlessly loud down there - no wonder!” Paul said soothingly, softly brushing the hair off her forehead. “Do you want me to get you something for the headache?”

Linda nodded ‘yes’, and groaned a little. “I wanted to stay up longer, but I just couldn’t...” she murmured, as Paul headed for the bathroom. He found Linda’s prescription headache powder, and swirled it around in a glass. She’d been having headaches more often lately, and she wasn’t one to whine or complain, so this did cause Paul a little concern. He brought Linda her tincture, and then said softly to her, “You’re pushing yourself too hard. I need to take you away, so you can relax. Why don’t you plan a getaway for us?” 

Linda took several swallows of the draught, and smiled gratefully at Paul. “That sounds like fun,” she said. 

Paul took the glass away, placed it on the side table, turned off the light, and then snuggled in until he was spooning Linda, who had turned on her side. “Sweet dreams, baby,” he whispered huskily in her ear.

 

*****

 

Members of the family were lazing around the sitting room at Cavendish. Cartoons were playing on the telly, but no one was really watching them. James was still in his room, and Stella was at the kitchen table holding a cold compress to her head, nursing her king hell hangover. She was filled with a luxuriant lassitude, fed by her tremendous relief that the show went off well, and her school days were finally over. She had gotten up fairly early to read the reviews, and they were spread out on the table in front of her. The real fashion writers were complimentary. They quite fairly pointed out her many advantages over her classmates, from her supermodel friends to music composed by the one and only Paul McCartney, to having three Beatles in the audience. But they also focused on her collection, and had written thoughtful criticism and praise. Then there were the tabloids. The Sun had a huge picture of the front and second rows, which managed to capture her entire family and three Beatles but not a single item of her clothing. But that was to be expected. The other tabloids had done much the same thing. The tabloids were much nastier about all of her advantages, and less kind about her collection - as if any of those hacks knew the first thing about fashion for women in their early twenties! The Daily Mail could always be counted upon to do something snarky, and this morning there was a picture of John sitting a few seats away from her mother and father, and the caption seemed to insinuate that there was tension between John and her mother. Just another way to imply, without actually saying, that John and her father were lovers. She sighed. It was all so stupid. She, for one, thought her parents and John should just acknowledge the truth and move on. It would be the only way to take the upper hand away from the tabloids. 

When she had said this to her mother one day, Linda had shuddered. “You don’t understand, darling,” Linda had told her. “You don’t understand how vicious people can be. You think you’ve heard the worst that people can say about us, but you haven’t.” Stella supposed her mother knew what she was talking about, but she still found it difficult to believe that it would be all that much of a big deal. It was 1995 after all! A number of performers, including Elton John, had come out about their “alternative” sexuality and had survived it. But her mother had insisted that the Beatles were “different.” She had tried to explain that people thought they owned the Beatles, which meant they thought they owned the narrative of the Beatles, and there would be nothing but hell to pay if they faced the issue head on.

Paul was lolling on the sofa in the sitting room, chatting idly with Mary and a few of Stella’s friends. Among them was a young man who had slept on the sitting room floor the night before. Paul had stepped over his snoring body as he’d gone to lock the French door. His name was Emmett Collier, and he was a fashion school classmate of Stella’s. His graduation collection had been shown two days earlier to fairly good reviews. He was a number of years older than Stella, closing in on age 32. Emmett was sitting closest to Paul, and was shyly engaging him in conversation. 

“I’m kind of embarrassed to mention this, but I am a pianist. I studied for years,” Emmett said.

“Really? Classical?” Paul asked.

Emmett felt energized by Paul’s gaze. He had stared at Paul from afar all through the previous night’s party. “Yes. I studied at the Royal College of Music. I actually was trained to do orchestrations. Fashion is a second career.” 

“Why’d you give it up?” Paul asked politely. He remembered how John had flirted between art and music for a while before choosing music. He knew that creative people often felt torn between their various muses.

“I was a proficient pianist, and a good arranger, but I was never going to be top class,” Emmett said, shrugging. “I’m not a composer, so it limited my options.”

Paul thought about that for a moment and said, “I can’t read music. Never learned. I’m a bit afraid to learn.”

Emmett smiled at him, surprised at this revelation. He didn’t know that Paul had said the same thing to many reporters and biographers over the years, and it was no secret to those who followed his career. It was just that Emmett had never been a pop music fan, and knew only the most basic information about the Beatles. It seemed a very private revelation to Emmett: for the world’s foremost pop composer to admit not to be able to read music. He thought that perhaps, because Paul was being so open with him, that some of his feelings might be reciprocated. Emmett knew that Paul was bisexual. Everyone knew that - the whole John Lennon thing. Emmett himself was bisexual. He was inclined to think that Paul’s attitude to sex would be just as open and casual as was his own, seeing as how they were both bisexual. He was too young to know how deeply conflicted older people could feel about the subject. He made a decision.

“I understand you compose classical music too. Would you like me to show you a few notation tricks?” 

Paul stared at Emmett for a while. “The reason I’m afraid,” Paul said, “Is that I think if I learn the actual rules, I’ll suddenly not be able to compose anymore.”

Emmett chuckled. “Tell that to Mozart or to Beethoven! When you hear the music in your head it isn’t going to disappear just because you pick up a few technical tricks.”

Paul felt flattered. Here was a young person comparing him to Mozart and Beethoven. He himself didn’t dare make such comparisons. He felt that he was kind of like an idiot savant when it came to music, not a serious composer. Little did he know that Mozart, at least, was considered something of an idiot savant by the critics of his day. “That might be fun,” Paul admitted, “but not today. I’ve got a bleeding great headache. It’s like I got hit on the head with a gong.”

Emmett laughed, and then forced himself to stop as he winced at the pain. “Me, too.” He wanted to keep the conversation alive, so desperately cast about trying to think up a topic. He finally fell back on the obvious one. “Stella’s show was fantastic,” he said. “I loved the piece you composed for it.”

“It was fun collaborating with my daughter,” Paul said. “She thinks like I do - chaotic and organized at the same time.”

Emmett laughed at the comment and gave Paul a quizzical look.

“I know, I know,” Paul laughed. “It doesn’t seem to make sense, being chaotic and organized at the same time. But that really is how both of us are when we are creating. It’s like a line is drawn down the middle of our brains, and the right side is off creating and being chaotic, and at the exact same time the left side is thinking through the checklist and adding up the expenses.” 

What an attractive man, Emmett thought. He’s only 52. That made him only 20 years older than him, and Paul was in great shape and was still quite a physical beauty... “It is a very valuable set of attributes,” Emmett finally said. “To be both at the same time is a major asset in a creative person.” 

“Hey, Paul!” The voice came from behind them. Emmett turned and saw John Lennon stepping through the French door from the garden. Emmett sat up a bit in curiosity. He wanted to watch John’s interactions with Paul. How stiff was the competition? To him, John looked a bit too skinny, and his face too wrinkly. But he was pretty cool, Emmett had to admit, and there was all that history... 

“What’s up?” Paul asked John.

“I’m here for brunch, and to talk to Linda,” John said, “just passing through.” He pointed in the direction of the kitchen and kept walking. 

Emmett turned back to catch Paul’s expression, but Paul was watching him with a quizzical expression on his face. A small thrill went down Emmett’s spine. He’s interested in me!


	90. Chapter 90

Once John had passed through the sitting room, he paused at the door. He had leaned in a bit to look back in Paul’s direction. Who was that young man? He wondered. The young man had been scrutinizing him as he had crossed the room, and John could sense the scrutiny was not entirely positive. Now he saw the young man was leaning in towards Paul, deeply engaged.

John didn’t usually notice people he didn’t know. This was the result of years of people staring at him, clamoring after him, to the point where he tried to block them all out. But this young man was ... an Adonis. Extravagant waves of golden wheat colored hair swept up and off the man’s forehead. The eyes were a deep navy blue - John, with his 20/20 corrected eyeglasses - could see that even from all the way across the room. The young man’s profile was perfect, and so was his skin. He wore the ever-popular tight blue jeans, and a skimpily cut bright blue plaid shirt. His clothes fit just so. The young man wasn’t John’s type, really, because he was not at all like Paul. But there was something about him that made John uncomfortable. He shrugged, exhorted himself to drop the subject, and moved into the kitchen where he found Linda and Stella. Stella had a huge cold compress against her forehead. This made John chuckle.

Stella looked up at him accusingly when she heard his chuckling. John spread his arms out as if to say, ‘so sue me’, and then he said in a conciliatory manner, “Been there, done that.” This, in turn, made Stella chuckle.

Linda was putting the finishing touches on her brunch offerings, and the kitchen was filled with smells both sweet and savory. Among many other offerings, there were fresh scones with homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream, and there were potato wedges sautéed with onions and herbs, and there were scrambled eggs, with tomato and spinach. Linda placed a pitcher of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice on the table and declared, “Ta da!”

John and Stella smiled, and Stella said, “It all looks incredible, mum.” John mumbled in assent, and soon Linda was on her way to the sitting room to announce that brunch was served.

She was followed in short order by Paul, Mary, and Stella’s friends. John noticed the gorgeous young man as he came in the door. He watched while the young man made an effort to stick next to Paul, and also while he snagged the seat next to Paul at the table. John was sitting directly across, and had to stifle a mean smile. Could the young man be more obvious? He wondered. But Paul - of course - was oblivious. Paul was chatting freely with everyone, and didn’t notice the covetous looks cast his way every so often by the young man.

John leaned across the table and spoke to the young man directly in a low voice. “And you are?” He asked, his face a picture in irony.

Emmett was taken aback. Lennon had pinned him to the wall with a very intense look. There didn’t seem to be any friendliness in Lennon’s face. He cleared his throat. “I’m Emmett Collier, a college friend of Stella’s.”

“Ahhh,” John said, “I see.” And he did see. Or he thought he did. A male fashion student, undoubtedly gay, undoubtedly wanting the publicity he could glean from being with the McCartneys ... Not a serious person, John decided, and nothing to worry about. He sat back in his chair, and relaxed. 

 

*****

 

The brunch came to an end, finally, and John volunteered to help Mary with the dishes, so Linda could sit down and enjoy a quiet cup of coffee. Linda looked ragged, really. She looked tired. There was something about her eyes - they seemed to be sunken in her face a little. She had no doubt near-killed herself putting Stella’s party together, and then she had gotten up and outdid herself with this sumptuous repast. Helping out a bit was the least he could do.

Paul had disappeared with the kids. He was elsewhere in the house, collecting whatever detritus remained and stuffing it in large garbage bags, and then helping the kids pack their car trunks with sleeping bags and other materiel. When he returned to the sitting room to plop down and watch mindless telly, he was surprised to find Emmett Collier still there. He was sitting on the sofa, next to Paul’s spot.

“Haven’t you got anywhere more interesting to be?” He asked cheerfully, in the manner he would use with his kids, who always seemed to prefer to be off somewhere with their friends, rather than hanging around with their parents.

Elliott smiled sweetly. “No, I don’t think so. I love music, and I really am interested in talking with you about it.” How silly of the man to think anything would be more interesting than sitting next to him, staring at him, and talking to him.

 

*****

 

In the kitchen, John and Mary had finished up the cleaning, and Mary had left to pack her things and go home. John poured himself a cup of coffee, and slid in across from Linda at the table.

“You look exhausted,” John said gently. “This was quite a production you put on.”

Linda smiled. Her head was pounding again. Too much alcohol the night before, and not enough sleep. “I think it went well,” she responded.

“It was a triumph,” John said, grinning at her across the table. “You’re an amazing woman, Linda, and you have raised an amazing daughter.”

Linda blushed a little at the compliment, and then favored John with one of her sunny smiles. “Paul helped raise her too. But you were talking to me about your poetry last night,” she said, “and we kept getting interrupted. I’m very interested. Please finish what you were saying.”

John leaned forward a little in his excitement. He was glad to talk to a Paul-friendly person about his poetry, to get their input. “What do you think my poems are about?” John asked.

Linda thought about that. She remembered the sadness, the poignancy, and the fear of not being loved expressed in John’s words. It had reminded her of her own childhood. “I guess, at the core, they’re about loneliness,” she said. “At least, that is what they stirred in me.”

“It’s an interesting juxtaposition,” John said thoughtfully. “Feeling alone in a world full of people who say they love you.”

Linda nodded. She knew that Paul struggled with the same phenomenon. 

“I wanted to explore that feeling...I wanted to know where it came from, and how it worked, and why it sabotaged me all the time,” he said haltingly.

Linda had moved her hand across the table, and had squeezed John’s in solidarity. “The poems are very moving, John. They moved me. I felt things when you were reading to me.”

John was relieved to hear Linda’s opinion. “Did you think they were about Paul?” He finally asked.

Linda looked up with a kind of surprise. Not an abrupt surprise, but a gentle pulse of surprise. “There were a few poems, they were a little ... well, almost erotic ... not purposefully so, but the word choices ... Of course, I know what it feels like to be around him. So I could sense Paul’s essence in your poems sometimes. But, like I said, I’m an expert on Paul. Not everyone would be able to see those cues...”

“But what if they did?” John asked, his heart stopped.

“What?” Linda asked, finally really surprised.

“What if I published the poems, and the press and the public decided to say they were about Paul and me ... what would happen then?” John’s voice was hushed.

The penny dropped for Linda, who restated John’s thesis perfectly: “You’re afraid if you publish your poems, you’ll expose Paul - and the rest of us - to embarrassing speculation.”

“Yes,” John whispered. “I am afraid of that. I want to express myself this way - just as John Lennon, and not as a hyphenate with Paul - but anything either one of us does is always linked to the other one. It’s like that line from A Hard Day’s Night... ‘we’ve become a limited company.’”

Linda giggled. Then she said, “They’re speculating about the two of you all the time anyway. Did you see this picture in the Daily Mail?” She tossed the paper over to John. John saw a photo of himself with a kind of ironic look on his face, seemingly watching Linda and Paul sitting down the row from him. Underneath was the caption: “Trouble in paradise?” John snickered.

“At least if you publish your poetry you will be owning your own story,” Linda continued. “None of us have any control over what the press or the public will say. But we shouldn’t have to live our lives totally circumscribed by it.”

“But what about Paul? Won’t he hate being the center of all that lurid speculation?” John asked.

“Yes, he will. But he’ll suck it up and take it for you, John. I think he’ll do just about anything for you.”

John’s eyes threatened to fill with tears. Why was she such a generous person to him? He had been so bitchy about her so many times, and yet she could be so generous to him. “So you think I should publish then,” John concluded.

“I think the expression is: ‘publish or perish.’ Isn’t that the expression, John?” Linda’s eyes were twinkling. “I’ll tell Paul if you want.”

“No ... that’s okay. I’ll tell him. I’m going to give him the power of yeah or nay. It’s the least that I owe him.”

The two of them lapsed into a companionable silence. The next time John spoke, it was on an entirely different subject. “Who’s this Emmett person who’s suddenly clinging to Paul’s every word?” 

 

*****

 

A few days later, Paul was back at John’s place. They were relaxing in the sitting room, each doing his own thing, side-by-side. Suddenly Paul said,

“Oh! I almost forgot. I invited this kid over to show me some orchestration tricks. He’s a friend of Stella’s, and he says he can show me a few things.”

John turned to look at Paul with only a little suspicion in his face. A kid? A friend of Stella’s? Hmmmm.

“Was he at the party the other night?” John asked, as casually as he could.

“Yes, he was. He’s quite an interesting bloke,” Paul said, unaware that he was setting off all sorts of warning bells in John’s brain.

“The beauty in the blue plaid shirt?” John asked.

Paul stared at John blankly. “What?” He had no idea what John was talking about.

“That kid who was wearing the bright blue shirt - he dominated conversation at the brunch table, remember?”

Paul didn’t remember what Emmett had worn, and he didn’t remember Emmett dominating the conversation at the breakfast table, either. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same person,” Paul said doubtfully.

“So, did he suggest that he should show you some ‘tricks’, or did you ask him?” John asked.

Paul was confused by John’s tone. He sounded skeptical and a little sarcastic. Paul said, “Yes, it was his idea. He mentioned he’d attended the Royal College of Music before going to fashion school.”

“Then I’m sure it’s the same guy... he’s after you.” John said the words flatly and without fanfare, as if it weren’t a controversial thing to say.

“You what?” Paul’s response was akin to a screech.

“You heard me. He’s after you. He wants to jump your bones. He wants in your pants.”

“John - stop! It’s...blasphemy! He’s a friend of my kids’!” Paul was both embarrassed and shocked by John’s pronouncements.

“Yeah, but he’s not one of your kids, is he babe?” John’s voice was rich with satire. “And I can assure you that the way he looks at you is not even remotely childlike.”

“This is ridiculous!” Paul declared. “I’m not listening to this!” He got up and prepared to repair to the music room on the third floor. “When he gets here, send him up, will you? And don’t be accusing him of anything while you’re at it! I’m an old man to him. It would be humiliating to me if you said anything, because it is so obviously not true.”

John didn’t respond as Paul stomped out of the room. But he smiled to himself. He was going to have to keep an eye on this Emmett person. And what kind of name was ‘Emmett’ anyway? A vapid name for a vapid person!

 

*****

 

About 90 minutes later, Emmett and Paul were side by side on the piano stool. Music sheets were on the music stand, and Emmett was making notes in pencil on them as Paul chose chords. Emmett explained everything he did, and he could tell that Paul already intuitively knew everything he was saying. Paul was one of those rare talents who instinctively followed the rules of music without even knowing what they were. Emmett had only ever been a skilled technician. He was seated next to a true musical genius, and it was thrilling.

He had managed to move closer to Paul every few minutes, so that now their thighs were pressing against each other. Paul was either completely lost in his creative haze, or he welcomed the feel of Emmett’s thigh against his own. Emmett hoped it was the latter, but feared it was the former. He allowed his fingers to cover Paul’s, as Paul chose a chord. He moved one of the fingers over one key. Paul heard the sound as he depressed the new key and liked it better. He smiled reflexively at Emmett with pleased surprise, and Emmett felt a tingle going up his spine, which radiating out through his arms and legs. Paul’s smile was...magic! And it was for him, and him alone!

Suddenly the door opened, and John Lennon strolled in without a word. He wandered over to the piano, and leaned against the side closest to Paul. Paul looked up, all innocence, and smiled absent-mindedly at John. John returned it with an affectionate smile of his own, and then his eyes swiveled until they met Emmett’s eyes, the smile dying out of John’s eyes instantly.

Emmett saw the ruthlessness there, and he shivered. John Lennon didn’t like him, not one little bit. He must know how I feel about Paul, Emmett thought to himself in a silent panic. Now Lennon was staring pointedly at Emmett’s leg - the leg that was up against Paul’s. Lennon’s eyes went from the leg up to Emmett’s face, and back down to the leg, and then back to Emmett’s face. The expression seemed to say, ‘move that fucking leg right now before I break it.’ Emmett moved a few inches away from Paul, losing contact with Paul’s leg. He felt bereft with the loss, but figured he didn’t want to get in an open war with John Lennon. His campaign would have to be one of stealth if it was to succeed at all.

“So, Paul, we’re going to a dinner party tonight, remember?” John asked casually, having caused Emmett to back off with the sheer force of his will.

Paul looked up, his face a little confused and distracted. “We are?”

“Yes. Neil and his wife are having a gathering...”

Paul remembered. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He turned to Emmett. “I see what you’re trying to show me with the notating,” Paul said. “It isn’t as intricate as I thought. I guess I kind of already know how to read music; I just didn’t know it.”

Emmett laughed. “You’re a natural, that’s for sure.”

Paul was pleased. He felt good about himself. He was being praised by a young person who was not really much of a popular music fan, and the praise felt sincere.

John rolled his eyes. He just managed to stop himself from sticking his finger in his mouth to ape gagging. “Paul, you’ll have to hurry to get ready. I’m already done. Emmett, I think it’s time for you to skedaddle.”

Emmett was pissed at John Lennon for raining on his parade and treating him like a child, but because Paul got up, said goodbye hurriedly, and left the room, Emmett had no choice but to follow Lennon out of the room. As they reached the hallway, Lennon shut off the music room light, and closed the door. He then turned to Emmett and said, “Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?”

Emmett was stung, and was silent for a few moments as a result. “I’m sorry? I don’t get your meaning.”

John’s voice went up an octave as he imitated Emmett’s words, “Oh Mr. McCartney, you’re a natural for sure...”

Emmett was indignant. “Well, he is a natural. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.” Emmett met John’s hostile eyes stare for stare. He didn’t back down. “I appreciate his talent. I’m in awe of it. I’m sincere about it. So what’s your problem?”

John was taken aback. He hadn’t expected the kid to have balls. This alarmed him somewhat; the kid was more of a threat than he had at first believed. John forced himself to smile, but it was a very cold and threatening smile. “Just so long as you limit your ‘sincere appreciation’ to his musical talent...”

John Lennon was warning him off! He had thrown down the gauntlet. Emmett didn’t know why he was surprised by this fact. Somehow he had thought that the two men - given their sexual history, at least as written in the biographies and articles about them (which Emmett had read up on the previous day) - had an open relationship and enjoyed numerous lovers, like did most of the gays and bisexuals Emmett knew. He hadn’t expected to run into plain, old-fashioned sexual possessiveness! Still, it was an interesting challenge. He had a lot going for him that John didn’t have: youth, beauty, an ability to orchestrate, a willingness to bow to Paul’s superior talent ... Emmett felt a little better as he toted up his pluses. He gave Lennon a smirky smile. “My problem is,” he said dryly, “that when I am attracted to somebody’s talent, I can’t stop there.” With that, he turned on his heel, and trotted down the stairs as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’ll see myself out!” He called over his shoulder as he went.

John stormed, in a blind temper, into the master bedroom, where he found Paul struggling with the cufflink on his left wrist. John slammed the door behind him, stalked around the room, picked up a throw pillow and threw it. That’s what they were there for, after all. Then he plopped down unceremoniously on the end of the bed and glared at Paul.

“What?” Paul asked, his left wrist upturned and his right hand suspended in midair. “What have I done?”

“You have done nothing,” John snapped.

“Then what?” Paul asked, stretching his arms out in eloquent confusion.

“That fucking kid...” John growled.

Paul was silent. Kid? Kid? He searched his mind. “Do you mean Emmett?” He finally asked. Process of elimination had brought him to that name.

“Who else?” John shouted.

Paul stepped back at John’s vehemence. “What’s he done, then?” Paul asked quietly.

“I told you what he’s done - he’s after you! He wants you! How can you be so blind?” John’s voice was throbbing with suppressed rage.

Paul’s head fell back and he groaned loudly. “Not that again,” he whined.

“He was sitting practically on top of you, didn’t you notice?”

“No, I didn’t notice. We were involved in what we were doing.”

“He was involved in you, Paul, not your music lesson. And you have to ask yourself why. Why all this interest in you all of a sudden? You’re his friend’s father for Christ’s sake! Who wants to hang out with their friends’ fathers?” John’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, and why do you suppose he is interested in hanging out with me?” Paul asked hotly.

“Think about it Paul. Look at all the publicity you garnered for Stella. The supermodels. The tabloids. The front page news. Don’t you think it is possible that he witnessed all that, and saw where being with you would give him a tremendous advantage?” John had spit the words out in the midst of his anger. He would have done well not to say anything just then, but it all came heedlessly rushing out regardless.

Paul was frozen in place. Paul had been feeling good about himself - that a young person could be interested in his work. And now John had reduced it to insincere praise from a calculating social climber. Paul’s arms dropped to his sides and he stared at the floor. Is that what he had allowed himself to look like in others’ eyes? An aging ego, desperately believing the lies of a careless youth? He was speechless, because he could think of nothing to say. He turned and retired to the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind him.

John smacked himself on his thigh and got up. He’d said it wrong. He’d been so angry at the young usurper that he had said it all wrong. He went to the bathroom door and knocked on it quietly. “Paul? I didn’t mean it the way it sounded...”

A few moments went by before Paul responded. “It’s fine, John. You made your point. But let me take a crap in peace, will you?”

John backed away from the door. He had done damage just now. He knew he had done damage, but wasn’t too sure how he could fix it. It was that damned insecurity again - sabotaging him! Why did he always do shit like this? John waited quietly on the edge of the bed for Paul to come out. Eventually Paul emerged, looking withdrawn and cool. He went back to his dresser, and started to work on his left cufflink again, with no success. John got up, walked over, and suddenly stilled Paul’s wrist in his hands. “Let me,” he said softly. He held his other hand out in a cup shape, and after a slight hesitation, Paul dropped the cufflink into John’s hand. John made quick work of it, and then pulled Paul towards him, his arms around Paul’s waist. “I love you,” he said, resting his nose on Paul’s nose, and staring down through his lashes to Paul’s mouth.

Paul said softly, “Love you too.”

“Forget the stupid things I said. I’m just a jealous guy.” John met Paul’s eyes and gave him a goofy smile. “I didn’t mean to hurt you...” He sang.

Paul finally laughed. “You’re a fool, Lennon. Why do you worry about such inane things?”

“He is after you, Paul. I don’t know much, but I know when people are honing in on you. I’ve always had a sixth sense about it. And he was so impudent to me just now.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it,” John responded. He suddenly felt too embarrassed to repeat to Paul the things he had said to Emmett. It made him look like an overly jealous bird.

Paul sighed. “It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone. So are we going to Neil’s party, or not?”

 

*****

 

John and Paul approached Neil’s house out in Twickenham, Paul at the wheel. As far as they could tell when they circled the block there were no paps around, and so they entered the private drive.

Suzy Aspinall opened the door. She and Neil had been married for 27 years at that point. She saw John and Paul and her face broke out in a beatific smile. “My luvs, so glad you’ve come!” she cried, opening her arms for a double hug. The party was in full swing, and immediately John noticed that Ringo and Barbara were there. He headed over in their direction. There were numerous other lights and shadows from the ‘60s there, along with a number of the Aspinalls’ friends from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. There were at least 40 people milling around, and it was a very eclectic crowd.

Paul wandered around until he caught sight of his old dear friend, Marianne Faithfull, who was sitting quietly by herself on the corner of a sofa with an enigmatic smile on her face. Paul thoroughly enjoyed her wicked, dry sense of humor, and her strong bullshit o’meter. He also admired her intense loyalty to the people she loved and respected. He was honored to be included among them. He slid into a seat beside her, and leaned over and kissed her very chastely on her lips.

Marianne smiled mischievously. “Running stag tonight, Paul?” She asked. She had always been quite amused by the possessiveness of each and every one of Paul’s lovers. She had known most of them - from Jane Asher, to the girls he dabbled with behind Jane’s back (one of whom had been nanny to her son!), to Linda, and also John. They all were incredibly possessive of Paul, and kept him on a very short leash. Marianne found Paul very attractive sexually, but she valued his friendship more. She felt he had a very subtle mind, and was very open-minded and giving to those he counted as friends. She also thought he was the musical genius behind the Beatles, notwithstanding what idiot male rocker types said.

 

Paul laughed at her remark. “When am I ever running free, balls to the wind?” He whispered back.

“You should choose lovers who let you roam a little,” Marianne said suggestively. Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

“I think I’d start worrying that they didn’t love me enough if they didn’t get jealous,” Paul responded with a slightly goofy, sheepish look.

Marianne melted at the sight and sound. That is why she loved Paul so much. He didn’t pretend to be macho, or cool, or ‘with it’. He was just always his wonderful eccentric self.

“So who’s holding the leash tonight?” She asked, with a fraudulently innocent expression on her face.

Paul snorted. He acknowledged the hit without a complaint. “John,” he answered.

Marianne moved closer to Paul and whispered in his ear, “I get hot just thinking of the two of you going at it. It’s just the sexiest thing ever.”

Paul blushed a little, and took an over-large sip of wine in compensation. “Oh?” he asked her. The two of them were intellectual twins, but they did like to tease each other sexually, too. So Paul’s eyes, although a bit shy, were also dancing with amusement.

“Yeah,” Marianne responded unrepentantly in her lowered voice, “so who’s on top - you or John?”

“But that would be telling,” Paul admonished in mock solemnity.

“I know it’s you, Paul. I can’t see you on the bottom,” Marianne said.

Paul’s eyebrows went up and his eyes danced again. He leaned in and whispered directly in her ear, “You’ll just have to wonder. My lips are sealed.”

Marianne’s guffaw was loud and it penetrated her environs. Everyone in their immediate vicinity turned to look at her, and what they saw were Marianne and Paul figuratively entangled, giggling in an intimate way. They all thought that was pretty interesting, and a few of them - the ones who knew John the best - looked nervously in John’s direction, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

That was a vain hope. John had Paul radar, as he had informed Paul earlier in the evening, and this radar had told him something was up. He turned when heard the loud guffaw and saw Paul giggling helplessly along with Marianne Faithfull. Marianne had lost a lot of her looks - the drugs had gotten the best of them - but Paul didn’t seem to notice. He was clearly enjoying flirting with the woman. John felt his back stiffen. This was too much for his ego. Two assaults on his defensive position in one day!

Ringo sensed that John was getting upset, and he tried to divert him. “That Paul,” he said jokingly, forcing himself to chuckle, “the women just melt around him, don’t they? He’s such a bleedin’ flirt.” He chuckled some more.

John turned to Ringo, but in a distracted way. “Excuse me,” he said. He made a beeline for Paul and Marianne.

Suzy saw it happening, and decided she would intervene, to make sure it all ended without too much drama. So she headed in that direction too. She arrived in front of the giddy couple at the same time John did.

Paul and Marianne looked up and their faces were a little guilty and a little naughty. “What?” Paul asked. His question was aimed at John’s stormy face.

“I want to talk to you,” John said, in as low a voice as he could manage under the circumstances.

Paul said, “We’re just pals, nothing to get hung about.” Paul had sung the last phrase.

John said, “Even so...”

Paul could see John meant business, so he tried to get up from the sofa, but kept falling back into the cushions. Marianne giggled some more, and then, with a hand to the small of his back, she pushed him forward so he could stand up. This caused Paul to laugh, too, against his will, and Marianne leaned over on her side, she was laughing so hard.

John had Paul’s lower forearm in a grip, and they walked out of the sitting room, and into a back hall. As they left, Suzy dropped into Paul’s recently vacated seat and leaned in to engage Marianne in conversation so as to defuse the tension.

“Are you high already?” John demanded, as they reached a quiet corner of the hallway.

“I haven’t even finished my wine,” Paul said, trying to keep a straight face.

“You’re embarrassing yourself. What will Linda say when she hears how you’ve been behaving tonight?” John’s voice sounded strict and uncompromising, like a public school headmaster.

Paul stared at John in a kind of amused disbelief. “So it’s Linda you’re worried about?” He asked.

“People will talk. I don’t give a damn what they say about me, but you should give more care to your wife. She’s already got to put up with the rumors about me. What else do you expect her to deal with?” John was sincerely angry on Linda’s behalf, and this caused Paul to sober up.

“Linda knows that Marianne and I have this silly friendship. I’ve known Marianne longer than I’ve known her, and Marianne and Linda get along very well.” Paul said this in a low, simmering voice.

“Everyone in there was thinking the two of you were flirting heavily. It will get back to Linda, make no mistake.” John was not backing down.

Paul’s expression softened. It finally dawned on him that John really was concerned about Linda. “It’s very sweet of you, John, to defend her like that,” he said sincerely. “But there’s no need. I will explain to Linda what happened, and she’ll be cool with it.”

“She shouldn’t have to suck it up so much, Paul. You and I are putting her through enough in that department.” John’s voice was still stern.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Paul didn’t want to argue any more. He was embarrassed about being dragged out of the party by John. And never mind what they were saying about him and Marianne - John dragging him out with a death grip on his arm - that was really going to burn down the wires! But the only way to put paid to the controversy was to go back to the party with John, and have John and Marianne yuck it up a lot, to show no hurt feelings, and everything was cool. “John, come back in with me, and chat with Marianne for a while. It will send a good signal, and anyway, Marianne is the most interesting person in the room.”

John nodded grimly. He was 75% percent angry for Linda, and 25% angry for himself, but he did see the wisdom in what Paul was saying.

 

*****

 

They got back from the party at 1:30 a.m., exhausted, and they undressed and crawled into bed. John was still pissed about the whole Marianne Faithfull episode, but he felt he had put the speculation to bed, at least, by engaging her and Paul in a conspiratorial three-party conversation for a good 20 minutes once he and Paul had returned to the party. Everyone seemed to have calmed down, and gone back to minding his own business.

“John?” Paul asked in the dark, his arm circling John’s waist and his breath exhaling on the back of John’s neck.

“What?” John asked.

“Are you angry at me for having fun with Marianne tonight?”

“I don’t mind you having fun, Paul, but the two of you were practically making out. Yes, I was angry about it.”

“We weren’t really,” Paul said softly. “We discussed having an affair back in the sixties, and decided we’d rather be friends. We just like to goof around. It’s harmless.”

“That makes me feel soooo much better,” John griped. “And I’m sure it will make Linda feel better too.”

Paul gave up and flopped backwards on the mattress, sighing heavily as he did so. “We didn’t hurt anyone,” he said in a defensive tone. “We enjoy each other’s company. It isn’t the end of the bloody world.”

John was silent for several moments and then said, speaking over his shoulder, “You’re sending out signals, Paul.”

“Signals?” Paul responded, his voice raised in confused surprise.

“Signals that you’re interested and available. You’re starting to attract people to you left and right with those signals. Why are you doing that? Aren’t Linda and I enough for you?”


	91. Chapter 91

Paul had a lot to think about. He was leaning back at his desk at One Soho surrounded by a myriad of business and career decisions to make, but he was momentarily reliving the previous night’s conversation with John. Was he sending out signals? Certainly not consciously, even John had agreed with that. But did he have a subconscious need to stray? Paul didn’t think so. He had told John that it was just a coincidence that he had seen Marianne on the same day he had spent time with Emmett. He and John had ended it at that, but Paul knew that John was still suspicious and doubtful. I’ll just have to be more mindful of my flirting behavior, Paul said to himself. He was well aware that he enjoyed flirting, but felt that he knew where to draw the line between innocent and serious. He didn’t want to hurt John or Linda - that was the furthest thing from his mind.

The internal phone line buzzed, and he picked up the receiver. The front receptionist’s voice was on the line.

“There’s someone here who says he is a friend of Stella’s, and that you know him. He says he has something for you,” the receptionist said. “His name is Emmett Collier?”

Oh dear, what if John’s right? Paul thought to himself. He hadn’t taken John’s suspicions seriously at all. Now he hoped it wasn’t a crush; it always required such careful, gentle handling to discourage a crush. “Send him up,” Paul instructed. But then, Paul thought, it might be something else. The kid might want his help in the music business. There were so many things to worry about when it came to situations like these. What were they after? Publicity? Money? Some investment idea? Help with a project? Or did they want an affair with a celebrity - any celebrity? Or were there some other weird fantasies of their own on tap? Paul sighed. He hated having to assume that newcomers in his life had some self-interested agenda when approaching him, but life had shown him over decades that he was better off assuming the worst, and then (rarely) being pleasantly surprised if the newcomer wasn’t a user. 

Paul went to his office door, so he met Emmett as he was stepping off the elevator. 

“Hey, Emmett, come on in,” Paul said, as he turned back into his office. He deliberately went and stood behind his desk. The desk would keep it businesslike. 

Emmett felt suddenly shy. There was a different aura around Paul today. He seemed more distant, less approachable, more in charge. It must be the business setting. He shyly took one of the chairs in front of Paul’s desk, and noted that Paul didn’t sit down until he sat down. 

“What’s up?” Paul asked, trying to keep his expression friendly but detached as he sat forward at his desk, his hands crossed in front of him expectantly as if he wanted to hurry the interaction along.

Emmett now felt gauche, like a young child who was trying to act like an experienced grown up. He looked down at the book in his hand, and then found the courage to hand it across the desk to Paul. 

Bemused, Paul took it, and looked down at a well-worn textbook. “What’s this?” He asked, a curious smile on his face.

“It’s the best book I’ve ever read on understanding music notation,” Emmett said, slowly gathering some of his confidence back. It was hard. Today Paul’s near-black hair, styled in a layered shag, was sprinkled with silver. His eyes looked almost green in the light from the window. He wore a bright white t-shirt under a casual pinstriped light grey sport coat, and for whatever reason, his appearance was more attractive than ever to Emmett at that moment. “It was from my first year at the Royal College of Music.” 

Paul smiled with relief. The warmth infused his features, causing Emmett’s skin to tingle with goose bumps. “Thanks - this is very thoughtful of you. How’d you know I was here, though?” Paul was relieved that the gift was not something Emmett had purchased especially for him, that it wasn’t personal, and that it was related to their mutual interest in music. But he was a little worried that Emmett knew he would be there on that day and at that time, since Paul wasn’t in the office on a regular basis. But Emmett soon cleared that up. 

“I didn’t know you were here. I was going to just drop the book off for you, but when I said I was a friend of Stella’s, the receptionist assumed I wanted to see you.” (This was not completely accurate; Emmett had asked if Paul was in when he had arrived, and had used his considerable charm and good looks to persuade the receptionist to put a call through once she’d inadvertently let it be known that Paul was in.)

Another wave of relief passed through Paul. He didn’t want to get crosswise with one of Stella’s friends. It would be too awkward. He relaxed a bit more. “So why do you like this book, especially?” Paul asked, leaning back in his chair, and prepared (for the moment) to take the kid on face value. He felt obliged to ask a few questions, take about 15 minutes, before politely ushering Emmett to the door.

“It is very logical, not philosophical at all. You just follow the steps, A through Zed,” Emmett explained. “I learned orchestrating first by learning the process, separate from the philosophy of music, because it was too confusing for me to learn both simultaneously. It occurred to me after our session the other day that you already know the philosophy of music. You already know why the rules are the way they are. That is intuitive for you. You only need some notating skills to make composing a little easier for you.”

Paul had been trying to maintain a distant interest in Emmett’s explanation, but his own natural enthusiasm was making it hard for him. He felt himself being swayed and a little moved by Emmett’s generous gesture. He said, “It’s kind of you to go to this trouble, really.”

“It isn’t trouble for me,” Emmett said shyly.

Paul could see, just for a brief moment, what looked like longing in Emmett’s eyes. But longing for what? Did he miss music? Was he still mourning the loss of his music career? Or was he interested in Paul for more basic reasons, as John suggested? Paul didn’t know, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Either way, he would have to let this young man down because an ongoing relationship of any kind was out of the question, given John’s feelings on the subject.

Paul cleared his throat. “Well, it was good to see you. But I’ve got to get ready for a meeting...” He smiled in an impersonal way, and started to get up. 

Emmett took the cue, and feeling deflated and confused he followed Paul to the elevator. Paul held out his hand for a shake, and the grasp was firm but businesslike.

“Good luck with your collection!” Paul said warmly.

Emmett felt he was being dismissed, even if in the nicest possible way. He managed a brave smile as the elevator doors closed behind him.

Phew! Paul felt a wave of relief pass over him as the elevator doors closed, and then he went back to his office. He had seen the hurt look on Emmett’s face. Paul had seen looks like that from people for decades now. They wanted in. They wanted to be part of his life. Paul knew that it wasn’t James Paul McCartney from Everton that they wanted to be a part of; it was the whole Beatles phenomenon that drew people to him. But still, their feelings were real if not realistic, and Paul had a soft enough heart not to want to cause embarrassment or hurt to others. And, in this case, Emmett was a friend of Stella’s. There was an added layer of complexity for that reason. One thing Paul hadn’t felt was regret at the loss itself. He hadn’t been sexually attracted to Emmett, and had only been passingly interested in the guy’s conversation. He’d learned a few notation tricks out of it, and that made the time spent with the kid worthwhile. Hopefully, Emmett got something out of the time they’d spent together as well, even if it was only bragging rights for when he ran into Beatles fans in the future.

 

*****

 

“It’s so frustrating,” Linda was telling her daughter Mary. She and Mary were having a very light lunch at one of their favorite restaurants. “It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t seem to lose weight.”

Mary had noticed that her mother had put on some weight, but she had assumed that this was just a function of growing older. “You look fine, Mum, why is this worrying you?”

“It took a few months of dieting, but my appetite has really shrunk,” Linda explained. “I don’t eat that much, but I still don’t lose weight.”

Mary said, “Maybe exercise would help?”

Linda frowned. She hated exercising. Riding horses was the full extent of her athletic interest and prowess. “You’d think,” she said stubbornly, “that if you reduce what you eat, you would lose weight.” 

Mary was not a nutritionist and hadn’t yet felt the need to diet. She’d always been naturally slim. Consequently, she didn’t have any more advice for her mother. But really, her mom was probably just venting anyway. Mary nodded sympathetically. “Well, you still look wonderful to me,” she said instead. 

Part of Linda’s frustration was that she looked so much older than Paul. Paul had an eternal youthfulness about him, and although he was less than a year younger than her, at present he looked a good ten years younger. Linda didn’t think Paul was going to run off. She’d lost those fears years earlier. But she wanted to be attractive to him, and she wanted others to see them visually as a couple who belonged together. And it wasn’t just her looks that made her feel so much older than Paul. It was her energy level. It seemed like she tired so much easier now, as she approached her 54th birthday. It was only a few months away. 

Mary decided to change the subject. “How’s the frozen food business these days?” Linda, with Paul’s help, had started a frozen vegetarian food business in England in 1991, after the success of her 1989 cookbook, “Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking.” There had been a bad bump with the quality control aspect of her frozen food line a while back when consumer reports labs had questioned the contents of some of her meals, and it had been a bit of a worry.

Linda smiled ruefully. “It’s so hard to do a thing with purity,” she said sadly. “You can have the best of intentions, and work your very hardest to do a thing ethically and to live up to your word, but in the end you are at the mercy of every single supplier, every single manager, and every single worker. If any one of them cuts a corner, you’re screwed.”

“Are things back to normal, then?” Mary asked.

“Yes. Some adjustments were made. It hasn’t made a dent in the sales, but it bothered me to be associated with any kind of allegation that we were trying to mislead people with our packaging.” 

Mary nodded. She’d managed to open yet another painful subject for her mother. She wanted to slap herself, but decided to change the subject again. “Are you going to write another cookbook?” She asked.

Linda said, “One thing I’ve been considering doing for a long while is a book that focuses on recipes for wintertime - you know, when there aren’t as many fresh vegetables available. So I’ve been working on that.”

“That’s a really good idea.”

“The only reason for me to add cookbooks to the world is to fill in where other people haven’t. I can’t tell you how hard it was when we lived primarily out in Sussex to figure out what to do with the available produce during the winter.” Linda suddenly became aware of how long they had dawdled. Linda’s eyes danced with mirth as she said to her daughter, “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“Very funny, Mum,” Mary said. “Since you’re my boss.”

 

*****

 

John and Paul dined that night with Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey. It was okay to be seen out in public with other rock stars, because then it just looked like a boys’ night out. By this time, Pete and Roger both knew what the score was with John and Paul, but it was by mutual silent agreement between the four of them that the subject was never raised. It wasn’t necessary to raise the subject anyway, because they always had other things to talk about. It had been an entertaining evening, with Pete flirting with the waitress (but she didn’t seem to know who he was) and Paul doing his best to politely discourage the waitress’s obvious interest in him (she did recognize Paul). John was amused as he watched this dynamic. It reminded him of the very early days, before they were famous, when George Harrison had always lusted after the girls that Paul ended up with. 

“So what are you two up to?” Pete asked, after the waitress fluttered away; he was smiling in a chipper way at John and Paul. 

“I’m thinking of publishing a volume of poetry,” John responded.

This announcement made quite a stir, with Pete, Roger and Paul all saying flattering and encouraging things. 

“It’s kind of complicated, though,” John said, “because the poems are very personal.”

Pete, having dropped his roué rock star behavior as soon as John had mentioned his poetry, said seriously, “Poetry is by its nature personal, but why is that so different from your lyrics?”

“I don’t know why it feels different, but it does,” John said. “It feels more naked. Maybe the music dresses things up a bit.” He chuckled a little self-consciously at his pun.

“Your work has always been self-revelatory,” Paul said thoughtfully. “You’ve never held yourself back before, why start now?”

John looked gratefully at Paul. He was speaking to Paul when he said, “But even in my lyrics I’ve fudged a lot, made things a little cloudy, played word games. That’s a kind of hiding in itself. These poems are different...”

Paul knew what John meant. He had read John’s poems numerous times, and had listened while John had read the poems to him in their various stages of development. There was no posturing in the poems, no false bravado, as there sometimes were in John’s song lyrics.

“Do you know any by heart? Can you recite any?” Pete asked with excitement.

“No, I don’t know them by heart. They’re too long, most of them.” John paused for a moment as he digested a thought. “And sometimes I read a line and I can’t even remember writing it. It’s as if someone else wrote it. It’s the strangest thing.” 

“What are you afraid of revealing, then?” The quiet question came from Roger Daltrey.

John looked at him as he said, “I think I reveal my real weaknesses, without ... without ...” John struggled for a word.

“Without armor,” Paul finished for him. 

 

*****

 

The pot had been primo, the lights had been low, and the sex and been steamy. Now they lay loosely in each other’s arms, on their sides, their faces a foot away from each other on separate pillows, but their eyes intertwined. The sweat was finally evaporating off their bodies, and a fan undulated soft air over their cooling torsos. They hadn’t spoken for several minutes, but their eyes were talking about love, friendship, amusement, amazement, trust, affection, even fear... 

Paul finally whispered, “Why are you so afraid of publishing your poems?”

John waited for a few minutes before responding. “I’m afraid that everyone will say they’re about you, and it will subject you to all kinds of exposure you’ll hate.” 

Paul took this in. He was a little perplexed by this. “The poems aren’t about me, they’re about you,” he finally said.

“But others see you in them,” John responded.

“What ‘others’?” Paul asked.

“Linda, for one, and Kevin...”

Paul didn’t mean to wince when he heard the name ‘Kevin’, but apparently some part of his face betrayed him because John said quickly,

“He doesn’t dislike you. He admits he doesn’t even know you. His point is that I’m still not secure in your love after all our years together. He says that becomes clear in my poems.”

Paul wanted to argue, but it was undoubtedly true that John did not really trust him - not really, deep down. Maybe in brief moments, like when they made love, and afterwards... But John still went rigid with fear if Paul so much as winked at another person. These thoughts were wending their way through his mind, and eventually Paul could understand what John was trying to tell him. “You think that people will say that the reason you are so insecure is that I’m an untrustworthy bastard - selfish and untrue? Is that it?”

John chuckled in his throat, his smile close-mouthed. Then he said, “I wouldn’t have put it so harshly, but yes - that is one of my fears. That people will read the poems and think they’re about our relationship, and that this will lead to speculation and renewed interest from the tabloids...”

Paul sighed. He reached his hand up to John’s cheek, and placed it there gently. “In a few months Anthology will be released,” he pointed out. “The tabloids are going to be crawling all over us anyway. Maybe you should use the publicity from Anthology and publish your poems at the same time? We can get all the scrutiny over in one fell swoop.”

John chuckled, this time more heartily and out loud. “You never turn that marketing brain off, do you baby?” 

“I see it as killing two birds with one stone,” Paul said reasonably, but with an amused arched eyebrow.

“As long as we’re not the two birds getting killed...”

“John - really. I’ve never censored you, and you should never censor yourself. Do what you want to do, what you need to do, and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. We’ll warn Linda, the kids - yours and mine. They’re all used to it by now.” Paul moved closer to John’s face, until their noses were almost touching. “I’m serious, John. I never want to be the reason why you censor yourself creatively.” 

 

*****

 

Linda had been feeling better after several days’ rest. She figured that she had been much more stressed over Stella’s debut than she had acknowledged to herself while she was going through it. She had been so frightened that Stella would get attacked for being Paul’s daughter, and that her work would not have been accepted on its own merit. Having it go off so well, along with the released pressure after the success of the house party afterwards, was a tremendous relief.

Today Linda was researching a holiday venue. Paul had promised to take her away, and she wanted at least a month alone in his company. She thought July would be a good month. James could stay with Mary, since Stella was very busy. Linda didn’t want to go somewhere far away, and she didn’t want to do the usual cooking and planning that she usually did. She thought a spa-like resort that would wait on them hand and foot sounded appealing. She and Paul had rarely done that before, perhaps being a little smug about their disapproval of those who did. She would get massages and aromatherapy and basically every service offered on the spa services list, and she was going to eat healthy low-calorie spa meals to lose weight, and she was going to try to focus on her libido. 

Over the past several months, Linda’s libido had dropped substantially. She had read up on it, and found that this was not unusual when women reached their mid-fifties. But with a husband like Paul, who had a fairly intense sex drive, having a low libido was not a good idea. She felt that once she got away from it all, and was completely relaxed, she would find her “mojo” and that then she and Paul could reconnect sexually. The sweet thing was that Paul had not mentioned it. He had not expressed to her in any way, latent or patent, that she was letting him down. Instead, he appeared to be satisfied just cuddling her. Linda didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. In her darker moments, she imagined that the reason he was so sanguine about it was that he preferred getting all of his sexual needs met by John. She could tell by some kind of emotional osmosis that there was still a profound amount of passion between Paul and John. Sometimes there seemed to be an electrical force cracking and snapping around them. By now, Linda knew she could never match that intense attraction; instead, she hoped she provided Paul with a gentler, more mature and giving kind of love. 

She finally settled on an American resort located in Taos, New Mexico. They could ride horses and hike in the desert in between spa treatments, lying around by the pool, and spending time alone in the bedroom. The weather would be warm, but because the town had a high altitude, it would not be too hot. She felt so much better after it was booked and she could look forward to her trip. 

 

*****

 

“So you’re going off for a whole month, then,” John said, trying not to sound disgruntled.

“Yeah, you can go on as many dates as you want with ‘Kevin’,” Paul joked. He had said the name ‘Kevin’ in a very precious accent. 

“Fuck off,” John grumbled, chuckling a little. “Although...” he pondered, “...I have a hard time imagining it. I mean, with all that hair on his face.” 

Paul’s face looked like he had just sucked on a lemon. “Oh, gawd, John... That’s as bad as you shouting out ‘Winston Churchill’ during our circle jerks!”

John laughed heartily this time, his face lighting up with badly disguised mischief. “Of course, it gives new meaning to the term ‘bush’...”

“John! Stop! It’s disgusting!” Now Paul was laughing helplessly, too. 

A few minutes later, when all the laughing had finally died down, John returned to his original subject. He said, as if he were announcing his own funeral, “Four whole weeks.” 

“Don’t start,” Paul said, chuckling again. “You’ll survive. And I’m thinking you’re doing this all as a kind of blind. You’ll be throwing mad parties as soon as my car disappears ‘round the corner.” 

“I kind of understand why you’re doing it,” John admitted. “Linda has been down lately. James will be off to study art in a few months, and all of her chicks will have left the nest. I’m sure that’s hard on a woman who really loves being a mother.” 

Paul looked at John with a kind of awed fondness. “That’s true,” he said after a brief but pregnant silence. “James is hardly ever around as it is, but still we haven’t yet faced the great departure. That will be especially hard on Lin, because she really worries about James, and is very close to him.” 

A few reflective minutes passed between them, and then John cleared his throat. “Haven’t seen much of your music teacher lately,” he assayed. 

“My what?” Paul asked, stumped.

“Your precious Emmett.”

Paul made a face. “He isn’t ‘my’ Emmett. He isn’t ‘my’ anything!” 

“So he’s thrown you over for someone richer? Maybe he’s after Richard Branson now...”

“Is this how you entertain yourself when I’m not around? Come up with all sorts of outlandish scenarios to try out on me?” Paul’s tone was indignant, but there was an amused light in his eyes. 

John smiled, but his expression remained firm. “I’m serious. Has he been after you?”

Paul looked away quickly, and John read the signal as clearly as if Paul had held up a sign. “He has! Tell me everything!”

“A week or so ago. He visited me while I was at the office. He brought me a gift.” Paul looked a little embarrassed.

“A gift? Oh - this is going to be good. What was it?” John’s face was lit up like a streetlamp. 

“You’re enjoying this far too much,” Paul said.

“I love being right. I so rarely get the chance to be right over you,” John pointed out reasonably. “So what was the little prezzie? A necklace with a silver heart? Maybe it opens up and his photo is inside.” 

“Nothing so lame,” Paul said. “He brought me an old used textbook.”

John was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Was he trying to make some kind of insulting point?” 

Paul laughed. “It was about reading music. A kind of ‘Writing Music For Dummies’ sort of thing that he thought highly of.”

“Oh no,” John chuckled. “That must have been disappointing for you. The locket would have been a much better present.”

“Shurrup, John. It was thoughtful and sweet, really. He was so disappointed when I walked him out, though.”

“So you admit he was after you then?”

“I admit nothing.” Paul thought for a moment and then amended his remark. “I can only admit that he appeared to be after me for something, but what it was - money? sex? a job? connections? fame? - that I don’t know. And I’ll never know, because I explained to Sheila at the reception desk that she musn’t send him up to see me ever again, even if he charms the pants off her. She agreed, since she likes her job.”

John acted jolly and nonchalant, but inside he was relieved. It had been silly - him getting jealous over a young man like that. Intellectually, he knew that Paul was a much better person than that. Paul had substance, and he didn’t go about wantonly breaking people’s hearts. Of course, many hearts had been broken, but most of them not intentionally. Yet again he was reminded that Paul was a faithful lover to him and a faithful husband to Linda within the boundaries of their ménage a trois, as well as a very faithful friend and partner. If only John could make himself remember this fact when the green monster came to visit!

 

*****

 

The air was different up here at almost 8000 feet, Linda thought. They had arrived at the resort at 9 p.m., and the thin air had made them both tired. But Linda had awakened at 6 a.m. and had sat on the private patio to watch the sun come up. Paul was still sound asleep, although this was unusual for him. After all, in London time it was 7 hours later. Still, having the hushed patio all to herself as the needle-like ‘leaves’ of the silver-green bushes whispered in the breeze was relaxing in the extreme. Clumps of lavender and salvia were mated with clumps of yellow mallow and yellow bird of paradise on the hillside falling away from the patio, and hints of royal blue Ceanothus and pale blue rosemary were present, too. The butterflies and ants and yellow jackets added a busy buzziness as a backdrop, and the birds were sending out wake-up signals to each other. Linda sighed heavily. The sky was pink! For a few breathless minutes it was a very pale shade of pink, and it melted into a more tangerine color, and then suddenly started fading into a pale lavender color. Within a half hour, the sky was unequivocally blue. Linda watched it all, and it filled her with awe. She had her favorite camera, and had photographed each stage of the sunrise. 

Her reverie was interrupted by the grumble in her stomach. She was starving. Being in mountain air always did this to her. She checked out her watch and noted that the time was now 8 a.m. She wondered how Paul could possibly still be asleep, so she ventured through the sliding doors into their bedroom. Paul had kicked off the covers, and was half-covered by a sheet. He didn’t look peaceful; he looked a bit feverish. She went quickly to his side of the bed, sat down, and placed her cool palm on his hot, damp forehead. Her hand recoiled instinctively, and she jumped up and ran and got a cool, dampened hand cloth from the bathroom, and returned to wipe Paul’s sweaty face. 

Paul began to thrash around a bit, and he was mumbling words she could not understand. She shook him more violently than she wanted to, and his eyes finally shot open and he stilled. 

“I feel...terrible...” Paul said. “My head...is pounding...”

“I’ll call the hotel doctor!” Linda cried.

This dislodged a memory. “I know what it is,” Paul said suddenly. “Altitude sickness. I’ve gone through this once before - in Denver - on tour - a few years ago.”

“So what should I do to help?” Linda asked, worried at her own ignorance on the subject.

“The doctor can bring some oxygen. In a tank. It helps.”

Linda picked up the phone and spoke to the concierge, and was assured that the hotel doctor would be around within 30 minutes. They were sending up some Tylenol for the headache straight away, and it would be delivered to their casita door in no time along with some Pedialyte. Not to worry, they told her. Happens all the time. Not high enough up - the resort, perched in the mountains above Taos, was at 7800 feet - to cause anything but very mild mountain sickness. 

For some reason, none of this was reassuring to Linda. Paul was rarely sick - except when he got a bad cold (and colds always seemed to end up in his lungs) - and he tended to go about his business even when he was sick. So seeing him thrashing about in the now-sodden sheets and groaning in pain from a pounding headache was frightening to her. She was relieved when the hotel employee arrived with the Tylenol. She poured out some Pedialyte and handed the glass and the Tylenol to Paul, who quickly downed the pills. He winced at the taste of the sugar water. 

Not long afterwards, the doctor was packing up his bag. Paul was sitting on the side of the bed, taking a little oxygen. “You’ll feel better in a few days,” the doctor said. “Take it easy, but do get up and do a few things. Not too strenuous, but the more you move around the sooner you’ll get used to the altitude.” 

Paul nodded, because he didn’t want to remove his mouth and nose from the oxygen tank mask. Linda did all the thanking, and accepted the medications the doctor had brought with him - some Diamox to hasten accommodation to the altitude, and an anti-nausea medication in case Paul developed that symptom later. The doctor said, “Don’t give him any sleeping pills; they could kill him. He may have some insomnia, but the oxygen is what he should use, not sleeping pills.” Linda nodded seriously in understanding. After the doctor left, she strolled back into the bedroom.

“Well, big boy, you really know how to spoil a romantic getaway,” Linda drawled to Paul in her best Mae West imitation. 

Paul removed the oxygen nozzle from his nose. “So sorry ‘bout this, Lin, I should have thought about it. I just didn’t remember...”

“Paul, I’m only teasing. We have a whole month here. In a few days you’ll be acclimatized, and everything will be great. In the meantime, I’m hungry, are you?”

Paul groaned and grabbed his stomach. “Noooo. Why don’t you go to the hotel café for breakfast. I’ll stay here.”

This wasn’t exactly what Linda had hoped and planned for, but she saw the wisdom in Paul’s suggestion. If she called room service, he would probably get sick at the scent of her food. Reluctantly, she went to shower and dress.

Paul turned on to his side and groaned. He felt horrible. He was upset with himself for feeling horrible. He didn’t want to ruin Linda’s romantic getaway, so he would have to shape up and get well as soon as possible. He wasn’t sure why he was in bed - he couldn’t sleep. So he tried to pull himself up to sit in the easy chair. He would try to watch TV. There must be something to watch on the movie channel. Every movement was a torture, but he finally settled himself and clicked on the remote control. Gritting his teeth against his horrible headache, he scrolled through the movie options. He finally settled on Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.


	92. Chapter 92

The view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking. Paul took a big, extravagant breath. After two days of misery, he was now fit as a fiddle. His face nearly split in a beatific smile.

“It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” Linda asked, as she came up behind Paul. 

“Every color in the rainbow - including all the pastels,” Paul responded.

Linda put her arms around Paul as she stood behind him, and nestled her face against his back. Paul was a life force, and for all his faults, there was no gainsaying that he was a man fully alive and bursting with joy and enthusiasm. She wouldn’t have wanted to spend her life with anyone else. 

Paul’s hands covered Linda’s, and he experienced again for the millionth time the utter serenity of Linda’s warm and steady presence. He knew he was a lucky man. To have a wild, passionate, out-of-control lover but also a calm, centered, nurturing lover - to have both in his life was a gift. This simple truth made up for all the angst, and the stress, and the dozens of other minor irritants that went along with trying to keep two lovers happy. 

“Let’s get back on the horses, and ride down to get some breakfast,” Paul finally said. “I’m starving.”

 

*****

 

“Well, it’s about time. Good on you!” Kevin’s voice was purring with satisfaction on the other end of the telephone line. John winced a little at the loudness of it. “Give that agent a call!”

“Yeah, well, see... I don’t call people,” John said.

“You just called me,” Kevin retorted.

“I meant, I don’t call people I don’t know.”

“Why ever not?” Kevin asked.

“I just don’t. So could you ask that agent person to call me? Will you give him my number if he is interested?” John didn’t like admitting to his phobia about the phone, and didn’t want to explain it to Kevin. People thought John was bold and extroverted because he was loud and boisterous in a crowd of people. But his closest friends knew that just the opposite was true: he was really very shy, and his loudness in such situations was more of an over-compensation for his shyness than anything else. 

Kevin sighed. He figured this was one of those ‘superstar things’ again. On more than one occasion since meeting John, he’d been set back on his heels by John’s presumptions and expectations. There were times when John’s behavior was downright lordly. Kevin assumed that because John was so young when he became so famous, and since the people around him had done everything for him, he’d become accustomed to a certain set of entitlements: the mountain will not come to Mohammed! Kevin shrugged it off. He supposed John could be forgiven for these little eccentricities. “I’ll do that right now,” Kevin said. “I know he’ll be interested.” That agent’s gonna owe me big time for this one, Kevin thought.

 

*****

 

John was nervous. He prowled around the formal living room one more time, making sure everything was in its rightful place. It had been a long time since he’d been in his New York apartment. He was waiting to meet Bill Segal, the agent Kevin had connected him with. Turned out that Segal was a New Yorker, and John had decided on a whim to go to New York and visit with his friends while also meeting up with the agent. Now he was waiting for Segal to arrive. 

It had been a bit awkward at first, when it finally dawned on Segal that John Lennon didn’t go to strange business offices. If Segal wanted to meet Lennon, he would have to go to Lennon’s apartment. Segal had never done that before; his clients were poets, and poets were not used to being treated like royalty, so they didn’t usually have such grand expectations. The cab dropped him off in front of a very modern skyscraper. It was an expensive piece of real estate and clearly those apartments facing the park would have a world-class view. The doorman wore all black, had a slicked back ponytail, wore sunglasses and an ear bud in one ear, and spoke with an elegant French accent. The lobby was a marvel of rectangle matt limestone tiles and modern furniture, contrasted against womblike chocolate brown walls. The huge flower arrangement sitting on the round glass-topped table in the center of the lobby looked as though it had come from outer space. There was a concierge’s office off the lobby, and he saw - through the door of the office - a very attractive woman dressed in a grey woolen pencil skirt and black blouse behind a desk made almost entirely of glass, working the phones. A lovely young woman in all black attire had checked his name against a register, given him a ‘guest tag’ to wear, and then had accompanied him to the elevator, where she unlocked the appropriate floor with a key card. The elevator was absolutely silent, and was so fast there was almost no sensation of movement. The understated ping that sounded off when he reached the penthouse floor was impossibly chic. Bill was very impressed. The few times he’d been to his clients’ homes, they had generally been apartment accommodations in university graduate housing, stuffed with books and papers, and everything just a little worn around the edges. This magnificence was a new experience for him.

There was only one apartment on the top floor. It was the penthouse suite, and it was his destination. The elevator doors opened into a lobby - it was like the mini-me of the lobby downstairs, complete with a smaller version of the alien flower arrangement. The huge double-doors - which appeared to reach almost up to the 12’ ceiling - were intimidating also. On closer inspection he realized that the doors were actually built into the pleated mahogany wood panels, and so the height of the doors was an optical illusion. He rang the doorbell. Or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t actually hear a bell or a buzzer. But, soon enough, the door opened and Bill found himself face to face with none other than John Lennon. Bill was surprised by this. Based on what he’d seen thus far, he’d expected at least a maid if not a butler to open the door. 

“I see you found me,” John said quietly, holding out his hand in greeting. 

“It was rather like going through the locks at the Panama Canal,” Bill quipped. 

John laughed. He liked this guy already. “Come in!” 

Bill walked ahead of John down the entry hallway, lined with wooden built-ins, and then gasped involuntarily as he entered into the living room space. There were floor to ceiling windows on three sides of him, and wide balconies splayed out beyond the windows. And Central Park - in all of its glory - was centered in the main windows. 

John smiled proudly. He had worked very hard with the architect to achieve that gasp. He still sometimes gasped at it himself. “Would you like some tea?” John asked politely as he gestured to the sofa. Bill said ‘sure’, and sat down where John had indicated. But as soon as John had left the room to get the tea, Bill stood up again, and noted the artwork on the inner wall. If he wasn’t mistaken he saw a Picasso and a de Kooning, and they were almost certainly originals. The colors in the room were relaxing but not boring - some soft robin egg blues and some wheat colors and startling drops of cobalt, chartreuse and orange here and there. He sat back down as he heard John arriving.

“Sorry you had to come here,” John apologized as he poured out tea. He sat back, his arm along the back of the sofa, leaving Bill to doctor his own cup, and said, “I don’t go to offices. They make me nervous.”

Bill smiled curiously at his host. “So you don’t have your own offices?” 

“Ah, well, my own offices. That’s a different matter. But I don’t go often even to my own offices. I don’t handle the business or the money. I leave that up to...” John cut himself off. He had been about to say ‘Paul’. But he remembered this man didn’t know Paul, and John wasn’t willing to share any of his personal life with this stranger, however nice and clever he appeared to be. 

Bill assumed that John had meant to say “up to managers,” so he was none the wiser. This was what he had expected to hear anyway. He had never met a poet who did his own sums, and he’d spent the last 30 years editing other people’s poetry, and representing them in business deals. He was a double threat in that regard.

“I’ve read your manuscript three times: once quickly, all the way through; once slowly, poem by poem; and a third time, to make comments in the margin for you.” Bill opened his canvas briefcase and pulled out a worn manuscript and what appeared to be a copy of the worn manuscript. He hefted them on to the coffee table and said unemotionally, “Kevin is right - you are a talented poet.” 

John was quiet. He looked hopefully at Bill through his thick bifocals. Bill could see the insecure child inside the man, and he softened and felt protective. He often felt protective around his clients. Poets were probably - as a group - among the most sensitive and insecure and intensely emotional people in the world. Bill pushed the copy of the manuscript across the table to John. “I’ve made a copy of my comments for you. In the publishing world we call them ‘notes.’ Have you ever worked with an editor before?” 

John thought about that for a moment. “Well, I have a songwriting partner. He edits my work.” 

“That’s a good analogy,” Bill said encouragingly. “An editor is just a second opinion to your own. The editor shouldn’t be forcing his own interpretation on to the poet; but an editor must give honest feedback. It is up to the poet ultimately whether to accept the editor’s ideas or suggestions. Sometimes this leads to a little back-and-forth between the poet and the editor. There can be differences of opinion, and often things can get heated. I don’t want you to be intimidated by it, or take it personally. It is part of the process. So I made notes for you, and you should take your time and think about them, and then we will meet again and go over each note in detail. That’s how it works. Are you okay with that?”

John nodded uncertainly. He was already intimidated and he hadn’t even read a single ‘note’ yet. He felt out of his depth in this new environment, and he was wishing Paul were there with him. Paul would figure out how it all worked, and run interference for him; he’d do the phone calls and visit the offices. He’d make small talk with the agent/editor, charm the bejesus out of him, and remain totally in control the whole time. This would, in turn, make John feel as though he were in control, too. Unlike how he felt now. 

“Um, yeah, I guess that’s fine,” he uttered.

Bill smiled and said, “Good. I think if you focus on the notes quickly, we should be able to make the timetable for publication you wanted. November, right?”

“Yes,” John said. This was Paul’s hit ‘em with the poetry at the same time we hit ‘em with Anthology strategy at work in real time.

“But you’ll have to put a lot of time into it and get your comments back to me quickly. When do you think you will be able to review my comments and get back to me? Do you need a week?”

John nodded again. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, but a week sounded as good as any other deadline. In fact, it sounded a bit long. It wouldn’t take him a week to read the comments, would it? But not wanting to ask a stupid question, John smiled and said, “A week will do.”

 

*****

 

“I’m so excited for you, John,” Jason said. “I’ve read your work and found it very moving. I’m a literary critic, not a poetry critic, but your creative use of words to create startling new images is very impressive.” 

John was over at Jason and Gerry’s house, at the Dakota. He had felt weird going through that arched entry again after several years’ absence, and he had been praying the whole time that he wouldn’t run into Yoko while in the lobby or the elevator. He was lucky as it turned out, and he had made it to his friends’ flat without a Yoko sighting. 

“Can you explain something to me, Jay?” John asked. “This bloke - Bill - he was going on about ‘notes’, and reckoned I’d need a week to review them. They’re a bunch of comments written in the margins. I don’t know why he thinks it should take so much time.”

“Did you bring his notes with you?” Jason asked.

“No. I didn’t think.” 

“Well, if you’re not busy tomorrow afternoon, I’ll come by your place and go through the notes with you if you like.”

John’s face reflected his immediate and patent relief. “Yes, please!” 

“Have you read any of them yet?”

“I kind of glanced at a few. The guy is so...erudite. He uses what looks to me like words of art that I don’t understand. And he references other poets’ work sometimes. None of the comments were nasty; but they seem a bit objective and cold-blooded.”

Jason laughed. “That’s what the best editors are, John: objective and cold-blooded. They have to protect the writer from falling in love with his own words. Sometimes the writer’s love is...well...misplaced.”

“I can’t comment on the notes if I don’t understand them, though,” John worried.

“You’ll catch on. We’ll walk though them together, put our heads together, and we’ll figure it all out.” Jason patted John’s clenched fist. 

“Thanks for that,” John said. 

“So how long will Paul be away?” Jason asked, changing the subject.

“Three more weeks.”

“Where is he off to?”

“I don’t know. When he and Linda go away I don’t know where they go.” John seemed subdued, but not morose, Jason noticed. That was a good sign.

“Is it the same the other way around?” Jason asked.

“Hmm? Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah - Linda doesn’t know where Paul and I go, either.”

“That’s interesting. Why is that, do you think?” Jason was honestly curious.

John sighed. “I can only speak for myself. I guess I feel that since we have this sharing arrangement, when I do get away I just want it to be private, between the two of us. I mean, Linda and I know pretty much all of each other’s business. We’re in each other’s pockets, and we have all the same people in our lives. Maybe we just need one little corner that is ours alone from time to time.” 

Jason listened to John’s thoughtful words with a melancholy expression on his face. It was kind of sad, really. At one time - in the beginning - Jason had thought the idea of the three of them sharing was crazy. Insane. But then he had watched it in action and realized that somehow the arrangement worked. But it must feel - to Linda and John at least - like a thousand deaths by paper cuts. A kind of death each time the “swap” happened, and Paul moved from one to the other. And how did it feel to Paul? Despite Paul’s warmth and many other wonderful qualities, Jason still didn’t really know what made Paul tick. He was an eternal mystery. He had come to the conclusion that this was the main reason why John Lennon remained so helplessly hooked - anyone less complex would soon be discarded by a bored Lennon. But with Paul - well, John could peel and peel and peel away layers forever, and never quite get to the coveted center of the mystery; and, Jason’s belief in this regard was vindicated by John’s poetry. Poem after poem echoed with different versions of John attempting to capture, possess, and keep Paul’s elusive love. It was like looking at light through a prism. Each facet showed a different color. And so John’s poems were like that; each one showed a different facet of John’s need for Paul, and his fear of losing him. Jason was frankly surprised that John didn’t seem to be aware that the poetry was so very revealing about his love for Paul. 

“You seem to be holding up well on your own,” Jason said bracingly. “Flying out here from London, making your own plans, meeting with an agent, and entering the Dakota again! Brave new world.”

John chuckled. Jason clearly understood John’s shyness and his fear of striking out on his own, and didn’t judge him for it. “Yeah, I really am glad to be back in New York. I was missing it, and didn’t even know it until I stepped off the plane.”

“I’ll put Frank Sinatra on the stereo and we can sing New York, New York together,” Jason suggested mischievously.

“Yeah - let’s do that!” John declared happily, jumping up. 

And so they did. 

Gerry looked up from over his newspaper, moved his reading glasses further down his nose so he could see over them, and watched the strutting antics as interpreted by John and Jason, shook his head in bemused amazement, and then flipped his paper back up and continued reading. Just another day in the life...

 

*****

 

“What does this mean...jejune...?” John asked. He knew what it meant, but it was stuck on the tip of his tongue.

Jason winced and said, “I think Bill’s point is that the posit is mundane, not developed. He thinks you can do better.”

“’Posit’?” John’s voice and expression were loaded with suppressed amusement.

“John, you’re going to have to learn to stomach these terms. We intellectuals use them all the time.” Jason’s eyes were dancing with self-aware sarcasm.

“Okay, so what’s he mean though?” John asked.

“He wants you to do better. Dig deeper for an image that isn’t used quite so often by others, and has more nuance to it.” 

John took the criticism on board. He wasn’t used to criticism. No one criticized him; at least not to his face. Even Paul would sweet talk him through edits in their songwriting. John sighed doubtfully. “I’m not sure I can take all this...”

“This what?” Jason asked.

“This fucking honesty. It’s brutal.” 

Jason’s laugh was a sharp, surprised bark. “Get used to it, my friend - poets are a very bitchy bunch.” 

John started giggling. “I’ll bury ‘em if they try!” He declared joyfully. “But, really, what do you think about the comments overall?”

Jason, who had been breezing through the manuscript quickly with his speed-reading talents, pushed his reading glasses down to the tip of his nose and said, “This man knows his business. You should listen to his advice. But a few times I think his proposed edits change the meaning of your narrative. I don’t think he knows what the poems are really about, so he doesn’t know how to give you precise edits...”

“What do you mean - ‘what my poems are really about’? What do you think they are ‘really about’?” John sounded as though he was on alert, and this raised Jason’s curiosity level.

“Well, they’re about you and Paul of course.” 

A dead silence followed this pronouncement. John was dumbfounded. He wasn’t sure what to say or do at that moment. 

Gradually, Jason realized that for some unknown reason he had put his foot in it. “Isn’t that what you intended to write about?” He asked John. 

“No!” John expostulated. “I was writing about my own insecurities. How I find it hard to trust anyone.”

Jason sat back. John apparently wasn’t making the connection between ‘anyone’ and the ‘one’ - the one person he actually shared his life with. How could he write about his insecurities without describing his relationship with Paul? Jason studied John’s face for a moment and then said, “You really didn’t mean to write about your fear of losing Paul? That was not what you think you were writing about?”

John was sullenly quiet for a few minutes. “You’re not the first one to tell me that,” he finally admitted.

“Oh?” Jason asked, trying to sound encouraging without sounding overly curious at the same time.

“My friend Kevin - the guy who hooked me up with this agent - he has been saying that to me for months. I’ve been telling him he’s full of it.” John looked - yes - the word ‘petulant’ described his look precisely.

“So you didn’t intend to write about your feelings for Paul - your fear of losing him - in these poems? Because if not, then I’m at a loss to know how to help you,” Jason said firmly.

“Why’s that?” John asked truculently.

“I’m of the school that believes a writer’s work should be about something real, not theoretical. I realize there are a lot of people who do like metaphysical and theoretical writings, but I’m not one of them. Tie me down to planet earth, and let me feel the dirt running through my fingers.” Jason looked up unrepentantly at John’s still truculent face. 

John waited for a moment, and gradually his expression melted into something more indefinite. “I was afraid that it was obvious,” John finally said. “I honestly didn’t think I was writing about Paul, but I don’t seem to be able to do anything but write about him! Linda told me she felt his essence in some of the poems, too, but she took away that I was writing about loneliness.” John looked terribly worried, and Jason felt bad about putting his foot in it. But, as a friend to John, he could hardly pretend not to notice the obvious. 

“I don’t think you need to worry about it,” Jason said, a little belatedly. “I know about you and Paul, and I’m close to you both, and so of course I notice things that others won’t.”

John sighed. “Linda said basically the same thing. But my friend Kevin doesn’t know Paul - he knows about us, but he doesn’t know Paul - and he saw it. And you know how the tabloids are, seeing as how you were exposed to them earlier this year...”

Jason made a face. “There will be speculation, for sure John. I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t point it out. But I believe the way you have written it provides you with plenty of room for deniability should you want it.” 

John sighed again. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” he told Jason emphatically. “It isn’t just about me. There’s Paul, and Linda, and my kids, and their kids...There’s a whole fucking phone book full of people who I have to consider!” 

Jason felt John’s frustration. “Have you discussed this with Paul?” He finally asked.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?” Jason asked gently.

John waited a few moments before responding. “He said I should do what I need to do, and I shouldn’t ever censor myself on his account. He said he’d manage through the controversy, and so would our families, and he then very cleverly suggested I publish the poems at the same time the Beatles’ Anthology comes out because it will maximize the publicity for both the Anthology and for my poems, and we will only have to go through the tabloid speculation in one fell swoop.”

Jason’s concern melted away. He laughed. “Paul is the exact right life partner for you, John. He fits you like a glove. Don’t ever let him get away.” 

John’s expression reflected (for just a brief moment) his fear of losing Paul. Jason could have smacked himself in the head. He wasn’t usually this tone deaf in social situations. He decided to divert John from that thought.

“So, anyway, my original point was, I think this agent slash editor person can help you reach your full potential if you are honest with him about the subject of the poems. He needs to know what they are about, so that his advice doesn’t lead you away from what you’re trying to say.” Jason felt the leaden silence for several moments before adding, “This is important for literary agents as well. We need to understand where our writers are coming from in order to provide the best possible advice.” 

John looked down at his hands. He didn’t want to talk about Paul with a complete stranger. He didn’t want anyone else to link his poems to Paul. But then, they would anyway, wouldn’t they? And if they did, wouldn’t his agent/editor be pissed at him after the fact when he read about it in the tabloids? 

“Give it some thought, John,” Jason said. “But let me tell you - a literary agent is like a lawyer in a lot of ways. He will not betray you; he won’t talk to other people about it. He couldn’t have survived all these years in the business if his clients couldn’t trust him.”

John nodded absent-mindedly. He hardly knew this man - Ben Segal - and he couldn’t imagine sharing his most intimate secrets with him. But maybe he could give Segal enough information to clue him in on what he was writing about without exposing Paul. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was betray Paul’s trust again. 

 

*****

 

Bill Segal had made the pilgrimage to John Lennon’s luxury penthouse suite again; this time he was familiar with the process, and found himself dismayingly blasé about it. Kind of amazing how quickly a human being can get used to the good life, he thought. Soon he was banging on the magnificent door again, and John was opening that door and greeting him with a kind of bonhomie he did not expect.

“Are you ready for me?” Bill asked with a friendly smile after the niceties had been completed, and the tea had been laid on.

“I think so,” John replied.

“I hope none of my comments offended you,” Bill said in as modest a way as he could muster.

“Oh, most of ‘em went over my head, so if I was supposed to be offended, I wasn’t,” John quipped, causing Bill to laugh. He liked Lennon; even if there was an “iffy” quality to him that Bill couldn’t put his finger on.

“What are your overall reactions to the comments?” Bill asked politely.

“Overall, I see your point, and I’ve got some ideas to address them. But, there are a few comments that kind of miss the boat.” John felt totally in his element now, since Jason had primed him with all the right things to say.

“Oh?” Bill asked with an openly accepting expression on his face. This encouraged John to speak freely.

“Look. I have a long-term lover,” John said as matter-of-factly as he could. “I struggle with feelings of inadequacy, and I fear losing that love.” John stopped to measure his pace. He didn’t want to come off sounding all neurotic and pathetic. “I am writing about my innate insecurities, which I already had when I came to this relationship, and how it is affecting me in a negative way in many ways, including in this relationship.” 

Bill nodded. This did put a different spin on many of the poems. “So it isn’t necessarily a generalized feeling of dissociation from others that leads to the isolation I sense in your poetry; there is also something more specific that you are writing about?” 

John stared at Bill for several moments. He had never thought of himself as being ‘dissociated’ from others; this was yet another new revelation that a third party had read into his poetry. This was fucking terrifying! He felt like the Invisible Man!

“I thought I was just writing about how deeply insecure I am, based on my childhood, but some of my friends believe that I’m also writing about the effect that insecurity has on my...err...long term relationship. With this person.”

Bill Segal was at a loss. He wasn’t up on celebrity gossip. Nothing on earth interested him less. He had of course heard of “John & Yoko” and their very sudden and surprising split almost 15 years earlier, but beyond that he hadn’t tuned in to Lennon’s private life. He was beginning to think he should have, if only to be a better editor for the man’s poems. 

“Oh-kay,” Bill said slowly. “I’m glad you mentioned this. Why don’t we go through my notes, then, and we can discuss the ones that miss the point?” 

John agreed to this, and the two men began to go through the comments, page by page. But Bill made a mental note to do research on John Lennon’s love life. If he was going to understand what the poems were really about, he had to know more on that score.

 

*****

 

“Oh. My. Gawd.” Bill Segal spoke those words out loud as he perused the newspaper clippings he’d gotten, related to John Lennon: the songwriting partner. That would explain Lennon’s weird reference to the word ‘person’ when describing his lover. The tabloids must have it right this time, Bill thought, and when one figured in the fact that the songwriting partner was married, with children, well...all the pieces started falling into place. 

Armed with this new information, Bill Segal reopened John’s manuscript, and began to read. His notes this time around were more apposite than they were before.

 

*****

 

The month in New Mexico was over, and tired and suntanned, Paul and Linda dragged themselves through the front door of Cavendish. They were glad to be home, even though they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves in Taos. Paul had been relieved to find that Linda still found him sexually attractive. He had been worried lately that Linda had lost interest in him in that way, because for the last few months she had not been as eager for sex as she had traditionally been. This was a huge weight off Paul’s mind as he dragged both his and Linda’s suitcases into the foyer. 

Linda, meanwhile, was proud of herself that she had risen to the occasion. But then, it was easy to be generous sexually when everything else in your life was being handed to you on a silver platter. Linda feared her apathy would grow once she had to handle a household again. 

Paul lugged the suitcases up the stairs to the master bedroom, and began to unpack his own. He had become quite disciplined about dealing with his dirty laundry after a trip, and took care of that aspect of things as soon as he returned. A little voice in the back of his head was telling him, I want to go see John now, but he successfully shut that voice up. There was something so ... vulnerable ... about Linda these days. He didn’t want to be seen to be in an unseemly rush to fall into John’s loving arms. He sensed that Linda was a little brittle - it no doubt had to do with all of her children leaving the nest - and so he tried to appear as though he wasn’t dying to run down the mews to John’s house. 

Linda was tired from the trip, and glad that Paul was taking the leading oar in dealing with the luggage. But about 20 minutes later, Paul came down and saw her flopped out on the sofa and asked her if she was okay.

“I’m just tired from the traveling,” Linda said. “Are you going to need dinner? Because I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll take care of myself for dinner. Why don’t you go upstairs, take a hot bath or shower, and I’ll bring you some hot tea?” Paul suggested.

Linda smiled at him. “That sounds wonderful,” she said. She paused for a dramatic moment and then added, “And after you bring me my tea, you really do need to go put John out of his misery. He’s probably counting the minutes.”

Paul laughed with genuine joy. God, he loved that woman!


	93. Chapter 93

“This launch would be far more successful if you would agree to interviews, John.” The speaker was the PR man for the publishing company of John’s volume of poetry: Rubber Soul.

“I don’t do interviews anymore,” John explained for the thousandth time.

“Selling poetry is hard enough without the cooperation of the poet...”

“Then don’t publish it!” John responded angrily. “I told you from day one that I wasn’t going to do interviews, and I’m sticking to it!”

The PR man took a deep breath. He’d never worked with a more temperamental author/poet before. He had been bitching to his co-workers that he deserved hazardous duty pay for this gig. “Just 5 or 10 minute sound bites - that’s all the press wants,” he wheedled.

“Yeah, they really want to know about my poetry, don’t they? I know damn well what they’re going to ask about in their 5 to 10 minutes, and I want no part of it!” John was shouting now. And his arms were crossed belligerently across his chest. “I just want to be treated like any other poet, and I bet they don’t get set up to do a series of interviews with the world press.” 

The PR man regrouped. He was thinking that this John Lennon person sure was full of himself. He figured that Lennon’s poetry wouldn’t have been published at all if he weren’t already so famous, so what kind of hubris kept him from using that same ace in the hole to help the company sell some books? Was Lennon kidding himself to think that he was just like the ‘other’ poets? Get real! But, as is pretty well known in the industry, the best and most successful PR people are sociopaths, charming ones, but sociopaths nonetheless, so they know not to show their conniving faces to their marks. He changed his tactics.

“The alternative to that is to book you on public television and public radio, like the Charlie Rose Show,” he explained, with the same tone and expression he might use if trying to reason with a pouting child. “That would require a longer interview - 30 minutes is usually the minimum. But those shows focus exclusively on the work. You might even enjoy talking about your poetry with someone like Charlie Rose.” He was wheedling now. He could hear the wheedling in his voice. He stopped abruptly and waited hopefully for The Great Man’s reaction.

“Look,” John said impatiently after sighing heavily, “I’m hosting some friends for dinner tonight. I can’t be bothered with thinking about this right now. I need you to leave.”

The P.R. man sat back in surprise. This was new. A poet with balls. Wonders never cease.

 

*****

 

“When is John getting back from New York?” Linda asked. 

“I don’t know,” Paul said shortly.

Linda didn’t know what to say next. It was early November 1995, and only 2 weeks before the first episode of The Beatles Anthology would be shown on television in England and in the United States, and she had been confused by John’s absence. He had been in New York for a few weeks now, for the purpose of supporting the release of his volume of poetry. Linda worried that there was something wrong between Paul and John. Why would John go to New York alone and then stay away for weeks if there weren’t a problem between them? 

“You’re due to do press on The Anthology this week,” Linda pressed on, knowing that she was walking on shaky ground.

“What do you want from me, Linda?” Paul asked suddenly, angrily. “Do you want me to tell you that John is flapping his wings? Well - okay - he is flapping his fucking wings!” Paul’s voice had raised and it ended on a kind of crescendo. As soon as he heard the echo of his voice, Paul was ashamed. “I’m sorry Lin,” he said sincerely. “I just don’t want to talk about it.” 

Linda felt bad. She felt bad for Paul. He obviously didn’t know what the fuck was going on with John, and was obviously hurt and confused by it. She decided that the only thing she could do was what she always did - distract him from his worries, and comfort him. To that end, she reached for him in the dark and began to rain soft kisses on his shoulder, his neck, and, finally, his face...

 

*****

 

“Lennon’s Poetry - a Song of Woe,” whined the cover of the Sun. 

“Oh good lord,” John moaned as he read it. 

Jason laughed. “It’s kind of ironic - poetry covered by the British tabloid press! Who’d‘ve thunk?” 

“If you’re trying to cheer me up,” John said laconically, “it isn’t working.” 

“Their repeated references to your ‘Faithless Lover’ aren’t too obvious,” Jason opined, tongue firmly in cheek. “But I imagine that is only because they’re too ploddingly stupid to figure out the more obvious tells.”

“Fuck off,” John grumbled. Although he was, in truth, amused by Jason’s teasing, he didn’t want to encourage the man by showing it. 

“Why isn’t Paul here?” Jason asked suddenly. He had been wondering why John didn’t have Paul there with him while the volume of poetry was introduced to the world. It seemed out of character, because John was very fearful about rejection, and Paul had always acted as a kind of bulwark against criticism for John.

“I don’t think he should be here,” John said grumpily.

“Why not?” Jason asked boldly.

“Because I don’t want them linking Paul to these poems, that’s why. I need to be seen as an independent, single guy, publishing a volume of poems. The insinuations are bad enough, as you can see,” John continued, gesturing towards the tabloid lying between Jason and him on the table. “If Paul were here, it would be like adding fuel to the fire, and there’d be no end to it.”

Jason finally understood. “So you’re protecting him,” he said softly, sweetly.

John’s grin was a bit sheepish. “Somebody has to,” he finally admitted. “The big lunk. He doesn’t know what’s good for him.”

“What does Paul think about this weeks’ long separation?” Jason asked wisely.

“I’m not sure,” John responded honestly. “Anyway, as Paul’s daughter Stella pointed out to me, Linda needs him right now, since James has moved out. I think the timing is serendipitous.”

“Have you told Paul why you’re holding him at bay?” Jason asked, his voice much deeper than usual.

John was silent. He was observing his hands. “If I told him why I was here alone, he’d insist on being here with me. I need to protect him from his own instinct to protect me.” John was quiet again for a few moments. Then he asked, “Does that make any sense?”

“It does. But I’m thinking it might be a bit hard on Paul. I think you should give him a call.” 

“I talk to Paul every day on the phone, Jason. I’m sure he’s okay.” John was losing patience with the topic. That reminded him of another topic. “But Jay, do you watch a show called ‘Charlie Rose’?”

“Yes! Gerry and I love that show. He always interviews authors, business leaders, politicians and intellectuals, and the level of discussion is very deep. Charlie Rose is a very good interviewer. Why do you ask?”

“The publicist wants me to go on that show,” John said.

“That’s a fantastic idea! You really should!”

“But if this Rose guy is so smart, won’t he ask me questions about Paul?” John asked.

Jason thought about that. “Actually, no, I don’t think he will. I think he will ask you what the poems mean, and then you will answer him, and he will follow your lead. He isn’t a ‘gotcha’ kind of journalist. He came up in the public broadcasting world, not commercial television, so he wouldn’t try to put a spin on your work. He would be more interested in what you say your poetry is about.”

“I’ll have to give that some serious thought then,” John said in response. He did want his book to be successful, and he did want journalists and critics from the literary world to read it and discuss it. Maybe it would be okay to do this Charlie Rose Show if he made it clear that he was going to discuss only the volume of poetry, and not his personal life or his music career.

 

*****

 

“I’m going to do a talk show tomorrow afternoon,” John announced to Paul via long distance telephone. 

Paul was privately amazed. And maybe a little worried. “Oh? What talk show is this?” 

“Some bloke called ‘Charlie Rose.’ I watched one of his shows yesterday evening, and he’s pretty cool.” 

“Don’t know that show,” Paul said. He felt so...ineffectual and superfluous at that moment. This independence thing of John’s was worrying to Paul. He wasn’t yet examining why he felt so frustrated and thwarted by John’s emerging independence, probably because he feared the answer to any such examination. 

“It will be strictly about the poems,” John said in a reassuring voice. “Nothing about my personal life, and nothing about my music career.” 

John sounded sure of himself and in charge. For whatever reason this made Paul feel insecure and feckless. “When will it air?” This was all Paul could think of to ask that would not give away his fear. Fear? What fear? Paul couldn’t understand why that word ‘fear’ had popped into his head like that.

“Next week, the 13th, on Monday.” John’s answer was brisk.

Paul fumbled for a moment and then said, “Right before Anthology.”

“That was your brilliant plan, mate, and it’s working like a charm.” John listened to a dead silence on the other end. He soldiered on. “I’ll be back in London this weekend. I’m doing a public radio show interview here in New York on Friday, and then I’ve got another radio interview to do next Monday with BBC.” 

Paul said, “Sounds like things are going well. The reviews seem good so far.”

“I’m pleasantly surprised by what I’m hearing. Apparently the New York Times Book Review is going to review it - they don’t review just anybody, you know - and just an hour ago my agent told me that the London Times will be running a review as well. Jason’s quite excited for me. He and Gerry and I are going out tomorrow night after my interview to either celebrate or commiserate, depending on how the interview goes.” 

“Sounds like fun,” Paul said flatly. He was trying to keep the sound of how it felt to be excluded out of his voice.

“I’ve had a lot of fun here for the last few weeks, Paul. I really love my apartment, and I’m enjoying New York. I’ve seen all my old friends, and met some new ones. I really do have to spend more time here going forward.” John’s voice was almost messianic in its level of enthusiasm. This dwarfed Paul’s ability to meet John half way.

“Well, it will be good to see you this weekend. I’ve got to go now,” Paul said briskly and dismissively. “Have fun tomorrow.” 

John finally understood that Paul was upset. He’d overdone it in the ‘I’m doing great’ department, apparently. But - really - did Paul think he could be in New York with him during this launch when the whole tabloid world was just dying to link Paul to his poetry? Certainly Paul had to know the score on that. Still, if Paul was feeling left out and unnecessary, then John knew he was obliged to address that in some way. 

“I’m sure I will have fun tomorrow - after the scary interview - when I’m with Jason and Gerry,” John said, allowing his voice to become more intimate, “But not as fun as it would be if you were here. I’m missing you a lot, and can’t wait to see you on Saturday.” 

Paul felt slightly appeased by these words. He was alarmed to feel his throat tighten and his eyes sting. “I miss you, too,” he said softly. “I’ll let you go now.”

“’Night, Pud. I’ll call you tomorrow after the interview. I love you.”

 

*****

 

The studio set was very small, and only a spare round table with chairs comprised it’s dressing. The background lights were dim, creating a kind of velvet black backdrop, and this only emphasized the bright lighting on the table. John had only just emerged from make-up, and the sound tech was fitting him with a small button mic. John stood on the verge of the set, his heart pounding, his palms sweating, and his mind fighting the urge to cut and run. 

“Mr. Lennon?” The voice was polite and mellifluous, and slightly accented with the vowels of the American south. John turned to face a much taller gentleman in a non-descript but obviously bespoke grey suit. “I’m Charlie Rose.” 

John cleared his throat as unobtrusively as he could, offered his hand, and said, “Call me John.” As they shook hands, John took the measure of the man. He had kind eyes, and a relaxed set to his face. John relaxed a little in response. He said, “I’m extremely nervous about this.” 

“Oh?” Rose asked in what certainly appeared to be honest and sweet surprise. “I would have thought you were used to journalists by now.” 

John chuckled. “That’s like saying to a scuba diver that he must be used to sharks.” 

Charlie Rose threw his head back and laughed delightedly. “Too bad that didn’t happen on air. Can I persuade you to repeat this colloquy on air?”

John shook his head ‘no’. “I don’t do well at speaking in set pieces. I always freeze up and it comes out all stilted.”

“Well, let’s get situated on the set, shall we?” Rose extended his arm in the direction of the round table as a suggestion that John should go first. “You sit on the left, and I sit on the right - from the camera’s perspective.” 

John took his seat, and the sound tech appeared to adjust and test the microphones, and simultaneously the make-up girl appeared, determined to fuss with his hair. He looked across the table and saw that Charlie Rose was suffering the same treatment. Rose caught his eye and smiled warmly. “It will be over before you know it,” he said encouragingly.

It was only moments later that the cameras were rolling. The director had explained that he preferred it if the conversation was continuous, but if something did go wrong, they could stop rolling, cut film, and start a segment over. John listened intently. What he understood from this was that if he said something he wanted to retract, he should ask for a break in the filming. Of course, John knew that his problem was that he often didn’t pay too much attention to what he was saying, and he was frequently shocked and surprised by what he had said when he read or heard the interview later. He reminded himself for the thousandth time to think before answering, and to be mindful of each word he used. 

Rose’s introduction was both loaded with the essential information and brief. John wondered how long the writer had to work on that introduction to make it so informational while also so short. He knew from his own experience that writing short but pithy comments was much harder than writing at length.

“It seems, given your songwriting experience, that poetry would be a natural fit for you. How long have you been writing poetry?” Charlie Rose asked, as the cameras rolled.

“I really didn’t write poetry at all until a few years ago. I’ve expressed myself in song lyrics instead.” John had to concentrate to swallow. His throat was very dry.

“That’s an interesting idea, though. What do you see is the difference between song lyrics and poetry?”

“The ‘music’ part I guess,” John joked. “Song lyrics only have to carry the message or the image halfway - the music carries the other half. You can say more with fewer words or ideas, because the music is providing its own parallel story.”

“So, with poetry, you feel you have to use more potent imagery because it holds the stage by itself?”

John smiled at the image of his poems holding a stage. He liked that image. His smile in response was genuine, and the camera picked it up. “Yes - I’ve written some pretty egregious lyrics over the years, but the music or the performance made the songs a hit. I mean, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ - the lyrics are very simple, basic, and not very interesting. But you add the music, the instrumentation, the performances, and it has a life of it’s own. Poetry, I’ve found, stands or falls on it’s own. It’s like the difference between being a band member and a solo performer.”

“So you find writing poetry to be more challenging.”

“Absolutely,” John said affirmatively. His nervousness was beginning to drop away, and he was now engaged in the conversation. “And, anyway, I found songwriting a challenge when I first started. It took a few years for me to gain confidence in it. I suppose that’s what I’m going through now with my poetry.”

“You’re not confident about it?”

“Not at all. This whole process is very scary for me.”

“Most of the early reviews of your book state that there is a theme to the poems - a theme related to fear of loss. Had you intended to write a theme? Or did that just happen naturally? Or maybe you weren’t writing about a fear of loss at all, and we all have it wrong?” Charlie Rose laughed as he delivered the last phrase.

John smiled. The question was so open-ended and non-judgmental, that he didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it. “I didn’t intend to write a theme,” John admitted. “I wish I were that organized, but I’m not. But I’ve been going to therapy for years now, and the one issue I’ve been dealing with the whole time is this irrational abandonment fear that I have. It has colored most of the stupid decisions I’ve made in life. And it just so happens that this enterprise I’ve been working on - to free myself of my own worst tendencies - came out in my poems. I didn’t even see a theme in the poems after they were done. I had friends who broke it to me, that I had this theme...”

Charlie Rose laughed. He was enjoying this conversation very much. “So the theme is sub-conscious, then?”

“Must be. I didn’t see it. And, frankly, I’m not 100% convinced that there is one. But it is the same with writing songs. You put the song out there and it means X to you, but every person who listens to the song decides what it means to them; you have to learn to let go. You have to learn to let the songs or the poems take on their own lives, and they will mean different things to different people. So I’m kind of used to this phenomenon where suddenly a bunch of people I don’t know are telling the world what I meant by what I said.”

Charlie Rose was chuckling, and said, “It must be disconcerting if the interpretation is so far from your actual intent.”

“The most famous example, of course, was when we spliced up a bunch of my nonsense chatter at the end of one of our songs, Strawberry Fields, and played it backwards, and then a year or two later some idiot in Iowa of all places declared that I was saying that I buried Paul! I mean, I never said that - what I said was ‘cranberry sauce’, and I certainly don’t hear anything like ‘I buried Paul’ when I play it, but still the world is full of people claiming they can hear me say that. I honestly don’t know how that happens.”

“’Cranberry sauce?’” Rose’s face was alive with amusement and his voice dancing with incredulity.

“Well, it was near the holidays when I recorded it, wasn’t it?” John asked pugnaciously. “We often spoke nonsense into the microphones when we were recording - to amuse the blokes in the sound booth. George Martin thought it was very funny at the time, which is why we left it in.” John gifted Rose with a cock-eyed smile that caused Rose to laugh. 

Rose then said, “I’m interested in this possible theme running through your poetry, though. You called it the ‘abandonment fear.’ It is fairly well known through the biographies written about you that you had a fairly difficult childhood. Is that what this ‘fear’ relates to?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, my parents deserted me. You know, they each - individually and in seriatim - came, left, came back, and left again. I guess to me it felt like, I really must be unlovable, because every time each of them came back it is like they remembered how bad I was, and so they left again.”

“How do you deal with a burden like that?” 

“Well, in my case, badly.” John chuckled, and Charlie Rose smiled sympathetically. “I spent my first 40 years blinded by rage and fear. I could cover it up when I was younger, but alcohol and drugs would soon lay it all bare again in my late twenties and in my thirties. It was a struggle. That period is so far behind me now, and I think that is why it now feels safe to take it out, and examine it a bit. So I suspect that is why it is coming out in my poems now.”

“You feel safe enough now to write about it,” Rose restated.

“I wrote about it before many times in song lyrics, but in a far more direct way. I mean, ‘I’m a Loser’ was pretty blunt, and so was ‘Nowhere Man,’ yet no one actually took me seriously because I was a ‘mop top’, one of the ‘Fabs’ ... We weren’t allowed to be deep or intense, we had to fight our own image just to grow up. And a lot of people never forgave us for growing up. But even in those blunt lyrics, I wasn’t really addressing why I felt that way - the underlying reasons for what led me to those feelings; nor did I write about the more subtle ways in which that fear had crippled me.”

“Your songwriting work is known to be deeply personal. Consequently, it seems that people tend to search your work for what is going on in your personal life. Do you agree?”

John smiled gratefully. “Yes! It sounds stupid, I suppose, to bemoan the fact that people want to poke behind my words, since I am the one promulgating the words to begin with. But it is frustrating to me as an artist. All artists work from their personal lives - what inspires them, what the inspiration means to them. Not all artists are so obviously navel-gazers as I am, I know, but ultimately, if you could dig down to the bottom of all art, you’d find the personal feelings of the artist. So how does an artist do that - express real emotion and meaning in artistic format - and yet leave his private life unscathed from public exposure? I still don’t know how to do that.”

“It’s like because you write about your intimate feelings, your fans want more. They want to get behind those feelings to the actual facts.”

“Yes, and I don’t understand that. I, for one, have no interest in Bob Dylan’s personal life, for instance. We’re acquaintances, friends even, but I mind my business, and he minds his. I admire his work tremendously, and have been very influenced by him. But I don’t need to know anything else about him - other than his work, and the other artists who have inspired him. So I guess I struggle with this cult of personality thing, where everyone believes they’re entitled to know the details of my private life just because I write songs and poems.”

“And yet, the real meat of your personal life is in the work itself. That’s where they could find all that they could possibly what to know about you. For example, the poem called ‘False Bottom.’ That poem moved me. I’ve felt that way at times in my life, where I believed I had reached the lowest possible point, only to find out that, no- things really can get worse. That must be a universal experience for anyone over the age of thirty.”

John was watching Charlie Rose with respect. The man had actually read his poems, and had endeavored to identify with them. “Precisely my point. The only reason I would go through the risk and embarrassment of exposing myself in this way is to share with others how I - like they - endure the human condition. Trying to express experiences so others can identify with them - that is the only real reason to create a piece of art. Even when I think I’m doing a piece for myself, I’m lying to myself, and intellectually I know I’m lying. Underneath it all, the need to express through art is based on a desire to reach out to others to share pain and joy, even if the artist never garners enough courage to show it to anyone else. The artist’s purpose - whether recognized or not - is always to communicate.”

 

*****

 

“How’d it go?” Paul asked.

“I think it went well,” John said, relief evident in his voice even over the telephone wire. “He didn’t probe at all about the literal meanings of my poems. He wanted to discuss the more universal themes.” 

“That must have been a pleasant surprise,” Paul said, smiling a little as he said it. Paul had been through enough interviews to know that the mainstream press wasn’t really interested in discussing the overarching purpose of the work or even the process of making the work so much as the literal ‘who or what did you write that for’ kind of questions. 

“It was painless. Thirty minutes, and I was out of there, and I think your name got mentioned once - by me.” 

“You mentioned my name?” Paul asked.

“It was in the context of the nonsense talk at the end of Strawberry Fields; we were discussing the difference between what an artist means, and how his work is interpreted by others.”

“That does sound deep,” Paul chuckled. “I hope you don’t stir up the crazies again by mentioning that.” 

John laughed. “The PID’ers are too ignorant to watch Charlie Rose. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” 

Paul had long since stopped being overtly upset over the Paul Is Dead phenomenon. It had upset him a great deal in the ‘70s, when he was worried about his solo career, at a time when he was young and emotionally raw from all the angst associated with the Beatles break up, but as he’d grown older he had put it in perspective, and adopted a bemused but amused air whenever anyone brought up the subject. Still, the idea that hundreds, maybe thousands, of people out in the world actively believed that he was both dead and a false version of himself was extremely unsettling. Nothing he could do about it, so he suffered it in silence.

 

*****

 

“I wish I didn’t have that radio interview tomorrow,” John revealed to his dinner companions as he, Gerry and Jason dined at an exclusive French restaurant that night. “I think it’s time for me to go home. Paul has been very subdued in our phone conversations over the last few days. I think he is upset that I’m enjoying myself so much.” 

Jason smiled. “I suspect it isn’t that you’re enjoying yourself that is bothering him, but that he feels left out, and he doesn’t know why you’ve excluded him. I did warn you about that last week, if you remember.” 

John winced. “Yeah, but I’m telling you, if I had told him how scared I’ve been, and how much I’ve missed him, he would have been on the next plane.”

“Maybe he is worried that you want more independence from him,” Gerry opined. “It certainly appears that you are a great deal more independent right now than I’ve ever known you to be. Do you think he feels threatened by that?”

John and Jason both looked at Gerry with a kind of numb surprise. Neither of them had thought of that. John got over it first.

“He’s always been the one to encourage me to be more independent,” John said.

“Ah,” Gerry said, swallowing a generous sip of superb red wine of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape Appellation. He swirled the wine around in his mouth for a few moments before adding, “but perhaps Paul doesn’t even realize how much he needs you to need him. I know I delude myself into believing that Jason needs me more than he probably does. It’s the problem with us strong, silent types. We sort of expect to be the ones to solve the problems, and when we’re not needed to do that anymore, we feel useless.” 

“Gerry, you’re speaking nonsense,” Jason responded. “Of course I need you every bit as much as you think I do. And John needs Paul every bit as much as Paul thinks he does. Isn’t that right, John?”

John had given Gerry’s suggestion some thought as Jason spoke. “I can see Paul feeling that way,” he finally admitted. “But he isn’t really a strong but silent type.” John met Gerry’s eyes and smiled before continuing. “He tries to be, and can put on a good show of it, but he’s an artist too, you know, and underneath he’s just as neurotic and insecure as the rest of us artists.” John took a swallow of wine and then added, “I do need Paul, of course I do, but I am trying not to be a burden on him. He might be used to me being a burden right now, but over time I think it will be healthier for us both if I become more independent. Once he gets used to the new dynamic, he’ll be relieved. I’m fairly certain of that.”

Gerry and Jason had both listened with a kind of surprised respect to John’s speech. But it was Jason who voiced the relevant point. “That all may be true, but if you don’t tell Paul why you’re pulling away, he will probably misinterpret it, like Gerry says. So, again, I urge you to be honest with him about it.” 

 

*****

 

“Where the fuck is John?”

Paul looked across the boardroom table to George Harrison, who had just asked the question. George looked surly and disgruntled. Paul said soothingly, “He’s coming back tomorrow, he’s been in New York launching his volume of poetry.”

“And why did he have to do it at the same time as the Anthology? Bloody thoughtless of him. Can’t bear for me and Ringo to get equal time, I guess.”

“That was my idea,” Paul said coolly. “I believe that the poetry launch will help Anthology, and the Anthology launch will help the poetry. There’s a kind of symmetry in marketing.”

“Well, marketing. That’s your area of expertise, isn’t it?” George’s snide remark echoed in the room, and the business and PR folks all stiffened in fear of another Beatles breakup. 

But Paul wasn’t in the mood to argue today. He was still concentrating on the ache from John’s disappearing act, and thus was immune to the piercing of George’s arrows. Instead, he changed the subject, “So are we doing interviews for after the premiere or not?” The question was directed at the PR director as well as to George and Ringo.

“I’m not doing any group interviews,” George responded before the PR man could open his mouth. “They always turn into a pigfuck.” 

Paul chuckled despite his momentary irritation with George. George was in one of his moods. No point in getting upset; he just had to weather it. 

“And anyway,” George continued, “I’m not sitting around waiting for the mighty John Lennon to deign to show up. I’ve done enough of that for one lifetime. I’m the one who didn’t want to do this damn thing in the first place, so who is he to pull this disappearing act?” 

Silence reigned for a few uncomfortable moments until Ringo said, “Come on, George, you didn’t mean that. You heard what Paul said.” 

George pretended not to hear what Ringo had said.

Paul turned to the PR man, and asked, “Individual interviews with each of us, then, to be released after the premiere? Maybe a few recorded sound bites we can do ourselves with the film crew? Maybe a few questions for each of us, and then you can select which ones to use?”

George sniffed contemptuously from across the table. Paul ignored it. It was heavy sledding just then. George was incredibly resentful of John’s absence. Paul had just figured out the reason why - George had wanted to play the reluctant bride, and John had momentarily stolen the role from him. He knew he had to say something to address George’s concern because ignoring it clearly wasn’t working. He leaned forward earnestly towards George, and said,

“George, everyone here knows that you did not want to participate in the Anthology. Everyone knows that you’re very ambivalent about it. You don’t have to worry that any of us will mistake your presence and cooperation as anything other than living up to the promise you made to participate. Okay? John is not here because he is launching his book. He has a radio interview today in New York, and will be flying home tomorrow. If you’re upset about the timing, blame me. It was my idea. He had absolutely no intent to slight you or Ringo or this project.”

George had simmered as Paul spoke, but he recognized before Paul had finished speaking that if he continued to grumble he would begin to look childish and petulant in front of the others, so he schooled his expression to look unconcerned and merely said, “It doesn’t matter either way to me. The rest of you can do these individual interviews if you want, but I’m done. I’ve done my bit, and as far as I’m concerned it’s in the can and I’m moving on.” 

“So, we’ll table the interview idea,” Paul said smoothly to the PR man. “You should be able to get excerpts from the film, though, for sound bites.”

The PR man was very disappointed with the decision, but was grateful that an actual food fight hadn’t occurred. These Beatles were not regular human beings, he thought. Clash of the Titans, he thought to himself. They clearly believed they existed on a different plane from mere mortals. Given their history, perhaps they shouldn’t be blamed for this.


	94. Chapter 94

“Tonight’s the big night,” John said unnecessarily to Paul, speaking directly into Paul’s ear as they lay in bed one Sunday morning in November. 

Paul was just barely awake and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He cleared his throat and tried to snuggle deeper into the pillow. He made an inarticulate sound in agreement and indicated silently that he wanted to go back to sleep.

John propped himself up on an elbow, and looked down on Paul’s beloved profile. He smiled with deep affection and not a little adoration. He’d been back from New York for almost a week, but he and Paul hadn’t been apart for longer than an hour in all that time. John had no desire to be anywhere unless it was with Paul, and for once Paul seemed to be almost as clingy as he was. As this thought occurred to him John lay down until he was facing the ceiling again. Gerry had been right: Paul had been shaken by John’s newfound independence. It was funny to John that he could know someone so long and so intimately, and still find himself utterly surprised by some new facet of his lover’s personality. John doubted it would last long - Paul’s clinginess. He suspected Paul would soon find his sea legs and be back to his infuriatingly elusive self again. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, he told himself wistfully.

Still, the conversation they’d had about it a few days earlier had been illuminating and had cleared the air between them. John had brought the subject up at the breakfast table the day after his return. The words had been burning in his throat because of Jason’s strong advice. 

 

*****

 

“Were you upset about my handling the whole book debut on my own?” John had asked (as if it were not a heavily freighted question). 

Paul had looked up from the newspaper with arched eyebrows, and there had been a delayed reaction as the question percolated. He’d finally said, “I was very proud of you,” he’d said. The answer had been half true. Paul had been proud of John, but also very worried about what the new independence meant for their relationship. Where would he fit if he weren’t the ‘go to man’ anymore? 

John had smiled with relief. “That’s what I told Gerry and Jason,” he’d said.

Paul’s expression had frozen in an awkward smile. “Gerry and Jason?”

“They were afraid that you would feel left out, or that you would worry that I didn’t need you or something. I told them you wanted me to be more independent.” John’s expression had appeared to be very self-satisfied to Paul.

Paul, meanwhile, had felt bad. He didn’t like others to see through to his insecurities. Paul didn’t want to be obvious when it came to his fears and doubts. “Why would they say that, do you think?” Paul had asked carefully.

“Because usually I would be leaning on you to do most of that kind of stuff, and they worried that you would have felt left out.”

Paul had begun thinking furiously. He could lie to John, and say that it was ‘nonsense’, but then - what would that accomplish? It would only mean that the next time John went off on his own to New York Paul would have to pretend that it didn’t bother him. The truth was: it did bother him! Did he dare admit that to John? He had remembered a promise recently made: he wouldn’t withhold his hurt feelings from John any more. Maybe this was the time to make that promise a reality. He had cleared his throat and said,

“I was a bit worried, yeah.” This was said lightly, as Paul looked down at the newspaper, as if by shrugging it off like that he could drain the disclosure of its power.

John’s coffee cup, held in both hands, had stopped halfway to his mouth. “Oh?” He asked. He had looked truly surprised.

“You didn’t invite me to come, and I guess I wondered why,” Paul had managed to blurt out. He had felt himself blushing. This was incredibly difficult: to be so vulnerable in front of a man who had often - in the past - used his vulnerabilities against him in terrible ways. Paul’s heart had begun to beat hard and fast, even as the heat was rushing through the pores of his face.

John had put his coffee cup down. Oh, dear. Gerry and Jason had been right, he’d thought. For Paul to admit this much - as small as the admission might appear to an outsider - meant that there was far more beneath the surface that Paul wasn’t sharing. “I thought you would realize why I went alone...” he’d started.

“Of course, its no big deal,” Paul had rushed to say, backtracking. He’d felt too vulnerable hanging out there on his own. “I was just a little curious.”

John was distressed then. Paul would never admit such a thing unless it truly bothered him in a very deep way. “Paul - I wanted to protect you and your family from the gossip. If you had come with me, it would have given support to the people who are saying the poems are about you, and our relationship.” John had spoken quickly and earnestly as he explained. He had watched Paul’s face for some sign of a reaction, but all he got was that infuriating, bland, ‘it’s all cool’ look that Paul would plaster on his face when he was hiding his true emotions, good or bad. John had reached across the table and grabbed Paul’s left hand, which had been resting on the newspaper. “I really wanted you there, but I didn’t know how else to protect you...” he had added helplessly.

Paul’s heart had begun to beat slower, and he had felt the heat evaporating off his face. I should just smile and let it go, Paul had thought to himself. No need to make such a fuss over one little thing... The idea that John had taken steps to protect him was a novel one. There had been times over the years when John had been unusually protective of him, but it was fairly rare because Paul made a point of protecting himself, and he did such a good job of it that he rarely needed any help. But still...

Paul had finally raised the courage to ask the question: “Why didn’t you explain it to me?” 

John, surprised, had said, “I thought you’d realize...” 

“You said you wanted to spend more time in New York - with your friends. I took that to mean without me.” Paul had allowed the comment to drop. No point in holding back now.

John had grimaced at the memory. “I was trying to prove how fine I was doing, because otherwise I knew you’d be on the next plane. You have a tendency to rush in to protect me...”

Paul felt a twinge of hurt. “You don’t want me to?” He’d asked. The expression had been a mixture of surprise and pain.

John had heaved a huge sigh of exasperation. God, this was fucking crazy... so fucking complicated. John felt as though no matter what he said, Paul was taking it the wrong way. Because he was frustrated he got a little irritated. It was John’s automatic response to guilt, and it was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Look, Paul. I was just trying to protect you from the gossip you hate so much. You’ve made it very clear to me you don’t want to be linked to me, and I thought I was doing a good thing. Now I’m made to feel as though I’m an asshole for doing what you’ve said for years you wanted me to do! Make up your fucking mind!” 

Paul had sat back in his chair, amazed by John’s sudden verbal assault. He had blinked several times in his amazement, not sure what to think much less what to say. I’ve overreacted were the words that finally came in to Paul’s head. He had forced out a weak smile and an even weaker chuckle. “I sound like a jealous bird, don’t I?” He’d said softly. 

John felt immediately sorry for his outburst. “Pud, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t. I guess I thought not only would it be best not to have you there at that particular moment because of the gossip, but that you would also enjoy time alone with Linda, and I didn’t want you to feel guilty about it. I’m trying to grow up a bit, and act more responsibly.” 

Paul’s face had melted a bit, and his eyes had become warmer. This time his chuckle had been believable. “Next time warn me when you’re going to be responsible, John. It’s the last thing I expect!” 

 

*****

 

Across the mews, Linda was already up and making plans for the family dinner that night. All the kids were coming over to watch the first episode of The Anthology with their fathers, and Linda was going to feed them all Italian family style. This past week she’d felt a burst of her old energy, and was grateful for that. She began to putter around the kitchen, gathering her tools and ingredients, creating the mise en scene.

 

*****

 

Paul finally woke up, and was surprised to discover that he was alone. He almost always woke up before John did. How late was it? He turned quickly to see the bedside clock, but it was still only 8 a.m. John must be nervous about tonight, Paul thought, remembering John’s earlier attempt to awaken him. He got up, and stretched languorously while staring out the windows. He could hear some sounds... He moved closer to the windows, and peeked out from the side and behind the curtains. He could see the tabloid press parked outside John’s house. They looked to have been established there for some time. He let the curtain fall back, and then noticed he was naked. He really shouldn’t have done that! Thankfully, none of them had seen him, he was sure of that, hiding behind the curtain. Shrugging, he headed for the bathroom.

 

*****

 

The coffee maker was beeping as John expertly tossed an omelet from the pan right on to a plate. He turned off the coffee maker and started the second omelet. A moment later the toast popped up. John was humming as he worked. He felt amazingly good these days. The New York trip, and the successful launch of his volume of poetry - which had received glowing reviews even from serious periodicals - had given him a huge boost of self-confidence. Now this Anthology thing was finally going to be over. It seemed to John that it had been hanging out there for years, although it was more accurate to say less than a year and a half. It was the project that never ended, with the photo research, and the credits checking, and the individual and group interviews, and the studio work, and the constant little ego wars with George Harrison. It had nearly driven him mad. If he’d known what it was going to be like before he’d started, he would have refused to participate. Now that it was done, however, he was glad it had been done. The whole thing looked a lot better in his rearview mirror, John decided.

As he plated the second omelet, Paul magically appeared in the kitchen. Like John, he was barefoot and naked under his dressing gown, and his hair was still disarranged from the night’s sleep. John’s granny glasses were on the very end of his nose as he smiled at Paul’s state of dishabille. Paul looked delectably androgynous in a dressing gown, and John’s favorite view of Paul generally involved him being half naked and mussed by the aftermath of passion. Like he was this morning. John held his arms out to encourage a morning hug.

Paul didn’t need much encouragement. He slid easily into John’s embrace, and then they kissed, in a very proper way - all lips, and no tongue. “Morning Johnny,” Paul said in his cheery way. 

“Morning, yourself,” John chuckled back. He grabbed Paul’s nose between his thumb and forefinger and pinched. “You’re too fuckin’ adorable right now,” he grumbled.

“Can’t have that,” Paul said naughtily, “should I go put a smut on my nose?”

John laughed. “No, don’t do that. You’d be even cuter with a smut on your nose.” John then gave Paul’s bum an affectionate spank. “Now sit down. I’ve made your breakfast.”

“Orange juice?” Paul asked rhetorically, as he was already moving to pour out two glasses of juice. He was feeling quite jaunty this morning. He had been so worried that John didn’t want or need him anymore, and what the last week had shown him was that nothing could be further from the truth. He was also relieved that the Anthology was finally in the can and ready to go. It had required a lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of diplomacy, a lot of swallowed pride, a lot of exhilaration, and even a lot of emotional pain. In short: it had been a labor of love, and Paul felt a weight lifted off him to know that good, bad, or indifferent, his labor was done. 

 

*****

 

“Oh, come on George, you can’t be serious.” Olivia was smiling at her husband with affectionate exasperation. 

“I’m so over the bloody thing,” George grouched. “I’ve seen some edits of it, and I’ve had my fill.”

Olivia was a bit irritated. She had hoped that she and Dhani could sit with George and watch the show together, but now George was saying he wasn’t going to watch. She would try to persuade him again a little bit later. Maybe his mood would shift. Or maybe she’d send Dhani in to wheedle; George could not say no to his son. 

 

*****

 

Ringo and Barbara were at home in Los Angeles, and they were going to watch the Anthology there - in three 2-hour parts. They had invited their kids to visit, and most of them had taken them up on the offer. While Zak was on tour, his wife and young daughter were there, and both Jason and Lee had made it as well, Jason with family in tow. They’d spent the day by the swimming pool, and as the sun went behind the yardarm, the Margaritas in chilled glasses came out. Ringo and Barbara weren’t drinking (at least not in front of the kids) but the young adults were having fun. 

 

*****

 

“Oh my God, John, is that true?” Stella’s voice was heard over the embarrassed laughter in the room. They had all just heard George Harrison’s Hamburg memory of John going after a wardrobe and clothes with a pair of scissors in a Prellies-induced attack on the “chick” he’d discovered in bed with Paul.

“There’s no accounting for what you do on drugs,” John pointed out lazily, causing his sons to snicker. He looked at them with an obviously faked annoyance: “What? You never got high and attacked a cupboard with scissors?”

As everyone else laughed, Paul was feeling very uncomfortable by George’s revelation. What had possessed him to repeat that anecdote? Was this George’s passive aggressive way of ‘outing’ them? He’d cast a quick worried glance at John who had simultaneously turned to look at Paul, and his expression said it all: George did that on purpose. Then John shrugged, communicating his willingness to let the slight go. It was an objectively funny story. (Except for the poor girl, wherever she was.)

It was November 19, 1995, and the first episode (a two hour special) of the Beatles Anthology was concluded. It had been a fun night, with a great deal of rib-sticking pasta and higher quality Chianti, so the McCartneys and the Lennons were cleaning up the bits and pieces of detritus in preparation for departing for their various homes. Paul was staying with Linda that night - it was the beginning of “her” week, and Sean and Julian were going home with John. James was staying at Cavendish, as he was home from his art college for a few days, as was Heather, who was visiting from her cottage in Wales, but Stella and Mary and significant others were leaving for their separate flats. Everyone was invited to come over to view the remaining five 1-hour presentations on the following five nights. The idea was that since Linda made the dinner on the Sunday, John would make dinner on the Monday, and the gathering would be at his house. Mary had signed up to bring dinner over to Cavendish on Tuesday, and Stella on the Wednesday. On the last night, the Thursday the 23rd, the idea was to order a whole bunch of pizzas. 

The kids had cleaned the kitchen and the dishwasher was operating when Paul and Linda went in to make some herbal tea before bed. As Paul put the kettle on, Linda brought out the chamomile. She had been leaning on the chamomile for months now, to deal with the low-grade but abiding free-floating anxiety she’d begun to suffer after James moved out. Having him there, in the house for a week, was lovely. Seeing that he was fine and handling living on his own so well was becalming. 

“George sounded a lot more warm and enthused in his interviews than I thought he would,” Paul mused as they sipped their hot tea. 

Linda smiled. “I think he is glad he participated, but doesn’t want to show it.” She was fond of George, but felt that of the four former Beatles, George was the prickliest and the trickiest. He could be dour and sarcastic one moment, and laughing and joking the next. She found him unpredictable, and often thought that Olivia must be a saint. Especially since it was well known among the Beatles ‘family’ that George was repeatedly unfaithful to her. None of the Beatles spoke of it of course - not even between themselves. No matter what other betrayals they may have visited upon each other, they none of them told tales about what went on in their sexual lives. Probably all four of them had done enough naughty things to make it worth their individual whiles to maintain that kind of information in a sealed vault. 

 

*****

 

“I didn’t realize how much fun you had when you were in the Beatles,” Dhani said at the conclusion of the night’s episode.

“Oh? Why not?” George asked, surprised. He had, of course, been talked into watching the episode by his beloved 17-year old son, and had been glad he’d given in. It was fun to watch his early history through his son’s eyes. 

“It’s just that all I’ve ever heard from you about the Beatles has been so negative. I thought you didn’t like those guys all that much.” 

“We were very close when we were young, in the early days. It was only later, after we stopped touring, when I began to feel marginalized by them. And it was all very scary, too - that much fame. But those very early days - we had a lot of fun and we were tight.”

Dhani was watching his father’s face and surprised a look of...could it be... nostalgic melancholy perhaps? He knew his old man was grumpy and crusty at times, but Dhani also knew how warm and loving (and hilarious!) his dad could be too. He was glad that his dad had enjoyed being in that crazy band. 

 

*****

 

“You sure were sick a lot when you were a child, weren’t you? I didn't realize.” Jason asked his father after the first episode ended. 

“I was.” Ringo had not spoken much of his childhood illnesses with his children. There had never seemed to be much point to it. 

“What was the problem?” He asked. 

“Poverty and ignorance,” was the succinct answer. 

“Spell it out for me please,” Jason said, chuckling. 

“We were very poor. Me Dad paid me Mum almost nothing after the divorce, so I didn’t go to doctors. I got appendicitis, but it was treated wrong, and I got peritonitis. If I’d been treated at a decent hospital it wouldn’t have happened - the peritonitis. I almost died from it.” Ringo stopped talking, because he had begun to feel anger in his voice. It was all so long ago, and there was no reason to still harbor anger over it. The emotional reaction was automatic, so he had to consciously remind himself to relax. “Then, some years later, I contracted tuberculosis, and was in a sanatorium for two years. Again, this was all because of poverty and ignorance. That’s why I got sick.”

Jason didn’t know what to think about that. He’d had his appendix out too, but his parents had always had money and thus he had gotten the best medical care available. Jason really couldn’t fathom the kind of poverty that bred disease. His father had survived all that, and he had ended up famous and rich beyond anyone’s dreams. Jason was proud of him, not only for his survival and success, but also for the graceful way in which he went about it. 

 

*****

 

The party was at John’s house that night, and John had decided to put the Parisian cooking class skills to use. It was hard to make good French food for the masses, and especially if you had to leave out meat, but John had found a number of recipes that did the trick, from braised cabbage stuffed with St. Marcellin cheese and shredded carrots, to haricots in a reduced port sauce. He had also gone all out and baked several loaves of brioche. While John had been kneading the dough, Sean had watched with amused disbelief. His father never ceased to amaze him; he seemed to pull random skills out of his ass!

Soon the McCartneys had descended on the Lennons, and the house was alive with laughter and music, while everyone oo’ed and ah’ed over the elegant spread. Linda was secretly impressed and not a little envious of John’s skill level. She may be the queen of home cooking, but John had developed into an actual chef. 

The night’s episode featured Paul’s revelations about pot (“the seven levels” memory), and the whole room burst out laughing at Paul telling this story on himself. He and John had exchanged intimate glances when the PG version of the story was told on air. They had an R-rated memory associated with it that no one knew but them. It was enough that they knew. 

John’s interview that night, however, tempered the mood substantially. He discussed how depressed and anxious he had been while the Beatles were on top of the world. His words clarified the serious nature of his song ‘Help!’ along with ‘I’m a Loser’, ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.’ When asked specifically about that last song, John had prevaricated. He obviously could not tell the whole truth, so he told as much of the truth as he could without revealing its most relevant center. “It’s about how you feel when the person you love is in love with someone else.” He left it at that. No need to discuss the reason why the love couldn’t work out. That way led disclosure...

 

*****

 

“I didn’t know that you wrote ‘Yesterday’ in your sleep,” James remarked to his father at the breakfast table the next day. He and Paul were alone, eating cereal and enjoying the quiet. 

“The music was in my head when I woke up, so I guess I did compose it in my sleep, but I obviously don’t remember it.” Paul had said this as though this were not an extraordinarily unusual remark. 

“That’s weird. Have you ever done that again?”

“A whole piece? No. But I sometimes go to bed working on a musical problem - and then in the morning I know what to do.”

“I guess that’s genius,” James opined.

Paul seemed surprised by the word. “I don’t know about that,” he said expansively, “although it’s sweet of you to say. But creativity lives in the subconscious, so it isn’t really that surprising that when your conscious goes to sleep, your subconscious could still be working on the problem.” Listening to Paul’s matter-of-fact presentation, a person could be forgiven for thinking this was all very normal and usual. But James had been trying to compose music, and he knew it was so hard that it was nearly impossible. The idea that his father could compose music in his fucking sleep blew him away. 

On one level this made James proud. On another level it was like yet another nail in his coffin. He knew he could never match his father’s greatness - not in any way. He had seen all the film and photographs of his father in his twenties. His father had been extraordinarily good-looking. James knew from consulting his mirror that he had certain features in common with his father, but somehow those features didn’t come together to create beauty, as they did in his father. James knew he was a good musician. He played guitar very well. But his father played guitar, and ukulele, and banjo, and bass, and piano, and drums, and trumpet, and god knows what else; in other words, as good a musician as James could ever be, he would never come close to possessing even half of his father’s natural gift. And then there was songwriting. Forget even trying to compete there. What would be the point? James had thought by becoming a sculptor he would find a way to experience the arts but not be in competition with his father. But in the last few years his father had taken up painting and sculpting... and, of course, his father’s work surpassed his own. Oh, and charm. His father had charm that never quit. James knew that his own almost paralyzing shyness held him back. 

No - as much as he loved his father (and he did) - his father felt almost like a millstone hanging off his neck. He smirked to himself as he thought, I’d say I had to ‘carry that weight’, but Dad said that first.

 

*****

 

“I don’t remember saying that!” John shouted at the screen, as the audience in the sitting room at Cavendish dissolved in helpless laughter. “I never!” 

“It’s there on film, Dad. You’re busted,” Sean managed to joke after he finished laughing. 

Paul thought it was hilarious. These individual interviews of his three band mates were throwing up all sorts of contradictions and surprising disclosures. John’s take on his frequent indiscreet remarks had been hilarious:

“Paul had a permanent brown stain on his bathrobe - at chest height. He’d open up the newspaper, holding his coffee, and he’d read the headline: ‘Lennon Says the Beatles are Bigger than Christ!’, ‘Lennon Says the Beatles are Bankrupt!’, ‘Lennon Says Paul Really Is Dead!’ and each time he’d go ‘oops!’...” Here John’s hand imitated the holding of a coffee cup that was jerked suddenly, with the imagined predictable result of a stain on a bathrobe. “He finally went out and bought a brown bathrobe - ugly as hell, but it served it’s purpose.” 

This was funny because Paul really did have a brown bathrobe around the time of the Beatles disintegration. John hated it, so Paul had only worn it when John wasn’t around. Paul hadn’t realized that John remembered it. The fact that John did remember it, however, and that he had blurted it out in an interview for all to hear, was one of those inadvertent ‘tells’ that kept popping up in their individual interviews. Little glimpses of intimacy that they didn’t even realize they were exposing. 

This had been the fourth night of the Anthology, and the Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour period had just paraded past their eyes like a parliament of peacocks. Stella had brought a veritable truck full of vegetarian Thai food from her favorite restaurant, and the used cartons and chopsticks were lying all over the place, sticking to the coffee table and the carpet. Things were just about to go terribly wrong, everyone knew, and it began to occur to John and Paul that perhaps they shouldn’t watch the final episode. 

“Been there, done that,” John said to Paul about the prospect of the last episode as they stood in the garden saying goodnight. “Have the scars, have the t-shirt.”

Paul had his arms wrapped around John’s waist, and their noses were almost touching. Paul was missing John’s body, and it took real self-restraint to stop there. He said, “I’m not sure that I can bear to watch us breaking up,” he whispered. "It was bad enough the first time."

“We had a happy ending, eventually,” John whispered back, nuzzling Paul’s nose with his own. “We should think of it like that part in the movie at the end of the second act, when everything goes wrong before it gets better.”

“But it went wrong for 11 fucking years,” Paul swore. Paul didn’t swear that often, and it always surprised John when he did it. 

“It’s what we had to go through to get to where we are now,” John said softly, comfortingly, bringing his hands up so that they cradled Paul’s face. He gazed at Paul, illumined by moonlight. Gorgeous. Other men wanted to stare at mountain lakes or the views from summits. All John wanted was to stare at that face. “Anyway,” he said after he had kissed Paul on his nose, “we all four of us gave the whitewashed version of what happened in our interviews. The true awfulness of it is not on that film.” 

 

*****

 

“It seems to me that Dad did a lot of good work in the late ‘60s,” Dhani said to his mother the next morning. Of course, he’d heard all of his father’s work before, but he had never really heard it in its full context. “Why does Dad persist in saying that he was left out? He clearly wasn’t.” 

Olivia smiled. “It’s a question of equality, I guess. They started out equals in their eyes, and your father feels that others viewed John and Paul as greater than him. He feels that they took over the songwriting reins and he never got a fair chance to hold them.”

Dhani could sort of understand what his mother was saying, but from his standpoint, writing a dozen or so great songs in a few years’ time - as his father had done - was pretty extraordinary all by itself. Anyone else would have been proud and satisfied with that. But then, ‘anyone else’ probably would not have become as famous and rich and admired as his father. He supposed there had to be something inside of men like his father that propelled them to go further and to try harder. Might that ‘thing’ that pushed him forward also be the ‘thing’ that wanted more even when enough was accomplished? The answer was probably yes, Dhani decided. If you took the ‘thing’ out of his dad, his resentfulness would go away. But so would his greatness. Dhani knew that he himself was not going to be ‘great.’ He didn’t have that ‘thing’ in him. But he had something better - he was satisfied with what he had, and wanted only to make the most of it. He didn’t need to conquer the world because his father had already done so. Not being of a conquering nature, Dhani was relieved by this fact. 

 

*****

 

“Well, Dad, it’s been real,” Julian said, as he plopped down next to his father on the sitting room sofa. Paul had worn that seat down, and it was very comfortable. Julian had packed his clothes, and they were in a duffle bag sitting in the back hall, waiting for his departure to his own flat. The previous night’s final episode of the Anthology had been dispiriting and wrenching. He had felt the pain emanating from both Paul and his father, and at times the room - filled with 12 adults - had been so awkwardly quiet that one could literally hear a pin drop. 

“What did you think of my story?” John asked with exaggerated drama in his voice.

Julian smiled. “No one can ever say you didn’t live your youth to the fullest,” he said. This remark covered the waterfront. His father had lived out loud, and whatever lumps he had taken because of this he had somehow borne. His road his father had chosen to tred had not been well paved. It had been rutted and bumpy. And his father had not traveled down it gracefully. He had basically stepped from one banana skin to the other, belly-flopping from one disaster to the next. But his life had been: original. How special was that - to be original? In the end, that was what made his father so important to the world. He was an original thinker who had taken an unorthodox route, and had the ability to tell his tale in a way that touched people's hearts and minds. 

“Love you, Dad,” Julian said, forcing himself up from the comfy seat and moving towards the front hall. 

“I love you too, son.”


	95. Chapter 95

The hot water felt soothing as it cascaded down her back. It was a cold morning, and Linda was having a hot shower. She had been sick for weeks with flu, and her breasts were tender. She had gone to a doctor after suffering for over a week. Her usual doctor was on holiday, and the fill-in doctor had told her she had flu. But that was two weeks ago, meaning she’d been ill for almost a month. It was a nagging worry that she hadn’t bothered Paul with, seeing as how he was so busy with the hoopla surrounding Anthology and John’s volume of poetry. Linda reached for the bar of the soap and began to scrub. As she did so, she remembered feeling something funny in her left breast the night before while lying in bed - a kind of hard spot. She decided to try to feel it, using the soap as a lubricant. 

Oddly, her fingers went straight to it, as if some invisible magnet inside her body had drawn them to it. It was a lump. Her heart jumped. She calmed herself. Most lumps were fibroids she knew, because she’d had a few before. She tried to trace its longitude and latitude, and felt that the lump was about the size and shape of a small almond. It felt different than the fibroids - more dense. Her heart started beating again. She stepped out of the shower, and quickly dressed. What should she do? No point in worrying her family. She should just make an appointment and go see her real doctor. No doubt it would turn out to be a fibroid after all. Didn’t ‘they’ say that if you were the type to grow fibroids in your breasts you were unlikely to grow cancer? Didn’t she hear that somewhere? 

Her doctor was very busy and could only see emergency patients, and Linda wasn’t the type to make a fuss over her own health. (Now, if a fuss had to be made for her husband or children - Nellie bar the door!) But Linda explained to the nurse what she’d found, and the nurse managed to get the doctor to write a script to a radiology clinic. Linda was directed to go get a mammogram, and show up at the doctor’s clinic at the end of the day. The film would have been read and delivered to the doctor by then. 

The mammogram procedure was, as usual, unpleasant. Linda was a trooper about such things, but it was never fun to have your breast squeezed as far as it would go by a cold, clammy machine while you held your breath for 30 seconds. Especially when your breasts were already tender from swollen lymph nodes, and when one of the breasts being squeezed had some kind of lump in it. When the spot was squeezed, Linda heard herself yelp in surprised pain. This was not good. She’d never felt anything like it during a mammogram before. 

The technician looked very serious as she collected the film and left the room. She hadn’t looked Linda in the eyes. Linda tried to tell herself that this didn’t mean anything. She waited miserably for a good 15 minutes before the technician came back and said she needed to take another x-ray. 

Linda’s fingers were shaking as she undid her hospital gown and faced the machine again. Still, it wasn’t unusual for Linda to have to repeat the x-rays. Her breasts were very dense, and it was difficult to get good pictures. This is what she told herself as they repeated the film on the left side. She returned to the metal chair, hugging the hospital gown around her, staring at her shoes, and willing herself to remain calm. 

A moment later, the technician was back. “We’re done,” she said in a mechanical way. “We’ll be sending your film to your doctor straight away.” 

Linda had nodded numbly, and, after redressing, stumbled out into the cold December afternoon feeling confused. What did it mean that the technician didn’t say anything? In the past, the technicians had all said, ‘looks good,’ or something like that. This time - nothing. Did that mean that there was something bad on the film? Up until that moment, Linda had planned to go to the doctor by herself. But now she was shaken, and knew that she would not be able to get herself home safely if the news was bad. She drove herself home, and then called over to John’s house, where Paul was staying. 

“Babe - what is it?” Paul’s cheerful voice asked, as John had handed him the receiver. 

“Nothing. I was just wondering if you could get away to go with me to the doctor’s office.”

Paul was quiet. Although he knew Linda had been feeling poorly for a while, this was a most unusual request. “Of course. What’s it all about?” He asked, hesitantly.

“I’d rather talk about it in private with you,” Linda said in an almost whisper. “Can you come home now?” 

Shaken, Paul replaced the receiver. John, who had been bustling around the kitchen, noted the quiet, and turned to see the scared look on Paul’s face. “What?” He asked.

“Linda wants me to go to the doctor with her. I have to go home.” 

John winced at Paul’s use of the word ‘home’ for Cavendish, but decided this particular moment wasn’t about him. Poor Paul looked to be about ready to faint dead away. “What’s happened? Is she still sick?” He asked.

“I don’t know. But it has to be bad. Why would she need me to come home right away if it wasn’t bad?” Paul’s voice was weak. In the back of his mind he had been worrying a little about Linda for months now; she had seemed so run down and tired, and unable to shake the flu. Now that worry had rushed to the forefront and he had begun to berate himself for failing to take Linda’s health more seriously. He was already gathering up his wallet and keys from the sideboard in the back hall, and his jacket from the coat stand. John had followed him into the back hall, and out on to the back porch. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” John asked, worried now.

“No, no. Linda wants to tell me in private,” he responded absent-mindedly as he started down the mews. 

“Call me when you get back!” John shouted after Paul, as he headed for Cavendish’s back gate. As soon as Paul disappeared from his view, John closed the back door and, wiping his hands on the damp dish towel he had been holding throughout, wandered listlessly back into the kitchen. What the hell is wrong now? He asked himself furiously. Can’t we just have a nice quiet life like ordinary people?

After 35 years of success, John could be excused for forgetting that ‘ordinary people’ suffer a lot too, but without the wealth and connections to soften the blows, however marginally.

 

*****

 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Linda said to Paul, as he held both her hands. They were standing in the sitting room, and hadn’t bothered to even sit down. 

“What’s ‘it’?” Paul asked as calmly as possible. He had seen Linda’s frightened face and had forced himself immediately to develop a backbone. She needed him to be strong. 

“I felt a lump in my breast,” she said. She stopped to watch the fear strike Paul’s eyes. Breast cancer: the thing that killed his mother. “I had a mammogram this morning, and I’m going to the doctor this afternoon to find out what it says. I’m thinking it will be a fibroid, like the other times.” Linda was trying to look and sound reassuring, but she was obviously scared. 

Paul said, “I’m sure you’re right. When is the appointment?” 

“We have to leave in about 30 minutes,” Linda responded.

“Let me jump in the shower and change, and then we can leave. Why don’t you come upstairs with me, and talk to me while I shower? Unless you’d prefer to join me,” Paul’s eyes warmed with mischief, but Linda wasn’t feeling very sexy just at the moment. She followed him up, and sat on the toilet lid while Paul showered, explaining everything that had happened that morning. “I wish you would have called me and had me join you,” Paul shouted over the water. 

“I really believed it would be nothing, until I saw the expression on the technician’s face,” Linda explained. “Although I don’t know the woman - maybe she’s always that sour.” 

The water was turned off, and Paul stepped out. As usual, Linda admired her husband’s body as he dried off. Funny, she thought, that her mind could still go to those familiar places, even when her whole life might be about to change. 

Soon they were stepping off the elevator on the floor of the medical building where Linda’s doctor had his offices. Paul felt a kind of déjà vu as he entered the patient room. Linda appeared a moment later wearing a hospital gown. This reminded him of the seemingly hundreds of doctors’ offices he had visited when John was sick. Did he really have to go through this again? Surely not! 

But soon Paul’s hopes were dashed, because the expression on the doctor’s face as he greeted them told it’s own story. Linda hadn’t noticed it yet, probably because she was so anxious. Paul had been holding her hand throughout, and she was squeezing it so tight that both of their knuckles were white. Paul pulsed two squeezes into Linda’s hand as the doctor began to speak.

The doctor stuck Linda’s film up on the light panel, and said, “The radiologist has gone over your film with me. And you do have a mass.” His finger pointed at what appeared to be a tiny white irregular oval shape floating in a dark sea. 

“Is it a fibroid?” Linda asked hopefully.

“Well, I was going to examine you now. Do you want your husband to step out?” He asked, as the nurse magically appeared.

“No, I want him with me,” Linda said, grabbing Paul’s hand even tighter. Paul moved protectively towards her on the examining table. 

The doctor proceeded to palpitate first the right breast, and then the left. He lingered for what seemed like many minutes (but was probably less than a minute) over the area where the lump could be felt. Linda found the pressure to be uncomfortable but bearable. She began to feel some hope. Surely, if it were cancer, wouldn’t it hurt?

The doctor finished his exam, and gestured for her to sit up and rearrange herself. He said, “Why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll talk in my office.” Numbly, Paul and Linda agreed. If it was bad news, they were in no hurry to hear it. 

A few moments later they were seated in his office, and he was behind his desk looking somber. “It’s not a fibroid,” he said as kindly as he could. “It’s some kind of tumor. But we won’t know whether it is benign or malignant...”

Until we do a biopsy... Paul was thinking in his head. Yes, he’d heard this whole plot line before, and he really didn’t want to hear it again. 

“...until we do a biopsy,” the doctor finished. 

Linda stared at the doctor for a good long while. Her old friend Maureen Starkey Tigrett had died a year earlier from leukemia, and Paul had written a beautiful song for the memorial service to comfort Maureen’s then 7 year-old daughter: Little Willow. How weird that maybe now that song would be about her.

As he had done for John, Paul stepped up to the plate. “How soon can that be arranged?” he asked, as cool as a cucumber. 

The doctor was pleasantly surprised. It was always best for a cancer patient to have a strong partner to help them through the whole process of treatment. The doctor knew that the tumor was most likely going to be malignant. It was the unusual shape of it, along with a few other telltale indicators, that had told the radiologist and the doctor the ugly truth. Still, there was always a chance they were wrong, and no reason for his patient to live with that news for a minute longer than she had to. 

“We can do it tomorrow morning, first thing. I’ve contacted a leading specialist in breast cancer, and this specialist is going to do the biopsy in her office clinic.” 

A few moments later a glum Paul and Linda exited the garage elevator, and found their car. The drive home was quiet and tense. Paul was driving with one hand, the other firmly grasping Linda’s. Linda was staring out the car window, trying to hide her tears, but Paul could see the reflection of them glistening on her eyelashes in the window. He said nothing, and kept driving. 

Cavendish seemed cold and comfortless that evening, as they entered the hallway. Paul went around turning on as many lights as he could to dispel the feeling of gloom that surrounded them. He also went to the fireplace, and immediately began to set a fire. “Why don’t you put the kettle on?” He said softly to Linda. Like an automaton, she obeyed. A moment later, Paul picked up the telephone and called John.

“What is it?” John asked, without any ceremony.

“A tumor in her breast,” Paul’s leaden voice revealed.

John’s heart fell into his stomach. He had been worrying about it ever since Paul had left. He had paced restlessly all over his house in the elapsed hours. Breast cancer: the same thing that took Paul’s mother. This was grim indeed.

Paul tried to rally a bit. “They’re not sure it’s malignant,” he said, although his voice sounded doubtful.

“But you think it is,” John said flatly.

“I do.”

“Why?” John asked, his heart aching for Paul.

“The look on the doctor’s face and the shape of the tumor. Remember how they told us that malignant skin tumors are irregularly shaped? The doctor said Linda’s tumor was ‘asymmetrical’. It set off warning bells in me.” 

John, who was standing in the kitchen facing one of the cupboards, banged his forehead against the cabinet. What could he say at a time like this? “I’m coming over,” he announced.

“But...”

“No, I’m coming over now! You always say I’m part of the family, so, if I am, then I belong with you and Linda right now.” 

Paul could not argue with John about this, although he worried that Linda would want her privacy just then. Still, Paul knew he would feel stronger if John were with them. Paul was hanging up as Linda came in the room carrying a tea tray. Paul took it from her and placed it on the coffee table. 

“We’ll need a third cup,” Paul said apologetically.

Linda’s face questioned ‘why?’

“John’s coming over,” Paul told the face.

“Paul, no! I want it to be just us...” Linda started.

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Paul said. “He says we always tell him he’s part of the family, and if that’s so, he should be here too.” 

Linda turned around and went to get a third cup. Part of her was pissed, but there was a part of her that was touched by John’s concern. She remembered how he had needed her company when he was going through chemo. Perhaps now she would need John’s company just as much. 

John was entering the sitting room from the garden as Linda returned with the cup. He went straight over to her, gently took the cup from her hand and put it down on the coffee table, and then pulled her into a tight hug. He whispered in her ear, “It’s going to turn out fine. Just like it did for me.” 

Linda felt the tears come then. She’d been fighting a losing battle against the tears all day long, but now they came in full force. Paul pulled her down next to him on the sofa, and John sat on the other side, and both men comforted her. Paul was giving her soft kisses and brushing the hair off her face, while John was softly rubbing her lower back. 

A while later, Linda was lying back against Paul’s chest, and he had his arms wrapped around her. John was sitting sideways on the sofa next to Linda, his right arm resting on the sofa back. Linda’s tears had come to an end, and she looked exhausted and wrung dry. So there they sat, the three of them, without speaking a word until they all fell asleep.

 

*****

 

“We should be back in about two hours,” Paul said in a low voice to John. They were standing in the kitchen at Cavendish, where John was cleaning up after the desultory breakfast the three of them had shared. Linda was upstairs getting ready to go. Paul wasn’t speaking in a low voice to keep a confidence; a low voice was just the only kind of voice he could muster at that moment.

John dried his hands on his waist apron, and moved towards Paul, pulling him into an embrace. “I’ll be here waiting,” he said softly. “I’ll make you a late lunch.”

Moments later, Linda was downstairs, and she and Paul left promptly for the clinic. “I wonder what they’re going to do to me?” She asked, as Paul pulled the car out of the driveway and on to Cavendish Avenue. 

“It’s probably best not to know in advance,” Paul said with a brave smile. “That way you can imagine it is a piece of cake.” 

In spite of her fear and the sense of impending doom hovering over her, Linda was able to giggle. How Paul-like that statement was. Expect the best, and then buckle down and deal with the worst. He was a contradictory combination of optimist and realist. She’d never met another person with that mindset. 

There were about a half dozen women sitting in the waiting room. The room had that falsely cold look that went with overhead fluorescent lighting. The chairs were obviously stuffed with some unnatural fiber, because they were stiff and unyielding. They were also covered in a terrible mauve colored knockoff-1980’s-Laura-Ashley print. This abomination was, of course, matched with a rug in that terrible mid-bluish-grey color that seemed to always be paired with the mauves back in the early ‘80s (for some ungodly reason). Paul sighed at the quotidian nature of it. It seemed to him if a clinic was catering to women with breast cancer, the least they could do was to use earth tones, and soft lighting in the waiting room. Why make the experience even more alienating than it already was? 

“Mrs. Williams?” The nurse’s voice penetrated the waiting room. Neither Linda nor Paul responded at first until Paul remembered that was her alias. He squeezed her hand and whispered,

“That’s us.” 

Linda got up, and Paul got up with her. Holding hands, they headed for the door. 

“Patients only,” the nurse said officiously.

Linda let go a soft, helpless moue, and Paul straightened up. “Wherever she goes, I go,” he said very politely but firmly in the woman’s face. His voice was not raised, but his eyes meant business. 

It finally occurred to the nurse that she was locking eyes with Paul McCartney. She looked back down at her chart and saw ‘Linda Williams.’ She then looked again at the woman, who - yes- well, that was Linda McCartney. Well I’ll be. She stepped back to allow both of them through the door. Every once in a while the nurse remembered how it had felt to be a young nursing student, when every patient was a full-fledged human being to her, and she had felt for their predicaments. Seeing a Beatle and his wife in this unfortunate situation brought those memories back to her. It somehow reminded her of the great equalizer - Mother Nature. “Through here,” she said, leading them to a little dressing area. She turned to Paul. “I’ll take you to the examining room. The women need their privacy in the dressing rooms.” 

Paul nodded in agreement, and soon he was shown into an examining room. It reminded him of John’s cancer, with the cold metal chairs and the raised examination table. He had thought those grim days of traipsing to and from clinics and hospitals were over. He was trying to remain optimistic, because nothing was for certain sure yet, but in the pit of his stomach, Paul knew. He knew it was going to be cancer, and he feared that he and Linda had a rough few years ahead of them. The thought he did not allow himself was that maybe those years would end in Linda’s untimely death. 

Paul’s chain of thought was interrupted when Linda came in the room, a hospital gown around her, with an opening at the front. She had crossed her arms in front of her chest protectively. “It’s cold in here,” she said, shivering. 

“I don’t know why these examining rooms are always so cold,” Paul agreed. “You’d think they’d want them to be more warm and inviting.” 

Linda sat on one of the metal chairs, next to Paul, not wanting yet to mount the imposing table. She stared at the table lugubriously. To her, at that moment, it was the symbol of her helpless situation. 

The radiologist burst in. She was in her late ‘40s, a little younger than the McCartneys, and she carried with her an air of purpose and intensity. Adjusting her glasses, she introduced herself to them. They sat close together, side-by-side, holding hands and looking at her in a supplicating way that wrenched her heart. She had read enough about them and their amazing love story to know that they had a lot to lose if the news was very bad. She had seen the x-rays, and she knew that the news was going to be bad. The question was - would the news be merely bad, or would it be seriously bad. It would depend on the results of this biopsy and what she found in the margins. She leaned her left hip against the examining table and spoke directly to the couple.

“We are going to do a core needle biopsy. Because of the location of your tumor, I will have you lie on your back. You will receive a local anesthetic near the area of your mass, and we will use an ultrasound to help us locate the mass. I will hold your breast and then the surgeon will make a very small incision and a very fine needle will be inserted into the mass. We will extract a number of tissue samples from the mass, through the needle, which is hollow. These will be tested in the lab. It should be over in fewer than 20 minutes, and most of that time will be because we will need to find the precise location of the mass. You’ll walk out of here with just a band aide at the site of the incision. Do you have any questions?”

Linda shook her head ‘no,’ and Paul squeezed her hand. 

“Then let’s get started. You and I will move to the operating room, and I’m afraid your husband can’t come with us, because we have to maintain a sterile environment.” The doctor looked at Paul and added, “You can wait here or in the waiting room.” 

“I’d prefer to wait here,” Paul said. He saw that Linda had that mulish look on her face. She didn’t want to be separated from him. He turned to her and said, “It will be over inside of a half hour. I’ll be waiting here for you when it is over.”

 

*****

 

John had found Linda’s lentil soup recipe, and had done the best he could to recreate it. He had also made some sourdough rolls. He’d had all morning and early afternoon to spend in the kitchen, trying to keep busy. Paul and Linda had gotten home some hours earlier, but had gone up to the master bedroom, and had not come out. It was now 2 p.m., and John felt they could stand a little lunch, so he climbed the stairs and banged on the bedroom door. 

“Can I come in?” He asked.

Paul looked at Linda who nodded in response. “Of course!” Paul shouted.

John came in and saw Paul and Linda - fully clothed - lying in each other’s arms. There were balled up tissues all over the place. There had been some serious crying going on. He moved to Linda’s side of the bed, and sat down facing her. “So, do I get to know what happened?” He asked.

“We’re waiting for the doctor to call us and give us the biopsy results,” Paul said. 

John nodded, and turned his gaze back to Linda. He said to her, “I remember what that is like. It’s fucking hell.” 

Linda responded with a brave giggle. 

“Anyway, I tried to make your lentil soup, and I’ve made some hot sour dough rolls. I’ll be incredibly insulted if you don’t come down to eat - unless you want me to bring it up to you on trays?”

Paul smiled at John, and turned to Linda. She nodded, and struggled to sit up. “Might as well,” she said. “The rolls especially sound delicious.” 

“I found that organic butter you had in the fridge, so I infused some rosemary in it. I’ll melt the butter a bit in the microwave, and then we can pour it over the bread.”

Paul’s stomach growled, and everyone laughed. “I guess I’m hungrier than I knew,” he said sheepishly. 

 

*****

 

The phone rang at 4 p.m. John and Paul had decided to play cards, and Linda was wrapped up in a blanket watching, holding a cup of cocoa John had made for her. He was remembering how Linda had done that for him when he was sick, and how comforting it had been. Linda was touched, and her eyes were a little wet as she watched John distracting Paul with some playful card shuffling antics. John was a blessing in their lives, she decided. The jarring sound of the phone had interrupted her sentimental thoughts.

Paul stood up and answered the phone. He spoke in hushed tones for a few moments and then said, “Lin, do you want to talk to the doctor, or do you want me to tell you?” 

Linda’s throat closed up. She knew it was bad. If the news had been good, her husband would be showing the relief instead of that stoic expression he had now. “You...” was all she could manage to gasp. 

Paul turned and whispered a few more words into the phone, and then hung up. As he approached Linda, he felt as though he were some kind of executioner, there to deal a life blow with the exchange of a few words. 

John had sensed what was happening, and had moved back on to the sofa, and put his arm around Linda’s shoulders. Paul sat on the other side, and said, “It is malignant, Linda. But no one will know how far it has spread until they do the surgery.”

“Surgery?” Linda’s voice sounded like a little girl’s. 

“We’re to check in to the hospital tomorrow morning, and the doctor will explain everything to both of us.”

John felt for Linda in a way that Paul couldn’t. John had hosted cancer in his body, and he knew how impossible it was to sleep knowing that there were these evil cells inside you eating away at you like Pacmen gone wrong. How was she supposed to survive this night? How on earth would she be able to sleep? 

Later that night, Paul went upstairs with Linda, and the two of them started preparing for bed. Linda was bereft, and Paul could think of nothing to comfort her. As they settled in bed, John knocked on the door and came in.

“Do you mind if I sleep with you?” He asked. “I can’t possibly sleep alone.”

Linda, who was on the left side of the bed - looking at it face on - turned to Paul in confusion. Paul sat up and said, “Here?”

John said, “Yeah. I’ll nip in on Linda’s side, and we’ll be like a sandwich, with Linda in the middle.” 

Linda couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud. She held up the covers in invitation, and John scuttled in. “I’m wearing my clothes, Lin,” John said, “I won’t get fresh.” 

Both Linda and Paul laughed at that. So Paul turned on his side facing Linda, and John turned on his side facing Linda, and Linda had lain in the middle and felt the love and support from both of these men. Her heart felt warm, and in that moment she actually believed that everything was going to be okay. 

John said, “Okay, let’s all admit that none of us are going to sleep tonight.” Paul and Linda both chuckled in admission. “So, Lin, when you were a child, what was your fantasy life?”

Linda thought about it for a while and said, “I used to want to live out in the Wild West. I was going to have a cabin tucked in against a bluff, and I would live there with just a horse for company. I would ride down to the nearest town - an hour’s ride away - for provisions every month, and then I’d go back to my cabin. That, to me, was heaven.” 

“You weren’t going to have a husband and children?” John asked incredulously.

“My fantasy never got that far. I was 12. I didn’t know from husbands and children.” Linda’s voice had suddenly sounded very New York, and both Paul and John laughed delightedly at this phenomenon. Linda asked, “So what about you, John? What was your childhood fantasy?”

John said, “Peter Pan. I loved to read children’s fantasy literature, like Lewis Carroll and also stories like Peter Pan. My dream was to be the leader of a group of naughty boys, and we would have adventures, and go up against authority figures. That’s who I was in those days: Peter Pan.” 

Paul laughed. This was such a painfully accurate depiction of the John Lennon he had met at age 15 that he couldn’t do anything but laugh in recognition. 

“Okay, Paul, your turn,” John said. His hand was gently massaging Linda’s shoulder as he spoke.

There was a prolonged silence. Linda was holding her breath. She had never been able to prize out of Paul his childhood dreams - at least not in a way that made her believe that he was telling her the absolute truth. Paul finally said,

“I always wanted to be a musician.” 

There was another deep, prolonged silence. John finally said, “For real?”

Paul said, “Me dad was a musician, and I loved instruments and the music on the radio. I never thought I could be a musician, so of course I told myself I could be a fireman or a doctor, but truthfully, honestly, deep down, all I ever wanted to be was a musician.” 

The silence that followed this disclosure was a respectful one. “Hmmm,” John said. “When you think about it, we all got exactly what we wanted. Linda, you grew up and eked out a living on a Scottish farm in the back of beyond. You had horses, and had to drive a while to get to the town to get provisions. I was a Peter Pan - a Pied Piper - and I led my merry band of miscreants all over the world and to the top of the music charts. And Paul, you got what you wanted in spades. You are a musician, and have achieved beyond what you could have expected. All three of us dreamt our futures, and we all realized our childhood dreams.” 

 

*****

 

The early morning light was struggling to pierce through the slats in the shutters on the master bedroom windows. Paul was the first to awaken. His eyes flew open in horrible recognition: oh no! Linda has cancer! It’s malignant! She’s going to the hospital today to have surgery! His heart started pumping wildly. He propped himself up on his elbow and then saw Linda, asleep on her back, her arms crossed over her chest, and John - his arm around Linda’s waist, his face nestled into the pillow within inches of Linda’s face. Paul’s eyes filled with tears. The two people whom he loved most in the world - the two people he would die for - were there cradled together, and the three of them were as one. They were a single unit facing the wrath of fate.

Surely, he thought, between the three of them they could defeat the worst that fate had to offer.


	96. Chapter 96

Getting into the hospital without being recognized was a major clandestine operation. It involved being driven there in a car with blackened windows, and pulling up to a back entrance at the loading dock area. Linda had her sunglasses on, and she wore a hat that covered her blond locks and sheltered her face. Paul, too, wore dark glasses and a hat, and he had guided Linda through the back hallway into the labyrinth of hospital corridors. Now they were in a private room, and Linda was on the bed looking scared and miserable. Paul squeezed into the bed with her, and they lay on their sides facing each other and whispering. 

This vignette is what Linda’s doctor saw when he entered the room, accompanied by the hospital’s chief oncologist. Dr. Freeman had been a doctor for 25 years, but he’d only met a few couples as touchingly close as were Paul and Linda McCartney. He had snickered derisively at the rumors about Paul and John Lennon because he had known Paul and Linda as a couple for so long, and thought of their love for each other as unassailable. The doctor’s own marriage had been long, but in truth he and his wife were not very close emotionally, and they had stayed together as friends, parents, and an economic unit, for reasons of comfort and convenience. His marriage hadn’t remained a romance; but it was clear that Paul and Linda’s marriage had. How terrible that their long romance had to be interrupted by the ugliness of cancer. Hopefully it would be a short - if rude - interruption. 

Paul sat up, and then stood up to shake the doctors’ hands. Introductions were made. Then the oncologist accompanying Dr. Freeman, Dr. Wright, began to explain the options. 

“Normally, we would have a consultation before admitting you to hospital,” he explained to Linda. “But Dr. Freeman and I both felt that given the fact that you have been manifesting frank symptoms for over a month now, time was of the essence.”

“'Frank symptoms?'” Linda asked in a small voice.

“The achiness and tenderness of your armpits and breasts, the nausea and diarrhea...”

“Nausea and diarrhea?” Paul asked in surprise, looking at Linda. He hadn’t realized that she had been that sick. Again, he internally berated himself for being so self-absorbed.

Linda said, “It’s why I went to the doctor, Paul.” She turned to her doctor. “The doctor who filled in for you said I had flu. Did I not have the flu at all?” Linda had been thinking that the flu was something separate from the lump in her breast. This was the first she was learning that the ‘flu’ symptoms had really been symptoms of breast cancer. 

Paul, putting this bewildering onslaught of new information in order finally, looked accusingly at Linda’s doctor. “You misdiagnosed her?” He asked angrily.

“It wasn’t Dr. Freeman, Paul. It was his substitute.” Linda felt a little embarrassed for her doctor’s sake.

Dr. Freeman understood Paul’s anger. He was angry himself. If only he hadn’t been on holiday! He knew Linda well enough to be worried if she had come to him saying she’d been ill for over a week. Linda was a stoic, and would only come to a doctor as a last result. He would have ordered a battery of tests. Two whole weeks lost! Of course, if Linda had come even earlier - back in the summer when she was feeling so low energy, maybe they could have caught it in time to avoid chemo. No point in dwelling on the ‘what ifs.’ They were so unproductive. Still, he had to explain his colleague’s mistake. “Early stages of breast cancer can manifest like a flu, if the lymph nodes are swollen.”

Lymph nodes! Paul heard those words and it stuck terror in his heart. It hadn’t occurred to Linda yet, but then she hadn’t lived through the intimate details of John’s cancer. Paul remembered what happened when the cancer cells spread to the lymph nodes: metastasis. The doctor was telling him that by the time Linda went to his colleague, the cancer had already probably metastasized because it had reached the lymph nodes. The cancer had probably been growing there for months. Now he knew the truth, and began to understand why Linda had been rushed into the hospital so quickly. His heart was pounding heavily. He would have to follow the doctors out into the hall and have a frank conversation with them, because Linda was so fragile. Linda had rarely been so fragile - at least not around Paul. She had always seemed so independent, grounded and strong. It was scary to see her so dependent, tearful and weak. He knew he was going to have to carry the burden of the knowledge that had finally sunk into his thick head. 

“So what are the options then?” Paul asked, his face suddenly a calm mask, and his tone businesslike.

Both doctors felt more comfortable around businesslike conversation, and were grateful to be out of the minefield of Linda’s misdiagnosis. The oncologist said,

“We can provide a number of options for you, but we recommend mastectomy - in fact, double mastectomy would be best.”

“No!” The cry had come from Linda. She had just barely been able to grasp the idea of them removing the part of her breast that was cancerous. Now they were talking about wholesale maiming! 

Paul was just barely managing to hold on to his calm front. “What other options do we have?” He asked. Again - just as he had done with John - Paul thought of Linda’s cancer as his, too. It was something he was suffering from as well. 

“The other options are to remove the breast with the tumor in it and the tissue sections with affected lymph nodes, or, the least drastic option would be to do a lumpectomy, and remove the tumor from the breast, and then also remove the tissue under the left arm where the affected lymph nodes are.”

Dr. Freeman jumped in, grabbing Linda’s hand, and spoke directly to her. “We can do these lesser options, but there is a good chance the cancer will grow back in your left breast and that you will develop cancer in the other breast too. That would require more surgeries, and increase the risk that the cancer will spread. It is advisable in such cases to remove both breasts.”

“And,” the oncologist added (he was tone deaf to the emotional situation unfolding around him, as most surgeons were), “Depending on what we find, we may have to remove tissue from both armpit areas as well.” 

Linda buried her face in her hands and was shaking her head. Paul looked accusingly at the oncologist. He said, unable to keep some of the fury out of his voice, “Let’s talk outside.” It wasn’t a question; it was an order. “Lin, I’m going to step outside for a few moments; I’ll be right back.” Paul then stalked out of the room, requiring the doctors to follow him. Out in the hallway he turned on the oncologist. “Linda hasn’t even digested the fact that she has a tumor, and I don’t like the heartless way you are throwing all this stuff at her. Can’t you see she can’t take it?” Paul’s voice was low but it was trembling with angry emotion.

Dr. Freeman stepped in. “We could have said it more gracefully, I know, Paul. We’re sorry. But we’re worried, and we need to act quickly. Every minute counts.”

“So tell me. I’ll tell her. I don’t want her giving up in despair. She can take only so much bad news at a time. So tell me now - the whole truth. What do you know and what do you not know?” 

The oncologist was impatient. There was a reason why he became a surgeon and not an internist. He didn’t like to deal with people’s emotions. But the oncologist had to admit that Mr. McCartney’s controlled anger was a lot easier to deal with than his weeping wife. Weeping women made the oncologist very uncomfortable. 

Dr. Freeman noted that the oncologist was getting impatient. He said to Paul, “Her cancer has reached her lymph nodes. Until she is on the table, we won’t know the extent of the spread, or how serious it is. We have received further tests from the biopsy and the results of the blood tests. This is an aggressive cancer, and we have caught it late. But we honestly cannot advise you any better than to tell you she should have a double-mastectomy. While she is on the table, the tissue from the affected areas will be sent to a lab. The results will come straight to Dr. Wright, here, who will be waiting in the operating room. A decision will be made at that time how much tissue in the surrounding areas need to be removed.” 

“And after that?” Paul asked. He was absolutely ashen white, but his voice still was even. 

“Chemo and radiation, most likely,” the oncologist said firmly. 

“I’ve been through this before...” Paul said, starting to lose his stoicism a bit.

“You’ve had cancer?” The oncologist asked, surprised.

“No, but my...friend - my songwriting partner - he had melanoma.”

“So you know the drill,” the oncologist said, softening a little. 

“I do indeed,” Paul said softly. “But I need to be sure you’re not doing the most drastic thing just because some conservative rule book requires it. Can you walk me through this more methodically?”

The two doctors looked at each other, shrugged, and then led Paul to a spot behind the nurse’s reception area, where a little office space was free. 

“Explain it to me,” Paul repeated. “You tell me that the cancer is already in her lymph nodes...”

“Yes, that’s true,” Dr. Wright said.

“Ok, so help me. If the cancer is already in the lymph nodes, why do you need to cut off her breasts? Can’t you just remove the tumor, and then we can watch the breasts for re-growths? I want to make sure we don’t overreact and cut off her breasts for no good reason. She has enough depression as it is. Anyway, I’d like her to have that option.”

“More surgeries would be necessary if we guess wrong,” Dr. Wright warned.

“I can afford more surgeries, if Linda would prefer to go that way,” Paul said staunchly. “I just want her to feel as though she has options - some control over her own fate.”

Dr. Freeman softened a little. “He makes a point,” he said to Dr. Wright. “It’s a bit like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted,” he said. “Maybe we can spare her breasts, remove the tumor, and treat the lymph nodes and possible metastasis, and then do regular MRIs.” Dr. Freeman turned to Paul. “Normally, we don’t recommend this because we have to justify everything we do to the National Health which can take a long time and a lot of paperwork. But since you are a private patient, and willing to pay for the MRIs yourself, perhaps this would actually be a viable option.” He turned to Dr. Wright again. “What do you think, Doctor?”

Dr. Wright was totally over this conversation. He had places to go and things to do. But, in truth, he had to agree that the main reason they did double mastectomies was to avoid the hassle involved in approving further treatments through the National Health. This was a private patient, and perhaps he could rethink his conservative recommendation. He shrugged in acquiescence to Dr. Freeman’s point.

“Okay,” Paul said. “Let me talk to Linda. I will provide all the options to her, and let her decide. Wait here and I’ll come out here to tell you her decision.”

The oncologist looked at his watch. “I’ve got another surgery to fit in this morning before hers...”

“It will only take a moment,” Paul said. “Let me see what she wants to do.”

 

*****

 

Linda’s wet cheeks nearly broke Paul’s heart. He sat down beside the bed, and grabbed Linda’s hands and stared directly into her eyes. He remembered doing exactly this for John just a few years earlier. He told her that the doctors believed that the best and safest thing to do was to undergo a double-mastectomy. 

“But my breasts! You love my breasts!” 

Paul smiled and stroked the side of her face. “I love you more than I love your breasts, trust me on this.” 

“I’ll be scarred and maimed for life!” Linda cried.

“You’ll be alive. And you can have reconstructive surgery.” 

“I don’t understand why!” Linda cried. “What will it accomplish?”

Paul said, “There are options, but I’m telling you what the doctors recommend.”

“Explain the options to me, Paul, I don’t want to cut off my breasts... what did they tell you? Is my cancer bad?” Linda whispered.

“They need to test the tissue to answer that question, but they know it has spread to the lymph nodes.” 

“Lymph nodes?”

Paul took a deep breath. “Linda, I can’t lie to you. I know a bit about lymph nodes from John’s cancer. The lymph nodes can carry cells through the whole body in the lymphatic system. It’s a whole different system than the capillaries that carry blood. It’s a key part of the immune system. But once cancer cells are in the lymphatic system, they can travel all over the body, and no one knows where or even if the cells will pop up.” 

Linda stared at Paul in horror. “It’s too late already?” She asked, her face stricken.

“I didn’t say that. That’s what the chemo treatment is for - to kill the cells in your lymphatic system. But, truthfully, the problem isn’t your breast. Your problem is the lymphatic system. And I believe you have options other than a double mastectomy. You can remove just the affected breast, or you can just do a lumpectomy of the actual mass in your left breast, and let them remove the cancerous sections. I mean, we can keep an eye on your breasts through MRI tests...”

Linda looked tremendously relieved. “I’d much rather do that; but after the surgery, then what? When they’re done, will it be over?”

“We have to wait for the tests to be done,” Paul said gently. “But you will definitely have to do chemo. The doctors say every three weeks for six months.” He waited a few seconds, but Linda appeared not to have any questions left. “So what should we tell them?” He finally asked.

Linda sighed heavily and said, “The lumpectomy, and removal of the affected lymph nodes. If we need to do more later, we can do more later.”

“You do realize there is a risk that there will be further metastasis if you don’t remove your breasts?” Paul asked seriously.

“We can watch it like a hawk,” she replied. And the decision was made.

 

*****

 

John was at Cavendish. Mary and Stella were there, too. No one had told Heather and James yet, because they were considered too fragile; Paul was going to call them after the surgery was over. Paul had called Mary and Stella early that morning to tell them that Linda was having surgery to remove a tumor from her breast. The girls had wanted to meet Paul at the hospital, but he suggested they stay away until after the surgery was over, and their mother was out of the recovery room. Finding it emotionally impossible to work, both girls chose to head for Cavendish instead, deciding they would do some housework and prepare some meals to freeze for when their mother came home. They had been surprised to find John there, collapsed on the sofa and looking worried and depressed. 

Soon it was past noon, and the three of them had lunched and were arrayed around the sitting room repeatedly asking each other the same unanswerable questions:

“I wonder if it has spread?”

“She’s been feeling low for a long time. Do you suppose it was the cancer all this time?”

“I thought she just had the flu. Why didn’t they find it sooner?”

“Are they going to remove her breast?” 

“I wonder if the surgery’s over yet?”

Suddenly the phone rang. Without thinking, John grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”

“John - it’s Paul.”

“What’s happened?”

“She’s just gone down to surgery now. It will take three or four hours.” Paul’s voice sounded dull and defeated.

“Why so long?” John asked.

There was a pregnant silence on the other end, and then finally Paul spoke, his tone broken: “They are going to remove the tumor from her breast, and the margins around it, plus remove the affected lymph nodes. They will have to wait in the operating room while the tissue is biopsied. Depending on what they find, they may end up removing more tissue, and maybe even her whole breast.”

John had experienced each new disclosure as a blow. He was speechless. When Paul finished all he could said was, “Paul...no...”

Paul sighed. “It’s been growing for months, John. Linda ignored it all, and I was so fucking self-absorbed about Anthology that I didn’t put the pieces together and force her to go...”

“Don’t start blaming yourself,” John said plaintively. “No one else noticed either, not even Linda herself.” 

“But I’m her husband. I should have noticed...”

“Well, Mary and Stella are here. The three of us are going to come and join you. I don’t want you waiting by yourself for so long.” John’s voice was brooking no nonsense, and Paul, uncharacteristically, was not upset by John’s announcement. In truth, he was incredibly relieved and wanted someone else to take charge for a while.

“Okay,” he said meekly. 

This surprised John, who was used to Paul acting all strong and macho when things were going wrong. “We’ll be there soon, and we’re bringing you something to eat.” John knew without having to ask that Paul had not eaten anything, and he knew firsthand that Paul had barely touched his breakfast. John rang off, and when he turned around he noticed for the first time that Mary and Stella were standing right behind him looking very shocked. Mary’s hand was over her mouth, and Stella was grasping her hands together tightly. They had obviously figured out something was very wrong based on John’s reactions and words.

“Well, girls, it’s not good news. I’m not gonna lie. She’ll be in surgery for hours, and there is a possibility they will have to remove one of her breasts.”

Both girls gasped and Mary whimpered, “Oh, no, mummy!” John stepped forward and pulled Mary into his arms. 

“It’s only a possibility, and even if it happens it’s not the end of the world,” John said firmly, his eyes meeting Stella’s over Mary’s head. “The important thing is for the doctors to get it all out of her body, so she can start getting better.” 

“Poor Daddy,” Stella said, “Sitting in that hospital...”

“Which is why I said the three of us are going to join him. We need to pack a lunch for him, and then we’ll be on our way.” John was in charge, much to the girls’ surprise, and they followed him meekly to the kitchen. They pulled out the leftovers from their lunch, and began packing a lunch as if they were a kitchen team. “When we get there,” John was telling the girls as they worked, “we’re all going to hold it together. Your dad sounded like he was hanging by a thread when I spoke to him, and if we all start crying and carrying on he’ll fucking break. We can fall apart later, when he’s not around. Agreed?”

Both girls murmured ‘yes’, but wondered if they could be so strong. Well, their mother was a strong woman, and their father was a strong man, so they must have strong genes. 

 

*****

 

Paul had not felt hungry, but he forced himself to eat, if only because John and his daughters had gone to the trouble of making him lunch. Mary and Stella had been comforting, but Paul could see the tension and fear in their faces and body language. He tried his best to seem confident, but in truth it was John who was holding them all together. He sat in a chair across from Paul’s in the private waiting room the hospital had organized for them, and Mary and Stella were curled up on a sofa next to each other, like kittens. 

John leaned forward and said in a low steady voice to Paul, “You need to call Heather and James, and tell them now.”

“John, no! I was going to call them after...”

John leaned even closer, and whispered. He noted that Mary and Stella were having a quiet conversation, and he hoped they wouldn’t overhear him. “What if something goes wrong in the surgery ... They’ll be very angry with you for not telling them sooner.” 

Paul’s face lit up in alarm. He hadn’t thought of that. “And her brother and sisters...” Paul said. 

“Give me John’s phone number,” John said, referring to John Eastman. “I’ll call him, and then he can call his sisters. But you should call Heather and James.” 

Paul was one of those people who could memorize telephone numbers. It was an ability that seemed unfathomable to John, who could barely remember his own phone number. Paul rattled off the Eastmans’ number and John wrote it down on a torn off piece from a health magazine lying on the coffee table. 

John and Paul each had a handheld Nokia 1011 cell phone, but they tended to be of limited use because of a lack of cellular towers. There was a landline phone in the waiting room, but John left that for Paul. He didn’t have a signal to call New York inside the hospital so he walked to the outdoor patio and managed to get a weak line through. He briefly explained what was going on to John Eastman, who agreed to tell his sisters. 

“Paul and Linda want absolute discretion, John, so don’t tell your kids yet, and of course no press.”

“Of course,” John said. He was shaken by the news. Of all his sisters, Linda was the healthiest eater. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate that she should be singled out this way. 

Paul, meanwhile, had told Mary and Stella what he was going to do, and he called Heather first. She was upset, and wanted to come to London immediately. Paul told her he would arrange her travel. She spoke with her sisters, and then they hung up. Next, Paul had called James. He had only just got up, although it was almost 3 p.m. He was befuddled by the news, but eventually took it onboard. He, too, wanted to come to London as soon as possible. 

John, meanwhile, had scoped out the hospital’s amenities and had come back to the room with a cardboard carrying tray full of coffees. He caught the tail end of the James conversation.

“I have to make travel arrangements,” Paul said, picking up the phone again. 

“Let me do that,” John said, taking the receiver from him.

“You don’t know how to make travel arrangements!” Paul protested, which actually made Mary and Stella chuckle despite their worries.

“I do know how to call our secretary, and ask her to make the plans,” John pointed out reasonably. Paul saw the wisdom in that, and subsided. Mary and Stella exchanged amused glances. It was kind of weird to watch the role reversal going on between their father and John.

 

*****

 

“She tolerated the anesthesia very well, and the surgery went well,” the surgeon was explaining to the small, forlorn group in the waiting room. “She will need to rest in the recovery room for a few hours, and then we will move her to the intensive care unit.”

Paul had met the doctor first in the doorway, and had ascertained that they had only removed the lump and the affected tissue from under her left arm. The doctor had disclosed that the cancer cells had reached several of the lymph nodes on that side. Nodding fatalistically, Paul then led the doctor into the room, and the doctor gave the watered down version to the rest of them. Paul was tremendously relieved that Linda had made it through the surgery okay. Anesthesia was scary. He was also relieved to have that lump out of Linda’s body, because it - at least - could no longer cause further harm to her. But his heart was heavy. He knew that he and Linda had months of chemo and radiation ahead of them, always with the abiding fear that the cancer would pop up somewhere else. There would be endless doctor visits, blood tests, MRIs, waiting for results... It would blight their lives for the next two years at least. And, the morbid fear had begun to grow in the pit of his stomach as if there were a little pool of corrosive acid there: she might die. He and John had lived with that fear for the better part of two years. Now he would have to go through the same intolerable experience with Linda. It didn’t feel fair that life should bring to him this many bad storms. At a certain point he would not be able absorb it any more; it was too much rain. Still, no matter how bad it was going to be for him, for Linda it would be much worse, so he would just have to suck up his fear and pain and deal.

 

*****

 

“Are you sure you want to stay here tonight?” John whispered in Paul’s ear. Linda was in the intensive care unit, and only one person at a time had been allowed to visit her. Paul, Mary and Stella had taken turns, but John had decided to give Linda her privacy. Now visiting hours were over, and Paul had decided to sleep in the private waiting room in order to be near. 

“Yes,” Paul said stubbornly. “In case she needs me...”

John nodded. Well, that meant he was going to stay, too. He got up and crossed over to where Mary and Stella were half-sleeping on the sofa. He gently woke Mary up. “Mary, take your sister home to Cavendish. Your dad insists on staying here, and so I’m staying with him. It’ll be more comfortable for you at home, and I will call you immediately if anything happens.” 

Stella woke up while John was talking, and started to protest, but Mary agreed with John that they should leave. She explained to Stella as they headed for the car park that their father would have to remain stoic as long as they were there, but if they left he could feel free to cry, and it would be better for him to do so when John was there to comfort him. 

John had gone out to the nearest nurse’s station and had bribed them with unrelenting charm into loaning him some blankets and pillows. Paul didn’t feel like lying down, but he agreed to push the chairs together, so he could put his feet up. John stretched out on the sofa. John watched Paul’s profile for a while; Paul appeared to be contemplating his navel. He asked,

“Baby, what are you thinking?”

Paul seemed to startle a little at the sound of John’s voice, and he turned his face so he could see John. “I can’t think of anything except poor Linda lying there with all those wires and machines...”

John hadn’t seen what Paul had seen, but he had been in Linda’s position before, and he knew what Paul meant. “They’re just there to make her more comfortable and to keep a watch on her,” he said.

Paul nodded. “I didn’t want to talk about this while the girls were here,” he started, “but it’s really bad, John. They had to remove several lymph nodes. She’s going to need chemo, and even then she might not make it.” Paul’s voice cracked at the end of that sentence.

“The medical treatments have changed a whole lot since your mother got sick, Paul,” John said, correctly diagnosing Paul’s underlying fear. “They’ve made enormous strides.”

“But if it’s too late, it’s too late.” 

“Did the doctor tell you it was too late? Were those his words?” John was going to throttle the fucker if he had said those words to Paul.

“No. I didn’t ask him that question - ‘what are her chances.’ And he wouldn’t have answered me honestly if I did ask. But some time soon they will tell me that - that’s my fear.” Paul’s hand went up to cover his eyes and soon John could hear the choking sounds that accompanied a person’s attempts to quell the urge to sob. He got up and went over to where Paul was hunched over. He stood behind the chair, and wrapped his arms around Paul’s chest, resting his chin on Paul’s shoulder.

“Come on, Pud, come with me to the sofa. I can hold you there.” John’s voice was velvety soft but compelling. It took a few moments, but Paul finally got up and allowed himself to be dragged over to the sofa. John sat down first, and pulled Paul after him, so soon they were spooned there on the narrow sofa. With his free arm, John reached up and turned off the side lamp, so then only a nightlight lit the room. He then wrapped his arm around Paul’s chest. 

A few moments later Paul began to cry in earnest. This was new territory for John. Many times over the years Paul had comforted him. Sometimes Paul had cried with him over John’s sorrows, as if in solidarity. But rarely did Paul just fall apart like this based on his own problems, and John felt a deep sense of protectiveness come over him. He knew that he could do nothing to stop the inevitable happening. Linda would have chemo and radiation, she would have a miserable time, and her cancer might get worse; she would be scared, she would be angry, she would rail against fate. She might survive and she might not. All of those things were completely out of John’s control. The only thing he could do was hold on to Paul for dear life and be there for him, just as Paul had done for him so many, many times. And, by keeping Paul strong, he was helping Linda and the kids. His assigned role in the coming ordeal was very clear to John.

 

*****

 

Linda’s eyes were pleading with Paul for something. He instinctively reached over for a washcloth, dipped it in water, and then drew the cloth across Linda’s lips. He remembered this from nursing John. The drugs from surgery made the mouth and lips go dry, but the patient wasn’t allowed to drink full liquids yet. He watched Linda’s face closely, and noticed that the cloth had relieved some of her distress. He then put the cool cloth on her forehead, and patted it there to sooth her skin. She felt a little clammy. 

Now her eyes were asking him a question. Paul knew what the question was. He had far too much experience in watching cancer do it's worst to persons he loved. He answered her unspoken question with a soft voice:

“They got the whole tumor, they removed some lymph nodes, and the surgery was a success.” He gave Linda a brave, reassuring smile. But the resigned expression on her face made Paul’s heart stop. She needed good news.

“The girls and John were with me all through the surgery, and John and I stayed all night in a waiting room. Heather and James arrived home early this morning, and they’ll all come visit you soon.”

Linda’s face reflected distress. Paul understood why.

“I know we said we wouldn’t tell Heather and James until later,” Paul said, “but when I realized that the surgery was going to be more involved than we first believed, I thought you would agree with me that they should be given the chance to come see you, too.” 

Linda heard Paul’s explanation, and her face relaxed. She was happy that soon all of her children would be with her. Their presence always gave Linda strength.


	97. Chapter 97

Late December 1995

 

Two weeks had gone by, and Linda had been home for over a week. It was a tremendous relief to her to be home, and to have her family always around her. It was a few days before Christmas, and the kids had put up the tree, hung the holiday decorations, and had wrapped the presents. Linda had fortunately bought presents early, and so she had her assistant wrap them. Paul had been at her side virtually all of the time. He didn’t go to his music room, he didn’t go to the office, he declined to participate in meetings, and he slept every night in their bed with her at Cavendish. Linda might have felt guilty about this except for the fact that John was living at Cavendish most of the time, too. Although he usually went back to his own home to sleep, sometimes he slept on the sofa in the sitting room. He was often in the kitchen, cooking and talking with the kids while Linda was resting in the master bedroom, with Paul lying by her side as he read a book out loud, or strummed a guitar and sang to her. 

This night, Mary, Stella and James had wandered into the sitting room to set up a movie in the VCR. They had rented “Babe” thinking their mother would want to watch it, and also “Apollo 13” at James’s urging. Since Linda was resting, they chose to watch “Apollo 13” that night. 

In the kitchen, Heather was sitting at the table staring at a cup of tea while John hovered over the stove popping corn the old-fashioned way. Heather found comfort in John’s company. It was odd, because Heather had been the most upset about the fact that her beloved “daddy” had taken John as a lover. She had felt that John was a usurper of her father’s affection and attention, even though she herself was an adult and living away from home when she first found out. She had tried to avoid John for the first several years after she found out, and had been only marginally civil to him during the last few years. But for whatever reason, ever since her mother’s operation, she had wanted to be around John. He was a source of stability for her, since her father was spending all his time with her mother. Now she preferred to be with John while he made popcorn, rather than to be in the sitting room with her siblings. 

John had sensed Heather’s need of him, and he had decided not to make an issue of it. He just decided to go quietly about his business, and let her occupy the same time and space as him. It seemed to becalm her, and keep her stable. She had always been a bit isolated from others, John thought, even as a small child, although there was an appealing fairy-like delicacy to her when she was little. As a teenager and a young woman, John had found her inexplicable. He had never been able to reach her, or persuade her to bond with him. She alone among the kids, Sean and Julian included, had been unable to accept the love triangle. She obviously identified very strongly with her mother, and did not like to see her mother slighted in any way. Realizing this, John acknowledged how scary this must be for Heather - to see her indomitable mother brought so frightfully low. Since her return from the hospital, Linda had been very weak physically, and completely dependent on Paul. This was no doubt alarming for her children, who were not accustomed to this behavior from their mother. John decided he would have to be a substitute Linda for them. He was trying determinedly to model her example in order to jury-rig a plug to stop the leak in the family dam. 

“John?” 

John was surprised to hear Heather addressing him. He turned from the stove to face her. “Yes?”

Heather swallowed hard. She met John’s eyes, and there were shimmering tears in hers. She asked tremulously,

“Is mommy going to die?”

John was struck still. At least 20 or 30 seconds went by before he responded, as confidently as he could. “They took the tumor out, and now they’re going to give her medicine to kill the remaining cells. Your mother is very strong. I had cancer, remember? I had chemo, too. And I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Heather’s eyes locked with John’s. This answer was something she could hold on to, and trust in. Her mother was strong. She had the very best medical care. John had survived cancer, and so could her mother. She smiled a little in relief. 

John said, “The popcorn’s done; get me some bowls. I’m looking forward to this movie.”

 

*****

 

Mid January 1996

 

“What was it like? The first time?” Linda was facing John across the kitchen table at Cavendish. 

“I was quite nervous,” John remembered. “It was surreal watching them pump poison into my body, you know?”

Linda nodded.

“I got a little bored waiting for it to be over. I had to have chemo every day for several days, and then twice a week for months after that. It wasn’t until the third or fourth day that I got sick.” John was watching Linda’s face as he spoke. She seemed to be mentally strong at that moment. It had been a month since her surgery, and later that day she would have her first session of chemo. 

“I remember you having to do it every day,” Linda responded. “I only have to go once a week for six months.” 

“Only once a week?” John was relieved by this information. 

“Yeah. If you add it up it is only about 25 sessions.” Linda had actually been relieved to find out she wasn’t going to have to do the daily or bi-weekly sessions like John had done. She remembered how that relentless pace had beaten John down to a yellowed skeleton that could barely hold up its head.

John nodded. He’d had far more than 25 sessions in his first round, and far more than 25 sessions in his second round, too. While he’d had to go through two rounds of chemo, he sincerely hoped that Linda’s chemo would work the first time. 

“I might lose my hair,” Linda said softly. This was a great fear to her. She remembered with some remorse how she’d thought John was being so silly about losing his hair, given the enormity of the other challenges facing him. Now the shoe was on her foot, and she didn’t find it so silly any more.

“Oh man, that’s a fucking bummer,” John commiserated. “It’s dehumanizing.”

Linda looked up in acknowledgement. Yes! That is why she feared it so much. It was dehumanizing to watch your hair come out in clumps. It was a visual reminder that things inside of your body were dying too, because of the chemo - things you could not see. 

“I didn’t want to shave my head,” John said. “I kept telling myself it wouldn’t fall out, and then it started. I nearly had a fucking heart attack. I should have shaved it off. If I had it to do over, knowing what I know, I would shave it off before it fell out.” He paused for a quiet moment and then asked, “Have you thought about cutting your hair short so when you start to lose hair it won’t be as upsetting? When it falls out, it comes out unevenly and it looks odd.” John had a hard time believing they were actually discussing hair loss in connection with chemo as conversationally as if they were discussing something normal.

Linda said, “I probably will. I want to keep my hair for as long as possible, though. I’ve heard that when it grows back afterwards, it is never the same as it was before.”

John gave that some thought and answered honestly. “Mine was pretty similar when it came back, Lin, although when it is very short it is much curlier than it used to be. I’m probably the only one who really notices it, though.” 

Linda smiled. She looked at John’s auburn locks - they were dyed now (as were hers, to be fair), but the hair was full and had body. Having John there, full of vim and vigor and rude health, was like a living beacon for Linda. If he could survive it, so could she.

 

*****

Early February 1996

 

Although to Paul, Linda, and John the world outside had seemed to screech to a halt and then evaporate, in point of fact the world was still spinning, and life outside the bubble was still happening. Paul and Linda had decided to release a short statement to the press that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and was having surgery and treatment. It was three or four lines long, succinct, with no emotion attached. They had decided that they wanted to tell the news in their own time and in their own way, rather than have some fucking tabloid break the story after paying off some med tech at the hospital for the info.

For decades the British press had excoriated Linda. She had been accused of going after Paul McCartney single-mindedly, and getting pregnant to “trap” him. They had insulted her looks, her musicianship, her singing voice, her clothing choices, her hairstyles, her pot smoking, her housekeeping abilities, the way she raised her children, and her alleged ‘clinginess’ to Paul. They had then turned on a dime in the early ‘80s and had begun claiming her marriage was a sham to cover up for Paul’s alleged affair with John Lennon, and had ridiculed her willingness to go along with the charade. Clearly, the tabloids suggested, she had always been a beard; that explains why Paul had chosen such a "plain" woman for a wife. She had been variously described as “pushy,” “presumptuous,” and “a pothead.” Now, suddenly, the press turned on a dime again. The tabloid stories were dripping with bathos about “poor Paul and the love of his life.” Now Linda was viewed as a strong and resilient woman, who had raised wonderful children, and had been a loyal wife to Paul. It would have been funny if the reason for the press’s change of heart weren’t so bleak. 

“If I’d only known all I had to do to win their approval was to develop a deadly disease, I would have done it years ago,” Linda quipped as her daughter Stella read out some of the more emotional tributes. Stella and indeed all of Linda’s children were bitter about this about-face. Their mother had been taunted and tormented by the British press for decades, and now they suddenly began to point out that she was an actual human being, with actual human feelings, and a lot of wonderful qualities? It was impossible not to feel bitter about that.

The news about Linda’s illness had, of course, dampened the excitement stirred up by the release of the Anthology. It had taken all of the joy out of it for all four Beatles. Paul and John were living with Linda’s cancer daily, but Ringo and George also felt terrible about it. Despite all of their little ego wars and financial disputes, underneath it all the four men did feel like brothers - given what they’d experienced together - and both Ringo and George knew how important Linda was to Paul’s peace of mind. She had been a rock to him when things were all going wrong, and she had been loyal and loving to him and all of his family and friends for so long now that it was hard for them to even think of Paul without also thinking of Linda. It wasn’t unusual for Ringo to call Paul, but it was extremely unusual for George to call Paul. But a few weeks after he had heard about Linda, George actually picked up the phone. He was surprised when John answered the phone at Cavendish.

“John!”

“Yes, who is this?” John asked. 

“It’s George.” 

“Ah, yes, hullo George.”

“I was calling Paul,” George said awkwardly.

John could hear the confusion in George’s voice, and decided to assuage his curiosity. “I’m practically living here,” he explained, “because all the kids are here, then we had the holidays, and now Linda is only just beginning to amble about. Paul rarely leaves her side.”

George had been a little curious about how John was taking the loss of Paul’s attention, but as he thought about it now, John being there to help out made sense. “How are they doing?” He asked.

“Linda is still digesting it all. She’s had her first chemo - Paul went with her. She tolerated it well. But the surgery was tough.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” George’s voice reflected the sincerity of his comment. “In what way?”

John sighed heavily. “They took part of her breast, and then tissue under her arm. Terrible that they haven’t found a less invasive way of treating this kind of cancer.”

“And Paul?” George asked.

“A basket case,” John said succinctly. “Oh, he holds it together when he’s with her and with the kids. But the moment he’s alone for a moment, he breaks down completely. He doesn’t want them to see him like that. He’s held together by safety pins, basically.” 

“I can’t imagine Paul without Linda,” George said sadly.

“Well, she’s still here. And if her medical team has anything to say about it, she will come out of this thing alive.” John’s voice sounded determined. “It happened to me; it could happen to her.”

“That’s true. I should be more optimistic,” George agreed.

John smiled. The concepts of “George” and “optimistic” just did not go together. “Do you want to talk to him?” He asked.

“Please.”

“Hold on then. It may take a while; he’s upstairs.” 

George waited patiently, and was surprised to feel his heart beating rather heavily. He didn’t know why he should be nervous about talking to Paul. They had grown up together, and were truly like brothers. Yes, maybe they were like brothers that bickered a lot, and who had grown apart as they had matured, but there was still that feeling of ‘blood’ between him and Paul. George guessed his nervousness was due to not knowing what to say to Paul. What could he say? I’m sorry? Can I do anything for you? I will meditate for her? George wasn’t sure if Paul would appreciate him bringing his religion into it, but Paul at least did pay lip service to his religion when the subject came up between them - unlike John. 

“George?” 

“Hey, Paul,” George said, willing himself to sound calm and assured. “Livy and I were really sad to hear about Linda.” 

Paul knew he was going to have to receive his friends’ condolences, and George was like family, but he really wasn’t ready yet to face these interactions. It was too raw still, and receiving condolences reminded him that there was something to condole him about. He forced himself to project a confident energy. “Thanks, Geo. We appreciate it.”

“We wondered if there was anything we can do for you,” George said shyly.

Paul appreciated the offer, but could think of nothing to suggest. “We’ve got what we need, I think. Our kids are here, and so is John. Neither Linda nor I even have to lift a finger. But I really appreciate the offer.”

“Does Linda need company? Livy was saying she’d like to come visit her.” 

Paul felt uncomfortable now. Linda didn’t want anyone seeing her just then. She was horribly self-conscious about the whole thing, and the fact that she was too weak still to make the effort with her hair and face. Still, he didn’t like to sound rude to George and Olivia. “I think she might appreciate that in a few weeks,” he said cautiously. “Right now she isn’t up to seeing anyone. It’s going to be rough for her - the chemo.”

George winced at the sound of the word ‘chemo.’ He remembered how weak and shriveled John had looked when he was undergoing chemo; it wasn’t something he would wish on his worst enemy, much less people he cared about. “Alright then, well, please let me know if there is anything we can do. And I hope you don’t mind if I meditate for her.”

Paul smiled wistfully. “Of course we would appreciate it if you would meditate for her, George. I’ve been doing a lot of meditating myself, while Linda sleeps. I can’t seem to sleep for long.”

“I can imagine,” George said sympathetically. He felt tears pressing around his eyes. “You won’t be much of a support for her in the long run, though, if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Paul chuckled. “You sound like John and my daughters. I go decades without one, and suddenly I’m surrounded by mothers.”

 

*****

Early March 1996

 

Linda had come back from her latest chemo treatment feeling terrible. She now felt nauseous at the very thought of these treatments, and it had begun to dawn on her how horrible they were going to be. It had been three months since her surgery. Her doctors were encouraging her to have a hysterectomy, and this was planned for the next month. Linda was afraid of the surgery, because anesthesia frightened her. But all of this paled in comparison to the fear of the tissue tests the doctor would do at the same time. Linda was afraid they would find more cancer cells in her lymph nodes. 

Paul felt helpless and angry. The treatment for this disease was barbaric. Linda had already had a biopsy, extensive surgery to remove the tumor and other tissues - and the recovery for that surgery had been painful and slow - and then she had surgery to implant the port in her upper chest, next she was going to have a hysterectomy, and another biopsy of her lymph nodes. Then she would have to have test after test for months. Add to all this awfulness the chemo every week, which was making her sick. Paul had been helping her throw up in emesis basins and had cleaned up the accidents. He had to help her on to and off of the toilet. This was all humiliating for Linda, who valued her modesty in such matters. And worse still, this morning when he had been stripping the pillowcases to wash, he noticed a lot of hair. He hadn’t yet said anything to Linda, and wanted to consult John and his daughters on how to go about telling her that maybe it was time to cut her hair. Would this unspeakable disease leave her with nothing? No privacy, no hair, and no peace? Paul’s anger was intense, and it was fed not only by cruel fate, but also by his overwhelming sense of helplessness. He could do nothing to stop any of this, and in fact had to advocate for these painful procedures because otherwise she might die. This was the goal he was shooting for now, all other lesser goals abandoned by the side of the road in despair: for Linda not to die. Everything else would have to be thrown to the side, so that she might live.

These thoughts were haunting Paul, and keeping him up nights. He was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. He felt physically faint and weak, but he could not eat. He had abandoned the gym, his music, his finances, and just about everything else. He would feel overwhelmed by a restless need to occupy himself, but nothing he picked up or tried could hold his interest for longer than a few minutes. And there were deeper, darker thoughts haunting Paul. He had begun to suspect that he was a jinx. Almost everyone he had loved had suffered from serious illness. His mother had died from cancer, his father had suffered from inflamed arthritis his last few years, to the point where he had almost been crippled. Both Heather and James suffered from depression and anxiety. John had gotten cancer, and now Linda. Yet there he stood, perfectly healthy, while those around him fell. He didn’t understand why all of these calamities were striking the people he loved most, while leaving him whole. Of course, these thoughts were never spoken out loud. They, and the guilt that went with them, were buried right at the very bottom of Paul’s conscious mind. They percolated there, causing burps and bubbles, but never actually reaching the boiling point.

John had noticed Paul’s deterioration. He had tried as best he could to get Paul to eat, and to get him out of the house once in a while - if only to go to the gym or take a walk. But while Paul would pick at his food, he couldn’t bear to leave Linda. The kids each frequently sat with her, which allowed Paul to take a break, but he would only go as far as the sitting room sofa or the kitchen table. John couldn’t really chastise Paul over this, because he could not bear to leave Paul. He felt he had to be around in case Paul needed him. So he, too, rarely left the confines of Cavendish. He had set up in the spare bedroom, and only occasionally went back to his own home to get clothes or to spend an hour or two resting alone. Then he would feel guilty, and get up and go back to Cavendish. In case Paul needed him. 

Linda had insisted that James go back to school in January, but he had gone back only to drop out, and then he returned home, a mulish expression on his face that brooked no denial. He could not be away from his mother at this time. She was just about everything to him. When no one else in the world understood him, his mother did. She was the safest place in the world for James. Linda had rallied a bit in the last month or two, at least in appearing to be more together when her children were around, especially James and Heather. She made every effort to be cheerful and strong when these two of her children were with her. They needed to see the old spark in her in order for them not to fall into the Scylla and Charybdis of depression and anxiety. 

So in March 1996 things at Cavendish were dark indeed. One night, Paul stole away from the master suite after Linda had fallen into a deep sleep. She had sleeping pills, but Paul couldn’t take any, in case Linda needed something in the middle of the night. So Paul could not sleep. He shrugged into his bathrobe, and stuffed his feet in his slippers, and left the bedroom, leaving the door partially open in case Linda cried out. He quietly descended the stairs and entered the sitting room. It was dark and quiet. He turned on one lamp, feeling comforted by it’s soft golden glow. He situated himself on his side of the sofa, and leaned back into its well-worn cushions in a kind of relief. He felt dazed and out of it. In the last four months he had barely had a minute to sit still and just be with himself. Between the release of John’s poetry, and the Anthology, and Linda’s diagnosis, and her surgeries and chemo treatments, he hadn’t experienced a moment of peace. As he sat there, (it was 2 a.m.), he tried to breathe deeply, but was unable to do so. Instead, his heart was beating too fast, and his breath was too shallow. He wanted to smash something - bash something with his fists! But then, that would take energy, and he had none of that. He was completely enervated, and wasn’t sure he would be able to stand up again, even if his life depended upon it. 

 

*****

 

John’s eyes flew open. He was in the guest room on the first floor at Cavendish. Something felt wrong. He studied the ceiling for a few moments as he gained his bearings. Then he turned on his side, and reached up to pull the chain that turned on the bedside lamplight. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. What was wrong? He thought he must have had a bad dream. Fully awake now, John struggled out of bed and found his bathrobe. He was naked under the bathrobe, because he preferred to sleep “in the raw.” He did what he needed to do in the bathroom, and also rinsed out his mouth. He affixed his glasses to his nose and decided to go downstairs and make some herbal tea.

As he padded down the stairs, he noticed that there was a light on in the sitting room. He entered the room and saw Paul seated there, staring straight ahead, and looking haunted and alone. John’s heart felt as though a hand was squeezing it. Paul was a shadow of his former self, and John was desperately missing the ‘old’ Paul. What he wouldn’t have given for just 20 minutes with the ‘old’ Paul! John found it difficult to be mature, and strong, and selfless for months on end. Part of him wanted to revert to type: childlike, dependent, and insecure. Still, one more glance at Paul’s drowsy but anxious face cured John of his selfish thoughts. He moved towards the sofa, and then plopped down next to Paul, causing Paul to jump to alertness.

“John!” He cried.

“Sorry, Paul, didn’t mean to startle you,” John said softly. He reached out with his right arm, and gathered Paul up to his side. “You were miles away. You look haunted.”

Paul sighed. “I haven’t really slept in months,” he admitted. “I can’t sleep. My head is full of horrible possibilities.”

John cuddled up closer to Paul, urging Paul with a squeeze of Paul’s shoulder to surrender to his embrace. A tense 10 seconds passed before John felt Paul’s body relax and permit itself to be drawn into an embrace. Paul’s neck let go and he nested his head just underneath John’s chin. 

“You can’t go on like this Pud,” John whispered. “You’re making yourself sick.”

“It’s my fault she’s sick,” Paul groaned. “I noticed she wasn’t well last summer, but beyond asking her about it I did nothing.”

John had figured that guilt was playing a huge part in Paul’s insomnia. This acknowledgement merely confirmed what he already knew. “Paul. It is not. Your. Fault.” John’s voice was firm, and a little irritation played around the edges. “Bad things happen to good people. You could do everything right your whole life, and you could still get cancer. And it is no one’s fault.”

“Why does everyone I love get sick, and yet I’m as healthy as a horse?” Paul’s voice had grown a little petulant, and it made John smile. 

“You’re not as healthy as a horse right now, Paul,” John pointed out. “You’re starving yourself, you’re not sleeping, you take absolutely no time for yourself. It’s like you’re trying to get sick or something. Maybe you think it is only fair for you to be sick, too, if Linda is, but honestly you won’t be much good to Linda at all if you get sick too, now will you?”

Paul sighed deeply. Everyone kept telling him that. He supposed they were right. But how to sleep, and eat, and enjoy time alone while Linda was trapped inside her body, engaged 100% of the time in a life or death struggle? What kind of asshole could do that? He’d gone through this with John’s cancer, too, although he hadn’t felt responsible for John’s cancer because there had been no symptoms other than a small harmless looking mole. And, Paul supposed, it was also cumulative. He’d thought when John was finally clear that he would never have to go through this agonizing process again. He thought he’d had his turn, and a person only had to have one turn. Having this happen a second time was a crushing blow. John couldn’t know how it felt. Not really. He knew what it was like to be the one suffering from a deadly disease. But he didn’t know what it was like to stand helplessly by a loved one and wait for fate to make its choice. 

John could tell from Paul’s prolonged silence that he wasn’t getting through Paul’s thick and stubborn Irish head, so he decided to change tactics. “I know what’s really bothering you, baby,” he crooned. “You need sex. It’s been months since you had sex.” 

Paul jerked a bit in reaction to the word ‘sex.’ “I haven’t felt sexual at all,” he remonstrated. This was true. Paul’s superego had turned off the sexual faucet in his brain months earlier so he could devote 100% of his energies towards fighting Linda's cancer. 

“Well, let me put it this way then. I need sex. It’s been months since I had sex!” John’s voice was comically over-dramatic, and Paul chuckled in spite of his mood. John felt encouraged by that chuckle. “How do you think it feels to be me? You spend all your time with Linda. Linda, Linda, Linda.” John had slipped into a bad Cary Grant imitation. Paul chuckled even harder. Whenever John decided to be silly and provocative like this, Paul melted, and tonight was no exception. Paul, though still a little reluctant, was being drawn into John’s playful mood. 

“I’m serious!” John declared (obviously not seriously) as he saw the first inkling of a spark in Paul’s eyes. “I’m sex-starved! You’re killing me!” Paul laughed at John’s antics. On one level he felt guilty, but on another level he felt the very first stirrings of the possibility of an arousal.

“You’re sitting there laughing but at any moment my dick might shrivel up and fall off!” John had whipped open his dressing gown to expose his genitals. Paul couldn’t hold it in any longer. He started laughing, from deep in his diaphragm. John was giggling; he was delighted that he had reduced Paul to genuine laughter. John decided to strike while the iron was hot. “So, are you going to take pity on me or not?” 

“Here?” Paul asked, scandalized.

“Well, you refuse to leave this house, so where else can we fuck?”

Paul shook his head. “I can’t do that in Linda’s house while she’s sick in her bed, and our kids are here.”

“We have a whole other house just down the mews, you know,” John pointed out.

“What if Linda wakes up, and she needs me?” Paul asked, panicked. He could actually feel his heart racing at the thought.

“Well, why don’t we do it in the road, then?” John asked sarcastically, getting a little pissed.

Paul realized how determined John was about having sex. At first Paul thought John was engaging in a ruse to distract him, but now it appeared as though John was quite serious. He had all but ignored John for months now, and he felt a bit guilty about that. He finally said in a resigned voice, “I suppose we could use your room here, if you promise to be quiet.” 

“Don’t hurt yourself with all that enthusiasm, son,” John snapped. “It’s not like I’m gonna twist your arm. Sex has recuperative powers, and it’s a public service I’m offering.”

Paul was sitting up now, watching John’s face. He did love that crazy man. God only knew why. John was a hell of a lot more trouble than he was worth - or, at least, common wisdom would say so. But there was something about John... 

Paul stood up and held out his hand to John. “Come on, you big lug, don’t make me drag you upstairs.”

“Ooooh that sounds lovely, being dragged upstairs...” John said in a flamboyantly gay voice. But he got up and allowed Paul to lead him by the hand up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. It was on the opposite side of the house from the master suite, but James’s bedroom was adjacent to it. They snuck like naughty teens breaking curfew past James’s room, and John couldn’t help giggling a little as Paul shushed him with a finger to his mouth. It was objectively hilarious, John thought. 

When they got in the room, Paul continued to tiptoe and speak in a hushed voice, which of course only encouraged John’s giddiness. Both men began to undress. John threw himself on the bed and made a ‘bump’ sound as the headboard hit the wall.

“Shhhh!” Paul responded. But Paul was unable to hold back his own soft giggles, when John made a classic pinup pose on the bed. Paul climbed in the bed, and for a brief moment his eyes locked with John’s and asked a question. John understood immediately.

“To fuck or be fucked, that is the question...” John intoned in an exaggerated Shakespearean accent. 

“You’re the one with a shriveling dick,” Paul pointed out reasonably. “Is it up to it? Or shall I?”

John laughed and with both arms pulled Paul down on top of him. “Let’s just start kissing, and see where we end up,” he whispered. While he was talking, he threw his legs around Paul’s hips and clasped him tightly. 

To his surprise, Paul was suddenly intensely aroused. One moment he was amused and trying to get into the mood, and the next he felt the eternal drive to mate. It amazed him, the strength of the urge. He had just answered the question - ‘to fuck’ was the answer! He was definitely going to do the fucking tonight! 

John felt Paul’s arousal, and the warmth moved up his spine and soon it was vibrating in his brain. He was definitely in the mood to be fucked. His knees pressed even tighter into Paul’s thighs. He felt butterflies in his lower tummy. He loved it when he felt that; only Paul could do this to him, make him feel completely wanton. With everyone else, there was always some part of himself he kept aside; with Paul he gave everything always. 

At first there was silence; only the eyes were talking. John could actually see the emerald green lurking behind the gold and brown highlights in Paul’s eyes. He felt his heart melting. He was a sucker for those eyes. Paul, meanwhile, was watching the flickers of emotion in John’s eyes. From mischief, to mayhem, to compassion, to passion - it all flowed as if on an assembly line through John’s eyes. 

John groaned a little when he felt Paul entering him. It had been months. “Oh!” The sound escaped his throat unbidden, and Paul halted in his thrusting. His face looked stressed. “Sorry,” John whispered and looking anything but. He put his finger to his mouth to simulate a shushing motion. “I’ll be good, I promise,” he whispered.

Paul started snickering, even as he struggled to keep the sound down. The last thing on earth John was being at that moment was "good." And then Paul started pumping again, very slowly at first, as his eyes smiled down into John’s. John’s eyes posed a friendly challenge. Paul laughed and plunged even deeper and John squeezed even harder with his knees. 

“Ahhhh,” John sighed.

“You want more?” Paul whispered in John’s ear as he started thrusting harder.

“Ummm...” was all that John could muster.

The rest were sounds, not words. Inarticulate but somehow very articulate. Grunts, and groans, and sighs, and short intakes of breath, and the sound of suction breaking when sweaty thighs separated briefly: the sounds ran the gamut. There was also the musky smell of sex, and sensations, like the feel of sweat rolling slowly down a back, the touch of fingers caressing skin, and the sudden explosion from two loins. Most importantly, given the time and the place, it was exceedingly quiet. 

Paul fell sideways off of John and on to his back with a whoosh. His breath was coming in great gasps. His hand made it up to his chest, and he felt his heart beating strongly. John, meanwhile, had moved on to his side and out of the wet spot. He brought his hand up to meet Paul’s, as it lay on his chest.

“Just what I needed,” John whispered in a raspy voice. “Thanks, baby.”

Paul nodded. He felt as though every nerve in his body had been turned off, and as if every muscle had melted into the mattress. His eyelids were heavy...so heavy. He kept blinking to keep his eyes open, but his lids kept creeping down. A moment later he was breathing deep in his throat, and the sound John heard next was something akin to a very soft snore. John smiled at the sound. His work here was done.


	98. Chapter 98

Paul awoke with a start. Linda! It was that bluish grey color just before dawn, and it took a while for Paul to make sense of the room he was in. Where the fuck was he? He struggled to sit up, but was weighed down by... by John! That is when it came back to Paul. The night before, the frantic sex, and him falling asleep in the guest room in John’s arms. Paul was overwhelmed with guilt. Linda was just down the hall, all by herself, while he had been getting his rocks off. What if she had needed him during the night, and she didn’t know where he was? He managed to free himself from John’s grasp, and sat up on the edge of the bed, staring at the clock’s digital panel and finally reading the time: 5:11 a.m. He must have been asleep for a few hours now. Driven by guilt, he got up, found his pajama bottoms and white t-shirt, his dressing gown and slippers, and then he quietly departed the room and tiptoed down the hall and pushed opened the master bedroom door.

Linda was sound asleep. Thank heaven for that. He considered climbing into bed with her right away, and then remembered his tumble in the sheets. He headed for the bathroom, and got under the showerhead. So, I had sex and then slept for a few hours. So sue me! Paul said to fate. A man had basic needs, after all. He knew he could feel this way because Linda had slept through the whole thing, and he also knew that he would never have forgiven himself if she had awakened to find herself alone. 

 

*****

 

John had awakened three hours later, and it took a while for the night’s activities to run through his mind, just as it had for Paul. He felt the blank space on the mattress next to him and sighed heavily. Paul had already gone back to Linda. This set loose a very dishonorable thought in John’s mind: if Paul had to choose between them, for one of them to die and one of them to live, which one would Paul choose? He smacked himself on the forehead with his palm, ashamed of the thought. It wasn’t fair to Paul, or to Linda, or even to himself. And Paul wouldn’t make the choice; the choice would be made by blind fate.

John groaned as he sat up. Getting older sucks. He felt around on the bedside table until he found his glasses, and adjusted them on his nose. He then looked around on the floor until he spied his dressing gown. He stood up slowly, and bent down to pick up his robe. He headed for the en suite, and began to prepare for another day in his role of Saint John. He wondered how long he could keep it up. 

 

*****

 

Linda awoke, and felt Paul’s arm around her. She had grown used to waking up now, knowing that she had cancer. It didn’t pierce her soul the way it did the first month or so. She supposed that a person could get used to just about anything over time. She felt comforted, knowing that Paul was with her. Whenever he left, even for a short while, she began to suffer from panic attacks. What was she afraid of? That he would stop loving her? How could he love her, when she was overweight, with a hole in her breast, losing her hair, smelling like lethal chemicals, and weeping all the time? But still, here he was with her, holding her in his arms, and always being near. She turned on to her back, and caressed the arm that was across her stomach. 

“Hey, baby,” Paul whispered in Linda’s ear. “Did you sleep well?” Paul hadn’t slept since he had crept back in bed. He had held Linda, and closed his eyes, but he hadn’t fallen asleep again. But Linda had slept like a log, and for this he was grateful. 

“I slept all night through,” Linda said, as if she were voicing a miracle. “I don’t think I woke up at all.” 

Paul gave her a squeeze and said, “Sleep is the best medicine.”

“How ‘bout you? Did you sleep?” Linda had noticed that Paul hadn’t slept much, and he had dark circles under his eyes. 

“Not to worry,” he said with a wink. “I caught a few hours’ worth.”

 

*****

 

Mid-July 1996

 

The last chemo session had finished a week earlier, and Linda had recovered from the nausea. Feeling as though she wanted to celebrate, Linda had planned for her family to spend the rest of the summer on Long Island, at their modest (but pricey) vacation home in Amagansett. Her siblings all had homes nearby - within 20 minutes’ driving distance - and she wanted sunshine, and family, and outdoor BBQs (meatless of course), and ocean spray, and sand in between the toes, and the smell of sun block lotion, and colorful beach towels, and sailboats. All of these things felt like the opposite of what she’d been living with for the past 7 months, and therefore were much to be desired. Linda was a lot stronger now, and had recently only been felled for 2 or 3 days after each chemo session. The rest of each week she almost felt like her old self. She had cut her hair very short in March, and then her hair had all fallen out by April, but Stella had hand made a selection of stylish headwear for her, and this had made the whole bald thing a tiny bit more bearable. 

Because Linda was much stronger, John had felt his role as center of the family ebb away. He had only ever been a substitute, and in truth - who could replace Linda? She had that whole ‘earth mother’ thing down to both an art and a science, and her children and husband adored her in that role. Consequently, John had decided that while the McCartneys were holidaying on Long Island, he would repair to his apartment in the City, and see some plays, go to indie films with friends, visit art galleries, and attend poetry readings. 

Speaking of which. His agent, Bill Segal, had contacted him in London shortly before everyone in the Cavendish household was scheduled to head for New York. Segal had told John that he’d received offers to book John for poetry readings in a series of American universities, for their graduate poetry departments. Was John interested? 

John was interested, but he was also worried. He mentioned this opportunity to Paul, and asked for his input.

“It sounds fantastic, John! It sounds like something you’d really love to do. All those young poets - I think you should definitely do it.”

John was pleased that Paul was so excited for him. But it had to be said. “Bill is talking about a four or five week commitment. I’d be away from you and the family for much of that time.” 

Paul of course did not want to be separated from John, but he had no intention of standing in John’s way. “You’ve been so incredible since Linda got sick, John. None of us could have made it without you; or, if we did, it would have been much harsher for us all. You deserve a break. Linda’s done with her chemo, she’s getting tested before we leave, and we feel that she’s getting better. You need to do this for yourself.”

John, too, had noticed that Linda seemed very much herself lately, and that she was showing her old sense of humor, relaxed attitude about life, and strong home work ethic. If it were true that the chemo had worked, there would be no reason for him to forego this opportunity to interact with young poetry students. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do it. He had called Bill back and told him ‘yes’, and Bill told him to consider all of October and November booked as he wasn’t sure yet what universities would want which days. 

With this understanding, the McCartneys and John had all gotten on a private plane and flown to New York. Paul, Linda and brood had driven off to Long Island in a huge rented SUV, and John had taken a limo ride into the City. He knew that Jason and Gerry were at their Long Island home, but he had agreed with them to visit their home the following week. This first week he wanted to get back into the rhythm of New York City. 

 

*****

 

A few days after their arrival in Amagansett, Linda’s brother and sisters and their families were coming over for a party. Paul was going to be manning the grill, turning out eggplant, peppers, corn on the cob, asparagus, mushroom/ potato / tomato/ olive kabobs, and artichokes. Linda had made three refreshing salads, and along with her daughters they had made frozen popsicles from fresh fruit juices they had squeezed and pureed themselves. There was also, of course, the de rigueur huge mound of cut watermelon, although Linda’s version was sprinkled with minced mint leaves, lime juice, and fresh blueberries. 

The party was scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m., and Linda and her daughters were excited and busy putting the party together. Paul, however, had ridden his bike to the beach, and had taken a long, sad walk. He had received a phone call that morning from Linda’s London doctor, who had told him that according to the tests, the cancer cells were detected in her blood now, and she would need a second round of chemo starting as soon as possible. Paul had bargained for as much time as the doctor had thought advisable, and agreed that he would bring Linda back to start a new regime in two weeks’ time. As he walked, he felt the rage building inside him again, and he knew he had to get it out of his system before he approached Linda with this terrible news. But how? She was so strong and sure right now, riding high, thinking she was finally finished with the hated chemo. Paul wished John were there to advise him. John would know the right thing to say - he’d been through it himself. But no, he couldn’t bother John. John needed a break from all this horribleness. He was probably off doing something fun with Jason and Gerry or some other friend, and finally getting to relax after 7 months of unrelenting stress and pressure. Ultimately, Paul knew he had to handle this problem himself, since there was no one else better equipped to do so. He would not spoil Linda’s party, but he would break the news to her the next day. He thought about waiting a bit longer to tell her, but then knew that it wasn’t fair to keep Linda in the dark about her own health. After he had sorted this out, he walked back to where he had left his bike, unlocked the front wheel, and then rode back to the house.

It was around 7 p.m. when John Eastman plopped himself down next to Paul on one of the deck chairs and leaned in to ask an intimate question. “How’s Linda doing?” He asked.

Paul heard the question, and felt torn about answering. He had to keep the secret until Linda knew, and so he said, “We’re waiting for the test results after the last chemo session.”

“That’s got to be stressful for you all,” Linda’s brother said.

Paul sighed deeply. “It’s been a long road through a dark wood, and we still have a ways to go until we’re out free into the meadow.” 

John Eastman smiled. He loved artists. Sometimes Paul even talked like a lyricist. It was in his DNA, probably. “You both seem very strong and positive,” he said approvingly.

“Oh, we’ve been every which way,” Paul responded honestly. “Sometimes I’m weak, and Linda’s strong. And sometimes I’m strong, and Linda’s weak. And sometimes we’re both weak, and John is strong. We’ve been all over the map with our emotions for the last several months.”

“How is John?”

“He’s good. He’s visiting his friends in the City. You know, he was asked to do a reading tour of some colleges - of his poetry,” Paul offered enthusiastically, happy for a reason to change the subject.

“Really?” John Eastman was a little jealous to hear that. He had been hurt that Lennon had turned to a stranger for representation, but he wouldn’t dare say so. After all, he was a literary agent, too. “That’s great. He’ll enjoy that.”

Paul laughed, in spite of the blues pulling his spirit down. “You know John, though. He’ll find a way to make it unnecessarily stressful and complicated.” 

John Eastman laughed in recognition. But then he said, “Still, kudos to him for spreading his wings and going out there on his own.”

Paul nodded, but not so enthusiastically now. He was still somewhat insecure about John’s newfound independence and strength. He’d be a poor friend indeed if he resented John’s growth, and of course he was the main beneficiary of it, but he was only human and a small part of him mourned the loss of his role as the sole strong, ‘together’ one in their relationship. Well, he’d just have to suck it up and deal again. It seemed like he was doing a whole hell of a lot of that these days...

 

*****

 

The next morning, the sun shone brightly. It was 8 a.m. and Linda was seated on the deck, enjoying the sun and cool morning breeze. She just wanted to sit there and take in the greens of the trees and the garden around her, and the warmth of the sun on her face. She had to cover up and avoid the sun once it got to be about 10 a.m., so she took her sunning early in the morning. Since she’d recovered from her surgeries, she hadn’t wanted to sleep late in the mornings anymore. She wanted to be awake, and feeling all of her fingers and toes, and interacting with life. Lying in bed seemed like a huge waste of precious time. She was so grateful the chemo was over, because now she could regain her strength. She would get a healthy color back in her skin, and her hair would grow back, and she would exercise and lose some of this weight that she had gained... It was all going to be so glorious. 

Paul had awakened with a heavy heart. He knew what he had to do, and he hated that he had to do it. Linda had sat in on those meetings with the doctors after her last chemo session just as he had, and he at least had come away understanding that it was unusual to kick a cancer this advanced in one round of chemo. He would have to remind her of this fact so that she wouldn’t immediately return to the desperate, clingy, tearful woman he had nurtured for the first few months after the diagnosis and surgery. He sat up on the edge of the bed, and looked out the French doors that led out to the deck. He saw Linda seated there, her head leaning against the chair back, worshipping the sun. Oh, fuck, he said to himself. I can’t tell her now. Look at how happy and relaxed she is! Maybe I should wait until later...

He stood up, and dragged himself to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out on to the deck wearing some casual shorts and a t-shirt, and carrying two cups of steaming coffee. “Hey baby,” he said softly, and was rewarded with one of Linda’s beatific smiles. He captured that smile in his memory, as if he were clicking the button of a camera. How many more of those smiles will I receive? Each one from now on will be precious beyond words! He sat down next to her and handed her a cup, and banished the ghoulish thought from his head.

“Thanks!” She said gratefully, as she held the cup in her two hands and savored the earthy smell of the coffee bean wafting upwards from the cup. 

“That was a great party last night,” Paul said, putting his feet up on a footstool. “You outdid yourself.”

Linda laughed gaily. Paul had not heard that laugh - that light, carefree laugh - in ... how long? Almost a year... 

She said, “You did all the actual cooking, love.”

“I only followed your precise directions - as assiduously as possible, I might add,” Paul remonstrated. 

“It was good to have my family around me. I really feel positive. I feel like this is a new beginning.” Linda’s face was beaming as she said this. She lifted her arms up to the sun in a kind of supplication, and then folded them behind her neck. All the while, her face was wreathed in smiles. She was feeling what a lot of people felt when they thought they had cheated death: like a soul reborn. 

Paul swore to himself under his breath. What should he do? Should he tell her now and destroy her happiness and optimism? Or should he tell her later, and make a mockery of it? He decided that absolute truth was the only option to take when dealing with someone he truly loved more than life itself. Anything less than absolute truth would demean their love somehow. It was a slippery slope; if he lied to her now (and not telling her what he knew was a lie by omission) would she ever trust him again? He took a bracing sip of coffee, and cleared his throat. 

“I had a call yesterday morning from your doctor,” he said, in as light and as businesslike a way as he could.

Linda froze. Her face literally froze. She turned to him, her eyes deep blazing holes of anxiety. Paul grabbed her hand in a reflexive reaction. 

“It’s what we worried about,” Paul said, ascribing his own interpretation of the doctor’s words to both of them in an attempt to make it easier for Linda to hear the news. “You will need a second round of chemo.” There. He had said it. Linda was squeezing his hand so hard his knuckles were white.

“What do you mean’?” She asked.

“What the doctor said at the last session, remember?” Paul said, trying to remain positive. “He told us that it is rare that cancer already in the lymph nodes can be eradicated by one course of chemo. He warned us to hope for the best, but expect that we would have to go through it a second time.”

Linda’s face collapsed. Immediately tears were rolling down her cheeks. The sobs were not far behind. Paul got up and kneeled before her, holding her as she cried. 

“This is just part of the process,” he whispered in her ear. “We’re in this for the long haul, remember? And we’ll go through this second course and if we have to go through a third course we’ll go through a third course. It’s a process,” he reiterated, “and with each step we take we are dealing the cancer another blow.” 

Linda cried hard for a good 10 minutes, and then slowly her sobs reduced to sniffles, and then to a strained silence. Paul whispered, “You don’t have to start for 2 more weeks. I’ve got it all planned out; your doctor has arranged for the treatment to happen at Sloan Kettering in the City. You’ll be in and out in a few hours, and we’ll come back here before the day is over. We’ll do that once a week, but for the rest of the summer you will have your vacation, just as you planned.” 

 

*****

 

One Week Later  
Late July 1996

 

The limo driver pulled up to Jason and Gerry’s vacation home in Long Island, and John pulled himself wearily out of the car. He had intended to spend a week in the City partying and reinvigorating himself, but had slept most of the time. He didn’t realize how exhausted he had been due to his constant vigilance over Paul’s wellbeing, and that of Paul’s family, for so many months. He had just barely managed to take a walk each day in Central Park. He felt accomplished if he had managed that. He also missed Paul dreadfully, and was worried (from a distance) about how Linda was doing, and how Paul was handling it. He had called Paul only once (he didn’t want to bother him) and Paul had seemed cheerful enough. There was something guarded in his tone, though, and it had worried John later after he had time to think about it. He knew he was going to give Paul a call soon and insist on a long, frank talk. In any case, he was less than a 40-minute drive away from Paul’s home, so if need be he’d have himself driven there, and confront Paul face to face. In the meantime, he was at Jason and Gerry’s door!

“John!” Jason’s voice was a clarion call from the front porch. “Get over here right now!” He demanded.

John laughed deep in his throat. Jason was a sight for sore eyes, and he moved quickly into that warm embrace. Jason felt almost like a ... motherly figure... to John. Jason’s love was so uncomplicated, nonjudgmental, and nurturing. Almost as soon as Jason’s arms were around him, John felt himself tearing up. He couldn’t help it. Months of holding in his own fears and desires and needs and sadness seemed to be forcing themselves out, but were bottlenecked in his throat.

Jason heard the choking noise and held John more tightly. “Oh, John, what’s wrong? Come inside!” John, released from Jason’s grasp, looked back at his luggage. Jason said, “Don’t worry about that. Gerry will get that in a moment. Come in, tell me what’s wrong right now!” 

John had been a faithful friend to Paul and Linda. He had not told a soul about her cancer treatment, and had been utterly discreet when people questioned him about it. But this was Jason. Jason was the closest thing he had (other than Paul) to a mother/brother and at that moment he could no longer withhold all these hard feelings. Still, John needed to be seated, plied with a cocktail, and solicitously nurtured before he could speak. Jason and Gerry and he were all seated on the back deck in the early evening air, drinking their cocktails and enjoying the balmy ocean breeze. 

“We heard about Linda in the news,” Jason started, figuring John’s distress must be related to that news in some way. 

Gerry said softly, “Jason, maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

John finally relieved himself of a huge sigh and said, “No, I need to talk about it. But this is top secret stuff, right?”

Jason and Gerry both nodded in understanding. John could trust them because nothing had ever spilled from their lips, accidentally or otherwise, in all of the years he had known them - 18 years now!

“It’s been rough,” John admitted. “Linda’s cancer was caught late, and it was already in the lymph nodes.”

Jason gasped. He and Gerry had many friends who had suffered from either cancer or AIDS, and they knew that the lymph nodes were like the evildoers when it came to the dispersal of disease throughout the body. 

John acknowledged the gasp and said, “Yeah, I know. But unlike me, her lymph nodes were loaded with cancer cells. Lots of ‘em. She’s had chemo for six months, and now they’re waiting for the test results, but I have a bad feeling lately...” 

“Oh?” Jason asked softly.

“Paul hasn’t called me to tell me the results. I’m thinking if the news was good, he would have told me.” 

Jason thought about that for a moment. “But wouldn’t he tell you if the news was bad, too? Maybe he doesn’t know yet.”

“No, he wouldn’t tell me if the news is bad. He’s thinking he’s protecting me, letting me have some time without worry. I know how he thinks, you see...” John’s hand cupped his forehead, and his expression was miserable. 

“Why don’t you call him and ask him flat out?” Gerry asked reasonably, always the logical one.

John smiled. “I plan to - tomorrow. I’m too emotional tonight. I have to pick the right time.”

“I love Linda so much,” Jason said mournfully. “I hate to think of her going through this. Do you think she would let me visit her while she’s in Long Island?”

John remembered how secretive Linda had been, and unwilling to see her friends. He didn’t want to disappoint Jason, but didn’t feel he could invade Linda’s privacy in that way. “I will ask Paul about that. She’s been very self-conscious about her hair...She’s lost it all, you see.”

“Like I give two hoots about that,” Jason said dismissively. “The person inside is the person I love. I don’t care about the outside at all.”

John smiled at him. “I know that, Jason. You’re a sweet person. But let me ask Paul. This is a difficult time.”

Jason said, “Of course. I understand. And she surely has so many other closer friends she’d want to see before me...”

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

Linda had rallied a little from her huge disappointment over the chemo results. She was showing a strong and cheerful face to her children. But Paul noticed the difference. That youthful joy had left her face - the expression he had witnessed before he had dashed her hopes. All he could do was go along with Linda’s ‘act’ - the ‘act’ that she was fine, and all was well. She hadn’t told her children about the second round of chemo, and Paul decided that he would let her do that in her own time, just so long as she told them before they had to go in to the City for the first treatment. 

Paul was rinsing the lunch dishes in the kitchen when the phone rang. He answered it.

“Hey, baby, it’s me John.”

Paul chuckled. “I hope it’s you, John, because I don’t want some other man calling me ‘baby’,” he joked.

“You don’t want another man calling you that? I’ll kill any other man who calls you that!” John declared jocularly, making Paul laugh. “I’m at Jason and Gerry’s for the week - you remember their house?”

Paul indeed remembered the lusty weekend they had spent at Jason and Gerry’s house.

“If nothing else,” John continued, “you’ll remember what the guest bedroom looks like...”

This drew a genuine laugh out of Paul. “Well, the ceiling of the guest bedroom at least. I’m amazed Jason and Gerry have forgiven us for that weekend...”

“They told me it spiced up their own love life, so don’t feel guilty,” John responded in a teasing voice. A few moments ticked by, and then John’s tone changed slightly. “How are you doin’ babe?”

“I’m okay,” Paul said stoically.

“No, I mean really,” John insisted. “The test results weren’t good, were they,” he added. Might as well cut to the chase. 

Paul was silent for a few moments. John knew him too well. “No, not so great,” he admitted.

“Tell me.” 

“They found cancer cells in her blood now.” 

The painful silence went on for a good 10 seconds. John finally recovered. “Oh, no.”

“She has to start another round of chemo.”

“When?” John asked, his heart in his throat.

“Next week, and once a week thereafter. We’ve arranged for it to happen at Sloan Kettering, so we don’t have to cut short the holiday.” Paul’s voice sounded deflated. 

“How’s Linda handling the news?” John asked the really hard question.

Paul’s silence was attributed to the mental gymnastics he had to go through not to collapse in a heap of sobs at this simple question. Oh, how he wanted to be held in someone’s arms - someone stronger than him - so he could cry his fucking heart out. Right now the only person stronger than him was John, and he was miles away. He refused to spoil John’s holiday. He pulled himself together and finally was able to respond, “She’s a strong girl. She’s not happy about it, of course not, but she’s ready to take on round two.”

There was something off about Paul’s voice. It sounded a little forced. John said, “Do you want me to come stay with you?”

Paul said reflexively, “No! No, not necessary. If I need you I’ll give you a call. You should enjoy your time with Jason and Gerry. Give them my love.” 

John hung up and wandered back out to the deck, where Gerry and Jason were sunbathing. John himself sat under an umbrella, mostly covered, and slathered with sunblock. If his own experience with skin cancer wasn’t enough to make him eschew the sun, certainly watching Linda go through chemo was enough! He sat there silently for several minutes until Jason sat up.

“So?” Jason asked, no longer able to wait.

“It’s bad,” John said softly. “It’s really bad.” He started to sob, and he couldn’t control it. Jason was across the deck, and had his arms around John in two seconds flat. Gerry had gotten up and gone to pour out three jiggers of whiskey: nature’s medicine for a bad shock. The tumbler sat ignored for 15 minutes while John spilled out all the tension, all the stress, all the pain, and all the worry he had carried within him for all these months. When the torrent was over, he slowly lifted his head. His tears-ravaged face was a testimony to his grief. Jason gently wiped the wetness off of John’s cheeks. He then picked up the tumbler of whiskey and handed it to John.

“Take a sip,” Jason whispered. “It will help.”

John did as he was instructed, but the liquor went down his throat hard. He coughed a little. But now his throat was primed, and he took another sip, and this one was much smoother. Jason and Gerry had pulled deck chairs up so that they were both facing him, and were only inches away. John said, “The cells are in her blood now, and she has to do another round of chemo. But once the cells are in the blood...”

“Oh, no!” Jason groaned. “No!” 

“Poor Paul. I know he knows what that means, but I think he’s kidding himself. And who could blame him?” John’s voice cracked on the last phrase, and he choked up again for a few moments. “It’s only a matter of time now, and how much they’ll torture her in the meantime.”

 

*****

 

One Week Later

 

Linda faced the chemo session with as much courage as she could muster. She was still reliving in her mind the conversation she had had with her family the night before, as they all sat on the master bed. Paul to her left, as usual, and the kids all arrayed around the foot of the bed. She had told them she had to go through another round of chemo, and they had all been extremely distressed. She and Paul had laid on all the bromides they could think of, and Paul had repeated the calming, comforting words about each treatment being another hard blow to the cancer. Whether the children were buying it or not, neither of their parents knew. On the surface, with the exception of Heather, they seemed to be hanging in there. 

Paul had been so worried about Heather that he had broken down and called John, and asked him if he could come and spend the day with the kids while he and Linda went in to the City. John agreed immediately, grateful that Paul had reached out to him, and said he would bring Jason and Gerry along too. Paul thought that was a brilliant idea. Gerry had a soothing, grown-up quality, and Jason could brighten up any room with his banter and his obvious affection for everyone. 

Paul and Linda were a little disoriented upon entering the Sloan Kettering campus, because they had gotten used to the routine at their London hospital. Again, they wore their simple disguises, and again they were ushered into a private room. The head of oncology actually came down to meet them, as the technician was preparing to start the session. He walked them through the process, and assured them that he had read all of Linda’s medical records and spoken at length with her doctors. After he left, the technician attached the chemo line to Linda’s port.

As had been his habit in previous sessions, Paul grabbed Linda’s hand and began to speak in a low, sensual voice. “We’re back on the beach in Italy. We’ve had our fresh orange juice, and we’re holding hands as we approach the bright green water...” Paul and Linda had studied up on relaxation techniques over the past several months, and their visualization of times and places where they’d been so happy had greatly helped Linda to be peaceful and accepting as she received the poison into her system.

The session finally ended, and Paul wheeled Linda out of the room, down a corridor, and out to where the limo awaited them. Soon they were on the freeway back to Long Island. It was rush hour traffic, so it was going to be a long slow trip, but Linda lay on the seat, with her head in Paul’s lap, and managed to sleep part of the way. She knew that the nausea would hit her later that night - in fact, probably in the middle of the night - so she grabbed some sleep while she could. 

 

*****

 

That night, after Linda was tucked up in bed and fast asleep, Paul went to find John, Jason, Gerry, Heather, Mary and Stella all seated around the sitting room drinking and talking. They had moved in from the deck so as not to disturb Linda. Paul noted that Heather was seated as close to John as she could, and not saying much, and that James wasn’t there. He asked and was told that James was out with his cousins. 

“How’d it go?” Stella asked as soon as Paul came in the room. None of the others had raised the subject of the chemo session when Paul and Linda had gotten home, and Linda had only briefly acknowledged everyone’s greetings before stealing away to her bed. There, Paul had lain with her until she had fallen asleep. 

“She tolerated it well,” Paul sighed. He felt utterly gutted. “She’s sleeping now. She’ll wake up in a few hours feeling nauseous, but for now she’s doing okay.” 

Jason noticed straight away that Paul looked terrible. He had huge dark circles under his eyes, his skin was sallow even though he’d been in the summer sun for a month now, and he had lost a lot of weight. His clothes just hung off of him. In contrast to his usual high-energy presentation, he looked as though he had been sucked dry of every ounce of energy in his body. Jason turned to share a worried glance with Gerry, who returned an equally worried glance. 

Jason stood up and moved towards Paul with his arms outstretched. “Let me give you a hug,” he said simply. Paul allowed himself to be ferociously hugged. “You’re skin and bones!” Jason declared in outrage. “You’re not eating enough!”

Paul laughed, and extracted himself from Jason’s clinging arms. “I’ll survive,” he said. “I could stand to lose a few pounds.”

“No, Daddy, you can’t,” Stella declared. “Jason’s right! You need to eat more.” 

Paul smiled at his daughter. “Note taken,” was all he said, but John, distressed beyond words to see how bad Paul looked, was not assuaged by the comment. He wasn’t going to bring it up in front of everyone, but he was going to send Jason and Gerry home and he intended to stay with Paul that night. Wild horses wouldn’t drag him away, and neither could bloodthirsty pit bulls. Paul would just have to accept the fact that he was going to be there for him, and that he - John - didn’t need to be protected from the terrible truth.


	99. Chapter 99

Later That Night

 

Jason and Gerry understood why John had to stay with Paul. It was clear that Paul’s appearance had shocked John. They’d only been apart for three weeks, and it appeared as though Paul’s condition had deteriorated significantly in that short period. They hugged everyone goodbye, and Gerry drove the car as they headed back to their vacation home.

Paul had been upset that John had insisted on staying, but he hadn’t wanted to make a scene in front of his children and Jason and Gerry, so he had quelled his protests when it became clear to him that John’s intentions were set in cement. John’s mouth was a thin, stubborn line, and his eyes sparked with the obvious declaration: I am staying and that is all there is to it! Paul wanted to protect John from at least some of the drudgery of Linda’s illness, but it was clear that John wasn’t interested in his protection.

After Gerry and Jason had left, John grabbed Paul by his right wrist, and dragged him down a hallway to a spare bedroom. The house had a ranch layout, all on one rambling level. He closed the door firmly behind them, and then pulled Paul into an embrace. As he held Paul he said in Paul’s ear, “You look terrible. Much worse than when we last saw each other.”

Despite everything, Paul felt so incredibly relieved to be engulfed in John’s strong embrace. As a result, he found himself telling the truth. “When we last saw each other, I thought it might be over. Now I know it is only the beginning of the end.” With that his whole body began to shudder. 

“Shhhhh...” John whispered. “You don’t know that. I had two courses of chemo too, remember? And I’m here, aren’t I?”

“But you didn’t have cells in your blood, John,” Paul whispered back.

“Don’t give up, Paul. It’s too early to panic, right?” John pleaded. 

“It’s so fucking hard...” Paul responded. 

John grasped him tighter. “Why didn’t you call me? I should have been with both of you while this was going down!” He said sharply.

“I just wanted you to have a few weeks of relief, without having to worry...” Paul said.

John pushed Paul away, but held on to his shoulders with his two hands. “I was worried anyway. Did you think I wouldn’t worry? Really?”

Paul sighed. He supposed that he had thought that John would have been happy to have some time for himself. “I’m sorry John,” he finally said. “I just felt bad that you had to go through all of that with us.”

“You and Linda are my family, Paul,” John protested. “If you’re in the fucking soup, then I’m in the fucking soup. No way to avoid it.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Paul admitted. “It’s been so hard.” 

“Let’s go to bed,” John said. “Right here. You need to sleep.”

“But Linda...”

“Is sound asleep. I’ll have one of the girls get in bed with her, in case she wakes up. How about that?”

Paul was a little embarrassed. His daughter would know that she was in bed with her mother because her father was in bed with John. But he really didn’t have the mortal fortitude to say ‘no’ to John just then. He was so utterly exhausted. The idea of someone else taking care of things for a while was utterly seductive. 

 

*****

 

Knowing that Paul was embarrassed about the whole situation, John decided to approach the most mature of the McCartney children, Mary, to explain the situation. Unfortunately, he found her curled up on the sitting room sofa with Stella. Stella was a firebrand, and might ask impertinent questions. John was nothing if not fearless about pissing people off, so he shrugged and decided to broach the subject anyway.

“Look, I have to ask you a favor,” John said, plopping down in a chair and facing the two young women. 

“Of course,” Mary said sweetly. Stella, on the other hand, had a skeptical expression on her face.

“Your father. He is making himself sick. He needs a few nights a week where he can actually take a sleeping pill and sleep. He won’t do that because he is afraid your mother will wake up and need him. I think you should consider sleeping with her a few nights a week to give him a real break. He’s gonna break, I swear. No one can go for long without sleep.”

John was surprised by who responded first.

“That’s a brilliant idea,” Stella said staunchly. “Mary and I can switch off, and each do it at least once per week. I want to do that anyway, because I love my mum so much, and I want to be with her as she goes through this.” 

Mary said, “Me, too. John, that’s a great idea. But will Daddy go along with it? He’s been quite insistent that he has to be there himself.”

John nodded in sympathetic agreement. “I know,” he commiserated, “but I read him the riot act. I’ve told him tonight, at least, he is sleeping in the guest bedroom, and one of you is going to take care of your mother. He isn’t exactly over the moon about it, but he is exhausted, and he hasn’t got much fight in him right now.” 

The plan in place, John went off to break the news to Paul. 

He was thwarted in having the conversation, because when he reached the guest bedroom, he found Paul, fully dressed and lying on his back with his legs over the side of the bed, sound asleep. It was obvious to John that as soon as he had left the room to talk to the girls, Paul had just fallen back against the mattress and had immediately fallen asleep. John smiled in spite of his concern. He knew he wasn’t going to get any push back from Paul tonight. He’d worry about the future later. 

John bent over and, lifting first one of Paul’s legs and then the other, removed Paul’s shoes and socks. Paul didn’t so much as stir in reaction, so John unzipped Paul’s jeans and pulled them off. He then unbuttoned Paul’s shirt, and struggled to remove it. It was like undressing a dead body. Not wanting to push his luck, he then dragged Paul towards the head of the bed, and lifted his legs up on the mattress, and then tucked him in. Paul relieved himself of a huge sigh, and turned over on his side and fell back into a deep sleep. John quietly prepared for bed, and climbed in. He wished he had a book to read, but when he’d left that morning he hadn’t expected to be staying with Paul. He had thought he was going back with Jason and Gerry. He also had no clothes to wear the next day, but figured he’d find something from Paul’s closet to wear until Jason sent him his own suitcase the next day. He turned off the bedside lamp, and stared at the ceiling for several long moments. 

It was a quiet moment to think, so that is what John did. Linda was starting her second course of chemo, and the cancer cells were not only in her lymph nodes but also in her blood. The question was not if it would crop up somewhere in her body; the only questions left were when and where. John’s cancer had never been as advanced as Linda’s, and it had been caught very early. But now John had started to believe that Linda’s days were numbered. Of course, the theoretical truth was that tomorrow he could drop dead from a heart attack or get hit by a bus, and so no one was guaranteed tomorrow. But it was just harder for a person when she knew it is coming, and could do nothing but try to delay the inevitable. And what about her quality of life? Would she be miserable for the rest of her days? John’s heart was full of sympathy for Linda.

But there was another, less honorable, thought bubble in John’s mind. It kept popping up at odd quiet moments, like this one. It was the thought thread that imagined what life would be like if Linda died. What would happen in the family? How would Paul react? Would Paul finally agree to live with him openly? Or would Linda’s death fill Paul with so much guilt that it would drive a wedge between them? Would the kids resent him for being alive, while their mother was dead? Of course in his fantasies, John would imagine that Paul would want to live with him, and that all the kids would be accepting and becalmed by this, and that they would all stand together staunchly in support of each other and give the finger to the nosy, judgmental world. But in reality...what would really happen if the delicate balance in this triangle relationship were so dramatically shifted? They were thoughts such as these that kept John awake for the better part of an hour before he finally drifted into an uneasy sleep. 

 

*****

 

A Week Later

 

“I don’t think I should leave, Paul. I think you need me here.” John was protesting Paul’s insistence that he, John, go back to spend more time with Jason and Gerry for the last few weeks before they all planned to return to London. 

“You’ve got me properly trained,” Paul said patiently. “Mary covers Monday nights, Stella covers Wednesday nights, Heather covers Friday nights, and James takes naps with her several times a week. So I am getting plenty of sleep now.” Paul’s voice, stronger and more assertive than it had sounded in some time, was firm. 

“But you’re sleeping with me on those nights. It won’t be the same when you’re alone. It will be harder for you that way! I’m convinced that the minute I leave it’ll all go wrong,” John said plaintively.

“John, I need you to have some time to yourself with people you love, where there isn’t the heavy gloom of cancer hanging over your head.” Paul was using every persuasive trick in his bag full of charms. “We’ll be back in London in two weeks, so this is your chance for a real break.”

“What about you, then? When do you get a break?” John finally flatly voiced the question he had wanted to ask for some time.

Paul didn’t even have to reflect on his answer. It came immediately. “There is not and can never be a break for me, John, so long as Linda is sick. I am bound to Linda, and whatever fate befalls her befalls me. I felt the same way about you, when you were sick.”

“It doesn’t seem fair for you,” John mused, “never to get a break from it.”

Paul smiled. “Yeah, well, it is fair in the long run, because I’m the lucky bloke who had both of you in my life for all this time. I didn’t have to choose one or the other - you were both generous to me in that way. So this is the downside of having two life mates; I took the good, and I have to take the bad.”

John sighed. “You say that as if juggling both of us was a piece of cake, but we both know it hasn’t been. There have been so many times when Linda and I were each jealous and possessive and demanding everything from you when that just wasn’t possible.” 

Paul was not only surprised that John had noticed this phenomenon; he was also surprised that John had acknowledged it directly. “I guess the way I look at it is: twice the glory, twice the grief. You know, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any other way - except for the cancer. I would lose the cancer for both of you if I could do it over.”

John chuckled. “You really are a Gemini, aren’t you? They ought to put your photo next to the word in the dictionary.”

Paul’s smile was affectionate, while his voice was slightly chiding. “I don’t believe in stars, John. I only believe in people.”

 

*****

Ten Days Later

 

John was splayed out on the lounger by the pool, safely under an umbrella, and barely able to keep his eyes open. He was watching the shoreline just below the patio, as the waves came in and out. It was about 4:30 p.m., which was one of John’s favorite times of day. The heat of the afternoon had broken, but trailing edges of the warmth of it still periodically washed over him in the cooling breeze. He had fallen asleep for a sound 30 minutes, after having read exactly three paragraphs of Lenin’s Tomb, a book about the fall of the Soviet Union. That got him all the way to halfway through page 12. He’d been trying to read it now for over a week. Each time he sat down to read, he’d fall asleep within a page or two. The sound of the surf was like white noise, and it would lull him to dreamland. 

In this half-awake state, John blessed the peace and the quiet. In that lovely moment he was not needed by anyone. No life-affirming task was required of him. Jason was waiting on him hand and foot, and he asked for nothing in return. Paul had been right: he needed this time to refill his coffers of patience and empathy. John knew he had always been very low on both of those qualities (and clearly so did Paul, or he wouldn’t have insisted on this break for him). John was not a nurturer by nature; it was something he was learning little by little as life repeatedly threw emotional tests at him. He didn’t have Paul’s seemingly endless well of patience and empathy. Paul was born waiting politely for his turn, and worrying about others’ feelings. Paul was better suited to a life that increasingly looked like martyrdom. (At least it increasingly looked like that to John.) John was no martyr. There was a limit to how selfless he could be. The time apart with Jason and Gerry had been a good thing, just as Paul had said it would be. John had been surprised at how easily he had slipped back into allowing others to do for him; it was kind of scary, really. Would he be able to suck it all back up when he rejoined the McCartneys in London? He hoped so. He had felt wanted and needed by the whole family while he had been Linda’s substitute, and it had been a really good feeling. 

“I’m about to start dinner,” Jason said, from his seat on the chaise opposite John’s. 

John started a little. He hadn’t noticed Jason’s approach.  
“Don’t knock yourself out for me. I’m not terribly hungry,” John said lazily.

Jason smiled. John always said that, and then ate like food was going out of style whenever a plate was placed in front of him. He’d clearly gained a few pounds in the last week and a half, and Jason thought that was a good thing. John was really kind of a child. He needed looking after, or he might do stupid things like eat nothing for a few days and then binge on candy bars for days on end. “You haven’t called Paul in a few days,” Jason said softly. 

“So?” John asked truculently.

“I only mention it because it’s a good time to call - before dinner.” Jason was braving John’s stubborn face.

“I don’t see the point of it,” John grumbled childishly.

“Why’s that?” Jason asked.

“He acts as though everything’s fine. He’s fine...we’re all fine...the whole fucking world is fine. It’s fucking annoying. He isn’t being honest with me, and it pisses me off.” John didn’t realize how like a sullen adolescent he sounded.  
Jason said bracingly, “He’s only trying to protect you from guilt and pain. That’s what Paul has always done for you, John - he protects you. And don’t pretend you don’t like it.” 

John’s glare was outlasted by Jason’s half-amused, half-stubborn, half-smile back. John’s expression softened a little. “I know. But it bothers me that he won’t be weak around me. You’d think I was made out of the finest porcelain china the way he behaves.” 

Jason laughed heartily at John’s remark. “If he thinks that, he’s dead wrong. Your head is as hard as a rock!”

Maybe so, John thought to himself. But if so, it was a very friable rock.

Jason handed John his cellphone. “I’ll bring you an iced drink in a moment. But call Paul now.” Jason left.

 

*****

 

A few moments later John heard the phone ringing on the other end, and soon he heard Paul’s determinedly normal voice on the other end. Mr. I’m-in-charge-and-everything-is-fine.

“John! It’s great to hear your voice. It’s been a while.” Paul was just making the usual noises, but John took it the wrong way.

“You could’ve called me too, you know. It doesn’t always have to be me calling you,” he said shortly.

Paul was a bit taken aback. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure you’ve been busy, and so have I...”

“Well,” John said, still miffed, “I wasn’t going to call you now either, but Jason made me.”

The genuine smile that had graced Paul’s face at the sound of John’s voice faded almost immediately. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Have I done something wrong?” He asked doubtfully, thoroughly mystified. 

John - finally - felt deservedly bad. “No, mate, look, I’m sorry. Not in a great mood...” John struggled to explain himself. “I guess I only want to talk to you if we are going to have an honest conversation.”

“I haven’t said anything yet,” Paul pointed out in his own defense. 

“It’s that tone of voice - that ‘I’ve got it all together’ voice. It annoys me.”

Paul was slightly offended. He hadn’t been conscious of what his voice sounded like at all. If he had been speaking with a dishonest tone, it had been orchestrated entirely by his subconscious. He was getting that jumpy feeling again - the one he always got when John was in one of his irritable, never-to-be-pleased moods. Paul hated to feel jumpy. He found himself saying smartly, “I haven’t got it all together, John - of course I haven’t. I’m not sure how you want me to sound. Should I be sobbing on the phone? What would be less annoying for you?”

Oh good grief, John lectured himself. I’ve started a quarrel over nothing. Why do I do these stupid things? Out loud he said, “I’m just trying to tell you that it is okay for you to be weak around me. I won’t break and neither will you.” 

Paul was quiet on the other end for several seconds, and John began to wonder if he’d hung up. “Paul?” He asked.

“I’m here.” Suddenly a flash of mischief appeared in Paul’s eyes. “I’m just trying to figure out what being weak sounds like. I’ll be happy to replicate it, if you demonstrate.” 

John couldn’t help himself; he guffawed loudly. “You never take me seriously,” John whined.

“Oh - that’s what you want! Whining! I can do that!” Paul cleared his throat theatrically. “John,” he whined, “I’m so weak right now.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up Macca,” John chortled. “You made your fucking point. But when I was with you a few weeks ago, you told me it was all so hard. Why can’t you just be honest like that on the phone? You can do it in person, you ought to be able to do it over the phone.”

Paul said, “I don’t know why. I’ve just never been much of a phone person.” 

John decided to let him off the hook. “Yeah, that’s true. It isn’t your best métier. So, tell me - how are the chemo sessions going?” 

“She’s sick most of the time now. These are heavier doses than the first round. Before, she’d have 3 or 4 good days a week after a session. Now maybe 1 or 2.”

“God, that must be awful,” John said sympathetically. He was listening intently for any kind of ‘tell’ in Paul’s voice or word choices.

“They’re giving her steroids, too. They make her look very bloated, and it has devastated her. She doesn’t want anyone to see her, so getting her in and out of the clinic for her chemo sessions without the paps finding out has been so stressful. I’m so afraid one of them will pop out from nowhere and take a picture of her. She will just fall apart if that happens.” 

John felt stirrings of pity and rage fluttering in his throat. The pity was for Paul and Linda; the rage was for the paparazzi and the press. When a person has nothing else, how dare they compete so voraciously to strip her of her one remaining possession: her dignity! “They’re all a bunch of pigs,” he spat.

Paul couldn’t disagree. Although he was not the sort of person who enjoyed disparaging others, he found it very difficult to find a justification for the vulture-like conduct of the tabloid press. It was insulting and annoying at best, and soul-destroying and devastating at worst. There was no ‘up’ side to the tabloid press from Paul’s point of view. “I know they say it is ‘just their job’,” Paul said plaintively, “But I guess I don’t know how you go home and enjoy dinner with the family after you’ve figuratively raped a person.” 

“They’re all lowlifes who don’t have the ability or the willingness to do something productive with their lives,” John grumbled. “But don’t lets talk about them anymore. They don’t deserve this much of our attention.”

Paul laughed. “I wish I’d said that,” he responded. An awkward pause followed. “Well, I do miss you...” he confessed.

John was happy to hear it. “You’re the one who sent me away, Pud.”

“Are you having a relaxing time with Jason and Gerry though?” Paul asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“Yes. I’ve done almost nothing but sleep.” John paused for a bit and then chose to speak his heart. His voice lowered to a seductive undertone. “So many times a day I’ve wished you were here with me.” 

Paul actually blushed with the intimacy of it. He said wistfully, “It seems ages ago that I could just lie by a pool and feel light inside. And I fear that I might never feel that way again.”

This comment struck John at that weak place inside him - the place where he harbored fears that Linda’s illness and possible death would ultimately deal a blow that would forever change their relationship. It was more for himself than Paul when he said “This will all be a distant memory some day. The darkness will pass.” John felt suddenly self-conscious about this sentimental remark. He quickly added, “At least, all the songs say so!” 

Paul chuckled. “Yeah, all those ‘grey and blue skies’ lyrics; can’t get enough of ‘em. But I am writing a song kind of like that - it’s called ‘Souvenir.’

“I’m glad you’re writing songs,” John said, although he felt a little insecure about it. John had not been writing songs, and there was always going to be that little part of John that was intensely competitive with Paul. He wondered if Paul felt the same way. It was one of those subjects they didn’t dare discuss ever since they’d begun their second partnership. The third rail: how do you fit two such enormous egos into one tiny little partnership? That had been their chicken or the egg problem from Day One. “I look forward to hearing it.” John hoped his voice sounded more sincere than he felt. 

Paul heard the uncertainty in John’s voice but thought John was just missing him. “It’s only four days now, John,” Paul said reassuringly. “You’ve got the information about the flight?”

“Yeah. Gerry wrote it all down. I’ll be there with bells on.” 

“Ok, then. I’ll say goodnight,” Paul said awkwardly.

“I’m sorry I gave you so much grief earlier, babe,” John said softly. “You know I love you despite it all, right?” 

“Right!” Paul said firmly. And then, more softly he added, “I love you too.”

 

*****

 

Six Weeks Later  
Mid-October 1996

 

Paul tapped the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair. His other hand grasped one of Linda’s tightly. They were waiting in yet another doctor’s office, to hear the results of yet more tests. Why he had any hope left, he didn’t know. Every single one of these meetings had resulted in bad news of one kind or another. He looked over to Linda, and she met his gaze. He tried to send her positive energy with his eyes. She smiled slightly as if in response. Finally, the door opened and Linda’s doctor and oncologist came in. They had very long faces.

This 10-month process had obviously been very hard on Paul and Linda, Dr. Freeman thought as he took a seat next to Linda. (The oncologist, Dr. Wright, sat behind the desk.) Linda was swollen from the steroids, and the drugs she had been given had increased - not decreased - her appetite, so she had gained a significant amount of weight. Remarkably, her arms and hands were still lovely and slender, the doctor noted. Meanwhile, Paul’s hair was almost completely grey now - different shades of grey - and he didn’t seem to care much about his appearance. The news Dr. Freeman had to deliver was not going to do anything to improve the situation. Of course, the ‘situation’ had always been what it was, but now how it was perceived was going to change irrevocably. He had worried about Linda’s ability to take it. He and the oncologist had worked out a strategy for that. 

The oncologist cleared his throat. “Linda, I’d like to take a few more tests - just some blood. Can I get you to step in to my examining room for a few minutes? We can also talk about your upcoming chemo session.” 

Linda turned to Paul, and he squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right here,” he assured her. She got up and, with the oncologist right behind, left the room. Dr. Freeman turned to Paul.

“That was a ruse I’m afraid,” Dr. Freeman said to Paul. “It’s hard to see you one-on-one, face-to-face because you and Linda are always together.” 

Paul was blinking while he watched Dr. Freeman. There was a blank expression on Paul’s face. He looked like a victim awaiting the deathblow.

“The news isn’t good, I’m afraid,” Dr. Freeman started.

“It never is,” Paul said glumly.

“Indeed.” Dr. Freeman paused and started again. “The tests we did last week have shown us that - in all likelihood - this cancer is too far advanced to be stopped.” 

Paul was silent as he tried to digest this information. Paul finally said defensively, “She hasn’t even finished her second round of chemo. She’s not even half done with it.” This was the bargaining stage of grief, a little voice in the back of his head told him.

“Dr. Wright and I feel that you should be prepared for what lies ahead.”

“What does that mean?” Paul asked, more hostility in his tone than he had intended. It was the fear speaking.

“We’re saying that the remaining treatments may prolong her life, but will most likely not stop the inevitable spread of the disease to other parts of her body.” 

Paul gulped. His eyes were like saucers. “You’re saying there’s nothing to be done?”

“We can do chemo rounds as long as Linda is willing to accept them. And there are a number of treatments and drugs available to prolong her life and to make her more comfortable, but our opinion is that they will not cure the cancer.” Dr. Freeman paused. “I wanted to tell you this news in person but alone. I wanted you to be able to decide how much we should tell Linda. We won’t tell her today if you don’t think it is wise, if you want to think about it for a while, or tell her yourself.” 

Paul’s throat and mouth were dry, but he managed to ask the question he had been afraid to ask for the past 10 months. “How long has she got?”

“We have learned to delay the process of the disease with various treatments and drugs, but we estimate - unless there is a very dramatic change in her future tests - that if we follow the regimens faithfully she will most likely have 18 more months to live; say give or take 15 to 21 months.”

“So there’s still a chance that she might respond to the treatments?” Paul asked. He had listened to everything the doctor had said, but was still clinging to the few small fragments of hope.

“There is always a chance that the course of the disease will turn around,” Dr. Freeman said with great delicacy. “But what I’m saying now is that we would normally have seen a positive reaction to the treatment by this point in the process, and in fact what we see is the opposite. Therefore, we don’t believe that the progress of the disease will be stopped completely. We believe it is a question of trying to delay the disease’s progress, and to give Linda a good quality of life for as long as possible.”

Paul was silent. He sat stone-like in the chair, his back ramrod straight, his fingers curved protectively into the palms of his hands, the expression on his face unreadable. Inside he was doing a kind of mental pre-flight checklist: 

ü heart - still beating   
ü ears - still hearing  
ü eyes - still seeing  
ü mind - still thinking

 

But what was he feeling? He wasn’t sure he felt anything at all except pure despair. He forced himself to take another breath, because he had been holding his breath involuntarily for several seconds now. He then forced himself to meet Dr. Freeman’s eyes.

Dr. Freeman said, “This is a lot to take in. I’m thinking you might want to have a private conversation with Dr. Wright and me before you decide what we tell Linda. Am I right about that?” He had reached for Paul’s wrist and was squeezing it. He noted that Paul’s heart rate was comfortingly slow. 

Paul nodded in response. He said, “I can meet with you later this evening if you have time. I can make an excuse to get away.” 

“I’ll have my scheduling nurse call you with the time,” Dr. Freeman said reassuringly. “She has your private number, correct?”

 

*****

 

Consequently, the doctors had told Linda that her cancer was ‘status quo,’ and she had gone home upset that the second round of chemo hadn’t started making a difference yet. She didn’t realize that the ‘status quo’ meant that the cancer was still on a destruction course throughout her body, and that it would most likely eventually end her life. Paul had been outwardly sympathetic to Linda’s reaction, but he also felt horribly guilty about what he knew, and what Linda didn’t know. If you’d asked him a year ago if he’d ever be afraid of Linda falling apart over something to the point where she could not go on, he would have laughed at the very idea. But he had seen what this disease had done to her spirit over the last 10 months, and he no longer was sure that Linda could take this news - that no matter what she did from here on out the strong likelihood was that she was going to die in about 18 months. If he told her that, would she stop trying? Would she refuse the treatments, and die even sooner? These ethical dilemmas seemed to be cropping up left and right as Paul navigated the dark waters reserved especially for the caregivers to terminally ill loved ones. 

So he had taken Linda to her favorite chips shop after the chemo session, as he always did - it was their private ritual, a treat after the medicine - and he had pretended to savor the chips after taking them to the privacy of the car, where he and Linda ate them as he drove her home. 

When they walked in the house, John came out of the sitting room to meet them in the foyer. He took one look at Paul’s face and froze. But he took his queue from Paul, who was sending off the clear signal - Don’t ask. I’ll tell you later! Instead, he helped Linda out of her coat and joked,

“Did you bring some chips for me, then?” 

Linda laughed and said, “Paul hasn’t finished his. If I were you I’d grab ‘em quick!” 

Paul held the chips out to John. The grease had bled through the newspaper, and they felt cold and limp in John’s hand. No doubt that is how Paul felt inside, John thought. He quietly went back to the kitchen, where he had started dinner, and threw the chips away in the bin. He was deeply worried. Paul had a look on his face that John had never seen, despite their 37 years of close friendship, and everything they had been through together in those years. John knew in the pit of his stomach that something very bad had happened during the appointment, and he also could tell that Linda didn’t know what it was.


	100. Chapter 100

Later That Day  
Mid-October

 

Paul’s cellphone started ringing. He had brought it with him everywhere that afternoon, not wanting to miss the call from the doctor’s scheduling nurse. John had noticed how Paul had been staring at his cell phone repeatedly. This was entirely out of character for Paul, who more often than not left his cellphone at home. Many a time John had called Paul only to hear - in frustration - the damn phone ringing somewhere else in the room. So John watched Paul like a hawk. He hadn’t had the chance to take him aside since he and Linda had returned from the clinic, and it almost felt as though Paul were avoiding the possibility of being left alone in a room with John. 

Paul got up and left the room as he answered the phone. John looked around and saw that Linda had not noticed Paul’s peculiar behavior. She was feeling sick after the chemo, and was curled up on the sofa with her eyes closed, trying to suppress her frequent desire to groan in misery. John took the opportunity to follow Paul. He found him standing out on the garden terrace, just at the end of the call. Paul looked up and met John’s eyes as he clicked the phone off. Paul saw the expression on John’s face -it was intense, cloudy, and not to be dismissed. 

“What?” Paul asked disingenuously, seeing John’s suspicious expression.

“So what’s going on,” John demanded, crossing his arms in front of him, and standing with his legs somewhat astride. It was a very challenging position. 

Paul moved towards the French door and John started to block him. Paul said, “I’m just making sure Linda isn’t near.”

“She’s resting on the sofa, feeling miserable,” John responded. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

Paul faced the living room, watching carefully for any sign of life approaching the door, and then started speaking.

“Her doctors say they want to ‘prepare me’ for what they apparently feel is inevitable.”

“Yes?” John asked, still in his confrontational posture, but softening a little.

“The chemo isn’t working. Well, it’s ‘working’ to the extent that it is delaying the ‘progress’, as they call it, of the cancer.” Paul’s voice reflected his disillusionment with medical science.

“So what’s next?” John asked.

“More chemo, more treatments, maybe some experimental trials, more drugs...I’m going to find out more this evening. That was the nurse calling. I have an appointment to meet them at their offices in an hour.”

“Linda doesn’t know how bad it is,” John said this, rather than asked it.

Paul looked to the side as he blinked away tears. His voice became small and perhaps even a little desperate. “She’s dying, little by little, and she doesn’t know it.”

John held his breath for a long moment. “How long?” He asked.

Paul was manfully fighting back tears. “Eighteen months.”

“’Eighteen months?’ That precise?” John didn’t know what else to say.

“Fifteen to twenty-one months, but probably eighteen.” Paul felt like a parrot repeating back what he’d been told. It wasn’t really meaning anything to him just then; the words were just sounds to be mimicked. 

John was speechless: a new phenomenon for him. He literally could not think of a single thing to say. It finally dawned on him that words were useless at a time like this. He stepped forward, and pulled Paul towards him, engulfing him in a huge embrace. 

Paul didn’t cry. He had to keep himself together in order to hear what the doctors had to say. He was going to be the living witness for Linda, and he was determined to do the best possible job of gathering all the facts, filtering out the bad options from the good, and providing her with advice she could rely on. He was going to have to wear his ‘big boy pants’ from now on. He finally pulled himself away from John, although his hands were still on John’s hips, and John’s hands were still on Paul’s shoulders.

“Will you keep Linda company while I go to the doctor?” Paul asked. “I’m going to tell her it’s a problem at work.” 

John had just been about to suggest he go with Paul. He didn’t like the idea of Paul going alone. “I thought I’d go with you,” he said.

“I’d rather you stay here with Linda. The kids have been great, but this is their night off.”

John bowed to the inevitable, but he wasn’t happy about it. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

“I think I’ve got enough bottle to survive the meeting,” Paul said, smiling in a self-effacing way to alleviate John’s clear concern. 

John replied, “I know you have enough bottle, Paul. That is never in question. But just because you’re strong doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have support.” 

Paul pulled John into another hug and said in a low voice, “You are a support to me, John, and to Linda, too. Right now she needs you more than I do.”

 

*****

 

An Hour Later

 

“Thanks for seeing us,” Dr. Freeman started. 

“Of course,” Paul said, wondering why he was being thanked. 

“I know that you and Linda are a very tight unit, and it must be difficult for you to know this information and not share it with her.” Dr. Freeman was watching Paul’s face as he spoke. They were all sitting at a round table in the anteroom to Dr. Wright’s office. 

“She’s very fragile right now,” Paul acknowledged. “I’d like to get the whole picture, and then decide what I need to do after that.” 

“We understand. We’re prepared to discuss all the options, and answer all of your questions.” 

Paul’s hands were folded in front of him on the table, and Dr. Freeman placed his hand on Paul’s wrist and held on to it lightly. Paul said, “I don’t want to be away from Linda for long, so please let’s get started.” He had not consciously noted the doctor’s kind gesture of squeezing his wrist.

The doctors then began to discuss their strategy for prolonging Linda’s life without completely ruining the quality of it. They explained that they were on the lookout for any possible experimental trials, and would let him know immediately if there were any that Linda qualified for. 

“And the chemo? Does she still have to go through it?” Paul asked.

“Let’s complete the second course, and see where we are. It will kill at least some of the cancer cells in the blood, and this will delay the outcome. In truth, I suspect she will have to have a third round, when this one is finished.” The oncologist was all business, but instead of upsetting Paul, Paul found it strangely comforting. This was a man, Paul thought, who was a methodical planner and a ruthless tactician. He would be a worthy adversary for the cancer, and most likely keep it at bay as long as possible.

Although he had grimaced at the reference to a possible third round of chemo, Paul dutifully listened to all the talk - the mention of different drugs and types of chemo. He struggled to keep up with it, scribbling notes as the doctors spoke. At some point it became like background noise, and the loud pounding sound in his head was a voice repeating the words, I can’t believe this is happening to us... I can’t believe this is happening to us...

 

Later That Night

 

Paul walked sluggishly away from his car, up the few steps to his front door, and then paused after he stepped into the foyer. He stared at his face in the mirror over the foyer sideboard, and winced. He looked old and hollowed out. He instinctively forced himself to stand up straighter. He didn’t like the defeated, bent-over look he’d seen first. 

It was only seconds before John came to greet him. He’d been waiting on pins and needles in the sitting room as Linda slept beside him on the couch. He’d had to bring her an emesis basin once, and had cleaned up after it. It brought back his own misery from chemo, and his heart had gone out to her. 

“So what did they tell you?” John whispered.

“Where is she?” Paul whispered back.

John gestured with his chin and shoulder in the direction of the sitting room. “She’s asleep,” he added.

Paul nodded, and indicated that they should go upstairs. John followed Paul upstairs and down the hall, and into the guest room John was using as his own. As soon as the door closed, Paul plopped down on the side of the bed, and cradled his head in his two hands. John sat down next to him and waited patiently for Paul to speak.

Paul removed the hands from his face, and straightened up. His voice, when it came, was very steady and matter-of-fact, although he stared straight ahead and not at John. “It’s what I told you before, only a bit worse. The treatments aren’t stopping the cancer, only slowing down its progress. There’s no surgical answer at all because the cancer is a moving target. They can’t even do radiation, because there is no identifiable spot to target yet.” Paul stopped as a small catch broke in his throat. He finally turned to face John, and his expression reflected Paul’s sense of helplessness. “They said ‘yet’, John, as if they knew that the cancer was going to grow somewhere soon.” Paul turned away so he was staring at the wall again, and his voice regained its equilibrium. “When they finish this round of chemo in 3 months, we’re going to see what we can do next, but she’ll probably have to have a third round. It’s all about delaying what the doctors called ‘the inevitable.’” 

John’s eyes had clouded with tears. “Poor Linda,” was all he could say.

Paul turned back to John, his face empty and full of shadows. “What will I do without her?” He asked in a painful whisper.

John swallowed this statement as quietly as he could, no matter how it plucked at his insecurities. He said, “What will any of us do without her? She’s the glue that keeps us all together.” He then asked, “Are you going to tell her?”

Paul broke then. He buried his head in his hands and began to sob. John put his arms around Paul’s shoulder, grasped him as hard as he could, and made soothing noises in Paul’s ear. Paul wasn’t able to speak without his voice cracking periodically, but in spite of this he managed to squeeze out a remarkably concise and comprehensive response.

“What am I supposed to say?” He asked the room at large. “How do you tell someone they’re dying? I can’t do that!” 

“So don’t. Don’t tell her.” John suggested.

“But how can I not tell her? How can I keep the truth from her? We don’t lie to each other!”

“Is there something in the middle you could say?” John asked, grasping at straws.

“Like what?” Paul asked.

“Can you let her know it is really bad, without actually telling her it is hopeless?” John was thinking about what he would have wanted to hear if he were in Linda’s position.

Paul thought about this quietly. The more he thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. His fear of telling her the whole truth was that she would stop fighting and give in, and this would deprive her of perhaps months with her beloved children, and also with him. If she knew it was really bad, a tough fight, but she wasn’t positively told that it was hopeless, maybe that would encourage her to fight harder, and prolong her time on earth.

 

*****

 

One Week Later  
Late October 1996

 

Chemo session finished, Paul and Linda had bought their favorite chips and stopped at a park to eat them. They wore their light disguises, as usual, and were completely unnoticed as they walked slowly (that was as fast as Linda could walk) across the grass until they reached a free picnic table. There they sat with some hot tea and freshly made chips, facing each other across the table. It was cold in the park, and they were both bundled up in coats, but Linda felt refreshed by the feel of the air on her face. 

Paul sensed Linda’s peaceful energy, and decided that now was the time to tell Linda the half-truth. “Baby,” he started, smiling warmly at her, “I have to tell you what Dr. Freeman told me.”

Linda met Paul’s eyes and saw nothing but warmth and compassion there. She waited. 

“The chemo thus far has not stopped the cancer, although it has delayed its progress.” Paul let the words go and then held his breath awaiting Linda’s response. It was not long in coming, and it was even more heartbreaking than Paul had feared.

“Am I dying?” She asked, suddenly fearful.

Paul had not expected her to blurt that question out. He hadn’t practiced in his head for that eventuality. He panicked for a few seconds as he tried to come up with something to say that would not later be seen as a lie. “No one knows for sure,” he finally said. That was almost true, wasn’t it? “But the main thing is, your doctors have a strategy for fighting it. They’re going to add some new medications, and they may recommend a third round of chemo.”

“Oh, nooo....,” she groaned. She seemed almost like a small girl to Paul in that moment, and his naturally paternal heart ached for her. “When?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s only a likely possibility at this point. We’ll have to wait until this round of chemo sessions are over - in January.” Paul was holding Linda’s hand across the table, and she was looking at him with pleading eyes. He wanted to make it better; he wished that he could make it better. But it was all beyond his control. 

Linda’s mind was whirling and for a moment it seemed chaotic and out of focus. And then - seemingly apropos of nothing - she noticed the leaves skittering around the edges of the short garden walls, driven by a relentless autumn wind. For some reason, this focused her. “And then what?” She asked tremulously.

“We’ll have to wait and see what the chemo and the drugs do before anyone will know,” Paul said as confidently as he could. 

This gave Linda a pang. “More drugs,” she repeated. “These drugs aren’t tested on animals, are they?” She asked, anxiety dancing across her face. “I don’t want any drugs tested on animals! I’m not more important than they are! I don’t deserve to live at their expense!”

Paul didn’t want to say out loud what he was thinking: that Linda was more important to him than any animal on earth. He understood how much these beliefs meant to Linda, and he had no intention of making light of them. “We’ll make an appointment, and you can ask the doctors that question. I honestly don’t know the answer.” In truth, he did understand that it was highly unlikely that any drug would be given to a human being without having been tested on animals first, but it was narrowly true that he did not know 100% that these specific drugs had been tested on animals. This was something he was prepared to let the doctors handle. Hopefully they would lie through their teeth. He made a note to himself: he’d have to ask them to be cagey about the animal testing thing.

Linda was tearful, and she had abandoned her favorite chips when her appetite fled. The chips had grown cold inside, and so had she. 

Noticing this, Paul said softly, “Come on baby. Let’s go home.”

 

*****

 

Three Weeks Later  
Early December 1996

 

It was early morning, and Linda was curled up in her corner of the sitting room sofa, wrapped up in her warm dressing gown and slippers, holding a steaming cup of hot tea. She was remembering how this exact day had been one year earlier - the day she learned she had a lump in her breast. So much had happened since then, and yet she still had a long way to go if the cancer were to be defeated. She had heard all the pessimistic things the doctors had to say - (albeit what she had heard had been filtered through Paul’s edits). Linda felt that she could defeat the disease; she could prove them all wrong. There were days, admittedly only one or two days a week (after the effects of the chemo wore off), when she felt on top of the world and that she couldn’t possibly be dying, since she was capable of feeling so well! 

Linda could tell that Paul was worried that she would not make it; she had always been able to read him, even when no one else could. He was keeping up a positive front, and reinforced her hopes whenever she raised them. But there was something in his eyes... what was it? Linda scratched her scalp. Some hair was growing back, in spots, and as it came through the scalp it itched. Linda refocused on her thoughts. The look in Paul’s eyes seemed to reflect how lost he felt. Linda supposed he was reliving his mother’s death, now through the eyes of an adult who understood all too clearly what she had suffered in silence. He had been denied the opportunity to help his mother in her final weeks and days because he had been kept in ignorance. He had not been able to say the things to his mother that he would have wanted to say if he knew she was dying. How terrible for Paul to have to live through another cancer like that one, she thought. It must be like having his worst nightmare come to life.

And what of her children? Stella was stoic and direct, Mary was gentle but strong, Heather was hovering on the brink between anxiety and depression, and James was in denial. He would lie on her bed and shoot the breeze with her in the afternoon, and he had pretty much cancelled his own life to be around her, but it was clear to Linda that James had not digested the seriousness of the fight she was in. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the information available to him, because he did; it was because he was not confronting the loss he might face. Linda sighed. She was worried about her children - Heather and James especially. How would they function without her? Paul was a great dad, but he tended to get sucked up in his work and also in his relationship with John. He would do anything for his kids, but sometimes someone needed to be around to suggest that maybe now would be the right time to do it. Who would fill that function if she were no longer around? Mary, probably, Linda thought, although she felt bad even thinking it. Mary was a young woman of 26 who seemed to have finally found a man she loved. Linda didn’t want to see Mary loaded down with so much responsibility at such a young age. She sighed. Well, all the more reason to fight this cancer like hell, and beat it so she wouldn’t have to think about such heartbreaking things any more. 

Linda didn’t ponder how it would feel for her - dying. She only ever thought about the effect it would have on her husband and children. She also wondered what effect it would have on John, and his relationship with Paul and the kids. This was easier for her to think about because this had always been her ‘job’ in the family - to worry about everyone else, and make sure they were all in a good place. And then there was the natural fear of confronting death. It was a great unknown, and it was very hard for a person to think about the permanent loss of consciousness and identity that death entailed. This was a concept she could not wrap her brain around, so she prevaricated and thought about her family, instead.

Although she had had a rough night, this morning she felt better. It was the calm after the storm; when the nausea and malaise from the chemo wore off, there was a calm and relaxing feeling of relief. Almost as if her body was saying in a kind of dazed confusion, ‘well, that happened!’ Early morning was when she could think most clearly. The racing, panicky thoughts that had plagued her in the first few months of her diagnosis had given way to a world-weary acceptance of the status quo. She had found - not a détente exactly - but at least a truce with her traitorous body. She had to work with her body in order to defeat the enemy within, (even though her body had allowed the enemy in to begin with). In other words, Linda’s inner strength was beginning to rise to the surface again. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t still sometimes struck numb by fear and anxiety; it just meant that she now had strong moments where she was determined to continue leading her life as best she could despite the chemo, and despite the diagnoses, and despite the dark cloud that was hovering over her head and following her around.

Linda also had discovered that ever since her diagnosis she had lived, to a large degree, in her head. She found herself protecting her loved ones from her fears and her suffering. Of course, Paul knew. One of the things she had always loved about Paul was that he was incredibly empathetic and he had understood her insecurities and fears almost from the first time they met. He had understood the fact that she was too ‘alternative’ a person to be understood by her overbearing father, and so she had suffered tremendously when her mother died in the infamous American Airlines Flight 1 crash. Even though Linda was 21 years old and away at college in Arizona at the time, and even though she had become pregnant with the man she was first to marry the same month her mother died, the sudden death was traumatizing. Linda’s mother had always softly advocated on her behalf with Lee Eastman, and so Linda had felt ostracized from her father at the same time she had lost her mother. 

Linda had always wished that her mother had been alive to meet Paul, and to see her successful family. She doubted her mother would have been crazy about the John thing, but then - you never knew. The older generation was always savvier and more flexible than the younger generation ever gave them credit for. Sometimes she had fantasized about what it would have been like to sit on the porch during the late summer stays in the Hamptons with her mother beside her while her children played in the yard. Her children had grown up without grandmothers, and she’d always thought that was a terrible shame. Still, Linda thought, Jim McCartney was a fantastic grandparent when the children were very young; he’d always had a strong nurturing quality about him. It was unfortunate about the second wife - Angie. That woman had created a breach between Paul and his father. Linda thought of Angie as a money-hungry, manipulative harridan, pushing herself forward and always making remarks about how much ‘Jim’ wanted to fix up the house when she and Paul were around. It was quite obvious to both Paul and Linda that these proposed improvements were always in Angie’s kitschy taste, and not the more ascetic tastes of Jim McCartney. 

This reminded Linda of how skittish Paul was about death. She remembered talking to Paul about going to his father’s funeral, and how Paul had dug his heels in and refused to cancel part of his tour to attend it. His main expressed reason for this was that he feared that his presence would distract attention away from his father’s life, which deserved to be celebrated without interruption. But then, none of the Beatles were big on attending funerals. They hadn’t attended Brian Epstein’s either, Linda knew, and John’s father had died a few weeks after Paul’s father had died, and John hadn’t even considered going to the funeral. He did attend Mimi’s funeral, but only because Paul agreed to go with him. Linda also knew that some in the McCartney family were bitter because Paul had attended Lee Eastman’s funeral, but not his own father’s. Some of them blamed her for this. But Linda knew that Paul had attended the Eastman funeral for her sake and for no other reason. 

All this thinking about death and funerals eventually caused Linda to slam her brain shut. If she were going to successfully fight this disease she was going to have to focus on life and the living. That was the best way she could support her husband and children - by staying alive.

 

*****

 

One Week Later,  
Mid-December 1996

 

It was Mary’s night with Linda, and Paul had gone to John’s house to spend the night. John had finally persuaded Paul to leave Cavendish on his nights ‘off’ in the past few weeks. It had taken every ounce of patience and persuasion in his body, but he had finally lured Paul out of the house to the bottom of the garden, down the mews, and into his house. Paul had been protesting the whole way, and it was true that John had been more or less dragging Paul by his wrist the whole time, but still, Paul had agreed to stay once he got there, and thereafter had been sleeping with John a few nights a week when the girls were with Linda. 

Linda was wise to it, and unoffended. She and John had faced each other across a breakfast table one morning after he and Paul had returned from John’s house, and she had given John a wicked smile. “Did you have to tie him down?” She’d asked John.

John’s eyes lit up. “There’s an idea! I quite fancy it!”

Linda had laughed right along with John. She had spent several afternoons with John, talking, and watching chick flicks. Paul wasn’t a big fan of chick flicks, so John would insist she snuggle up to him, and they’d share a bowl of popcorn and shout admonishments to the heroines about the naughty guys they were pursuing. Paul was often perplexed when he’d heard the shouting. It would draw him out of his music room, and down the stairs. He would stand in the doorway of the sitting room and stare at them in confusion. 

“What’s the shouting all about?” He’d ask.

“Would you believe that Harold just snuck out the back with Alice’s best friend?” John would respond (or words to that effect.)

“Who’s Harold and Alice, then?” Paul would ask.

“Don’t ask,” Linda would advise him. “It will only confuse you.” 

So this particular night, Paul had gone home with John, leaving Linda and Mary having a girl’s night. As they’d left John had announced, “We’re going to have a boy’s night; we’re going to watch things blow up!” 

They didn’t really. Paul was not in the mood for a movie, and John was particularly horny. He half-dragged Paul up the stairs to the bedroom, and then pushed him down on the bed almost as soon as they got there. 

Looking up at John as he lay on his back, Paul said, “Not tonight.”

John wasn’t sure he heard right. “Did you say, ‘not tonight’?” He asked, incredulously.

“I did.”

“You never say ‘not tonight’!” John declared in shock.

 

“I’m too tired,” Paul confessed. 

“I’ll do all the heavy lifting,” John offered hopefully.

Paul chuckled, and held his arms out. “Just come and lie down with me,” he said. “I just need someone to hold me right now. That’s all I feel up to.”

John went from shock at Paul’s desire to forego sex to dumbstruck amazement that Paul had just said something so...so overtly vulnerable. He said nothing, but quickly removed his own clothes, and then gestured to Paul to do the same. Soon they were in the bed, and John was preparing to scoop Paul up into his arms. 

“The light,” Paul said softly.

John stared at the bedside lamp and then back again in Paul’s direction. “You want it off?” John asked, again incredulously.

Paul nodded, but said nothing, and shrugging, John leaned over and pulled the lamp chain and the room was cloaked in darkness. He then scooted over to where Paul was lying on his side, and, facing him, John put his right hand on Paul’s left shoulder. They were silent for several moments before John spoke again. 

“How are you coping?” He whispered. John couldn’t see Paul’s face clearly in the darkness, but the ambient light coming from the streetlamp outside cast a thin stripe of pale grey light across Paul’s left cheek. John could see feathery eyelash shadows flickering on the illuminated cheek. 

“I have good days and I have bad days,” Paul said honestly.

“And today’s been a bad day?” John asked rhetorically.

Paul seemed to understand that the question was rhetorical, so he didn’t answer it. Instead, he moved closer to John, and allowed his hand to trace the outlines of John’s jawline, and then his lower lip. “I feel beat up,” he said bluntly, but in a very soft voice.

“You have a right to feel that way,” John opined in an equally soft voice. “You run around all day, day after day, doing for Linda, and you’re carrying around that heavy secret the whole time. It will naturally take its toll.”

Paul was silent again. Now he moved even closer to John, and even nuzzled John’s neck a few times. John made a mew, and then, turning on to his back, pulled Paul with him until he had Paul captured in a fierce embrace. John felt a very strong protective feeling come over him. It was a stronger protective feeling than he’d ever felt before. In that moment he thought he would slay a dragon if it would protect Paul from having to go through the difficult months and dreadful loss that lay ahead. 

 

*****

 

Christmas Eve, 1996  
Mid-Morning

 

Paul and Linda had been unable to hold off their closest family members and friends any longer. Since Linda’s second round of chemo was going to end in a few weeks, she was still much too weak to cook a huge meal for a large dinner party. She had it catered instead, and John jumped in and assisted her in the plans and the preparations, along with Mary and Stella. Linda figured she would see everyone who had been clamoring to visit her for over a year, and get it all over in one fell swoop. So tonight Mike McCartney and his wife, and some of their children, were coming. And so were George and Olivia Harrison, and Ritchie and Barbara Starkey. Even George and Judy Martin had said they would drop by for a while after dinner, just to share a drink. 

Consequently, Cavendish was in an uproar as family members and caterers alike ran about setting thing up for the dinner party. Paul was stacking cords of wood near the fireplace when the housekeeper approached him.

“There’s someone on the phone for you,” she said in an awestruck way.

Paul looked at her in confusion. Why did Rose look so weird? “What’s up?” He asked her.

“The man on the phone - he says he is from Buckingham Palace.” 

Paul froze for a moment. The Christmas List! In the last few months, he had forgotten all about the possibility of being on that list because of the news about Linda, which had pushed every other thought and ambition out of his head. He smiled reassuringly at Rose, and then headed for the phone.

 

*****

 

Christmas Eve, 1996  
Later That Evening

 

Linda was incredibly nervous. She hated the way she looked, and knew that not only did she look fat and bald, she also looked very sick. Stella had designed and hand-sewn a lovely mint green suit for her, and she’d also brought in a make up expert to do Linda’s face. Linda still was largely bald, although there were a few spots of her scalp that were sprouting hair. Linda had to shave those spots so that it wouldn’t look so weird, and instead she wore one of Stella’s head-wraps. It took all of her inner strength to force a smile on her face, and to stand in the foyer greeting her guests. She did not want them to see her weak or feeble, so she made a point of standing very straight, even though her lower back was aching a little. 

Everyone’s reaction was pretty much what she had expected. They all had that anxious, stiff-smiling expression on their faces that reflected their efforts not to show the pity they actually felt, not to mention the shock at seeing Linda looking bloated and without her halo of beautiful blond hair. Still, her eyes were strong and proud, and little by little this reassured her guests that she was on the mend. 

Paul was being very solicitous of Linda, but trying not to act as though she was a weakling. His efforts to support her were really very subtle. John, meanwhile, watched Linda’s performance with genuine respect. The woman had a steel backbone - that was obvious. 

Stella and Mary were flitting around the room being warm, charming and upbeat. No one could tell from their behavior that there was anything seriously wrong with their mother. Meanwhile, John was quietly setting people’s concerns at ease. When George and Olivia came up to him, their eyes full of question marks and concern, John said easily,

“It’s the drugs they’re giving her - steroids. It looks worse than it is. And she’s near the end of her second round of chemo. I think she looks great, don’t you?” This was met with looks of relief from George and Livy, and then John went around pretty much whispering the same mantra to everyone else. This way Paul would not have to explain, and somehow John’s quiet propaganda campaign lessened the stress level in the room and after a short while, everyone was laughing and talking and enjoying the food and drink. 

Linda had finally been able to sit down, making it look as though she was just doing so to join a conversation going on around the sofa, and she sighed with relief as she was able to take her weight off her shaky legs. Her eyes surreptitiously searched the room from time to time until they finally found what she was looking for: Paul.

As if by ESP, Paul looked up as soon as Linda’s eyes found him, and he turned to see her and winked. He then smiled at her proudly. She was one cracker of a girl!


	101. Chapter 101

Christmas Eve 1996  
Late at Night

 

After the Christmas Eve dinner party, (from which the guests politely left early out of concern for Linda), Paul had helped Linda up the stairs to the master bedroom. For Linda, it was step by step - a very tiring and even painful ascension. Paul had developed patience he had no idea he possessed. Being a parent had required a lot of patience; dealing with the mercurial and sometimes irrational John Lennon for almost 40 years had required almost superhuman patience. But what he was developing now was nothing short of saintly patience. It almost felt like a pantomime to Paul: he was going to enact this elaborate routine whereby he would pretend that Linda was going to recover and that this blight would be behind them, knowing all the while that it was hopeless. To help Linda meet each stair - to celebrate the victory of making it up one staircase - was an exercise in supreme patience, knowing that he was just living this single second with Linda, this minute, this day, with no expectation of another one.

Linda was exhausted. She had used every ounce of energy and strength keeping herself upright and smiling until the door closed behind the last guest. Then it was as if her legs gave way, and she almost fainted. Paul, of course, as always, had been there to catch her. Now they were safely up the stairs, and he was helping her out of the beautiful suit that Stella had made for her, and slipping over her head the soft, cool cotton nightgown. He had helped her on to the toilet, and then stood with his back to her, and then he had helped her back to the bedroom, helping her sit at her make up table. Then he had brought to her a basin filled with warm sudsy water, and had helped her wash her face, as she sat on the stool in front of her makeup table. Soon, the makeup was gone. He had brought her a toothbrush with toothpaste on it, and she had spat out the paste into the basin, and he had then helped her to her side of the bed, arranging the pillows just so - just the way she liked them - and then had tucked her in. He then had taken the basin and the soiled towels into the bathroom, and had come out of it again moments later with a cool glass of water, which he had placed next to her on the nightstand. After this he had finally seen to himself. This was their nightly ritual.

Linda watched from her cocoon in the bed as her husband undressed and put on pajamas. She knew why he was wearing pajamas all the time now: it was a way of reminding himself no sex tonight. Linda felt bad about that; she hoped that John was picking up the slack in the sex department for Paul’s sake. Then she could hear him gargling in the bathroom, and soon he was climbing into bed next to her.

“All right?” He asked her anxiously, before he allowed himself to settle in and get comfortable.

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “Thanks.”

Paul was on his side, his chin propped up by his hand and a crooked elbow. “I don’t know how you do it, Lin. You were amazing tonight.”

Linda smiled weakly. “Can’t let the home team down,” she joked in a strained voice.

“If you turn on your side, I’ll rub your back for you,” Paul said softly.

Silently, Linda did as suggested, and then she felt his wonderfully expressive hands massaging her sore shoulder and neck area, and then her tight upper back, and then, deeply now, the aching lower back. By the time Paul finished the massage Linda was soundly sleeping.

 

*****

 

Paul, however, lay awake thinking about all the stuff that must be going on in the world outside while he limited his vision to what went down at 7 Cavendish Avenue. This afternoon he had gotten the call he had wanted very badly for years; now, when he finally got it, he almost didn’t give a fuck. He wondered at himself - at the hopes and dreams he’d pursued just a year ago. Now those things seemed empty, meaningless, and without purpose.

A few years earlier, Paul had been told through a knighted friend who was close to the Royal Family that he was on a short list to be knighted. While musicians had been knighted before, none of them had been rock musicians. Of course, Paul had also composed classical music, and he had been a supporter of the monarchy, but apparently to find yourself on “the List” one had to do good works that were public and that were recognized by a member of the Royal Family. Paul had wanted to be knighted. He didn’t know why he wanted to be knighted, other than because he was patriotic - he loved his country - and he also could imagine how proud his father and mother would have been. It wasn’t really ‘cool’ to want to be knighted. But the stark truth is that no one gets knighted who doesn’t court the honor. The Queen wasn’t about to bestow the honor on a person who might turn it down or disdain it.

It so happened that starting in the mid-80s Paul had been aware that his old school, the Liverpool Institute, was abandoned, and there was some talk of tearing it down. It was a protected building, but it was a bit of an eyesore and unless someone found a suitable use for it and invested in it, the building would no doubt have to be torn down. It was around that time that George Martin heard that a friend of his, who had opened a successful school previously, wanted to set up a ‘fame’ school, to match the New York School of Performing Arts that was featured in the movie, Fame. George quite literally put two plus two together, and introduced Paul to his friend Mark Featherstone-Witty. Their joint idea had been hatched to create such a college in Liverpool, and Paul had decided to put his own money into the project. It was a multi-million pound donation, and Paul had flown down to Liverpool on June 7th, 1996, to meet the Queen as she cut the ribbon to the school and submitted to a tour of the premises of the new “Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts”. It was this accomplishment that had proved the tipping point in Buckingham Palace’s decision that a knighthood for Paul McCartney was justified.

Paul had been committed to the project for other reasons beyond just hoping to be knighted. He had wanted for many years to give something back to Liverpool for what he considered his mostly idyllic childhood. John had been a little contemptuous of Paul’s knighthood aspirations, and had teased him about it many times. Still, John’s sarcasm and irony had never stopped Paul from doing something (or not doing something) when he had a strong feeling about it, so his ambition was not thwarted, no matter how many snide remarks John had made.

Now Paul was laying awake thinking of his accomplishment - LIPA - and the knighthood reawakened in Paul a desire to make a difference in his life, notwithstanding what he and Linda were going through. Linda had been so very proud for him earlier, when he had told her. It had been privately announced at the party, and he had received some congratulations and some ironic reactions about it from his dinner party guests. Ringo, George Martin and his brother Michael had been happy for him. George Harrison had raised an arch eyebrow and said nothing. John had been silent about the whole thing. He hadn’t uttered a word about it - good, bad or indifferent. He acted as though the announcement had not occurred.

Now as he lay there, Paul wondered what John thought about it all. Was he ignoring it in front of guests to be polite, or was he completely indifferent to the news? Would he later take him to task for pursuing such an anachronistic goal, or would John be happy for him, even if it weren’t an achievement that he - John - wanted for himself? Then there was always the chance that John would be jealous about it. John had often been jealous of accolades given to Paul, even when he himself did not covet those accolades. There was a great need in John to maintain - at all times - a seeming 51/49 parity with Paul, that didn’t allow Paul to step out of the shadows even for a moment to take a bow alone.

The exception had been the classical music Paul had successfully released, although as he thought about it now Paul wasn’t all that sure that John hadn’t been privately hurt or upset by the attention Paul had received on his own. John hadn’t said anything, and he had certainly seemed to be supportive, so Paul decided that now he was the one being paranoid, and he willed himself to stop thinking about it. John would be happy for him, but he would take the piss out a little. He wouldn’t be John if he didn’t make at least one attempt to smack Paul back into his place. Paul was used to this, and he never took it personally. That was a kind of sine qua non for being John’s friend: you had to have a strong ego, and not take yourself too seriously. Otherwise, you would die of humiliation. This thought made Paul chuckle a bit, and then he was capable of turning on to his side, and putting his arm loosely around Linda’s waist. Soon, he drifted off to sleep.

 

*****

 

John had finally gone home alone after doing a thorough reconnaissance of the party’s residue. He had gone on numerous forays throughout the house, collecting glasses and plates, and stacking them in the kitchen. Paul had taken Linda up to bed, and the poor woman had looked dead on her feet. Despite being tired himself, John was psychically awake, and knew he would not be able to sleep until he had completed a series of routine physical tasks while thinking through the day’s big disclosure: Paul was being knighted by the Queen.

John had been shocked by the news when Paul had shyly told them all while they gathered in the sitting room at his request. Linda had been ebullient, and his daughters cheered heartily, and James had given his father a high five. John had smiled, and had clapped with the others, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and he didn’t know why. There were so many conflicting feelings rushing through him: why did Paul care so much about such an empty gesture? Why would he want to be so closely allied with the Establishment? How would this reflect on John in the eyes of the anti-Establishment folks? Would his association with Paul taint him in their eyes? Would he have to pretend to be chuffed for Paul in order to keep the peace? He knew instinctively that come hell or high water, Paul was not going to turn the honor down. And then, of course, overriding all of these minor issues came the headless horseman of John’s psyche; here it came - jealousy on a horse with green livery - charging into the front of his thoughts. Why Paul and not him? Shouldn’t at the very least they both be offered a knighthood? He had been the leader of the Beatles after all. He was the one everyone called ‘genius’. Yes, John knew Paul was a genius, of course he was, but John had always needed for everyone to believe that he - John - was the true genius between the two of them; he was the visionary. Part of John felt that Paul had pursued this knighthood in order to stake his claim to premier place in their partnership in the eyes of the world.

The fact that John had spent an entire decade (the ‘70s) spitting on Britain and the monarchy (even returning his MBE) didn’t register with John at that moment. He didn’t ask himself the truly obvious questions, such as: Why would the Queen bestow one of the country’s highest honors on a man who had openly derided Britain and the monarchy? Why would she want to court being humiliated again by a rejection of the honor, (which was an entirely possible scenario when dealing with a wild card like John Lennon)? As usual, John did not see his own behavior as contributing in any way to what he perceived as a snub. In fact, the Palace no doubt didn’t even think of it as a snub, because the bureaucracy there would naturally assume John would turn his nose up at such an honor. No, none of this factored into John’s thinking as he buzzed around the house collecting glasses and plates. He was dealing yet again with the ever-hovering, ever-vigilant Green Monster.

 

*****

Christmas Day

 

It didn’t take long for John to launch his first verbal missile at Paul. John had wandered over to Cavendish from his house Christmas morning to see how Paul and Linda were doing. Linda was surprisingly on her feet and making breakfast. Paul was reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. John halted in the doorway and took in the domestic sight. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.

“Reading about your Sirship?” John asked snarkily.

Linda cast a quick sideways glance at John. Hmmm, she thought, John is jealous about Paul getting this attention...  
Paul, meanwhile, looked up from the paper and smiled reflexively at John. “Just making sure I didn’t dream it,” He responded pertly. "It's only rumors just now. Not official yet."

John approached Linda, gave her a little hug and a kiss on the cheek. “How are you feeling this morning, darlin’?” He asked sweetly.

Linda’s cynicism vanished in a thrice, and she smiled warmly at John. “I’m doing good,” she said honestly. “And you look well rested yourself.”

John shrugged. “Yeah,” he replied, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I actually get some shuteye when His Lordship is with you.”

“Oh good grief, John. Give it a rest,” Paul snuffed from the table. “I know you don’t approve. You don’t have to make a meal of it.”

Linda’s skepticism came right back to her. John was definitely going to struggle with this affront to his ego, she realized, and she worried that it would cause a rupture in the John/Paul relationship right at the moment when Paul needed John the most. Sometimes she wanted to shake the two of them - they were so counter-productive!

John sat down across the table from Paul. He might as well say what he had to say. “I don’t know why you go around crawling on your knees for the aristocracy. To them, you’re just the traveling bard who entertains them after dinner.”

Paul felt irritation rising in his throat, right along with the wounded pride. “I didn’t crawl around for anyone,” he snapped. “I don’t socialize with the aristocracy - you know that very well. I tried that out in the ‘60s and it didn’t suit.”

Linda brought the plates over to the table and said, “This is Christmas, you two. Let’s don’t squabble at the breakfast table.”

John felt a little ashamed. He had somehow forgotten it was Christmas. When you lived on your own and your children were all grown up, sometimes Christmas seemed like just another day of the year. He mumbled something incoherent, hoping Linda would accept it as a quasi-apology.

Paul on the other hand, brightened up immediately. Linda was herself this morning, and that alone was worth celebrating! His eyes adored her as she sat down, and he reached out and squeezed her hand. “Happy Christmas, Linda,” he said softly.

John had seen Paul’s face light up when he looked at Linda, and he had experienced the brief intimate interaction between Paul and Linda as a rebuke to himself. He attacked the food on his plate, and sank into dismal thought. The whole day had started out wrong. He’d put his foot wrong the moment he stepped into the kitchen, and now he felt decidedly out of sorts. 

 

*****

 

Later that Day

 

In the mid-afternoon, Stella showed up with her amant du jour, and Mary turned up with her boyfriend, Alistair. They had coincidentally driven into the gates one after the other, and burst into the house full of energy and giggles. It lightened the atmosphere greatly, because for the past couple of hours Linda had been napping on the sofa, and John and Paul had sat on either side of the sofa in armchairs, sulking. Paul was concentrating in an unnecessarily dedicated way on his book, while John tried unsuccessfully to focus on a book of his own. He was quietly fuming.

So I opened my big mouth and I ribbed him about his knighthood, John was declaring self-righteously to himself. And already he is uptight about it? He’s from the bloody Liverpool council flats! He has no right to get so fluffed up!

Paul’s supreme ability to compartmentalize meant that he could actually understand what he was reading, although he doubted he would retain very much of it. He had just reread the same paragraph for the third time. He refused to look up to see what John was doing. John was not going to be supportive of him at all over his impending knighthood, and this was going to throw a damper on the whole thing. Didn’t John understand that I want to give something to Linda? Even if it is to John a meaningless title: Lady.

Bloody childish, not even looking up from his fucking book. Who does he think he is kidding? John thought furiously, periodically sending little sly glances Paul’s way.

Can’t stop thinking of himself for even one bleeding minute, Paul furiously reminded himself for the umpteenth time. Can’t let me enjoy my little victory. Selfish prat.

Jumped up tart! John’s wildly inappropriate Id announced.

Insecure swine! Paul’s Id responded.

So, thankfully, when Mary, Stella, and their young men burst through the door crying, “Merry Christmas!” the poisonous air in the sitting room seemed to clear instantly.

Linda woke up in a start, and forced herself to sit up a bit to greet her daughters.

“Mummy, don’t get up!” Mary remonstrated. “It’s just us! We’ll come ‘round to you.” She was as good as her word, kneeling down next to the sofa and giving her mother a warm hug and a kiss. She was followed in short order by Stella. Paul got up and set about asking the young men what they wanted to drink, and then fixing their drinks for them, while Mary and then Stella gave John a hug.

Soon they were sitting around, and thinking about presents. The girls were explaining the gifts they and their boyfriends had exchanged, and Linda said, “We still have the family presents under the tree.” The night before, Linda had been too tired to stay up to open presents after the party, so the family presents had been put off until Christmas Day.

“I’ll be Santa!” Stella declared, heading for the tree. In the meantime, Paul had gone upstairs to drag James and Heather out of their lairs. 

“Mum, open ours’ first!” Mary insisted, as Stella handed Linda a large rectangle that was obviously some kind of canvas. Linda read the little card. It was from all four of her children. Smiling happily, she unwrapped it to find a glorious photo of the four kids taken in the back garden at Cavendish by a professional photographer who Linda greatly admired. She was thrilled with the portrait, and then the kids handed Paul their present for him.

It was an oddly shaped long slim box, and it had been hastily wrapped. Paul gave his children a skeptical look. When he opened it up, he found what appeared to be a papier-mache sceptre. It was very poorly made, apparently out of newspaper, and the paint job was strictly amateur. Paul put the box down and said, “Very funny...”

“Oh, hold it up Daddy!” Heather laughed brightly.

Unable to be rude, Paul held it up, and made a silly royal wave and nodded his head ever so unperceptively as he did so, causing his wife and children to giggle.

John couldn’t help himself. “Very timely gift, kids,” he said from his chair several feet away. “I’m afraid I bought my gift before your father was sanctified, so it isn’t nearly as apropos.”

As Linda and the kids laughed, Paul gritted his teeth. He shot an angry glare John’s way, and John acknowledged it with a sly grin. Paul looked away just as Stella placed another gift in his lap. She had seen the look that had passed between her father and John, and was sorry now that they had teased their dad that way. Something was amiss, and it appeared to have something to do with the knighthood.

Paul had regained his ‘brave face’, and was unwrapping his real gift with gusto. Linda watched him with naked affection on her face. There was something childlike about Paul sometimes, and this was one of those times. This gift was heavy, and it was in the shape of a large book. Paul found a cardboard box inside, and when he lifted off the lid he saw yellowed music sheets inside. The music sheet on top was for “Paper Moon” by the songwriters Harburg & Rose. Paul lifted it up, and noticed that the whole box was filled with yellowed music sheets.

Mary said, “These are original prints of the songs. Uncle John helped us collect them.” John Eastman, of course, as the son of Lee Eastman, had a vast collection of such memorabilia, and numerous contacts in the New York music-publishing world.

Paul looked up from his gift and actually felt tears burning the back of his eyes. How lucky was he to have children who loved and respected and knew him well enough to give him such a special present?

The kids then presented John with a gift. It was a pair of smashing galoshes, lined with sheepskin. John laughed heartily when he opened the box. He had often complained that he couldn’t walk in London in the winter because of all the fucking rain. Beneath the galoshes he found a beautiful silken scarf in a unique, ‘50s print. He held it up, admiring the beauty of it.

“I made it myself,” Stella said shyly.

“It is absolutely beautiful,” John said with deep sincerity.

John’s sweet reaction to the kids’ presents had softened Paul’s anger a bit. He couldn’t help smiling a little as John immediately wound the scarf around his neck, and tried on the galoshes.

“Style alert!” Stella shouted, making everyone laugh.

John’s gift for Linda came next, and it was an exquisitely soft woven blanket. John said, “I remember you gave me a blanket when I was doing the chemo thing, so I thought I would return the favor.” Linda held her arms out, and John got up, walking funny in his unlaced galoshes, and leaned over to accept her hug.

Linda said, “Stella, give John my gift.”

Stella found it. It was a very small box - as if it had jewelry in it.

John took it and looked at Linda in amazement. “When would you have had time to buy me a gift?”

“That’s what personal assistants are for,” Linda said grandly. “Now that I am Lady McCartney, I can afford such fripperies.”

John smiled warmly at her. He hadn’t thought before, but - Linda would be Lady McCartney. He shot a quick look at Paul, who was watching him closely. He winked. He then opened the small box, and found a beautiful pure silver medal, about the size of a twenty pence coin, with an engraving of what appeared to be a Catholic saint. John turned the medal over in confusion, and the engraving said in tiny letters, “To St. John the Caregiver, from L. 12-25-96.”

John looked up and said, “St. John the Caregiver?”

“I heard you rumbling about how you were beginning to feel like a saint,” she said, shaking her finger at him. Everyone laughed lightheartedly, including Paul. The medal came with an obviously expensive silver chain, and John immediately put it on. (Later, he would find out that there was indeed a St. John the Caregiver, and that Linda had not made it up.) On Linda’s part, the medal was more than an acknowledgement of John’s role over the past year. It was meant to be the outward representation of her hope that John would take care of Paul if something should happen to her.

“Mum, here’s Daddy’s gift,” Stella said softly, handing her mother a beautifully wrapped 9 x 9 square inch box. It was quite heavy.

“Ah, you’ve got me that bowling ball I’ve always wanted,” Linda quipped. She carefully unwrapped the brocade turquoise blue and silver paper, being careful not to destroy the intricate navy blue satin ribbon. The box she unwrapped was made of pure maple, highly polished. When she opened the lid she gasped. Inside was an intricately carved stallion, about 7 inches tall, made of pure turquoise with lapis lazuli and silver detail. The stallion was rearing, and its tail was whipping, and the silver glint in the stallion’s eyes seemed to flash at her as if the tiny statue might come to life at any moment. It was mounted by its two hind hooves on a lapis lazuli slab. Linda was speechless. She could not take her eyes off of the glorious object. As Paul watched, his eyes reflected a kind of anxiety, as though he worried that whatever he gave her wouldn’t be enough to repay her for what she had given him.

“Oh,” was all she could say. Soon her children were oohing and aahing, and helping her remove the statue from the box and setting it on the coffee table.

“I commissioned it in New Mexico when we were there last year, from that Navajo artist we met, remember?” Paul’s voice sounded unsure.

Linda said, “Yes! I remember!” Linda was nonplussed.

“I meant to give it to you last Christmas, but he wasn’t finished with it, because he had to wait until he found the perfect block of turquoise.” Paul was explaining more than was necessary, because the room was so quiet. He had begun to think his gift was a dud.

Linda couldn’t stop touching the horse, but she finally was able to meet Paul’s eyes, and he could see they were full of tears. “It is beautiful,” she said with much conviction. Paul sighed with relief. Of course he knew she would love it, but he had wanted so much to really surprise her this year that his anxiety had gotten the better of him for a few moments.

John had watched this little vignette silently, and had viewed the glowing little horse with admiration. Paul had certainly outdone himself by giving Linda something completely unique and exactly what she would have wanted if she could have thought of it herself. It reminded John of the tour he and Paul had done through South America a few years earlier, and how close they had become, and the amazing jewelry and jewelry box Paul had given him for Christmas that year. He smiled. Paul was a romantic. There was something to be said for romantics. Yes, they were sentimental at times, and maybe they believed in silly things like knights and ladies, but the world would be such a dreary place without them.

Stella handed Paul an awkwardly shaped package, wrapped in brown paper and twine. It was from Linda. He shot her a curious glance.

“This is the no frills gift!” Linda explained cheerfully.

Laughing, Paul untangled the twine and ripped off the paper. A little cry of delight escaped him. It was a handmade lute, made out of all kinds of enameled wood. It looked to be fairly old. “Where on earth did you find it?” Paul asked in wonder.

“Sotheby’s, I’m afraid. It belonged to Julian Bream,” Linda said. She had often given Paul special instruments as gifts. He could never have enough and was always incredibly grateful for them. “I expect you to compose a piece on it for me,” she added haughtily. “Now that I’m a Lady, I can lie in the shade of a willow tree, and you can walk across the meadow playing your serenade. Then we can...”

“Oh, Mum, too much information! Over-share!” Shouted James hilariously.

“I was just going to say ‘sing together,’” Linda responded in a less than convincing manner.

“Yeah, sure you were,” John joked from across the room.

Soon the kids had unwrapped all of their presents to and from each other, and the evening wound down. Linda had noticed that John and Paul had not exchanged their gifts. In fact, while Paul’s gift to John remained under the tree, it didn’t appear as though there was a gift under the tree for Paul from John. She was miffed, and was just beginning to think she would have to take back her St. John the Caregiver medal, when John cleared his throat and said,

“I’m afraid I left your gift at my place, Paul.”

Paul looked up hopefully. He had begun to think that John’s resentment over the knighthood thing was going to spoil their relationship permanently. He said, “Well, yours is under the tree...”

“Linda, do you mind if I drag your husband across the mews for an hour or so?” John asked.

Linda smiled. “Take him away and keep him all night! The girls and I are going to spend the night gossiping, now that their menfolk have left.”

Paul dragged John’s gift out from under the tree. John could see that it was obviously a small canvas, although it was exquisitely wrapped. As they headed down the garden, Paul decided to break the awkward silence. “So, are you out of knight jokes yet?” He asked.

John laughed. “No! Absolutely not! But I’m saving them up for the right times...”

Paul decided not to be angry any more. It was all so stupid. He began to wonder what John had gotten him for Christmas.

As they entered John’s house, John told Paul to go start the fire, and John tripped upstairs to change into a silken dressing gown. The gift he’d gotten for Paul was very intimate, and he had no intention of letting Linda or the kids see what it was. He grabbed the package, and went back to the sitting room, where the fire was snapping already, and Paul had turned on the Christmas tree lights. John turned off the lamp as he approached the sofa, and then lit the candles sitting on the coffee table.

“Well, this is romantic,” Paul pointed out. He had poured out a tumbler of whiskey for each of them, and sat next to John on the sofa. “I’m sorry I got mad at you this morning,” Paul said sincerely. “I’m a bit sensitive about it all, because I know it isn’t very rock ‘n roll.”

John shook his head. “I was being a bastard,” he said flatly. “I shouldn’t try to spoil your fun. I guess I just don’t understand why it is so important to you.”

Paul sighed heavily. For a moment, he thought they could get past the fact that Paul wanted to be knighted, and that he was going to be knighted. Now it seemed as though John was not going to respect his goal and his choice. “Let’s change the subject,” Paul said sulkily. “We’re never going to agree on this.”

John internally smacked himself in the face. He just couldn’t be graceful and congratulate Paul and keep his cynical opinions to himself! With a mental shake, John turned his attention to Paul’s gift. “So, can I have it then?” He asked, pointing at it.

Paul handed it over somewhat sheepishly. “I hope you like it.”

John smiled happily, and - unlike Linda - ripped through the lovely wrapping paper like a child. He knew it was going to be a painting of some kind, but he knew it was going to be an original and of great value, if he knew how Paul approached art. Soon the painting was revealed: it was an original watercolor of a walkway next to the Seine, in a late ‘50s / early ‘60s graphic style. John recognized the place: it looked like the exact spot near a bridge where he and Paul had leant over the wall and stared at the Seine while working up their nerve to go back to the pensione and have sex for the first time. On the bottom right edge, he saw the date: ’61. John looked up and met Paul’s eyes.

“What?” He asked.

Paul laughed. “It isn’t a famous painter. One of the street artists, I’m sure. But it is a genuine ’61 watercolor of the same bridge over the River Seine near where we first kissed. I remember being very embarrassed when you snogged me. I didn’t know where to look afterwards. Anyway, it took my agent ages to find this, looking through every little prints shop in Paris for several months.”

“That’s fucking amazing!” John crowed. He sat the painting on the coffee table, face up, and said, “Mine is a bit too...shall I say risqué? For the family hour.” He handed Paul what was obviously a large picture book. When Paul finished unwrapping it, he found a lush cover photograph of a piece of terra cotta and black pottery from Ancient Greece, with two men in the act of fellatio on the side.

“Oh!” Paul cried, shocked. “What on earth?” He read the title: ‘Homosexual Art of the Ancient World...’ Paul blushed. “Oh no, you didn’t.”

“Wait ‘til you see the Japanese stuff. Your eyeballs will pop out,” John said eagerly.

“I’m pretty sure they already have,” Paul responded, “and I haven’t even lifted the cover yet.”

“The Ancient Egyptians had some really unusual positions. I was thinking we could try a few out...” John enthused. Paul was looking at him funny.

“I’m not sure I’m up to this kind of thing,” Paul said weakly.

“Oh, nonsense. You and I can have several hours of fun looking through this book together, and getting some new ideas.” John smiled his fool’s smile at Paul, and Paul couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why do I feel like a fly in the web?” He asked the room at large.

“In fact,” John continued. “I think we should start right now.” He leaned back and patted the cushion next to him to encourage Paul to sit closer to him. “Lean back, relax. Let’s have a look at this bloody great book, shall we?”


	102. Chapter 102

Early January 1997

 

John and Paul were in Paul’s music room at Cavendish. They had sat down to focus on writing their next album. It had been a while since they had worked together, and it had occurred to both of them simultaneously over the Christmas holidays that it was definitely time to merge their creative muses again. Paul had been writing songs that were about Linda and her illness - at least loosely in some cases - and he also had some songs he’d finished before Linda was diagnosed, like “Little Willow”, which he had written in 1994 for Maureen Starkey Tigrett’s memorial service. John, meanwhile, had been very slowly stockpiling his song ideas over the same period of time, and most of them - of course - were about his own experiences while living under the cloud of Linda’s cancer.

They had each come to their work session with a list of potential songs, and then each proceeded to play the songs on his list until all 11 songs thus far collected had been debuted in raw form. Paul had 6 fairly well-formed songs, and about 6 less than well-formed songs, and John had 4 songs that were in pretty good shape, except the music was all pretty similar: mid-range and mid-pace. 

“We need to pare these down to 14,” Paul observed idly. “Your 4 look good so far, so let’s pick the 6 best ones of mine. You could write another two, so we’re even, and then maybe we can write a few songs together.”

John said, “Maybe I can work on some of your weaker songs, Paul. I see 2 or 3 there that could use some work and may turn out very well. Maybe that could be song number 12. I say you take my 4 songs and come up with your edits, I’ll take your 12 songs, and figure out which 6 I like the best. Then we can see what we want to do for 4 more songs.”

Having had a long and productive session, both men decided it was time for dinner, and they might as well call it a day. As they sometimes did back in the ‘60s, and during previous recording sessions, they decided to have a meal at their favorite Chinese restaurant, in a private back room. They settled in, made their usual order, and took a long sip of their cold beers.

“Linda’s chemo is about to end, isn’t it?” John asked.

Paul nodded in the affirmative as he studied the froth on his beer. “Next week is the last session.”

“So what happens next?” John persisted.

“They’ll do more tests; another MRI. We’ll wait a few weeks, and then we’ll probably start again.” Paul’s voice was flat, deflated.

“A third round.” John said the words, but it wasn’t a question. “Jesus.”

There was a silence for a minute or two before Paul forced himself to be more positive. “She seems to be feeling much better, though. She has more stamina, and she seems more herself.” 

It was John’s turn to nod affirmatively. “There’s no chance that the doctors are wrong?” He asked hopefully.

Paul wanted to believe that the doctors were wrong. There were even moments when he did believe that they were wrong. In fact, it seemed downright blasphemous to say flatly that they doctors could not be wrong. It would be like betting against Linda in her fight against death! So Paul did what Paul so often did - he chose to see the glass half full. “Her doctors did tell me that ‘unless we see a major change in her tests’ the cancer could not be stopped. I’m assuming that this means that there is still a chance that we will see a major change in her tests. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

John wanted to hold on to that hope, too. Many had been the time over the past year when he had felt guilty over the number of times he had ‘wished’ Linda gone. In the past, he had often allowed himself to fantasize about how life would have been if he had Paul to himself. Indeed - what might have happened if Paul hadn’t fallen in love with Linda in the summer of ’68? Would Paul have hung out and waited for the ‘Yoko thing’ to run its course? Would Paul have gravitated back into John’s orbit again? But now as he stood on the precipice of a life without Linda, John could feel nothing but sorrow and loss. He feared what would happen to Paul if Linda died. He feared what would happen to the family they had all created together. He even found it impossible to think of his own life without Linda in it. He sighed heavily, and shook his head.

“I’m hoping for that too,” he mumbled.

*****

 

Three Weeks Later,  
Early February 1997

 

As it turned out, the tests were not miraculously good. But they weren’t altogether bad either. Paul and Linda sat in their usual place in front of Dr. Wright’s desk, as he and Dr. Freeman discussed the results. 

“We were pleasantly surprised at the white blood cell count,” Dr. Freeman said. “And the MRI was clean.”

Paul and Linda, who were holding hands, turned to look at each other with a kind of surprised hope. “What does that mean exactly?” Paul asked carefully on behalf of both of them.

“It isn’t remission,” Dr. Wright said bluntly. (Quietly, to his side, Dr. Freeman did an imaginary face plant at Wright’s brusqueness.) “But the cancer hasn’t gotten worse.”

“Does this mean the chemo is finally working?” Paul asked.

“That is one of the possibilities,” Dr. Freeman said, jumping in before Dr. Tactless could say anything. “But there are other less optimistic possibilities, too. It may be an anomalous result. So we want to take the blood tests again, just to be sure.”

“That’s easily done,” Linda said. “Here’s my arm!”

Everyone laughed. It had been the first time the four of them had met together and had something even remotely positive to talk about. 

“And after the tests?” Paul asked.

“Well, if the new test results match these results, then we will recommend another - and tougher - round of chemo. It the chemo is working, this is no time to stop.” Dr. Freeman presented the position as positively as he could knowing that a third round of chemo was not what Linda wanted to hear about.

As Linda went off with Dr. Wright to get her blood drawn, Paul turned to Dr. Freeman. “And what if the new tests show that the chemo actually did get worse?” 

Dr. Freeman said, “She can choose not to do further chemo, and we’ll start thinking of experimental trials, or she can choose to do the third round of chemo in the hope that it will at least prolong her life.” 

Paul took on the news with a heavy dose of fatalism. He had expected much worse news today, so he would take this little chink of light he’d been magically given, and be happy with it. 

*****

 

“I’d like to work with George Martin on this song, and maybe a few others; and maybe Jeff Lynne on one or two,” Paul was telling John, as they faced each other in the studio chairs. Each man held a guitar.

“I did enjoy working with Jeff on the Anthology,” John admitted, “even if he is George’s friend.” 

Paul’s laugh was a sharp bark. “You’re a rum one,” he said. “Just because he’s George’s friend doesn’t mean he can’t be our friend, too.” 

John was strumming a set of chords from the song they were working on: The Song We Were Singing. It was one of Paul’s. “I guess this is what the breakup did to me. I can’t help putting people in categories, you know? These are my people, these are your people, these are George’s, and these are Ringo’s.”

Paul understood what John meant, because when he and John had done their first album together after all those years, they had both been very wary of using session musicians who had worked with the other one during the ‘70s estrangement. “I know what you mean,” Paul admitted, “but I think we need to try to put that behind us. It can be fun to sometimes work with people who push you out of your comfort zone.”

“Umm,” John responded. Clearly his thought process had moved on to other topics. “So we’ve picked the right six songs of yours that are basically done. There are three others of yours that I am still working on. I’ve got four songs and you’re working on those, and I’m working on a fifth.”

“You’ve got another one?” Paul asked cheerfully.

“Yeah - and so that is 14. That’s enough. I don’t think we’re going to be angst-ing over which songs to lose this time.”

“It seems uneven - 9 of mine to 5 of yours,” Paul pointed out.

“Well, last time it was 10 of mine and 4 of yours, so I guess we’re just about even,” John responded pertly. 

Paul laughed. “Okay, so what do you think about having George Martin help us on this song?”

“Are you sure he’ll do it?”

“He said we could record at his studio in Montserrat. That would be fun.”

“What about Linda?” John asked.

“We’re finding out tomorrow about the results of her second tests, but we can take a few weeks’ break after that, since she doesn’t have to start her third round until March.” 

“Well, set it up then. I could stand a stay in Montserrat just about now. London is at it’s gloomiest.” 

 

*****

Late February 1997

 

The balmy air wafted off the Caribbean, and up into the hills, and then past the balcony where Paul and John were seated, next to a bronzed George Martin. John was covered in sunscreen and hovering under an umbrella, and Paul was looking pretty brown now that the redness had faded. He was wearing a baseball cap to protect the end of his nose, which tended to get burnt even when no other part of his body did.

“Well, the pieces are mainly done,” Martin was saying in his judicious way. “Some clean up in the editing room, but I daresay we’re 80% there now.”

John said, “We’ve got a couple of songs yet to finish when we get back to London. Jeff Lynne is going to sit in with us.” John needed to make it clear to Martin - for whatever reason - that he and Paul were independent, although his comment did not appear to strike where John had aimed.

“Oh, that’s marvelous,” George opined. “The results will be very interesting.”

Paul turned away to the side so that John could not see the amused smile that flitted over his face. When would John learn that George Martin could see him coming a mile away?

In the kitchen, Judy Martin was seated at the table with Linda. They had been speaking softly about this and that. Judy had been working up her nerve to ask about Linda’s health. She certainly seemed to be in good shape. Yes, Linda’s hair was very short - it had obviously just recently been growing back - and she was still a little bit heavier than usual, but the puffiness around Linda’s face that Judy had seen at Christmas, just a few months earlier, seemed to be fading. 

“How are you?” Judy finally asked. 

Linda was leaning back in her chair, and she looked peaceful and unconcerned. “I’m doing better,” she said honestly. “I think I might have beaten it.”

“Really!” Judy cried. She was thrilled - incredulous.

“Well, it’s still early days, but the second round of chemo seems to have stopped the cancer from spreading. The last set of tests confirmed that. The third round, hopefully, will finish it off.” Linda actually believed what she was saying. Her body felt different. It felt as though it had been released from bondage, and now its various nooks and crannies seemed to be cautiously awakening to a feeling of freedom. Surely, her body would not lie to her so convincingly? Surely, this flush of health was not a false spring! 

“This is wonderful news! Why haven’t you been crowing about it?” Judy was amazed that Linda had kept this news quiet for the two weeks they’d been in Montserrat. Here they were, ready to return to London, and she was just mentioning it now.

Linda said, “Paul gets nervous when I say that I think I’ve licked it. He is a bit superstitious about it. So I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Judy felt a great deal of sympathy for both Paul and Linda. How difficult for Linda to have to sit on the news. But how sad that Paul was afraid to trust the news. “I won’t say anything then,” Judy said softly. “But I am so relieved and delighted to hear your news. How long will the third round of chemo last?”

“Just three months this time,” Linda said cheerfully. “But they’re going to throw everything at it this time. In America we say, ‘everything but the kitchen sink.’” Linda laughed and Judy did too. Linda sobered for a few moments. “I’ll probably be sicker than a dog for those three months, but since I know that at the end there will be no more chemo, I think my resolve will remain strong.”

 

*****

March 11, 1997

 

It was a brisk but fairly bright Tuesday, and Paul was accompanied in the limousine as it entered the gates of Buckingham Palace by his daughters Heather and Stella, and his son James. It was a group ceremony, and there had only been three tickets available for each honoree. Linda was far too sick to attend, the ‘kitchen sink’ chemo having knocked her clear off her feet. Mary was staying home to care for her mother; this was for the best, because Mary was the one of Linda’s children who best knew how to comfort her when she was unwell. 

John, too, was at Cavendish. While Mary and Linda were lying on the master bed upstairs, he was stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room, flitting through the channels with his remote control. The knighthood excitement had left him kind of cold. He had begun to regret the negative things he had said about England in the ‘70s, and the rude way in which he had returned his MBE medal. He supposed that these were the reasons he had been denied the nod. Paul had always remained “British to the core,” as he liked to tell the press, and even though he had married an American, he had made his family’s home in England and Scotland. 

Paul was incredibly nervous. He was surprised at the crowd outside the Palace. They were his fans, and they carried supportive signs and were screaming his name like the old Beatlemaniacs of old. He waved at them and had given them the familiar ‘thumbs up’ gesture as the car passed through the gates.

It was a somber occasion, and Paul felt his hands slightly shaking as he knelt to receive the two taps of the sword from his monarch. The deeply solemn ceremony, dressed with all the pomp and circumstance for which British monarchy was justly famous, was over so quickly that Paul never had a chance to really digest what was going on. He only remembered, as he knelt, thinking of his parents and hoping that there was a heaven, so they could look down and see what was happening. At times it was a bummer not believing in God. He was so focused on his own thoughts that he was surprised to learn later that Heather had broken out in sobs while he was being tapped by the Queen. Stella, of course, had done her best to calm her sister. 

Afterwards, the honorees were deposited out into the grounds of the Palace, where hordes of photographers descended on Paul. They shouted questions at him, and he tried to answer them. 

“Proud to be British, wonderful day and it’s a long way from a little terrace in Liverpool,” Paul said. He was almost not aware of what he was saying. He was still slightly dazed and confused by all the pageantry. He had watched so much of it on the television or heard it on the radio since he was a small boy, that to have it enfolding around him and in his honor was impossible to take in. 

“Where’s Linda?” A reporter shouted.

“She’s not feeling very well today,” Paul said carefully. “I would have loved the whole family to be here, but when we heard there were only three tickets, we had to draw straws.” 

“What do the other Beatles think of you being knighted?” Another reporter shouted.

Paul had to scrounge for an answer. He decided to use Ringo’s response, since neither George nor John had been fulsome over the honor. “They call me ‘Your Holiness’,” he joked. Everyone laughed good-naturedly. 

Soon he was in the limo with his children, and they were on their way back to Cavendish. The kids were all talking at once, and Paul was a little overwhelmed. He was very glad he wasn’t driving, because he was sure he would have driven straight into a wall or a ditch, he was so preoccupied. 

The old relatives from Paul’s childhood were suddenly alive in his brain. He could see the huge New Year’s parties with everyone singing, and telling jokes, and drinking way too much: typical Irish-clan goings-on. All of those old uncles and aunties - how proud they would all be - that is, the Protestant ones. The Catholic ones might have been less enthusiastic, but Paul doubted they would have been able to completely erase all sense of pride in their family member’s success. With this thought, Paul felt his eyes filling with tears. This was his moment to commune with his past. Linda didn’t know most of those old folks, and of course his children didn’t either. Only Paul (and his brother Michael) would understand. John would snicker. He would think it was silly to be chuffed over it. So Paul hugged these memories and feelings to himself. Maybe one night he and Mike would have too much whiskey, and they would get emotional, and talk about it all, just the two of them. He really couldn’t expect anyone else to understand what it meant to him. 

When the limo drove up to Cavendish, the front door flew open and Mary was there to greet them, begging to be told all about it. First, of course, she enveloped her father in a hug. She got a quick glance at his medal, and then Paul was in the house and charging up the stairs to find Linda, lying in her bed. He wanted her to see the medal and hear what happened first. The kids followed after, and gathered giddily in the room as Paul explained to Linda everything that had happened, with the kids joining in where appropriate to help set the scene. 

John had been torn over how to react to all this. He felt as though he ought to show some interest in Paul’s achievement, but at the same time he didn’t want to barge in to what was an intimate family setting. So he waited downstairs, trying to pay attention to the television, whilst he could hear the sounds of hilarity and excitement wafting down the stairs. As he sat there, he began to feel hurt and left out. Paul had run straight upstairs to Linda when he got back! He hadn’t even ducked his head in to say hello! The fact that John had poured cold water all over Paul’s news didn’t occur to John; nor did he acknowledge to himself that no one had precluded him from going upstairs and joining the throng. Of course, as was per usual for John, all he cared about was how he felt: that Paul and his family had excluded him from this key moment in Paul’s life. He was working up quite a head of steam about it, when he finally heard the hordes heading down the stairs, bringing their hilarity and excitement with them. Soon they were all in the sitting room with John, Paul at the back, gently leading Linda, who despite obviously feeling ill, also seemed aglow with happiness and excitement.

It was then that Paul noticed John. For some reason, Paul had thought that John had been at his home across the mews. Paul’s face lit up with pleasant surprise. He hadn’t expected John to show any interest in the ceremony.

“John! You’re here!” He declared.

“Yes, here I am,” John said in a flat, almost sarcastic voice. 

Paul did not notice the undercurrents in John’s voice and body language; he was too excited about his news. “Do you want to see it?” Paul asked, holding up the box that held the medal. 

John had to still his temper. He was fighting off the inevitable bitterness that followed any feeling of abandonment (however unjustified). “Oh, I guess I’ll have to look at it eventually,” John said in a joking voice. “I might as well get it over with right away.”

Still, Paul did not hear the suppressed anger. He thought John was just taking the piss. He went over to John holding the box open, and handed it to him proudly. It was as if Paul had just handed to John - on a silver platter - his fragile ego. 

John looked at it, showing little real interest or excitement. He touched the red and gold enameled medal and said, “You’d think they’d do something a little more elaborate, wouldn’t you?” He handed the box back to Paul without any further comment.

This time Paul felt the verbal slap. He had been slow to recognize that John was in one of “those” moods. Now he felt kind of stupid there holding the little red and white box.

Linda was distressed, and noting this Mary came to the rescue. “I think it is beautiful,” she said. “And anyway, it isn’t the actual medal that matters - it is the honor itself.” 

Stella, glaring at John, said, “Here! Here!” quite loudly.

John laughed and said (insincerely), “I was only joking. It’s great, Paul.”

It was too little, too late. Paul had gotten John’s point, and his mood had been spoiled. He snapped the box shut, and put it on the coffee table and said quietly, “I’m going upstairs to change and get comfortable,” and then he abruptly left the room.

Stella glared at John and said sharply to him, “As my cousins from America like to say, ‘smooth move, Ex-Lax!’”

James guffawed at this bathroom joke, but Mary whispered, “Stella - no!”

“I was only joking,” John repeated to his hostile audience. “He’ll get a big head if we all take it so bloody serious.”

Linda said softly, “It is serious, John. At least today it is. To Paul and to us” (here she gestured to her children arrayed around her) “it is very serious. I guess the rest of us feel that this isn’t the time or place to shoot him down with Liverpudlian-style putdowns.”

John saw that all of Paul’s children, and his wife, were looking at him lugubriously. He had clearly brought down everyone’s mood with his snarky reactions. He had no choice but to retreat. He sighed heavily. “You’re right. I should have kept my big mouth shut. But I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I think that is something you will have to explain to Paul,” Linda said firmly. “But if that was meant to be an apology to the rest of us, then I guess we accept it.”

John had to be satisfied with this. He hadn’t really given them a real apology, and what he had gotten in response was not a real acceptance. Fair was fair.

*****

March 12, 1997

 

That night, John slept alone. Paul had stayed at Cavendish celebrating with his family, and he had gone up early to bed with Linda, who was feeling sick. John really couldn’t complain, because this was a week where Paul was scheduled to stay at Cavendish. But he added this to his ever-growing (but rather questionable) list of grievances, and nursed aching feelings of abandonment all night long. 

Paul had been hurt by John’s reaction, but then, after he thought about it for a while, had decided that it was par for the course. It would have been out of character for John to get all giddy and excited about a medal from the Queen when he didn’t believe in the whole monarchy thing. Still, it had made him feel stupid for being so excited, and it had happened in front of his wife and children. If John was going to say those things about his medal, couldn’t he have stayed at his own home, and said them later when they were alone? Anyway, Paul was not going to let it bother him anymore. John didn’t agree with him on this subject and he probably never would, so Paul knew he would have to say nothing about it when he was with John. 

He had other, more important, things on his mind this day. Today was the 28th anniversary of his marriage to Linda. He and the kids had planned a surprise family party for the event. A few weeks earlier Paul had mentioned this to John and asked if he wanted to participate, and John had said no, the anniversary was Linda’s day. So John had not been part of their plans. So, after helping Linda with her morning toilette ritual, and assisting her as she came downstairs to lie on the sitting room sofa, Paul met with the kids in the kitchen as they finished their plans. As he looked around the kitchen table he saw 34 year-old Heather, 27 year-old Mary, 25 year-old Stella, and 19 year-old James: four beautiful, loving, talented children. Heather was a gifted potter, Mary a gifted photographer, Stella a gifted designer, and James a gifted musician. These were the fruits of his marriage to Linda. Together he and Linda had made some really great kids, and because they had devoted their lives to their children, always putting their children first, now their children were sitting there helping to plan this wonderful wedding anniversary for their parents. 

Stella had both ordered and then picked up the cake, which was in the shape of a green apple - a nod to the time when Paul had met up with Linda again in New York when he and John had been pitching Apple Corp. They all took turns lighting the 29 candles. Twenty-eight for the years that had passed, and one for “good luck.” The “good luck” candle had taken on an especially heightened meaning, and as Paul lit it he and his children quietly prayed. They weren’t prayers to a god so much as to fate, or Mother Nature, or the TM universe. As the candle was lit, it became a sacred symbol of conjoined and expressed hope.

James had staged his and his father’s guitars unobtrusively behind the sofa in the sitting room, and it was his assigned task to retrieve the guitars while his mother was focusing on the cake. Heather and Mary were carrying the presents that the children had gotten for their parents (even Paul wasn’t privy to that). Paul had his own present for Linda hidden in his pocket, while Mary kept her mother’s secret: Linda had asked Mary to go pick up the gift, which was now wrapped, and Mary had handed it to her mother when no one was looking.

Mary and Stella had decided that candlelight was called for, so they had surreptitiously shut off lights and lit candles before disappearing into the kitchen in the late afternoon. Linda had been asleep, and hadn’t noticed. Now, holding the cake aloft four conspirators entered the sitting room, walking as if they were members of a wedding party. The fifth conspirator (Mary) had slipped in and gently awakened her mother. 

Linda awoke to candlelight, and she saw entering from the direction of the kitchen, Paul - carrying the cake - and her children coming towards her. “Ohhh!” She cried. It was so dreamlike that she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it. 

Paul placed the cake down on the coffee table, and the girls quickly placed the presents on the table, along with plates and forks. “We’re supposed to blow out the candles together,” Paul whispered to Linda. Somehow whispering seemed appropriate in the candlelight. “You take the left side, and I’ll rake the right side,” Paul conspired. He sat down next to her, and helped her to sit up. Then, together, they leaned forward and blew out the candles. Paul did most of the blowing, and he especially focused on the “good luck” candle, and they all went out without the need for a second attempt. 

“Happy Anniversary!” Their children shouted, and James blew a paper horn while throwing loose confetti over his parents’ heads. 

“Oh damn!” Linda joked. “Now I’ll have to clean that crap out of my sofa!” All the kids laughed at their mother’s unfamiliar swearing. 

“I wrote a song for you,” Paul said to Linda softly, “and James has helped me.” As if by magic, James appeared with two guitars, and they sat opposite each other, and began to play. Paul sang. 

 

Somedays I look,  
I look at you with eyes that shine.  
Somedays I don't,  
I don't believe that you are mine.

It's no good asking me what time of day it is,  
Who won the match or scored the goal.  
Somedays I look,  
Somedays I look into your soul.

Sometimes I laugh,  
I laugh to think how young we were.  
Sometimes it's hard,  
It's hard to know which way to turn.

Don't ask me where I found that picture on the wall,  
How much it cost or what it's worth.  
Sometimes I laugh,  
I laugh to think how young we were.

We don't need anybody else  
To tell us what is real.  
Inside each one of us is love,  
And we know how it feels.

Somedays I cry,  
I cry for those who live in fear.  
Somedays I don't,  
I don't remember why I'm here.

No use reminding me, it's just the way it is,  
Who ran the race and came in first.  
Somedays I cry,  
I cry for those who fear the worst.

We don't need anybody else  
To tell us what is real.  
Inside each one of us is love,  
And we know how it feels.

Somedays I look,  
I look at you with eyes that shine.  
Somedays I don't,  
I don't believe that you are mine.

It's no good asking me what time of day it is,  
Who won the match or scored the goal.  
Somedays I look,  
Somedays I look into your soul.


	103. Chapter 103

Mid-March 1997

 

March was a month of achievements for McCartneys. Paul was knighted, Paul and Linda celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary, and Stella became the Creative Director of the famous fashion house, Chloe, replacing Karl Lagerfeld. The negotiations had been going on for several weeks, but the call Stella had received from her business agent to tell her the deal was final had been as exciting for her as the call from Buckingham Palace had been to her father. 

Linda felt that all of these events had to be omens. Although she was only one third of the way through her third round of chemo, and although the chemo was making her feel very sick, she was filled with hope. She had come to believe that once the chemo was over in two months her ordeal would be over. She had even begun to make plans for the future: things she wanted to do but had never done. She had already spoken to her daughter Mary about doing a retrospective exhibition of her photography in New York. Mary was working with a few others at MPL to develop those plans. 

Paul had noticed the change in Linda’s emotional state. She was becoming more and more “herself” even as the chemo made her sicker. Linda’s hope gave Paul hope, which he still could not bring himself to express out loud. The wary part of Paul could not quite believe, even though the buoyant part of Paul was dying to believe. 

From Paul’s perspective, the little upset between John and him caused by the knighthood (or, more specifically, John’s reaction to the knighthood) had blown over. It had blown over because Paul had decided to bury the issue. It wasn’t as if Paul went around the house wearing the medal, after all, and he didn’t want anyone to call him ‘Sir’, so after the actual medal was bestowed, the knighthood became essentially invisible to John. Thus, Paul concluded, John was able to pretend it hadn’t happened, and all could go back to normal. Paul found it easy to let this happen; he’d had his moment of pride, where he had communed with the memory of his parents and seen the awe shining in his children’s faces, and now here he was again dealing with the presently daunting reality of everyday life. Paul found it much easier to just let John’s ungracious behavior slip from his mind. Paul was only too aware of the fact that it was a perverse reflex of John’s to feel that any special attention given exclusively to someone else was somehow a slight to him.

Thus, in this way they had quietly fallen back into their close relationship, working in the studio by day, hanging around Cavendish with Linda by evening, and - on evenings when one of the kids was with Linda - sharing mutual passion by night. Although it might have been amusing to utilize Paul’s knighted state in sexual role-playing, Paul didn’t dare make this suggestion. What was that saying again? The one about sleeping dogs?

 

*****

 

Late March 1997

 

To John, however, the knighthood episode was not as easily buried. During the months after the knighthood announcement was made and before the ceremony, John hadn’t wanted to discuss it with Fiona, because his Ego knew that his Id’s behavior was childish: no point in having his therapist join in on the Greek chorus of guilt after all. But Fiona was deeply curious about John’s absolute and passive silence on the whole subject of Paul’s knighthood, and after asking casual questions about it during several sessions and getting only the mildest, least informative responses, she had come to the conclusion that John was not being forthright with her about his reaction to it. One afternoon in late March, a few weeks after the ceremony, Fiona decided to tackle John directly on the subject.

“You didn’t tell me how the ceremony went,” Fiona said during a lull in their conversation.

“What ceremony is this?” John asked. He suspected she was referencing that whole adoubement thing again, and John really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Paul’s knighthood ceremony,” Fiona clarified.

John sighed impatiently. “You’ve got knighthood on the brain, haven’t you?” He asked Fiona insolently. “You never stop talking about it.”

Fiona laughed freely. “I’m a bit of a monarchist at heart,” she admitted. There was no embarrassment there that John could see. This disappointed him. 

“I think the whole thing is very romantic,” Fiona added, musing.

John sniffed. “I’ve met the Queen, too, you know; a few times. Back in the ‘60s.” 

“But what was the ceremony like?” Fiona asked, repeating her original question. She sat forward with an eagerness that grated on John. This negatively affected his mood.

“I wasn’t there, was I,” he said grumpily.

This surprised Fiona for some reason. “You didn’t go?” She was quite disappointed in John for not being there to support his partner at such an important moment.

“He was only given three invitations. Linda was too sick from the chemo to go, and the four kids had to draw straws, so only three of them went.”

“Only three invitations?” Fiona asked. “That’s quite parsimonious, isn’t it? You’d think the Palace would be more generous...”

“Yeah, and the medal looks like enamel. I don’t think it is gold at all - maybe just a patina of gold. I didn’t think it was that impressive.” John had warmed to the subject, Fiona noticed. She decided the time was right to get to her point. 

“But if you had been invited, would you have gone?”

John’s face was a picture of abrupt surprise. He hadn’t expected to move so quickly from idle gossip to deep theoretical analysis. Inside he heard the word “NO!” echoing in his brain, but John knew that ‘no’ was not the politically correct response. John’s long delay, however, had given Fiona her answer.

“You are upset about Paul being knighted, aren’t you?” Fiona said quietly after a few awkward moments of silence.

“I don’t believe in stuff like that. I am disappointed that Paul cares so much about it. He shouldn’t have pushed to get the award.” 

“You don’t think Paul deserves the recognition on his own, without ‘pushing’ for it?” Fiona asked. 

“Well, if it is the music he is getting it for, why just him and not me? Obviously, he pushed for it. He opened that arts college in Liverpool...” John’s response was overly defensive, Fiona thought. And now she had heard the words that she had expected were underlying his curious coldness about the whole subject: John’s ego had been injured when Paul alone received the nod.

“Do you feel as though you deserved the recognition too?” Fiona asked. “After all, you have been partners for most of your careers, and most of the achievements you’ve done, you’ve done with or because of each other.”

“It’s all politics,” John responded sharply. “Paul stayed in England, I moved to America. Paul kept his MBE, I sent it back - and I did it publicly. Paul had another huge success with Wings, and I ventured in radical American politics instead. Paul took the lead in developing charitable foundations, and although I contribute the same amount of money, I don’t contribute leadership. It’s not my forte.”

“Aren’t those all perfectly good reasons for Paul to be knighted by the Queen, and you not?” Fiona asked objectively.

“Yes - but again!” John was fully engaged now, and was forgetting to be politically correct. “Paul always took the safer, more conservative route, and I always took the riskier and more courageous route. He wouldn’t have made it out of Liverpool without me - not because he hasn’t got the talent. Obviously, he does. But because he would never have taken the risks that I pushed him to take. He wouldn’t be in a position to be knighted but for me. And - by the way - I refused to accept entry into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame solo because I felt that they were unfairly discriminating against Paul. It hurts to see that when the shoe is on the other foot, Paul didn’t stick up for me! And, really, I don’t like to see him so pleased about such a meaningless medal from an equally meaningless monarch. It reminds me of how much he is drawn to mawkish, sentimental tradition, and that’s embarrassing to me. It’s a side of Paul I’ve never liked.” 

Fiona had sat back as this deluge of spite had escaped John’s lips. She was a bit shocked at what she had unleashed. What loose end should she pull first? It was hard to keep track of them all: John was envious of Paul getting attention that he thought should be equally his; and John was upset that Paul valued things that John thought were unworthy; and John was upset that Paul accepted the honor, leaving John ‘abandoned’; and John was resentful of Paul for making an effort to obtain the honor, and thus in John’s mind tainting the honor. All of these threads were hanging loose. 

“Have you spoken with Paul about any of this?” She finally asked. She asked this question because this was the real issue: it theoretically didn’t matter if John did not approve and even if John felt left out, but if John was going to remain bitter about it then it was going to have a corrosive effect on his relationship with Paul. 

John, having delivered himself of a great deal of the bile that had been building up inside of him for months, felt a bit wasted. He had collapsed backwards into the sofa, and had taken on a kind of sunken look. He said, “I tried to joke with him about it, but he doesn’t think it is funny. It pisses me off because everyone else can tease him about being knighted, you know, call him ‘his holiness’ and such, and he enjoys it, but if I make a joke he takes it personally.” 

Fiona began to see that the old familiar ‘abandonment’ issue was the likely leading actor in John’s little scenario. The other issues were but supporting players, clearly. She felt competent to deal with this old adversary. “Do you suppose Paul takes your jokes so much to heart because he suspects how you really feel about it, and thus maybe he thinks you are not teasing him so much as taking shots at him?” 

John was silent, but a cloud of guilt seemed to hang over his head. “I reacted badly when I first found out,” John finally admitted. “I said some things, and Paul was hurt by them. So maybe he was a little sensitive about it when I teased him.” John straightened up a bit. “But it’s okay now. The subject never comes up, and Paul doesn’t have hard feelings about it.”

Fiona didn’t think this was good news, even though John did. It seemed that John and Paul were back to their old ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ routine. She had thought they had put much of that dysfunctional behavior behind them. “But have you told Paul that you were hurt that he accepted the knighthood after you turned down the Hall of Fame honor?”

John said nothing. He stared at his hands. “No,” he finally said. 

“Why not?”

John didn’t know ‘why not.’ He met Fiona’s eyes with an expression that said, ‘search me.’ Fiona took a deep breath to fortify her patience, and explained:

“You know, the political differences - that you are anti-monarchy and he is pro-monarchy - those differences won’t poison your relationship. That kind of thing can be easily laid aside if you really love the other person. But the feeling you have that perhaps Paul was not as loyal to you as you were to him - he wouldn’t give up an honor that meant something to him in order to stand up for you - that feeling can cause serious damage in your relationship.” It was a long speech for Fiona, but she believed it had to be said. 

“It just seems so petty to say anything about it,” John said. “I mean, a rock and roll museum is a really stupid idea - it’s mainly a vanity thing for one guy, Jann Wenner, and no one takes it all that seriously, but a knighthood... I mean, even if you don’t believe in stuff like that, you know that it is taken deadly seriously by all the powers-that-be in England. It seems petty of me to say, ‘turn down the Queen because I turned down Jann Wenner.’ I mean, from an objective viewpoint, the two things aren’t really comparable.”

“Never mind what you think is ‘objectively’ comparable. The important question is - are the two things comparable to you?” Fiona asked gently. 

John hadn’t expected his own answer, which occurred to his mind without delay. “No, they’re not comparable, not only because a knighthood is a different level of honor than the Hall of Fame. It’s also because Paul asked me to go ahead and take the Hall of Fame honor - he urged me to do it - and I was the one who refused. He was happy for me that I was nominated, and he believed I deserved it, even though it hurt him to be excluded. That’s the difference between us, you know. Paul is a more generous soul than me.”

Fiona was pleased to see John giving up this most poisonous of interpretations of Paul’s decision to accept the knighthood. That tit for tat argument was the only one in John’s arsenal that she had truly worried about. Still, she believed that John was being too tough on himself. “I don’t know that I would use the word ‘generous’, John. Of course, it was generous of Paul to be happy for you, but you are a very generous person, too. I’m thinking the word you should have used was ‘secure.’ ‘Paul is more secure than me’ would have been a more accurate description, in my opinion.” 

John was looking at his hands again, and he appeared to be deep in thought. He finally said, “I was jealous of the attention he got, and I didn’t like being left out.” 

“From what you’ve told me over the last few months, I don’t think you were ‘left out’ by Paul so much as you chose to be removed from it.” Fiona’s expression was shrewd.

John considered the ring on his hand. It was one of the rings that Paul had purchased for him in South America. There were small opals on either side of a large lapis lazuli stone, and the opals were gleaming like cloudy crystals in the light from a beam escaping from the adjacent window. He moved his finger to and fro, allowing the light to play with the stones, and watching the resultant change of colors. “Why do you suppose I do that?” He finally asked. He didn’t look up, instead remaining focused on his ring.

Fiona smiled at her patient. She knew that he knew full well why he ‘did that.’ She said nothing, and she continued to say nothing long enough to eventually pique John’s interest, causing him to finally meet her eyes. John smiled sheepishly when he saw the answer in Fiona’s eyes.

“Fear of abandonment again,” he said softly.

 

*****

 

Early April 1997

 

John and Paul were in the studio, listening to what John hoped would be the final version of the album, which they had decided to call Flaming Pie based on one of Paul’s songs that John had reworked. John liked the nod to his joke story of how the ‘Beatles’ had gotten their name, and he enjoyed the word play in the lyrics, too. The album’s release date - May 5th - had been decided upon, and so had most of the art and legal. What remained was for the artists to put their final seal of approval on the master. 

As usual, John was more eager to do this than was Paul. Paul was still fussing over the order of the songs, the intro of one song, and the middle-8 of another. John had again reached that point in their process when it became necessary for him to firmly put his foot down. 

“The songs are done, and the song order is fine, and anyway, if you change the order of the songs, you’ll screw up the artwork.” John’s tone was tough and final. 

Paul recognized the tone immediately. Their inter- communication skills as composing partners had perfected to a fine point. John had said several times in the past few weeks - as he had often said while they recorded together over lo these many years - “It’s done.” But the way he’d said, “it’s done,” those times - the tone he used - told Paul that there was still a little patience left. But then there would come a time when John would say, “It’s done” - the exact same words - but this time Paul would hear ‘he really means it.’ It was a mysteriously exact form of communicating that had intrigued and confounded all those who had ever worked with the two of them. 

Paul sat back and stretched in his chair, his arms arching over his head. “Okay, you’re right,” he said reasonably. These words never failed to delight and surprise the sound engineers who knew they wouldn’t have to listen to the same bleeding songs over and over anymore. 

John turned to George Martin, who had been relaxed in an easy chair, watching the interplay between John and Paul with fond amusement. “It’s a wrap, George.”

“Indeed it is,” George said in return. “I like this one.”

John and Paul knew that George was not given to extravagant praise in the studio. He didn’t excoriate or criticize, either. Instead, he would use persuasion and tact. But he also didn’t get visibly excited about good work. So, if George Martin told you that he ‘liked’ the work, it was praise indeed. Both John and Paul smiled reflexively and with pleasure at George. 

“Well, let’s pack up and then leave for mine,” George said. He and Judy had invited John and Paul to their home for what they hoped would be a celebratory dinner over the completion of the production work on the album. In the event, Paul had thankfully conceded that the album was done, so it was definitely going to be a celebration for George Martin, who had been coaxed out of retirement to assist on several of the songs. Now he could go back to his easy chair, where he would listen to classical music and read historical tomes that he’d always promised he would read when he retired. 

 

*****

 

“Hello, Paul - or should I call you ‘Sir’?” Judy teased, as she welcomed her guests in the hall. Paul chuckled easily, and John managed to stop his eyes from rolling. No matter where he went people were intent upon bringing up this blighted knight business. 

But the subject had already been changed. “How is Linda doing?” Judy asked next, her face alive with concern.

“Halfway through her last round, we hope,” Paul said politely. He didn’t like talking about Linda’s cancer with people outside the immediate family. Judy could tell that Paul was still playing it safe with Linda’s good news. She smiled warmly at her guests, and showed them into the sitting room, where George was already mixing cocktails. John walked over to him.

“I want mine stirred, but not shaken,” John slurred in his best Sean Connery imitation. 

“I think it goes the other way around,” George commented.

“That must be why I failed the audition,” John joked.

“I heard Judy asking about Linda,” George said in a low voice. “How is she doing?”

John didn’t like to be placed in the middle like this, but he dredged up a suitable response. “We won’t know until after the chemo finishes, which is in about a month.” 

“How is Paul holding up? I mean, really,” George asked, casting a careful eye towards the sofa, where Paul was being charming to Judy. “He always seems so stoic at work.”

John nodded at this last observation and said, “He’s had some bad moments, but he’s a pretty strong lad, our Paul. I think he wants to be strong for his family.”

“Of course,” George responded. He handed John two drinks and took two drinks himself, and led the way to the sofa, where soon the drinks were distributed evenly.

“Paul was just saying that you’ll be in New York for a few weeks, John,” Judy said. “Something to do with your poetry?”

“My publisher is giving a party, and I’ve been invited. Nothing too strenuous,” John said lightly. 

Paul laughed. “I’ll never get used to John being modest. It doesn’t suit!” Paul turned to Judy and George. “He is being honored with an award from the Poetry Society of America for his first book of poetry.” Paul looked very proud indeed.

“Really! When did you find out?” Judy cried, speaking to John. 

“Just the other night. My publisher had nominated me for the year 1996, and I had no idea.” 

“Between the two of you you’re cleaning up all the awards and medals, aren’t you?” George laughed. 

John smiled. Finding out about the award had been a very nice surprise. But Paul’s reaction had shook loose feelings of guilt. Paul had been so excited and proud about John’s award, and he - John - had not reciprocated when it came to Paul’s knighthood. It was a reminder of his own deep failings as a person; he told himself for the millionth time that he needed to be more demonstratively proud of Paul’s solo accomplishments, and encourage him more. 

“Are you going too?” Judy asked Paul innocently. 

Paul looked guiltily at John. John answered for him. “He can’t leave Linda while she’s having chemo,” he said firmly. “The timing of the award presentation could have been a little bit better.” 

Paul smiled gratefully at John for being so mature about the fact that he could not accompany him, and also for making it clear to others that he was not upset by it. But before Paul could get all misty-eyed over the new and improved John Lennon, John added irreverently:

“And besides, we could hardly show up as a couple at such a sedate event, you know. People would talk.”

 

*****

 

May 1, 1997  
New York City

 

Bill Segal was the host of the party; a first class restaurant had been booked for the evening, and it was full to the brim with New York’s literati, their agents, lawyers and advisors, not to mention numerous poets and poetry professors from prestigious graduate schools, and of course members of the press. The press members, however, were all from such American periodicals as The Atlantic, Esquire, The New Yorker, The New York Times Review of Books, and other highbrow publications. John had invited Gerry and Jason, of course, and Jason knew many of the guests from his distinguished career of literary criticism. 

John was exceedingly nervous. He felt out of place and undeserving. He was strongly reminded of the embarrassing events put on by the publisher of his works ‘In His Own Write’, and ‘A Spaniard in the Works’ in the mid-‘60s. He had attended those events with his then-wife Cynthia, but Paul was always at the head table, too. It was true that he had looked to Paul for moral support during those events rather than his wife, not that anyone noticed this at the time. Cynthia had been shy and retiring, and in way over her head in such highbrow company. Paul, of course, at home anywhere and with anyone, had been knowledgeable and respectful to all the important publishers, charmed their wives, and flirted gently with their daughters; he had sat next to John when John was being questioned by the literary press, adding just the right words to John’s answers to turn them from bordering-on-rude to acceptably naughty. John sighed with the memory of it. Sadly, tonight there was no Paul to help him navigate the dangerous waters, so John would have to rely on Jason. But he would have much preferred to have Paul there to lean on at a time like this.

Intellectually he understood why Paul could not be there, just as intellectually he had understood why he could not be at Paul’s knighthood ceremony. Although John thought of Paul as a spouse, in the eyes of the world he was not Paul’s spouse, and the questions that would be aroused by their appearance together without women on their arms would swamp and overcome the substance of the event. What’s more, Paul could not be separated from Linda because of her illness. If she were not sick both Paul and Linda could have come to this party. And indeed, if she weren’t sick she could have gone to the knighthood ceremony, and if she had gone, then it would have been okay for John to go too. John hated to think of Linda as a ‘beard’, because she was so much more than that to both Paul and John, but it was undeniable that at least on one level Linda was a ‘beard.’ Her presence erased the suggestiveness of John being there to support Paul, or Paul being there to support John.

John mentally shook himself to put these melancholy thoughts behind him. His publisher was expecting him to shine, so he would have to make an effort. Jason seemed to understand John’s underlying shyness, so he attached himself to John and began to show him around, and introduce him to his friends and acquaintances.

“Oh dear,” Jason suddenly whispered in John’s ear. 

“What?” John asked, instantly alert and worried.

“That man making a beeline for you - do you see him?”

“The older gentleman with the fake tan and the pure white hair?” John whispered back.

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Jason chuckled softly. “It’s Gore Vidal. Have you ever read any of his work?” 

“The name’s familiar. What did he write?” John asked.

“His biggest book was Myra Breckinridge from the late ‘60s. It was a satire about Hollywood.” 

“Why did you say, ‘oh dear’?” John asked curiously. He was grateful that the man was being stopped every few feet by a succession of people who wanted to talk to him, because this gave Jason enough time to explain all.

“He’s a bit of a loose cannon. You never know what he is going to say. Be careful of what you say to him; he’s also a notorious gossip in the literary world and high society. He was some kind of step-relation to Jackie Kennedy, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” John said. 

“And his family was big in politics.” Jason stopped for a moment as he noted that Vidal was close now, so avoiding the introductions was out of the question. Jason quickly made the most salient point: “He has repeatedly written that everyone is bisexual, and he won’t be called ‘gay’ or ‘straight’, because these are attempts by society to pigeonhole and trap people.”

John’s eyebrows rose in unison. “He sounds interesting,” he said.

“But dangerous. Do not answer any of his provocative questions. You can spar wits with him, but you will undoubtedly lose. He is brilliant and ruthless - intellectually I mean. He actually insulted Bobby Kennedy during a White House event, and got into verbal slanging matches with other brilliant writers - William F. Buckley, Jr., and Norman Mailer - although those slanging matches were draws. If they couldn’t best him, I can assure you that no one else can.”

John was suitably intimidated, and finally the venerable Gore Vidal, now in his 70th year, made it to John. He had a very blasé expression on his face, and one of his eyebrows looked as though it were permanently in an arched position. 

 

*****

 

London, Earlier That Day  
May 1st 1997

 

Back in London, Linda and Paul had just got back to Cavendish after her last chemo session. They had stopped for their chips treat, and had eaten them in a nearby park, enjoying the slowly warming air of spring. Linda’s eyes had sparkled. She knew that in a few short hours she would be miserable again, but right then she felt fantastic. She had spent the half hour in the park explaining to Paul all of the plans she and Mary had made for her photographic retrospective. 

“You know Theo, my contact in New York,” she told Paul, “he has offered up his art gallery and is enthusiastic about my show.”

“What is the theme?” Paul asked, interested in Linda’s news, and also encouraging that interest.

“I want to focus on my nature and landscape photographs," Linda said, her old passion for her art coming to the fore again, almost as if it had never left.

Paul was intoxicated by her enthusiasm and energy level, and the two had exchanged ideas for several more minutes, before they decided to get in the car and return to Cavendish. 

Arriving at Cavendish, the housekeeper Rose told Paul that John Lennon had called from New York. Paul was mindful that today was the day of John’s party, so he quickly called John at his flat, and was surprised when a strange man answered the phone. 

“Hello?” The American voice asked. Paul didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t Jason’s or Gerry’s. 

“Yes, hello,” Paul stuttered, “Is John there?”

There was a delaying silence on the other end of the line until the voice said in a superior tone, “Who should I say is calling?”

Paul was a little irritated. Since when did John get someone to answer his phone? But he said, “Paul McCartney.” His voice was perhaps a little brusque and maybe his irritation showed a little bit. 

“I see. Well, let me see if he is available.” The voice was now languid and - it had to be said - a bit arrogant.

Paul was ready to shout at the asshole, but the man had already put him on hold. Paul had half a mind to just hang up. Who was this fucking upstart, anyway? The minutes ticked by until three had passed, and Paul was again thinking of hanging up when John’s voice finally came on the other end.

“Paul? Is that you?” He asked, breathless.

“Yes of course it’s me. You called me. I’m returning the call.”

“You sound pissed off,” John observed drily.

“Who was that insolent person who answered the phone?” Paul demanded.

“Insolent? You mean Jimmy?” John asked, perplexed.

“I don’t know who he is, do I?” Paul snarled. “He was very rude to me. Who is he?”

“My publishers thought I could use a personal assistant on this trip, so they sent me Jimmy. I don’t think he meant to be rude so much as they’ve probably trained him to be protective of their writers.” 

Paul bit his lip and said nothing. He wasn’t going to get all pissy, because that would not be very dignified. “So what did you want?” He asked, his voice still surly.

John was starting to get irritated now. Paul was behaving awfully strangely. “I was just checking in. According to my diary, this was Linda’s last day of chemo. How’d it go?”

Paul was humbled by the question. All of his irritation washed away in an instant. His eyes even teared up a bit. “So kind of you to remember, John,” he said sincerely, his voice completely devoid of anger and irritation now. “She’s in a lovely mood. She hasn’t started feeling ill yet, but she’s all full of plans for a photographic exhibition this summer, in New York.”

John could tell that Paul’s bad mood had passed, and he smiled at Paul’s gentle voice. “That’s great, babe. I’m so happy for you and for Linda. Listen - they’re all gathering in the hall and calling for me, so I have to go. Love you - miss you!”

Paul said in closing, “Have a great time tonight, John. You totally deserve this.”


	104. Chapter 104

May 1, 1997  
New York  
John Meets Gore Vidal

 

“Mr. Lennon, I have traversed across this vast room to meet you. I am very intrigued by you and your work.” Vidal said these words with a mid-Atlantic drawl, and it was almost as if he were reading the words, not speaking them spontaneously. 

There was only one way to deal with true intellectuals, John had learned. So he went there: he instantly became unreconstructed working class Liverpool. “Are you taking the piss?” He asked flatly, his eyes dancing with impishness.

“Well, I certainly hope not. That is the lot of chambermaids, is it not?” Vidal parried.

“Yeah - ‘chambermaids.’ I was surrounded by those growing up.” John attempted to look unconcerned and not intimidated by Vidal’s obvious erudition and upper class breeding.

Vidal chose to ignore the jibe. “Be that as it may,” he said, “I very much enjoyed your poetry. I sense a fellow contrarian in you.”

John wasn’t sure what Vidal meant by ‘contrarian.’ He knew that to be contrary to something was to disagree; did that mean a ‘contrarian’ was someone who was always disagreeing with others? If that is what it meant, it was a pretty accurate description of John Lennon, if John did think so himself. 

“Can I entice you to join me at a table, so we can have a more in depth conversation?” Vidal asked. 

Jason cleared his throat. John started. Oops! He’d forgotten what little manners he had. “Mr. Vidal, this is a good friend of mine, Jason...”

“Ah yes, Jason! We met - it must have been over 10 years ago. You reviewed one of my books for Esquire, I believe.”

“It was the New Yorker, and about 8 years ago: your book Lincoln.” Jason was polite and succinct.

“I do remember the review; it was very provoking. I liked it very much.” Vidal smiled, but the smile was the kind of smile that villains are said to display to their intended victims. 

The three men strolled over to a table a bit out of the way, and sat down. Vidal crossed his legs very elegantly, facing more to the side than to the center of the round table. He leaned in closer to John and said, so that Jason would not hear, “So is this Jason person with you?”

“Yes,” John said, feeling that the question was odd. “But so is Gerry, his partner.” 

“Ah, I see,” Vidal said. “So he is just a friend of yours, is he?”

“He’s a very old and dear friend of mine,” John corrected. “What’s all this in aid of?” Suspicion was written all over John's face.

“Oh,” Vidal laughed. “Not for any of the reasons you are obviously entertaining. I have had a ‘partner’ for 45 years. But our relationship has only been successful because we don’t have sex.”

John hadn’t been expecting that! His head jerked back, both from the fact and the content of Vidal’s unsolicited disclosure. He honestly did not know what the hell was going on.

Vidal enjoyed putting people back on their feet. This was one of his favorite things to do. He hadn’t expected John Lennon to be so clueless, though. 

“My point was that I find it reprehensible what the press has been doing to you and your songwriting partner,” Vidal continued, making his point more obvious for the disappointingly slow Lennon. “I am certain that you and your creative partner could not have been friends and collaborators for decades if you were actually having sex. Sex ruins long term relationships.” Having divested himself of this pronouncement, Vidal sat back and watched John’s face, looking for a reaction of some kind.

John shook his head and said, “Mr. Vidal, you are trying to provoke me. Jason, here, warned me about you. He said if I were to engage in a war of wits with you, I would certainly lose. So I’m throwing in my hand now before things get worse than they already are.” 

Vidal then laughed a genuine laugh. It was the first one he had exhibited since John had met him. John felt proud of that hard-won laugh. “Very well,” Vidal accepted graciously. “Pax.”

 

*****

 

Later That Night  
May 1, 1997  
John’s Apartment

 

“What a mountebank!” Jason trilled. He was filling Gerry in on the meeting with Gore Vidal. Gerry had been on the other side of the restaurant, and thus had not participated in the conversation.

John didn’t know exactly what a mountebank was, but he got the gist. “He’s like a character out of one of those old English mystery novels,” John added, still chuckling.

“I still wonder what the hell that weird conversation was about,” Jason said. “It got decidedly less weird after that stuff about sex ruining a relationship was over, thankfully, but still.”

“What?” It was the first time that Gerry had spoken since they got back to John’s flat. 

John explained. “He said he’d had a partner for 45 years, but the reason they stayed together was they didn’t have sex. His supposed purpose for saying it was that he didn’t believe the rumors about Paul and me being lovers, because if we’d been lovers, we would have ruined our partnership. Little did he know that sex did ruin our first partnership. I didn’t point that out to him, though. What did you think of what he said, Jason?”

Jason’s smile was a little smug. “I think he is trying to deny that he has regular sex with a man. How likely is it that he would live with a person for 45 years and never have sex with him?”

This triggered a long ago memory for John. “You know, I was friends with the actor Victor Spinetti. Do you know of him?” John asked.

Jason said, “I don’t think so.”

John said, “He is a British character actor, originally from Wales. He was in all of our films - the Beatle films - in the ‘60s. I really enjoyed Victor’s company - in fact, I really ought to look him up and see how he is doing. Anyway, he told me something very similar. That he had this partner he had lived with for decades, and although they had been lovers at first, when they had stopped being sexual they still loved each other, and had to speak every day no matter where in the world they were - they were that close. I thought it was odd, but now I hear Vidal saying basically the same thing.”

“So you think that at first Vidal’s relationship was sexual, but when the passion wore off they decided to be lifelong friends?” Jason asked.

“Yes, I think that is what he meant,” John opined.

“Do you think they have sex with other people too?” Jason asked.

“I have no idea; the man's got to be at least 70. Do people still have sex at 70? I wasn’t sure Victor was sexually active still, either. I thought for the longest time that maybe that is what gay meant - not having a long time love affair with one person. I thought that until I met you and Gerry and your friends, actually. Now I see it all over the place, and I realize that it was just a stereotype.”

Gerry spoke up. “It’s odd, though. Why live with one person and have sex with a succession of others? And the alternative is worse; how sad to give up on sex altogether.”

John and Jason were both staring at Gerry with amused shock. Neither of them had ever heard Gerry discussing sexual practices out loud. He had, in fact, been censorious of those who had done so in his hearing. “Gerry!” Jason cried. “I can’t believe you said that!”

“You two are obviously a terrible influence on me,” Gerry declared self-righteously.

 

*****

 

The Next Day  
May 2, 1997

 

John woke up at 11 a.m., and took his time getting out of bed, showering, and dressing. He made his way to the kitchen, and was surprised to find Jimmy seated at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, and going through some correspondence.

“Good morning, Mr. Lennon,” Jimmy said politely.

“Call me John.”

“Of course, John. Good morning.

“And to you. Anything interesting in the mail?” John’s eyes were lit with amusement. He wasn’t used to strange people going through his mail.

“I only opened the ones that appeared to be business-oriented,” Jimmy said defensively.

“Are there personal letters in there?” John asked idly. Jimmy handed him 4 letters. John noted they were invitations to various social events. John poured himself a cup of coffee, stuck some bread in the toaster, and then sat down at the table with Jimmy. “What did you say to Paul last night?” He asked curiously.

“Paul?” Jimmy asked, stumped.

“McCartney. My songwriting partner.” John answered. How annoying that this young man was one of those who did not know about the Beatles and Lennon & McCartney. He’d have to talk to Bill Segal about that. Jimmy still had a vacant look on his face. “He returned my call last night before I left for the party?” John prompted.

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” Jimmy said.

“So what did you say to him?”

“I don’t think I said anything to him, other than to ask who he was, and that I would let you know he was on the line.” Jimmy’s face was very innocent. John wondered if that was an act, or if he was telling the truth as he understood it. Probably the kid had no idea how condescending he could sound.

“I see,” John said evenly. “But in the future if Paul calls me, you should recognize who he is, and immediately fetch me. He’s my creative partner, you see, and we have been friends since we were teenagers - it will be 40 years in a few months! I think he was offended that you treated him as if he were some opportuning stranger.”

Jimmy’s jaw tightened. He knew his business, and was trained properly. He didn’t like being told how to do his job by creative types. “Well, I will be working here for only three more days, isn’t that correct? It is unlikely that he will call again.”

John was astounded at the nerve of the young man. He swallowed and said, “He calls me every day, or I call him. Sometimes we speak more than once a day. So it is very likely he will call here in the next three days, and if he does, I expect you to treat him warmly, as he is my oldest and best friend.”

“As you say sir,” Jimmy said, just barely keeping the irritation out of his voice. 

John’s eyes lowered to a suspicious squint, but decided not to make any more of it. Three more days and he would be on a plane back to London, and Jimmy and his pretensions would be in his rear view mirror.

 

*****

 

London,  
Two Days Later (May 4, 1997)

 

Paul had actually gone back to the gym for the first time in over a year. Something about Linda’s sense of confidence had allowed him to take a few hours to himself. He came back from the gym, showered, and then came down to find Linda tucked up on the sofa in the sitting room, reviewing a set of proofs. 

“You look great, baby,” Paul said to her fondly, kissing her on her forehead. 

“I feel great. I’m still a bit weak on my pins, as they say,” Linda joked, “but the nausea is much better today. I can’t believe I am finally finished with chemo!” Her face was flushed with happiness, and Paul’s heart nearly cracked at the sight. 

“What’s that you’re working on?” Paul asked, turning his attention to the proof sheets Linda was squinting at through a loupe. She had her red wax pencil out and was circling and crossing out prints as she went. 

“The proofs for the exhibit,” Linda said excitedly. “Mary’s poured through all my negatives from the beginning of time, and she’s separated out all the ones of landscapes and nature, and then placed them on proof sheets for me to go through. I have a lot of great prints here that I’d forgotten all about - especially from our early days in Scotland, back in ’68 and ‘69. I was so entranced by the light there...”

On one level, Paul was listening to every word she said, valuing each one, and retaining the information. But on another level he was floating above the scene, watching his beloved wife resplendent in her element, filled with creative fervor. An artist himself, Paul knew how fulfilling, satisfying, and thrilling those moments of creative fervor were, and he was so indescribably delighted that Linda was experiencing this feeling again. 

After Paul and Linda had spoken for a few minutes, Paul left Linda alone to get on with her task, and went up to his music room/art studio and called John. After a number of rings, the phone was answered.

“Hello?” The nasal voice inquired.

Oh crap, Paul thought. The asshole. He had had to deal with the insolent chap three times now. He was tired of the man’s attitude. It was like the bloke had a stick up his butt. “This is Paul, calling for John,” he said as firmly as he could. He refused to be cowed by a mere telephone-answerer!

“Of course, sir,” Jimmy said drily. 

Once on hold, Paul made a face and repeated the words ‘of course sir’ in a taunting whisper. But a moment later, John was on the phone.

“Hey, babe,” John crooned into the phone. “I’m glad you called. I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Me, too. I mean, about you not me,” Paul chuckled.

“I’m coming home tomorrow. Can’t wait. How’s Linda?”

“She’s great! I haven’t seen her like this - so lit up from inside - since the diagnosis! It’s been so long.” Paul’s voice was a combination of surprise and joy. 

John smiled reflexively at the chipper tone in Paul’s voice. “I’m so fucking pleased about that, Paul. Tomorrow evening, when I’m home, let’s order from a restaurant and have a family night in, just the three of us.”

“I’d like that very much,” Paul enthused. 

“So, tomorrow the album is being released,” John said, changing the subject. “What’s the plan?”

“Our first interview is with MoJo on the 6th,” Paul responded. We’ll do a radio interview for BBC on the 7th, and then we have a Rolling Stone photo shoot to accompany their review of the album.” Paul was all business as he explained the diary for the next few days.

John’s voice lowered. “I am looking forward to my first night back, baby,” he said in a very suggestive voice. “I have lots of pent up...energy...and I will need your...assistance...in exhausting it.”

Paul’s swallowed guffaw came across the telephone wire loud and clear. “I am at your service, of course,” Paul said with an intensely British upper crust accent. “It is within my chivalric duties.”

John’s eyes opened widely in delight. In that moment it occurred to him for the first time that Paul being a knight opened all kinds of interesting scenarios, as far as sex was concerned. “Ah, yes, Sir Paul. I am most obliged. I will require your services, most definitely.”

Paul’s chuckling was naughty indeed, and, listening surreptitiously on another line in another part of John’s apartment, an intrigued intriguer thought contemptuously to himself, Aha!

 

*****

 

London, The Next Day  
May 5, 1997

 

Paul spent the day at McLen/MPL headquarters, handling paperwork with his manager and his staff. The release of ‘Flaming Pie’ had been highly anticipated, and already the buzz was very good. Paul had become accustomed to the fact that the ‘top ten’ charts were mostly for young artists, since mainly young consumers purchased music in droves. Older consumers were choosier, and less likely to go out of their way to purchase music based on radio and music video advertising. Still, even if the Lennon & McCartney singles didn’t always make it to the ‘top ten’, their albums always did. They appeared to be artists who appealed to listeners who wanted to be taken on a longer musical journey, rather than to purchase a single or an EP. Thus, as the team sat discussing the agenda for the next few days, they didn’t talk too much about the singles releases, although they would be doing some publicity for them, of course. They were more focused on positioning the album.

Paul liked that he was busy today. He felt comfortable leaving Linda, because Mary was with her, and they had stretched out on the sitting room floor, with piles of photos arrayed around them. The two of them had barely noticed his presence, and they no doubt hadn’t noticed his absence at all. He was relieved and not upset by this. Their life seemed to be settling back to normal. The nausea from the last chemo session had worn off, and Linda had been up and off the sofa for most of the last two days. No, the reason Paul was glad to be busy today was that he was counting the minutes until John came home. He had not realized how much he had become dependent on John to be there when he wanted him to be there, which was almost all the time now. Paul knew that by working, he would make the interminable minutes pass a little more quickly, and then his John would be back.

 

*****

 

Later That Night

 

“So tell me about this Jimmy person,” Paul said naughtily, as he snuggled in closer to John. They had just expended a very passionate 30 minutes, and were relaxing in the candlelight in the master bed in John’s house. 

“He is quite the personality,” John opined.

“So I gathered. So why’s he got a stick up his butt?” Paul asked insouciantly.

“Who knows? Think how boring it must be to answer phones for other people. I think I’d kill myself if I had to do that for a living.” John’s arm was around Paul, and his hand was pressing on Paul’s right shoulder. 

Paul laughed at the image. “You’d be a lot more colorful and entertaining in that job, Johnny,” he suggested.

“I’d get fired the first time I opened my mouth,” John objected.

“My point exactly,” Paul rejoined. “Anyway, I’m so glad you’re back. I’ve been counting the fucking days.”

John turned on his side, and placed his left arm across Paul’s middle. “I don’t like going anywhere without you, Paul,” he said softly. “I’ve gotten to the point where I want you everywhere.” He stopped for a pointed moment. “Here, there, and everywhere,” he added.

Paul snorted, and turned on his side too, facing John. “I lied in those lyrics,” he said in a lazy and sexy voice. His right hand was at John’s face, tracing the lines on his cheekbones.

“Oh?” John asked playfully, his face alive with mirth. “How so?”

“You don’t even have to wave your hand to change my life, John. It’s your mere existence that does it...”

 

*****

 

May 6, 1997  
McLen/MPL Offices

 

The press for Flaming Pie began with full force and effect. John and Paul were smart enough this time to arrive separately at their offices for their interview with Mojo Magazine. Paul arrived first, as he had some business to do before the interview, and John arrived a few hours later, twenty minutes late for the appointed time of the interview. As they waited for John, Paul had dragged the reporter into the offices’ kitchen, and had chatted with him charmingly as he insisted on making and pouring tea for him. The reporter was not immune to the famous McCartney charm, and felt himself being ever so cleverly co-opted. A few moments after they had settled with their tea in a sofa and a chair in one of the meeting rooms, John finally strolled into the room looking not at all fussed that he was late. In truth, he didn’t even know that he was late. Worrying about time was for mere mortals, John always thought.

“So, who have we got here?” John asked the reporter.

The young man - he had to be at most in his early thirties - cleared his throat and quickly wiped his palms on the sides of his tight blue jeans before accepting John’s proffered handshake. John’s hand was cool and dry. He wasn’t nervous, the reporter thought. “Hello, I’m Mark Warren,” the reporter managed to say, although his voice sounded a bit high and shaky to him. Hopefully, John Lennon didn’t notice. Mark had been nervous about meeting Lennon & McCartney, but especially Lennon. Lennon was one of Mark’s rock heroes, and the impression he’d settled on was that Lennon was one of those very clever people who enjoyed keeping other people on their toes. Consequently, Mark’s nerves were getting the better of him as he anticipated antics from Lennon that he might not be able to handle. Thank heaven Paul was so easy and user-friendly: Nothing to worry about there at least.

“Well, Mark Warren, I’m pleased to meet you,” John was saying, drawling the name as though he was swishing wine around in his mouth to taste all the nuances before swallowing. He then plopped down unceremoniously next to Paul on the sofa. 

Paul was leaning against the left hand corner of the sofa, his elbow on the armrest, chin in palm. He was amused by the reporter’s obvious nervousness, and John’s lord-of-the-manor behavior. If Paul wasn’t very much mistaken, John’s voice had sounded almost George Martin-like just then. 

Mark sat down in his chair, which faced the sofa. He had been looking around the place while waiting for John, and had noticed a very distinct art deco feel in the room; it seemed almost as though he had been transported into one of those BBC Hercule Poirot sets. He nervously placed his small tape recorder on the table between his interview subjects and him, and cleared his throat again. He was very nervous.

Paul had pity on him. “Mark - I can call you Mark, right?”

Mark nodded, his eyes wide like a deer in the headlights.

“Don’t worry about us. We’re just two blokes, like everyone else. Just start asking your questions, and within 30 minutes it’ll be as if you’ve always known us.” 

John snorted. “Yeah - and won’t you be sorry then!” 

Mark stiffened his spine and forced himself to display a confident smile. If he acted confident long enough he might actually become confident. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ve interviewed a number of musicians, but none with your stature yet.” 

Paul smiled warmly and, seeing that the ice still needed to be broken, said, “Have you listened to the album?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Did you like it?” He asked.

“Very much!” Mark responded honestly.

“What’s your favorite track?” Paul asked.

“There are a number I like, but probably ‘The World Tonight,’” Mark responded promptly. 

“Well, why don’t we start by talking about that one then?” Paul’s eyes were gentle with sparks of mischief.

Mark realized what had just happened, and laughed openly. McCartney was a very nice man, he decided. “It seems to be - at least in part - about fame, the intrusiveness of fame.”

Paul said, “During the last few years my family and I have been under a lot of public scrutiny, and I guess I wanted to write about that experience, but as if I were an omniscient entity, looking down on some other poor bloke going through it.”

“The other poor bloke is probably me,” John quipped.

Mark turned to John. “I saw that interview you did in America with Charlie Rose. There was an interesting colloquy about the strangeness of having to sacrifice your personal life in order to be an artist and performer. You seemed very resigned to it; not bitter.”

John was pleasantly surprised by Mark’s thoughtful comment, and the fact that he had obviously done his homework. For this reason, he decided to stop behaving as if he were the reporter’s bête noir. Perhaps this interview wouldn’t be one of those dreary ones conducted by sycophants, or one of those white-knuckle affairs conducted by snide, headline-hungry sharks. Maybe this would be more of a nice conversation about the music. Wouldn’t that be something?

“I remember that conversation,” John said politely, his voice having reverted to normal. Paul noted this and quickly turned to look at John’s earnest profile for a moment before his eyes settled again on his hand, which was sitting on his crossed leg. “I enjoyed that interview with Charlie Rose very much.”

“Are you resigned to the burdens of fame, or is this something that you find intolerable?” Mark asked.

John said, “It’s tolerable for both of us, obviously, or we would have quit by now, and become hermits. But there’s this gap between ‘tolerable’ and ‘pleasant’ that we have to deal with. It would be much more pleasant if we could go about our daily lives in private, and only have to be famous when we take the stage. That would be ideal. But apparently that isn’t possible any more.”

“Was it ever possible?” Mark asked.

“Not for Beatles,” Paul chimed in. “Not since 1963, anyway. But there are many other celebrities who manage to keep their private lives separate from their public lives. For some reason there’s this other kind of fame - ‘Beatle fame’ let’s call it - which a few people have, and that kind of fame means that your private life is considered fair game by the press and even the public.” 

Mark was drawn in to the conversation. “I’ve often thought that I couldn’t expose myself that way. But then, I don’t have a creative talent screaming to be let out. Do you feel that you have to compose? Is it something you’re driven to do, so that the sacrifices you make are worth it to you?”

John thought about this for a moment. He looked with uncertainty to Paul, and Paul’s eyes met his. In a subtle, completely non-verbal signal, Paul suggested that John take the leading oar on this question. John turned back to Mark. “I guess there is that ‘muse’ thing going on, but I honestly don’t think I had that kind of drive when I first started out. It wasn’t the creativity that drove me in the early days; it was the desire to make it big. It was very much about wanting to make records, and be famous and rich like Elvis. But once I made it big, I discovered the downside to fame. Being rich is great though. Nothing wrong with being rich.” Mark and Paul both laughed. “Anyway, the reason I keep working now is because of creative drive - I have this strong desire to communicate with music and words.”

“Is that how you feel about it too, Paul?” Mark asked.

Paul said, “Maybe I was driven more by the love of music itself, right from the start. Don’t get me wrong - I wanted fame and money, too, like John. But I would have gone on playing instruments and trying to compose music even if I hadn’t made it. And I have always felt as though I was driven to express myself that way. Music keeps me sane, and keeps me connected to the planet, I think. But I agree with John - once the fame came - it was like a huge net that fell over and then captured all four of us, and kept us in it’s thrall - I then found out that there were downsides. But fame didn’t bother me as much as it bothered John; and George Harrison hated it more than all four of us. I have tried to live in harmony with fame - I think of my famous self as the melody - he’s out there in front, and everyone pays attention to him. And then the real me is the counter-melody - played on the bass. It is in the background, it melds into the tapestry of the music, and you have to go out of your way to isolate it, and listen only to it. So, that is how I try to live on these two tracks - public and private.”

John had gotten lost in Paul’s narrative, thinking how well articulated it was, and also how apt the comparison was between Paul’s public and private selves. It was absolutely true that Paul played these two roles in perfect harmony. He smiled at Paul to show him his appreciation.

Mark, too, had been impressed. He had noticed that an hour earlier Paul had been disarming and ‘normal’ as he puttered around making tea. And then he had turned around and become ‘Beatle Paul,’ all business, ready to be interviewed by a reporter. Mark smiled. He felt confident now. Now he thought he could do a good interview.

 

*****

 

Two Weeks Later  
Late May 1997

 

Linda was feeling so much better that she wanted to go away for a real vacation. She had told Paul that a getaway for two was just what the doctor ordered, and he had told her to go ahead and plan something. This time, though, because the album had just come out, he could only be away for at most two weeks. So Linda had begun making plans.

Meanwhile, she had blood tests and an MRI scheduled, and Paul came along with her on a fine May afternoon for this routine appointment. At least it was ‘routine’ for when a round of chemo was completed. Linda chuckled to herself at how weird it was that she had become such an old hand at chemo, that she thought of the whole procedure and it’s aftermath as if it were routine.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Freeman asked Linda brightly, although looking at her answered his question. She looked great. She had lost some weight, the puffiness was all gone, and her hair had grown in and was cut in a very fashionable short style that flattered the angles of her face. The color in her skin was no longer yellow - there was a healthy peach flush instead. 

“I’m fine, thank you, and I really mean it!” Linda beamed. She had the most beautiful smile, Dr. Freeman remembered. It had been so long since he had last seen it. 

Dr. Wright was his usual taciturn-bordering-on-sour self. Paul tried to jolly him, but eventually gave up in despair. The man was hopelessly and relentlessly dour and pessimistic. “So, you’ve finished the MRI?” He asked Linda bluntly.

“Yep,” she chirped. She was in too good a mood to be intimidated by Dr. Sourpuss.

“Then let’s take your blood now,” he said, gesturing for Linda to follow him into the examining room.

After they left, Dr. Freeman said to Paul, “Linda looks fantastic!”

Paul smiled - Dr. Freeman noticed that it was a genuine, open and happy smile for a change - and said, “She is working on a photography exhibition, and cooking up a storm, and going shopping with the girls. She’s like a new woman.” 

“I honestly didn’t think we would have this result,” Dr. Freeman said sincerely. “It’s wonderful. But I have to remind you that it is early days, and only time will tell if this is only a brief remission or if it is indeed a cure.”

Paul kept a bland expression on his face as he heard these words. He had tried not to think that this might be a brief respite and that the horrors of the last eighteen months might descend upon them again. It chilled him to the bone. In that moment he realized he had allowed himself to believe in a cure, despite his cautious nature that warned him against being too hopeful. To Paul, the doctor’s gentle caution was a stark but necessary reminder that he must remain ever vigilant against false hope.


	105. Chapter 105

Cannes, France  
Mid June 1997

 

The French Riviera was the best place for a holiday in June for a woman who lived in England and had just finished a course of chemo, not least because it was a quick trip there from London. Then, of course, there was also the perfect weather. Linda had chosen a very modern but relatively small villa that overlooked the town of Cannes. The pool deck and patio presented an awe-inspiring view of the bay below. The villa came with a middle-aged live-in couple; Monsieur took care of the grounds and the grocery shopping, and Madame took care of the house and the cooking. 

Linda lay on a chaise on the pool deck under an umbrella, and felt fully relaxed and lazy for the first time in a long time. She had indulged herself that morning by having a manicurist come to the villa to paint her nails, and now she was idly admiring her bright fuchsia toes. Linda didn’t usually wear nail polish, preferring instead the look au natural, but when in France...

For Paul the getaway had caused more trouble than it was worth for a number of reasons, but he was hiding this information from Linda. First, Paul felt uneasy about dropping out of sight when the album was so newly released, but he resolved that problem by calling the office at least once a day to take care of odds and ends. Second, a few days before they had left for France, Paul had fielded a call at his office from Dr. Freeman. The doctor had said that the blood tests were still neutral, but that the MRI had some ‘ambiguous’ information on it, and so when Linda returned home it would be advisable for her to come in and be retested. Paul had tried to get more information out of the doctor about this ‘ambiguity,’ but had been unsuccessful. Dr. Freeman had said, “It’s probably nothing.” It was the “probably” that Paul was worrying over. He had chosen not to mention this to Linda, so as not to spoil her time away. 

Another thing Paul wasn’t telling Linda was John’s reaction to Paul’s going away alone with Linda for two weeks. John had taken the news very badly. The arguments they’d had over the days leading up to Paul’s departure had left Paul bruised, uneasy, and anxious. The scenes continued to play over and over like movie reels in his head, especially when he tried to lie down, or go to sleep at night. Thus, he wasn’t sleeping much, and he was doing his best to hide this from Linda as well.

“We haven’t gone away together in two years!” John had protested when Paul had broken the news to him. Paul had dreaded raising the subject, because he knew in his bones it wasn’t fair to John. John had been a prince for the better part of 18 months, and he had been (with only a few minor exceptions) unfailingly supportive and loving to both Paul and Linda. Even when John had been in New York on his own those few times, he had called Paul regularly, and always asked about Linda. Paul had often feared that there would come a day of reckoning, when John would sit down and stack up all the compromises and sacrifices he had made for Paul during Linda’s illness, and then expect some recompense for all of his efforts. While taking his wife away for a few weeks after she had been through three horrible chemo courses (not to mention all sorts of surgeries and medical tests) was thoroughly justified, he couldn’t justify leaving Linda alone for two weeks to go off with John, because there was still the chance that the cancer would come back. Linda’s sense of confidence had been growing in the past month or two, but Paul suspected Linda’s confidence was only skin-deep. It would probably take nothing at all to rip it away, and when that happened it would leave Linda reeling and fearful again. Paul disappearing with John for two weeks at such a crucial time would be just the thing to send Linda’s confidence into a downward spiral, even if she remained cancer-free. 

Of course Paul had explained this all to John, and of course John knew what the problem was, but John felt that Paul should not go away with Linda until Linda was declared cured, so that Paul could quickly reciprocate by going away with John, too. John felt if he couldn’t go away alone with Paul, than neither should Linda. On one level, Paul agreed with John. Logically, it made sense. But what did logic have to do with cancer? Did John really expect Paul to look his stricken wife in the eyes and say, ‘no, I can’t go off with you alone because John will be jealous’ - is this something John really thought Paul was capable of doing?

Today, Paul was sitting on the balcony off the master suite, gazing into the distant horizon. He knew that Linda was seated around the pool beneath him, but at that moment he needed a few moments to himself. He had spent almost every waking moment with her since they’d left for France, and when he was with her - on many occasions - he’d had to fight off his memories of the way things had ended with John. Paul couldn’t help but rewind that last ugly interaction.  
“Well,” John had said angrily after three days of constant sniping, “if you’re going off to the Riviera, then I’m going back to New York!” 

Paul had tried to mend fences by opining that this was a very good idea, but that had only made John angrier. 

“I’m not going back to New York to pine over you, so don’t look so fucking satisfied! I intend to burn the candle at both ends, and I don’t give a fuck what you think about it!” John was actually near tears as he shouted these words. He was feeling ill used, and again was questioning Paul’s loyalty to him. 

Paul had tried not to hear those words as an ominous warning. In the past, John had certainly been capable of going off and doing something stupid (Nigel? Brad?) when he was angry and was feeling abandoned or neglected. Was this John’s way of saying that he was going to take a lover while he was gone? Paul had tried not to sound too anxious or angry when he responded. “I hope you don’t pine over me,” he’d said softly, sincerely. “I never want to cause you pain. I hope you know that.”

John had stood there blinking in open indignation. “You cause me pain all the fucking time!” He accused.

Paul was distressed, and it had begun to show. “I’m not trying to cause you pain, John! You interpret things I do in a way that hurts you, but I am not trying to hurt you on purpose, I swear! I try to do the right things by both of you, but sometimes it isn’t possible. Sometimes I can’t make you both happy at the same time.” At this point, Paul had been reduced to pleading. 

John was not noticeably touched by this declaration. “You almost always put Linda first. The only time you didn’t was when I had cancer...”

Paul was staring at John with a mixture of hurt and irritation. He didn’t know which of those two things he felt more. Irritation won out. “When you had cancer, I was there for you all the time, and we went away alone when it was over too - for a month! Linda was quite upset with me over that. I don’t see how this is any different.”

John wasn’t ready to see reason. He’d never claimed to be a saint, and he had forced himself for 80% of the time in the last 18 months to act as though he were a saint. He was looking for a break - he wanted a break from sainthood, just as Linda wanted a break from being sick. Why could Linda get the break, and not him? 

Paul had seen the open pain on John’s face, and then his natural empathetic tendencies took over. He moved towards John, and tried to pull him into a comforting embrace. But John had pushed him away. 

“It’s not gonna work this time, Paul. I think you should sleep with Linda tonight, since you are leaving so early in the morning.”

This had been a blow to Paul, as he had already explained to Linda that he would spend the night with John since they would be away for a few weeks. Now he would have to go back home and make up some kind of excuse for why he wasn’t sleeping with John. Paul decided instead to sleep on the sofa in John’s sitting room (he preferred this spot to one of the guest rooms), so he grabbed a pillow, hauled an extra blanket out of the linen closet, and shouted to John as he went down the stairs: “If you change your mind, I’m in the sitting room!” John’s response was a slammed door.

John had not changed his mind, and when Paul had gone up in the morning to say goodbye, the master bedroom door was locked. Paul didn’t want another scene, so he decided to leave John alone. Hopefully, he would cool down and see reason after he’d had time to think. Instead, Paul wrote a quick note and left it attached to the fridge. It read,

“Sorry John for upsetting you. I hope you know how much I love you, and that I would rather stay here myself, but it is something I owe to Linda. I will make it up to you somehow, soon. Love, Pud.”

Paul had hoped that the ‘Pud’ would do the trick.

 

*****

 

New York City  
Mid June 1997

 

John had left for New York two days later, and he arrived still bursting with self-righteous anger. He had cancelled his appointment with Fiona the day before, because he hadn’t wanted to be told that he was behaving like an ass. Fiona always took Paul’s side in these situations. She always blamed it on John’s fear of being abandoned. But this time John was convinced that he was in the right. He was even beginning to churn up a resentment of Linda - something he hadn’t felt at all since her diagnosis. She had put Paul in an untenable position by asking to go away; she should have thought how this would feel to John, under the circumstances. Thus fortified with self-righteous indignation, John turned himself loose on New York City.

It was doubtful that New York City was ready for an inflamed John Lennon. But Lennon was there whether New York was ready or not. So, having established himself in his apartment and having ordered necessary provisions for his stay, John had gotten on the phone immediately. His first call was not to Jason and Gerry, however. Somehow John’s subconscious knew that Jason and Gerry would be appalled by his behavior, and they, like Fiona, would blame his own out-of-control insecurities for this conduct. He didn’t want to talk to anyone who would try to speak sense to him. So he called his old dealer/procurer/has-been musician friend - the one who had gotten him into so much trouble during the stay which had culminated with the whole Brad situation - and this friend was only too happy to come up with a roaring good time for the both of them that night. John had been explicit with his desires.

“I want a woman. I don’t want to bring her to my place, so we need a place to take her. You can get one for yourself, too. Maybe one of the more discreet hotels?” 

John’s disreputable friend, Harvey, knew what this meant: John was footing the bill for all of the night’s perversions. He immediately began thumbing through his drug inventory, and decided Ecstasy was just the thing! He then made a few calls for some high class pro talent, and booked a suite in an upscale hotel in Soho well known for its swinging clientele. It was, without a doubt, a No-Tell hotel. John would not find himself in the tabloids over this hotel, Harvey knew. Harvey had always thought that if John had just told him what he wanted - a little queer rough - he would have arranged it in a way that it wouldn’t have ended up all over the tabloids. He made a note to himself to find a tactful way to ask John if ‘queer rough’ was something John wanted or needed on this trip, too. In the case, Harvey would be only too happy to oblige. 

So that night John got laid by a high class prostitute, and then he and she and Harvey and his call girl had gotten high and very silly. But it all took place within the safe confines of a discreet hotel suite. John didn’t stay the night - he had left on his own at 3 a.m., leaving Harvey to clean up the mess and pay off the women and the hotel bill. (John had left a huge handful of cash for Harvey.) This time there would be no incriminating credit card receipts. 

Once back in his apartment, he flopped down on his own bed and fell fast asleep. He slept until 2 p.m. the next day. He awoke groggy from the last vestiges of the drugs and alcohol he had taken, and with his head pounding, he’d shuffled to the kitchen and quietly made himself some really black coffee. He hoped to shock the hangover straight out of his body. Feeling as though he had escaped whole from his evening of debauchery, he naturally called Harvey - who was just waking up himself - and planned another one. 

 

*****

Cannes  
Late June 1997

 

Paul had been surreptitiously trying to call John at his apartment in New York ever since he had left for France. He didn’t want Linda to think he was worried about John, or missing him, so he had done it secretly. He had not once been lucky enough to catch John at home. Either John was not home, or he was not answering the phone, but Paul figured that whichever one it was, it was clear that John was still furious with him. Paul had at first left cheery little messages about the weather in France, and his hope that John was enjoying himself. After a few days, he had begun to leave messages that were at turns abjectly apologetic and hopeful. And today’s message had shifted into a barely contained resentment and irritation. In each such message, he’d also left the phone number that John could use to contact him. John had not contacted him, and Paul was bereft. 

Paul had even celebrated his 55th birthday while in Cannes. His children had sent their gifts to him by post, and they had awaited him around a table that Linda had decorated. She had made for her husband her famous meatless shepherd’s pie, and she had also purchased a deep chocolate and raspberry mousse cake down in the town. They’d had a lovely evening drinking ‘chocolate wine’ with the mousse cake, and Paul had enjoyed his presents. But John had not called him. He had not heard a word from John on his birthday. And this had ruined it for Paul even though he did everything he could to hide this sad truth from Linda.

Consequently, the ‘holiday’ in France had turned into a kind of nightmarish prison sentence for Paul, but one that he had always to pretend he enjoyed, so that Linda’s vacation would not be spoiled. Of course he loved Linda, and in almost any other circumstance he would have been delighted to enjoy two weeks in her sole company, but John’s warning words had chilled him to the bone, and Paul could not forget them. He had run out of ideas about how to connect up with John, so, in a fit of optimism, it occurred to him that John may he at Jason’s, so he called Jason. Paul snuck out of bed at midnight after Linda had fallen asleep (that was his usual time for calling New York), knowing that 7 p.m. was a good time to find Jason at home. To Paul’s surprise though, Jason did not even know that John was in New York.

“Oh no,” Jason had moaned to Paul, commiserating. “Not again.” 

Again indeed, Paul thought bitterly. At what point would he grow sufficient balls to show John the door? How many more such betrayals were necessary before he would draw the line? 

“What’s happened?” Jason had asked, worried now.

“He’s very upset with me,” Paul said softly. “Linda’s chemo ended, and she wanted to go away for two weeks and I agreed. John was very upset by this, since he knew I couldn’t reciprocate with him so long as Linda is ill.”

Jason heard this, but could not believe what he was hearing. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” He had sworn. There had been a little awkward silence, and then Paul had chuckled. Jason regrouped and added, “He is behaving like a child again. Will that man ever grow up?”

Paul - perversely - felt defensive on John’s behalf. “He’s been through a rough 18 months too,” he said judiciously. “He has put himself on the backburner for Linda’s sake. I guess he thought, now that her chemo was done, that things might go back to normal. I don’t think he realizes that Linda is far from out of the woods.”

Jason forgot about John for a moment, and thought about Linda. “I didn’t know that being ‘out of the woods’ was even a possibility,” he said cautiously.

“Since January, her tests have been ‘neutral.’ It means that they haven’t gotten better, but they haven’t gotten worse. And her MRI’s have been clear. But this last one - the one we took a few weeks ago - her doctor told me, just before Linda and I left for France, well, he said that there were ‘ambiguities’ on the test, and when we get back from France she has to get retested. But Linda feels very good; she thinks she’s licked it.”

Jason had heard all of this and he could tell from Paul’s anxious voice that the poor man was dangling on his last nerve. To be bounced back and forth between ‘there’s no hope’ to ‘there might be hope’ to ‘it looks like there may not be hope’ was unspeakable. And that his closest friend - the person who claimed to love Paul the most in the world - was making things worse by having a temper tantrum and not returning phone calls! Jason was furious with John. 

“John hasn’t called me,” Jason said. “I suspect he knows exactly what I would tell him if he did.”

Paul felt a warm rush of affection go through him, but said, “Jason, John thinks of you as his friend. He’s glad you like me, but he thinks of you as being his friend particularly. I’ve learned over the years that John is a very possessive friend. He doesn’t want people he thinks of as his friends to be too close to me. And he doesn’t like me to have close friends other than him, either. He would be very upset if he knew you were mad at him on my behalf. I think to be a good friend to him, you should contact him, and don’t let him know what you think about what he has done. He needs someone he loves and trusts to talk to, and who won’t judge him, or explain how he’s wrong. I wouldn’t worry about John so much if you could do this for John.”

Jason’s eyes had filled with tears as Paul had spoken. More than he had ever before, he felt compassion and respect for Paul McCartney. It had to be hell to be John Lennon’s best friend / creative partner / lover. John was so fucking insecure and damaged from his childhood that every step he took forward, led to two steps backwards, and Paul was dragged right along with him, forward and backward every step of the way. But Jason also knew there was wisdom in what Paul said; no one knew John Lennon better than Paul McCartney. So Jason said, “Of course. I will pretend I heard he was in New York through the grapevine, and then do my best not to be censorious about his behavior. You and I both want what is best for him, but I only have to worry part time. I suppose you must feel like Sisyphus?”

Paul chuckled. “I’m not a sissy puss!” He declared.

Jason laughed.

Paul added, “Please keep your eye on him for me. I don’t want him to hurt himself again while he’s in a blind rage. Just don’t judge him, Jason. When he is in this state of mind, the worst thing to do is judge him. You have to pretend to see it his way.”

Jason made his promise, and rang off. He had then gone to Gerry and told all. Gerry was extremely exasperated with John, but agreed that he would have to keep this to himself if Jason managed to lure John over to their home for dinner. 

 

*****

 

The Next Day  
New York

 

Jason had called John, left a message, and within a few hours the message was answered; it was two in the afternoon. This told Jason that John knew damn well that Paul had been trying to get hold of him. Jason forced himself to put his indignation aside when he heard John’s wary voice. John had clearly been suspicious at first, but when Jason opened up with an innocent line of small talk and gossip, and an invitation to come over for dinner, John decided he did indeed want to see Jason again, but he suggested that Jason and Gerry come to his place instead.

“I’ll make dinner myself!” John announced grandly.

“What should we bring? Dessert? A movie to watch?”

“Bring dessert and yourselves. I don’t feel like a movie tonight.” John still sounded a little tentative, so Jason poured on the effortless charm.

“I’ve found a new patisserie - it’s right down the street. Heavenly desserts. I’ll surprise you. And I know Gerry will insist on bringing a couple of our best reds - the ones you love the most.”

John felt warmed and enthused by Jason’s warmth and enthusiasm, and he felt his misgivings melting away. “See you at 7!” He responded. 

After he hung up, John was filled with energy and excitement. He began to write furiously on a pad, and then called the concierge and said he had a grocery list. After the list had been dispatched, he went in to the kitchen, and seated at the table, began writing out his timing schedule for the night’s meal. This was the first grown-up, healthy, non-self-destructive thing he’d done in the 8 days since he’d arrived in New York. This thought reminded him of the unpleasant problem he had created for himself. Even as he thought about this, a woman walked into the kitchen in an expensive negligee.

“I’m starving,” she announced in a phony stage voice. 

John winced. He liked her better when her Brooklyn accent poked through. 

“There’s plenty of food in the fridge,” John pointed out.

She rummaged around, and came out - victoriously - with a container of yogurt. She then sat down opposite John at the table. She saw that John was busy writing out a list. “What’s all that?” she asked curiously.

“I’m hosting a dinner tonight. Two of my oldest friends are coming. They’re a very lovely gay couple.” John said this without looking up from his list.

Celine was stumped by John’s disinterest in her. For the last several days she had been living in his apartment, and they had sex at least two times per day, every day. Was he already tiring of her? She hoped not. The life of a Beatle wife truly appealed to her. “What brought this idea on?” She asked as innocently as she could.

“Jason - one of my friends - called me to check in with me, and he invited me to dinner at his place, but I suddenly felt like hosting instead,” John explained, while erasing one entry, and then industriously writing a new one. 

“You cook?” Celine asked, finally putting two and two together and sounding incredulous. 

John finally looked up. He wasn’t able to conceal his irritation in its entirety. “Yes, I’m quite a good cook actually,” he responded, daring her to make a negative comment.

Celine was actually impressed. “That’s really cool, Johnny,” she responded. 

“Don’t call me ‘Johnny’,” John snapped. This had escaped from his mouth without his brain having filtered it first.

Celine looked hurt. “Sorry,” she said, her features crestfallen.

John softened. “I didn’t mean to snap,” John said patiently, “but no one’s allowed to call me that...” John had almost said ‘except Paul.’ But he stopped himself before the words came out. He smiled at Celine, and watched as her face relaxed.

“I guess I know how you feel. I have friends who call me ‘Celly.’ Is that the stupidest nickname you ever heard? I get mad every time.” 

John looked at her for a good few seconds. She was a youngish 35, with huge bluish green eyes, a largish mouth, and dark black eyebrows and black wavy hair. Her skin was opalescent, smooth and sumptuous. She was a French Canadian who had moved to New York to become an actress and singer, and had failed at both. This had not yet occurred to her, so she remained in New York, working as a cocktail waitress in a high-class bar, where she had met John Lennon. The sparks had flown, and John had actually taken her home with him that very night. He had then abruptly cut off his friend Harvey, even though Harvey had tried to lure him astray with promises of outrageously handsome young gay prostitutes. John had pretended to be insulted by the suggestion, and decided to dabble at home with the delectable Celine instead. Now, several days later, he had developed a fondness for her, although she did not challenge him either intellectually or creatively. He doubted he could spend much more time with her without tearing his fucking hair out. He smiled in a non-committal way at her, and said,

“Why don’t you go out and shop for something to wear tonight - maybe go to the salon downstairs?” In response, Celine purred. (Well, she did. She distinctly purred. John thought that this was appropriate, because he believed her to be very catlike.) John got up and found his wallet, and gave her a few thousand dollars in cash. “Go out and have fun; I’m going to be busy the rest of the afternoon.”

He didn’t need to say this twice. Celine was up like a shot, and took far less time than usual getting dressed and made up, and then she disappeared out of the apartment leaving behind a cloud of expensive perfume (which John had purchased for her a few days earlier). John sighed with relief when he was finally alone. There were two more days, and then Paul and Linda were scheduled to be back in London. John had given it a lot of thought, and had decided to go on strike. He had to make his point, and make it stick. So he was not going to go back to London when Paul got back. He was going to take his sweet time and get back whenever he felt like going back. Paul had to understand that he wasn’t in the catbird seat - at least not with respect to John. 

 

*****

 

New York  
Later That Night

 

Jason and Gerry had arrived at exactly 7:02 p.m. - they tended to be prompt, but not ‘early’ when they were invited to others’ homes. John answered the door wearing flip-flops, blue jeans, a red t-shirt, and a white chef’s apron. He was in great spirits. 

“Come on in!” John greeted them loudly. He led them down the short hallway and into the living room with the staggering New York skyline view. Much to Jason and Gerry’s surprise a stunning woman sashayed into the room wearing a form-fitting and glittery black cocktail dress, although she was barefoot and had obviously already imbibed a number of glasses of champagne. 

Jason and Gerry were staggered, and might even have stood there with their mouths hanging open for a few critical moments. John must have noticed this, because he quickly jumped in:

“Jason, Gerry, this is Celine. She’s a friend of mine. She’s been staying with me for the last few days.” John said this with a completely straight face, showing no embarrassment at all. 

Both Jason and Gerry were struck dumb. It was Gerry who first bestirred himself and reached out a hand to shake Celine’s proffered hand. Jason followed suit, but his grip was very slight. His greeting was tepid. He was utterly appalled, and so was Gerry. Jason preferred not to have been invited at all, rather than to be dragged into John’s sordid activities with a strange woman behind Paul’s back. He could barely control his temper. He cast a desperate look at Gerry, who grabbed Jason’s hand and squeezed. The look Gerry gave Jason seemed to say, ‘let’s just soldier through this night.’

John either didn’t notice that his guests were horrified, or he didn’t care. It wasn’t clear to Jason and Gerry which of these two things were true. They decided a polite but cool communication style was most appropriate. 

They all sat on the softly cool sea foam colored sofas, and stared at each other awkwardly. Jason and Gerry sat close to each other on one sofa, as if by sitting close together they could form a bulwark against the social outrage they were facing. John, meanwhile, seemed to be enjoying the havoc he had created. He sat back on the opposite sofa, his ankle dangling on the opposite leg’s knee, holding a glass of red wine rather precariously over the light-colored fabric of the sofa. Celine, meanwhile, was clueless to the undertow and was chattering away. Later, Jason couldn’t remember a single thing she said.

When the conversation limped to a halt, John jumped up and said, “Let’s eat!” So everyone trooped to the dining room area, and John told Celine to start bringing out the food. Jason, always exquisitely polite, insisted upon helping, while Gerry opened a few bottles of wine, and John was arranging and rearranging the plates of food on the table. 

After they were all seated at the table, Jason decided he would have to build some kind of bridge to John, even though he barely recognized his friend in the person who was seated across from him. “So how long have you been in New York?” Jason asked.

John took an unpleasant amount of pleasure in saying, “Eight or nine days.” 

Jason was truthfully hurt by this revelation, and he looked down at his plate and did not have the stomach to say anything else. 

Gerry was angry on Jason’s behalf, but decided he wouldn’t give John the satisfaction of showing it. “So what have you been up to all this time?” He asked, his face a blank mask of polite disinterest.

John got the message. He could see that Gerry was angry because he felt Jason’s feelings had been hurt. John had the decency to feel bad about that. He had been trying to show them that he was independent and he didn’t need Paul to get along, and all he had accomplished was to hurt Jason’s feelings. John said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I meant to, but one thing after another, you know...”

Gerry smiled non-committedly to that comment, and then Jason changed the subject. “This veal is very good John. Cutlets are notoriously difficult to do right. What’s your secret?”

John spied Jason’s formal, polite voice and expression, and felt even worse. This drama he was enacting with Paul had spilled over to his treatment of his beloved friends. How to undo the damage he had done?

Into the uncomfortable silence the clueless Celine said, “John has lots of secrets. It is a very attractive quality.” She aimed a very intimate smile in John’s direction and then giggled.

Jason couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop himself. “So how’s Paul, John?” He asked. He meant for it to sound like an idle inquiry, but the anger in his voice leaked through. Gerry squeezed Jason’s thigh, but it was too late. 

John said very deliberately, “I don’t know, Jason. We haven’t spoken since he left for France.” 

Jason’s eyes met John’s, and there was a very tense standoff. And then Jason made his decision. He wanted no part of this farce. He pushed his chair back and said, “Gerry, please let’s go. I’m not feeling well.” 

 

*****

London  
June 28, 1997

 

Paul and Linda arrived back at Cavendish at 10 p.m. after their 14-day vacation. Paul had done a wonderful job of pretending to have a great time. For whatever reason, Linda’s usual accurate radar had not picked up a false note in Paul’s affect. Thus, she had enjoyed her two weeks away very much, and looked golden and rested. Her sunny smile was very much on display. Paul couldn’t help but feel that even if the cost to his relationship with John was high, the break had been a good thing because Linda looked so happy and healthy after 2 years of being tired, miserable, and sick. 

Paul was anxious and was hoping that John was at his house down the mews, and that he would be able to jolly, charm, or seduce John out of his anger. Linda was tired after the traveling, and Paul soon had her tucked up in bed. He told her he was going down the mews to see John. She nodded, and within a few moments had fallen asleep.

Paul took a quick shower and changed his clothes. He wanted to look and smell his best when he first saw John again. It had been two weeks without hearing from John at all, despite having left numerous messages, and Paul’s heart was beating hard as he headed down the mews, John’s house key in his hand. He rang the doorbell and waited. He rang the bell again and waited some more. Shrugging, he used his key and let himself in. There was a nightlight on in the kitchen, which barely illuminated the room. He walked through the sitting room after turning on a light, and made his way to the main hallway and the stairwell.

The house was perfectly dark and cold, and Paul knew in that instant with a stab to his heart, that it was also...empty.


	106. Chapter 106

New York  
Early morning hours, June 29, 1997

 

It was two days after the disastrous dinner party. John was seriously depressed. He still hadn’t been able to pick up the phone and call Jason. It had been a terrible moment when Jason and thrown his napkin down, scraped his chair back, and adjured Gerry to leave immediately. Jason had made the appropriate social lie - that he wasn’t feeling well - but John knew differently. He had chased Jason into the elevator lobby and begged him to come back in. He had promised to be a better friend.

Jason had actually turned to John with tears in his eyes. “I can’t,” he’d said, as Gerry had pulled him on to the elevator, and the doors had closed.

John had then become hyperactive with anxiety. He had paced around his apartment while loudly defending himself to himself against the guilt that Jason was making him feel. Celine was in over her head, and kind of trailed behind John, wringing her hands and attempting through ineffective whines to get to the bottom of John’s distress. Eventually, of course, John turned on Celine. It had only been a matter of time before that would happen.

“Get the fuck out of my face!” John had shouted at her. “Stop following me around!”

“I’m sorry, John, I’m just trying to help,” she cried.

“You can’t help me, you twat! What do you imagine you can do for me? You don’t know me, and I sure as hell don’t know you!” John was in a purple rage. Celine had run to the bedroom, her hands over her face, in floods of tears.

Yes, it had been a very lovely evening indeed. John, angry, had strode to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a full glass (at least 5 fingers!) of whiskey, and plopped down on one of the sofas. He began to drink, and his mood became nastier. It occurred to him that he was sick and tired of Celine. It was all Celine’s fault, because if she hadn’t been there, Jason and Gerry would not have been so angry with him, and would not have left in a huff. Because of her, he may have lost Jason’s friendship forever! The more he thought about it, the angrier he got at Celine. She was the source of all his problems! Drunkenly, he dragged himself up from the sofa, and then stumbled down the hall to the master bedroom. He threw the door open, and turned on the overhead light.

Celine was stretched out on the bed in a slip, and she was sound asleep. She had obviously cried herself to sleep because mascara stains were frozen in the act of running down her cheeks.

John was angered by her sleeping there all peaceful staining his pillowcase: in his fucking apartment and in his fucking bed, as if she owned the joint! He stomped over to the bed, and reached down and poked Celine on her back. “Wake up!” He shouted.

Celine awoke with a start. She turned over and saw a drunk, angry John Lennon hovering over her. She went from half asleep to terror in a few seconds flat.

John softened a little at the terror in Celine’s face. John might have been drunk, and irrational, and even at times reckless, but he wasn’t really a mean person. John sat down on the side of the bed, and his voice became gentle. “Celine, I need you to pack up your things, and go home. I’ll give you cash. I will call a limo for you. But I don’t want to see you again. Understand?”

“Now?” She asked plaintively. She had noted from the bedside clock that it was only 3 a.m.

John thought about it for a moment. He softened some more. “Tomorrow. First thing. I’ll wake you up early, and then I’ll expect you to pack up and leave.”

Celine had started to silently cry. “Why?” She asked. “What did I do wrong?”

John felt bad. He knew she needed a sop for her ego. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But this was never going to be anything other than a fling, you know? I’m not interested in a long-term relationship. Been there, done that.”

At some level Celine had been expecting to hear that. She had known that she wasn’t smart enough, or savvy enough, or clever enough to be a partner for John Lennon. She nodded in a resigned way. “Okay,” she said in a very small, defeated voice.

John allowed the shame to flow over him. He said, “Move over ‘Celly,’ I’ll hold you until it’s time to go.” Celine smiled ruefully at John’s use of her hated nickname. He climbed in with her, although he was fully dressed, and she wept in his comforting arms for the better part of 10 minutes before she fell asleep.

 

*****

 

London  
After Midnight / Early Morning Hours of June 29, 1997

 

Unable to really accept that John’s London house was empty, Paul went up the stairs and into the master bedroom. It was completely dark, the bed was made, and it was clear that John had not been there for some time. Paul flicked on one of the bedside lamps, and sat, dejected, on the edge of the mattress. He cradled his head in his hands. In that moment it came home to him once more that the triangle thing just didn’t work. It had never worked seamlessly, and it had often created huge gaps in his relationships with Linda and John. And now Paul worried that John had had enough.

Paul decided here and now was a safe place to fall apart. He found himself curling up on the bedspread in a fetal position, and the deep, clawing sobs that came out of him for several long minutes were horrible sounds. At least no one but Paul could hear them. It was humiliating and humbling to feel so helpless. He was tired of fighting and trying and rushing around between two people. He was tired of compromising and smothering what he wanted in order to make one or the other of his lovers happy instead. He had felt this way many times before, but this time it felt final. Of course it wasn’t final, it just felt like that to Paul in that dark moment.

After about 30 minutes, Paul fell into a restless sleep, and the dreams that haunted him and which left him in one sweat after another felt like end-of-the-world scenarios.

 

*****

 

New York  
A Few Days Later  
July 3, 1997

John woke up with a raging hangover. Harvey had dragged him to a nightclub the night before, where he had been ‘entertained’ by an exotic dancer, and he was now reaping what he had sown. He had turned off his phone days earlier, but when he finally made it up and staggered into the kitchen he saw the phone message machine light blinking like crazy. John pushed the playback button, and prepared to listen to the messages as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

BEEP! [Ouch! That hurt John’s head!]

“John? Hi, this is Bill Segal. Can you call me when you get a chance? There’s a difficult issue we need to discuss, rather urgent...” 

BEEP! [Fuck!]

“John? This is Paul. Let’s stop being stupid. Please call me, if only to say it’s over.”

BEEP!

“Hello, Mr. Lennon. I got your number from your agent. I am Gore Vidal’s private secretary. He was hoping you would join him for lunch at Elaine’s sometime this coming week. Please call me at ....”

BEEP!

“John - Gerry here. I need to talk to you when you get a chance. Jason is very upset, and he doesn’t want to leave things like this...”

BEEP!

“John! This is your P.R. rep in New York. I’ve heard rumors that someone is shopping a story about your relationship with Paul to the tabloids...”

BEEP!

“John - this is Frank - your manager - remember me? I just had a call from our PR office in New York. Apparently there is some story about you and Paul that is about to run in a tabloid...”

BEEP!

“John - this is Celine. I know I said I wouldn’t call again, but I needed to tell you that I have been approached by a tabloid reporter...Call me!

BEEP!

“John, this is Frank again. I’ve just heard from our PR guy that there are now apparently two new tabloid stories...”

BEEP!

“John - this is Linda. Paul is devastated. He refuses to call you again because he says he has left almost a dozen messages already. You need to call one of us back! I didn’t think you were this inconsiderate!”

BEEP! 

John slumped in his chair at the kitchen table, with his head in his hands. He certainly was an ace asshole. It had only taken him two weeks to set his whole life on fire, causing all sorts of collateral damage to just about everyone around him! Worst of all, Paul had sounded ragged and torn - he hadn’t heard that tone in Paul’s voice since 1970. And then came Linda - as usual - rushing in to protect Paul. From me! John was angry about that whole thing. He didn’t mess around in Linda’s relationship with Paul. He never told her how shitty she had been to him. (The fact that Linda may never have done anything to deserve such censure of course did not occur to John). This, on top of the bridges he’d burned with Jason and Gerry, had John feeling very depressed and incapable of making a decision.

Oh, and let’s don’t forget there was apparently another rumor mill gearing up to come after him and Paul, and then there was Bill Segal with some issue related to...what? The poetry? Was the Society going to ask for the award back? If so, John wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

In fact, the only message on the machine that did not fill John with fear and loathing was the one left by Gore Vidal’s secretary. A luncheon with Gore Vidal sounded like a good way to spend an afternoon. It was typical of John to want to put off the ugly stuff in favor of the fun stuff. John wrote down the number after playing back the message, and he sat there for a good 10 minutes overcoming his pathological fear of calling someone on the phone who he didn’t know intimately. John finally dialed the number, and the phone on the other end was answered by the very effeminate-sounding male who had left the earlier voice message. He was Vidal’s secretary, Miles Clifton.

John was a little put out that Clifton made the appointment, thus elevating Vidal to some greater status than John. It made John want to have his person call Vidal’s person, so that they would be equal. Too bad John didn’t have a person. Where the hell was that sniveling little personal assistant Jimmy when you needed him? Speaking of which...

John next called Bill Segal. Of all the remaining calls, this seemed like it might be the least horrible. It took a while for Bill’s assistant to find him (why did everyone have an assistant but him? John was going to have to do something about that) but eventually Bill was on the other line.

“Oh, John, I’m glad you caught me before I left for an appointment. I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you, and I don’t know any other way to say it than just to say it.”

John’s heart was in his throat. Maybe he should have called Frank the manager instead. “Yes?” He managed to croak.

“You know that PA we hired for you during your last trip here?”

“Jimmy.” John said the word. Somehow he knew - somewhere in the back of his mind - that Jimmy wasn’t to be trusted for some reason.

“Yes, Jimmy. Well, a couple of days ago - just before I left you that phone message - I had a call from the New York Daily News. It was one of their fact checkers. She wanted to know if Jimmy actually worked for the publisher, and whether he had been temporarily assigned to work with you.”

John was quiet. “And?” He asked. (John was still digesting the improbable information that the NYDN had a fact checker.)

“And I told her that true or false, all such information was confidential, and we would never release such information to the public.”

“O-kay...” John said. He still wasn’t clear where this was heading.

“I asked her why she needed to know. She told me that the paper had a tip that while Jimmy was working for you he overheard a telephone conversation you had with your songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. Apparently, according to this ‘source’ of theirs, the conversation was, for lack of a better word, intimate.”

John was silent. He really didn’t need anything more to be explained. If Jimmy was the source, and if Jimmy had been listening in on his phone calls with Paul, he could have heard more than one intimate conversation. “Oh, fuck,” John said. “Poor Linda. It’s the last thing she needs right now.”

Bill Segal knew that ‘Linda’ must refer to Paul McCartney’s wife, and he had read of course about her struggle with cancer. He hadn’t thought of that angle until John mentioned it, and this caused him to feel even worse. “If it is any satisfaction, the publisher has hired a private detective to investigate. If Jimmy is the ‘source’ he will of course be fired. And if it isn’t him, we need to know who is. We can’t have people here who spy on our writers, and gossip to the tabloids.”

“I understand,” John said. “But do you mind calling my manager about this? I don’t know how he will want to handle it.” John recited Frank’s name and number for Bill, and then hung up.

Now, of course, John would have to call Paul to warn him. But then, Frank had probably already warned him. But then, Frank might not know much about it yet. But before he could deal with that issue, he supposed he should find out from Celine what the tabloids were contacting her about. He called the number she had left. It was obviously a cell phone, because when she answered it sounded like she was outside. He could hear people talking in the background, and the sound of traffic. 

“Celine, I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier, but I’ve just now picked up my messages. You said you were contacted by a tabloid reporter?”

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t talk to him. He wanted to know if it was true that you and I are having an affair. He said some of the girls at the club where I work were gossiping about it.”

John groaned. “What else did he say?”

“Nothing. He offered me a few thousand dollars, and I told him I had nothing to say to him. He said in a really snotty way that, in a day or two, I was going to have my ‘fifteen minutes of fame.’ I haven’t heard anything about it since.”

“Celine, thanks for calling me and being discreet. I appreciate it. I’m also sorry for what is about to happen to you. Do you want me to send you some money so you can go away somewhere for a few days after the story gets out?”

“Thanks, but no. My boss said he’s gonna fire me if I miss any more work, and I need this job. But if you ever want to see me again, you have my number.” Celine sounded wistful as she hung up.

John felt like shit. Everything he touched turned to crap. He called Frank last. Again John had to wait while an assistant tracked him down. John was thinking now that assistants weren’t all they were cracked up to be, especially if they sang to the tabloids. Finally, Frank was on the other end.

“John! I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days! What the fuck?”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking at my messages. Just checked ‘em. All hell seems to be breaking loose.”

“It sure is. Two different tabloids and two completely different stories! We might even get out of this one alive because they kind of contradict each other. One of them is a story that some assistant overheard you and Paul cooing at each other over the phone...”

“It was more than cooing, Frank. It was pretty X-rated.”

“Oh gawd,” Frank moaned. “I was afraid of that. Anyway, the other story is apparently that you were shacked up with a high-class call girl for days, and the angle they’re playing is, ‘does Paul know?’”

“Well, he does now, no doubt,” John grumbled.

Frank went silent for a few moments. “Apparently you aren’t speaking with Paul? I called to warn him the other day and he mentioned that you were not returning his calls, and he didn’t even know if you were partners anymore.”

“Such melodrama,” John snapped. “I’m just pissed at him - and at Linda too. They can’t give me my space for a week or two? Fuckin’ hell!” John’s tone immediately dropped to normal. “What did Paul say about the tabloid stories?”

“He is very discreet, John. He just heard what they were and thanked me for the heads up.”

“That’s all?” John asked.

“That’s all.”

“Oh, the PR guy - the New York guy - he called me too. You’ll call him back, right?”

“We’ve been in almost constant communication,” Frank sighed. “Well, the bright side is that maybe all this controversy will help sell your record. Of course, it is doing extremely well on it’s own, but I am in the business of looking for silver linings after all...”

“Lucky you,” John pouted. “My life is a fuckin’ sewer - you have no idea!”

“What else is wrong?” Frank’s voice sounded terribly worried.

“Did you get a call from Bill Segal, my poetry agent?”

“No.”

“Well, expect one. He’ll give you all the details about the ‘source’ of the overheard phone conversation. It’s a fuckin’ mess. You’ll have to deal with it. And then Celine called me, and she said the tabloids were calling her...”

“Oh dear god. Is this the high-class call girl? Did you really have one shacked up with you? I was hoping that one was made up. But no! Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!” He waited for a few panicky seconds, and asked, “There isn’t more is there?”

“Yeah, there’s more,” John admitted shamefully.

“Now what?”

“I was at a rather seedy nightclub last night, and I might have done drugs, and I might have had a lap dance, and someone might have taken my picture. So, brace yourself for tabloid number three...”

“’Might’?” Frank asked weakly.

“Well, it’s all a bit hazy you see... but as we were talking just now I suddenly remembered seeing camera flashes last night, but maybe that was just lights bouncing off one of those fuckin’ rotating crystal ceiling balls...”

Frank had to resist the urge to put his head down on his desk and cry. He figured he could do that later, after he had finished all the damage control. “Are you going to warn Paul about all this, or do you expect me to do the dirty work?” Frank’s voice was disapproving. He obviously thought John was being a jerk to Paul.

John didn’t care what Frank thought. He couldn’t face that emotional avalanche just yet. “You,” he said imperiously. “And now I have more fires to put out.”

“’More’?” Frank’s voice was a squeak.

“I completely destroyed my best friendship - well, next best to Paul that is. I’ve got plenty of shit to eat there, and it will take me a few days to digest it all, so please tell Paul that when I am not so pissed at him, and when I’ve finished digesting all this other shit, I will call him back.”

Frank rang off, but was extremely alarmed. Was John becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol again? And now hookers, too? At least they were women, Frank reminded himself pragmatically. He was just about to pick up the phone to call Paul when the line buzzed, and soon he was talking to Bill Segal.

 

*****

 

London  
Earlier That Day - July 3, 1997

 

Paul and Linda were seated in Dr. Wright’s office again. This time Dr. Freeman was unable to make it. Linda had undergone a second MRI the day after her return from France, and today they were going to learn the results. Dr. Wright didn’t see any reason to beat around the bush.

“We think you should get another mammogram,” he said.

That had come out of left field! Linda was speechless, and so Paul asked, “Why?” in a small voice.

“Because there are shadows on your chest that we cannot see well on the MRI. It could be nothing. It could be cancer.”

“In my chest?” Linda asked, suddenly terrified. She had walked in so confident!

“It would be in your breast. Your right breast.”

“You mean my left, correct? That was where the tumor was...” Linda said.

“No, I mean the right breast. The opposite breast from where we removed the tumor.”

There was a dead silence as Paul and Linda tried to digest what had just been said. It was Paul who finally ventured forth with a comment. “Are you saying she has another tumor, this time in her other breast?”

“No,” Dr. Wright said bluntly. “I am saying that we are unable to get a clear view of a shadow in her right breast from the full body MRI, and we are suggesting a more invasive test - the mammogram - which will answer all of our questions.”

Linda didn’t know whether to have hope or to collapse in fear. She was immobile and couldn’t speak. Paul had to move and speak for her. “Well, let’s make an appointment then,” he said firmly. 

 

*****

 

London  
The Next Day, July 4, 1997

 

The three American tabloids were spread out in front of Paul and Linda on the kitchen table. All three stories were as lurid and unappetizing as they could possibly be. It was the New York Daily News versus the New York Post versus The Enquirer, with warring headlines:

 

McCARTNEY OFFERS LENNON   
NAUGHTY ‘KNIGHTHOOD SERVICES’  
Torrid Phone Conversation Overheard

 

Versus

 

JOHN LENNON IN TORRID AFFAIR WITH   
NEW YORK CALL GIRL  
Does Paul Know?

 

Versus

 

SEE PIX OF JOHN LENNON GETTING LAP DANCE  
High on Drugs in Torrid Afterhours Romp

 

Paul observed drily, “What is it with tabloids and the word ‘torrid’ I wonder?”

Linda snickered. “They sound like 13 year old boys in the locker room.”

“It’s horrible,” Paul finally said. His voice wobbled a little.

Linda said, “He’s devolving. It’s like watching someone self-destruct.”

“I’m thinking since there are two stories about torrid women, the torrid women stories will cancel out the torrid phone conversation with me,” Paul commented.

Linda giggled. “I’m glad you’re seeing the humor in this.”

Paul became very serious. “It isn’t funny. None of this is funny.” He sat quietly for a few moments and then said, “You know, I’ll have to go to New York. I have to catch him just before he disappears down the drain again.”

Linda was sympathetic, but she was entirely on Paul’s side. “I don’t see why you always have to go and save him from his own stupidity,” she declared loyally.

Paul reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s my job,” he said simply. “If I don’t do it, no one else can or will.”

“I’m going too, then,” Linda insisted.

“But your mammogram!” Paul cried.

“I’ll have it done at Sloan Kettering.”

So that is what they decided to do.

 

*****

New York,  
July 5, 1997

 

“I have to call him,” Jason said to Gerry for the umpteenth time.

“No, you don’t. I left him a message. He has our number. If he is ready to apologize to us then he can call us.” Gerry’s voice was firm - he was speaking with his ‘lawyer’ voice.

“But Gerry...”

“No ‘but Gerry’,” Gerry said stoutly. “He doesn’t get to insult us in this way - the nerve! Dragging us over there and forcing us to dine with that...woman...while he knows that Paul is also our friend! It was appalling!”

“Yes, it was, but that is how John sometimes is. He isn’t a fully adult human being. He got stunted by all that early fame.”

“Paul was even younger than John when he became just as famous. You don’t see him going around insulting people this way. I don’t think fame has much to do with it. I think John is mentally ill, and he is off on a bender on drugs and alcohol, and neither of us should enable him.” Gerry had grown progressively angrier as he spoke. Most of his anger came from knowing how badly Jason had been hurt by John’s disrespectful antics. Gerry could put up with a lot from John, but the moment his Jason was hurt, that was where Gerry drew the line.

“But the tabloids, Gerry! Look at them!” Jason had strewn them around the floor of the sitting room.

“And they’re probably all true. The man is out of control, and it isn’t your job or my job to stop him. He won’t thank us for it, let me assure you.” Gerry’s mouth was rigid, and Jason recognized this as his non-negotiation stance.

“Then whose job is it? Poor Paul? Who is dealing with his wife’s cancer?” Jason was staring at Gerry with patent appeal.

This argument, more than any other, softened Gerry’s angry mouth for a moment. Jason had a point there. Paul was in the horrible position of juggling his wife’s illness along with John’s refusal to talk to him, and now there was one tabloid making fun of his ‘knighthood services’, while two others were showing John to be womanizing with what appeared to he hookers behind Paul’s back. It was too much for any one person to have to take.

Gerry sighed heavily. “What do you propose to do then?” he asked, half-defeated. He was still on the fence.

“I think I should call him and see if he will come here for dinner. I feel the obligation to speak some sense to him, even if he won’t listen. I love him, even when I am frustrated by his behavior.”

Gerry thought about this for a while and finally said, “Well, as long as I am here while he is visiting. If he even looks like he is going to hurt or insult you again, I am going to grab him by the collar and march him out of here and tell him to stay the hell out of our lives!”

Jason smiled. Gerry the He-Man. He was deeply touched by Gerry’s protectiveness. But Jason knew that if it came to it, Gerry would probably be as empathetic to John as Jason would be. 

 

*****

 

Earlier That Day

 

It was lunchtime at Elaine’s, and a number of the city’s social who’s who circa the 1960s were ensconced in their respective reserved tables, held together by plastic surgery and strong support garments; at one of the more popular tables, in a very discreet corner, sat Gore Vidal and John Lennon. They had just greeted each other, Vidal suavely, and Lennon, awkwardly. Vidal noticed with pleasure that quite a few of the old doyennes had noticed who his guest was. He loved to keep the old biddies talking.

“Have you been here before?” Vidal asked languidly.

“Of course,” John said, surprised by the question. “Many times.”

“Then you won’t need any help with the menu,” Vidal said smoothly, although he was very surprised that Lennon had been to the restaurant ‘many times.’ Vidal spent half the year in a home in Italy, and didn’t get out as much as he used to when he was in New York, so he shouldn’t have been surprised that Elaine’s went on even when the great Vidal was not there.

John twinkled at Vidal. “You’re trying to intimidate me again. It won’t work. Far more outrageous people than you have tried.”

Vidal laughed. “I guess I have to declare peace again,” he chuckled.

“Oh, please don’t,” John flirted. He knew when someone was attracted to him, and he knew how to play on that attraction. “I enjoy the challenge.”

Vidal was very intrigued by John Lennon. He thought he would very much enjoy a romance with the man. Vidal wasn’t really into sex anymore, but romance; that was another question.

The two men ordered their lunch. Vidal ordered the catch of the day, lemon sole, and John ordered his favorite pasta dish with scampi. As they waited for their food, the men began to chat. 

“I have been intrigued by your work for many years,” Vidal told John. “I’m not a popular music fan, not at all, but I have enjoyed a few of your pieces, like ‘Day In the Life’ - isn’t that the proper title?”

“Yes, Paul and I wrote that together,” John said.

“Paul. Your partner.” It was a statement not a question. Vidal was looking at John with an inquisitive look. He obviously expected a nuanced explanation.

John smiled back with his close-mouthed grin. He then asked, with mischief dancing in his eyes, “You have a question about that?”

Vidal felt warm in the bottom of his stomach. Lennon was a very, very attractive person. “I do,” he said without embarrassment. “I am assuming that you were lovers when you were young, and this came to a bad end, and now, in your middle years, you have become close friends again.”

“Close - but no cigar!” John laughed.

“Oh?” Vidal asked mildly. “How so?”

“We are not just ‘friends,’ Gore,” John said, deliberately using Vidal’s first name. He felt that he had the upper hand now. He also honestly could not see the likes of Gore Vidal running to a tabloid to unload his gossip. If he gossiped, it would be amongst the upper elite glitterati of New York where it would stay (as those people did not deign to speak to any other kind of people), and that was acceptable to John Lennon.

“Ahh, I seeee,” Vidal drawled. “But how stupid of you both!” He declared.

“Excuse me?” John asked, burnt by Vidal’s comment.

“How can you remain friends and creative partners if you have sex hanging over your heads? I have read the morning tabloids. I don’t usually, but you can hardly avoid the symmetry of three separate tabloids coming up with three separate headlines, all of them involving one man’s sex life.”

John chuckled. He should be outraged and insulted, but Vidal was so entertaining that it was hard to take him seriously. “Paul isn’t jealous when I have sex with women,” he said very frankly. “And he is very much in love with his wife.”

Vidal sat back. “Well, that is very civilized of both of you - and the wife too. But all that my youth taught me was that love affairs generally end badly: one loses interest in monogamous sex, so forays into the unknown. The other one becomes jealous and tearful. It is tedious.”

“So what’s the answer then?” John asked. He was genuinely interested in the man’s worldview.

“For me the answer was to separate intimate friendship from sex.” Vidal was on the verge of being bored with the conversation, so he changed the emphasis. “So you are able to maintain both a friendship and a sex life with this man? I find that most improbable.”

John laughed. “I didn’t say it was easy. In fact, it has been anything but. Still, I prefer fireworks to the alternative. I’d get bored if I had nothing to be excited about.”

Vidal took this in. It actually sounded genuine. He had to allow for the fact that human beings differ over the definition of happiness. Still... “Of course, the fact remains that I am somewhat older than you,” Vidal opined finally. “There is still time for you to discover that I am entirely right in the matter.”


	107. Chapter 107

New York  
July 6, 1997

 

Jodie Eastman was tucking Linda up in the guest room bedroom. On the plane ride over from London, Linda had felt exhausted so by the time she and Paul arrived at John and Jodie Eastman’s apartment, she could barely hold her eyes open. Jodie immediately helped Linda to undress and climb into bed.

Meanwhile, John Eastman was settling a very haggard looking Paul in a comfortable sofa, and providing him with a large whiskey. Paul looked shaken and drained.

“What’s going on?” John asked.

Paul leaned back and allowed the whiskey to slosh around in his mouth and then swallowed it slowly. He then took a deep breath. “John is off the rails,” he said. “It reminds me of that old nursery rhyme:   
“'There was a little girl/ Who had a little curl/ Right in the middle of her forehead/ When she was good/ She was very good indeed/ But when she was bad she was horrid.'  
“He was doing so well, he was being so supportive and mature...” Paul’s voice dwindled away.

“What do we have to do?” John asked. He had scanned the appalling tabloid stories, and had no intention of mentioning them directly. They were dreadful affronts to the dignity of his sister and her husband.

“’We’ can’t do anything. I guess it’s up to me. I did think I would call John’s friend Jason, to see if he has any information.”

“You can’t just call John and find out?”

“He’s not returning my calls, and hasn’t been for weeks.”

“Paul!” John Eastman was alarmed.

Paul smiled. “Yeah, I know. It’s crazy.”

“What set him off, do you know?” John asked.

“I had the temerity to go away for 2 weeks with Linda, so she could get away from London for a while.” Paul had given up feeling guilty, and had begun to think he had done the best he could do, and John could either accept it or lump it. He’d abased himself in front of John in his pleading phone messages to no avail. He would just have to be himself and let John decide whether he cared or not. One thing that was bothering Paul was that this had been the anniversary of the day he and John had met: it was their 40th anniversary exactly. Paul had hoped that this would have inspired John to call, but apparently not...

Paul’s brother-in-law sat back and bit his tongue. He had often wondered what Paul had seen in John Lennon, and why he had been willing to put his family and career at risk over him, time and time again. Yes, John was talented and both sympathetic and wickedly attractive when he chose to be, but he could also be cruel and unpredictable. “So, what is your plan?” He asked. He figured that Paul already had some kind of strategy lined up to deal with the meltdown of his partner.

“First things first,” Paul said slowly. “Tomorrow morning I am going to go with Linda to her appointment at Sloan Kettering. She has a mammogram scheduled.”

John’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s that all about?” He asked, not quite sure he wanted to hear the answer. “A few weeks ago, Linda told Jodie that she was doing much better.”

“The doctors tell us that she needs a mammogram to make sure a shadow they saw on an MRI is nothing to worry about. We were going to do it in London, but then it became necessary for me to come to New York.”

John Eastman was still; his heart went out to his sister, who had been through hell in the last 20 months. “I see. Well. After you’ve dealt with Linda’s appointment, what next?”

 

*****

 

Earlier That Day

 

John woke up fairly early, because he hadn’t stayed up all hours the night before, and he hadn’t gotten drunk or high. He had very much enjoyed his luncheon conversation with Gore Vidal the day before, and it had had a strange effect on him. John had walked away from the meeting feeling stronger, more in control, and less fractured. Now, as he puttered around getting dressed and fixing a light breakfast, John realized that he felt like himself again. Whatever had gotten into him had thankfully gotten out. In a way, it was like waking up from one of those anxiety dreams where you imagined yourself in all sorts of stressful situations, usually missing items of clothing, and feeling utterly helpless and unable to control your fate. He knew he had a lot of bridges to repair; he had left a trail of damage behind him, as he always did after he’d given in to his worst impulses.

Once settled at the kitchen table with his coffee and corn flakes, he felt ready to listen to the messages on his answering machine again. Was it only 4 days ago when he had sat there listening to one horrible message after another? Since then, everything had hit the fan - the tabloids had all published their stories, and they were excruciatingly embarrassing. The worst one was the tabloid that had the blurry, out of focus photos of him enjoying a lap dance. That was a real winner. John took a big crunchy bite of his cereal, and hit the replay button on the answer machine.

BEEP! 

“John, you’ve gone to ground again. You need to call me - it’s Frank. I have to talk to you about the aftermath of the tabloid stories.”

BEEP!

“John - this is Celine. I never said those things the paper said I said! I swear!”

BEEP!

“John, this is Jason. I don’t like how things ended between us the other night. Please give me a call.”

BEEP!

“Ah, Mr. Lennon: an old-fashioned answering machine. I approve. This is Gore. I simply wanted to thank you for your company this afternoon. We will have to do it again soon. I will be in touch.”

BEEP!

That was it - the calm that follows the storm. John was relieved that there were no more bombshells to be exploded as a result of his mini-meltdown. And how wonderful that Jason had called him. He had feared he had ruined that relationship forever. Poor Celine, taking the tabloids so seriously. John was well aware that only 10% of what they wrote was 100% accurate; the rest was speculation and gossip. Still, John felt uneasy. At first he could not trace it to its source. But then it occurred to him: there was no message from Paul.

It did not occur to John - even once - that today was the 40th anniversary of the day he and Paul had met.

 

*****

 

July 7, 1997

There they were, sitting in yet another cold examining room. They were back at Sloan Kettering, this time in the X-ray and Radiation Department. Because people had been staring at them in the waiting room, a kindly clerk had escorted them to an empty examining room, where they now sat waiting anxiously for the technician to come and begin Linda’s exam. 

Linda’s hand was cold, so Paul coupled it in both of his, rubbing his hands together to give her hand warmth. She gave him a weak smile. All of her hard won confidence appeared to have deserted her this morning. And so Paul had locked in his steel spine. He was not going to be weak or defeatist. If the worst happened, he was going to be strong and positive, and he would do everything in his power to support Linda and get her through. There was always the chance they’d walk out of there with good news, too, but Paul knew he didn’t have to prepare himself for that.

A moment later the technician came in, and soon escorted Linda to another room. Paul waited quietly, one leg bouncing nervously, his hands clasped tightly together. He tried to think of a few notes to whistle, but his heart wasn’t in it. He remembered his cell phone, and started playing the Snake Game on it. But then he remembered he had meant to call Jason. He pulled a small book out of his pocket - one where he kept track of phone numbers - and dialed Jason’s number. Almost immediately Jason answered.

“Hello?” His voice was anxious and breathless.

“Hi, Jason?” Paul asked.

It took a moment for Jason to realize he was talking to Paul, not John. But he recovered from this minor disappointment quickly. “Paul!” He responded.

“Linda and I are here in New York,” he said.

“Oh thank heavens. Have you got John with you?” Jason asked.

Paul was stumped. “No, actually I haven’t seen John yet - not for a month, actually. I’m at Sloan Kettering right now, Linda’s having a thing done.”

“Is she okay?” Jason asked worriedly.

“It’s just a test,” Paul said calmly, preferring to sidestep the actual question with an inapposite answer.

“Oh, good. So you haven’t seen John for a month?” Jason’s voice was scandalized.

“He’s quite angry with me, as I think I told you.”

“Yes...” Jason paused, remembering. “I left him a message a day or two ago, and I am hoping to hear from him soon.”

“I’ve been waiting for weeks,” Paul mused. He then quickly asked, “So after we last spoke, did you see John?”

“Oh, we saw him alright. That’s right! I haven’t told you! He invited Gerry and me to his apartment for dinner - this was several days ago. Anyway, we got there and - I wouldn’t tell you this if it weren’t already all over the tabloids - he had a woman there, she had apparently been staying there, and John was behaving very strangely. Gerry and I were insulted by his behavior. He made a rude remark, and Gerry and I left abruptly. We haven’t spoken since. I don’t know if he will ever speak to me again; Gerry thinks I should just let it go, but I thought I’d try one more time. He hasn’t returned my call yet.”

Paul sighed heavily. “Oh good lord,” he swore. “When John goes round the bend, he really goes, you know? At times like these I can’t even take it personally. You shouldn’t either. When he gets like this he is responding to internal damage sustained years ago - when he was a child. He is really acting out against people who aren’t even alive anymore, and we’re the ones who pay for it.”

“His erstwhile parents,” Jason said in total agreement.

“They have a lot to answer for,” Paul grumbled. “Anyway, I’ve gotten over my own hurt feelings and petty insecurities from this little episode. I always have to go through a week or two at least of feeling sorry for myself when John strikes out at me. I usually right myself after that, and I tell you it has been much easier this time, because being faced with real life and death problems has hardened me; I find it difficult to be brought too low over John’s little shadow wars.”

“’Shadow wars’ - that’s a good way to put it. It is as if he is fighting with himself - or some other version of himself.”

“He has to get it out of his system.” Paul concluded.

“But what if he doesn’t call either of us back?” Jason asked, suddenly worried that he would wake up one morning to a headline about a John Lennon overdose.

“As soon as I’ve gotten Linda settled I am going to go over there and confront him. I have a key to his apartment - he gave it to me a long time ago, although I’ve never had to use it. He’ll never call me first. He’ll be self-justifying until he sees me, and then he’ll feel sorry.” Paul’s voice sounded strangely businesslike and unemotional. He knew that he would have to be patient and pleasant at first. He would have to save for later - at a time when John was prepared to hear them - his harsher opinions and hurt feelings.

“I don’t know how you put up with it,” Jason said.

Paul laughed. “I don’t either. But I do.”

 

*****

 

Almost as soon as Jason hung up his phone, it rang again. This time it was John.

“John!” Jason felt a huge wave of relief pass through him.

“Hi, Jason. I got your message. I feel terrible. I was a fuckin’ asshole.” John was surprised by the threat of tears; until he had heard Jason’s voice, he hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear it.

“I’ve been so worried about you. My god!” Jason declared.

“Yeah, I really outdid myself this time,” John said, amused but also ashamed. “It’s all over the tabloids. But it is almost like the different stories cancel each other out. And they didn’t even print the most X-rated conversations I had with Paul that week, just a slightly flirtatious one. I had been very worried about that, so was relieved when I saw which one they wrote about.”

“You have the luck of the devil, John. No one believes any of it because it is all so contradictory.”

“Well, the photo in the nightclub...” John started to point out.

“That’s your guilty conscience speaking,” Jason said. “That photo could have been of anyone. It is unrecognizable because of the lack of light and the fuzziness.”

“My conscience has a lot to be guilty about,” John said - this time his voice tinged with insecurity. He waited a long moment and then asked, “Have you heard from Paul?”

Jason thought about putting John’s mind at ease, but then decided not to. John had put Paul through hell. He could suffer a little longer. “We spoke only to point out to each other that you weren’t returning either of our calls.” Jason’s voice sounded cold for a moment.

John heard it, and felt bad again. “I was out of it, that’s for sure. But now I’m back in it.”

Jason said, “I hope so. You don’t know how much pain you cause the people who love you when you do these crazy things. It is self-destructive, but it isn’t victimless. Gerry and I were very hurt by it. That clueless woman - she seemed blameless enough. Don’t you suppose she has also been hurt by all the public gossip? And Paul and Linda...”

“I know, I know,” John was groaning. “You don’t have to tell me...”

“Well, yes John, I do have to tell you!” Jason declared with spirit. “If you are going to go about carelessly hurting people, and you want to be forgiven for it later, you have to be ready to be accountable for the damage you caused!”

John was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice sounded small and scared. “Have I lost your love, Jason?”

Jason felt great emotion clogging his throat. “I am very much afraid,” he said firmly, “that you are incapable of losing my love.”

 

*****

 

The mammogram completed, a technician walked Paul and Linda to the chief oncologist’s office, carrying the films. In that office, not only the oncologist, but also the chief radiologist waited for them. As Paul and Linda sat in a waiting room, the two doctors examined the film. Not 15 minutes later, Paul and Linda were ushered into the oncologist’s comfortable office.

As everyone settled themselves in their respective chairs, a slightly awkward silence hung in the air, and Paul took it all in - the downcast slant of the doctors’ eyes, their nervousness, the film attached to the X-ray view box. The news was bad - very bad. It was strange. In that moment Paul felt as though the emotive part of him stepped out of his body, and the only part left inside him was the cool, analytical, thinking part. As he thought all this, he was again warming Linda’s cold hand between both of his.

The oncologist cleared his throat, and said, “The news isn’t good, I’m afraid.”

“What?”

The sound that escaped from Linda’s throat in the form of that word ‘what’ was gut wrenching. It had come out with what sounded like a sustained hiss of escaping air, as if it were an actual blow to her solar plexus. Both doctors were very upset by this. Linda had clearly not expected bad news.

Paul spoke. “Perhaps you can tell us what the news is.”

Both doctors turned to look at Paul, who was ashen, absolutely still, but otherwise clearly in command of his intellect and emotions.

The oncologist said, “We have found another growth - this time it is in her right breast.” As the oncologist spoke, the radiologist had gone over to the X-ray view box and turned on the light. He looked over his shoulder as if to beckon the others to join him. Paul got up, helped Linda to her feet, and they both approached the view box. The doctor pointed to a small but solid white blob in Linda’s right breast. It was irregular in shape.

Paul knew immediately what that meant. They were going to do another biopsy; they were going to do more blood tests. They were going to remove the damn thing from Linda’s breast. They were going to suggest more chemo. But Paul already knew the real answer: the cancer was back, and it wasn’t going away. Even after they removed it from her breast, it would no doubt pop up somewhere else. It had become a tragic game of Whack-a-Mole. He knew on an intellectual level that somewhere inside he was devastated by this news, but at that moment he could not feel it. He felt cold, rigid and aware. He was still holding Linda’s hand, and he tightened his grip, and turned to look at her.

Linda was staring at the tumor with an expression of abject fear. She broke her eyes away from the X-ray in order to meet her husband’s eyes. When their eyes met, Paul smiled very gently at her and said with an attempt at humor, “Here we go again!”

 

*****

 

That Evening

 

John was moping in the glorious living room of his glorious apartment. He had the lights on low and this emphasized the view outside - all around the black hole of the park were tall buildings with golden lights blazing against the grey of a darkening sky. It was very beautiful. John didn’t notice it. He was curled up on one of the sofas, nursing a hot cup of tea. Just the thought of alcohol made him cringe. He had actually swallowed his pride earlier that day - after calling Jason - and tried to call Paul - first on his cell phone, which went straight to the message center, and then at Cavendish. No one had answered the phone there, and John had not left a message on the cell phone. He wanted his first conversation with Paul to be live, not canned. He’d then called Frank, and while Frank had wanted to talk about damage control and etcetera, he had little information about Paul. “Haven’t spoken to him in a few days,” was the extent of the information John had gotten out of Frank on the subject.

As John sat there, he wondered if he had dealt his relationship with Paul a deathblow. Could it be true - as Gore Vidal had warned - that sex would always lead to the bad end of a relationship? It had been deep jealousy of Paul’s love for Linda, and the resultant emotional insecurity, that had driven John to stomp off to New York and ‘teach Paul a lesson’ by not returning his many phone calls. Now Paul was the unreachable one. There was just a deep, cold spot inside him where the glowing warmth of Paul - sweet and stable - used to be. John had actually gotten quite upset over these self-recriminations by the time the doorbell rang.

John jumped a little at the sound. He thought it must be someone from building management, because the security guard and concierge downstairs in the main lobby didn’t let anyone come up to his apartment without calling him first to see if it was alright. He got up and went to the door. He forgot to turn on the light in the hall as he did so, and thus when the door was opened only a backlit silhouette was visible there, turned to black by the lights in the elevator lobby beyond. But John recognized the look and smell of that silhouette immediately -

“Paul!” He cried, literally throwing himself at Paul’s chest as he did so.

“Oomph!” Paul emitted, while chuckling at John’s reaction.  
“Can we get inside first?”

“They let you up to surprise me!” John cried happily, and dragged Paul by his arm into the apartment. Paul kicked the door shut with his foot as he was dragged down the hallway and into the sitting room. Once there, John turned and engulfed Paul in another tight embrace. It was not sexual; it was the kind of hug a lost child gives its parent when he is found again. Paul recognized it as such, and hugged John back in a strong, comforting paternal embrace. He reminded himself he would save for later the bad feelings thrown up by John's recent behavior. Now was not the time. They stood there for several moments before John began to pull away.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” John confessed, his eyes blinking back tears.

“You wish!” Paul chuckled. John chuckled too, but did not look too sure, so Paul added, “Eventually you will learn that I will never leave you. I’ve told you so many times in so many ways - you may leave me, but I will never leave you.” Paul was holding John away from him, with a hand on each of John’s shoulders, and he was forcing John to meet his eyes as he made this speech. Paul knew instinctively that John pushed him away out of fear of being left. Paul knew that it was a crazy way of thinking, but it was real to John.

John nodded tentatively at Paul's promise, and then it was Paul’s turn to lead John to one of the sofas. They both sat down, in close proximity but not touching. A certain awkwardness lingered in the air. John was thinking he probably should speak first - he owed Paul a long apology; it was volumes long. But of course it was Paul who broke the silence.

“Johnny, you’ve led me on a merry chase this time,” he said gently, his eyes serious but still warm.

John heaved a long sigh and said, “I led everyone on a merry chase - it’s like I set the hounds of hell loose or something. I’m so sorry...”

Paul chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “It’s really rather awesome how much chaos you created in such a short time. I haven’t digested it all yet.” John looked woeful and sad. Paul’s soft heart responded. “I know you don’t really mean to hurt me,” he said. One of his hands moved slowly towards John’s face, and soon John’s chin was being held in a few of Paul’s long fingers. “But it does hurt me, you know?”

John nodded. Now the tears were jumping over the barriers posed by the lower eyelids, and were racing down his cheeks.

“Don’t cry, John. What’s done is done.” Paul gently wiped the tears from John’s face, and then pulled him close for another embrace. Soon he allowed his hand to trace the contours of John’s beloved face. Paul leaned his forehead against John’s, and their noses touched.

“I don’t deserve your loyalty,” John whispered.

“Maybe it is the kind of loyalty that isn’t earned; maybe it is something all its own, and there’s no stopping it,” Paul responded softly.

John took this in, and once again felt terrible shame for his behavior. The worst bit was that he now knew for sure that “it” would probably happen again. He could no longer deceive himself into thinking that he could fix it, cure it, or change it. It was an inescapable part of himself. Thankfully, it appeared to be a part of himself that Paul understood and was willing to tolerate. Clearly, Paul was prepared to accept this huge downside in order to remain his friend, partner, and lover. Again, John felt unworthy of such love. But he wasn’t going to let that love go, no matter how undeserved it might be. It was his, and he was going to keep it or die trying.

 

*****

 

A Few Hours Later

 

John and Paul did not have sex, but they had made love. It was the kind of love that expressed itself with soft touches and gentle kisses, and nothing more. There were no more words about betrayals and forgiveness. Just soft whispered words of love as they held each other.

John had felt the strength of Paul’s stability in his beating heart as his ear rested on Paul’s chest, and this had somehow transferred to John’s own heart - was it osmosis? And for the first time in weeks John felt himself to be calm, steady, and stable. They had dozed for a little while - seated there on the sofa - probably in reaction to the release of all that stress, and it was Paul who had first started awake.

It was the thought of Linda that had started Paul awake. He had to get back to her this night. She had been so utterly distraught on their way back from the hospital that she had actually agreed to take a sedative upon their arrival at the Eastmans’ apartment, but Paul knew that she would not want to wake up in the middle of night and find herself alone. This he had to explain to John, and he prayed it wouldn’t send John off on another rampage. So he separated himself from John’s clinging arms, and went to use the bathroom. Then he wandered off on to the vast patio to make a phone call, gazing at the amazing view without really appreciating it. He called the Eastmans’ number, and soon was being reassured by Jodie that Linda was still fast asleep. He informed Jodie he would be back in an hour or so, and just as he was hanging up he heard the sliding door open and John was in the aperture.

“Paul? What are doing out here?” John’s voice was insecure - worried. Paul moved towards the voice.

“I was just calling Jodie to check on Linda.”

“Oh?” John asked. He had forgotten all about Linda! Again, a rush of guilt and shame ran through him. “Linda! Is she okay?” He asked.

Paul paused for a moment, and then said, “Let’s step inside. I’d like some tea, and we can talk.” John went to immediate work making tea. He also insisted upon making sandwiches. Paul delayed giving John the terrible news as long as possible. He had wandered aimlessly around the kitchen as John had worked, making small talk. Once John had finished his tasks, though, and they were seated, Paul’s face became dark and serious.

“It’s back,” he said simply.

John’s face was like a question mark. It urged Paul to continue.

“The cancer. She has another tumor - it’s in her other breast.”

John was struck dumb. “I thought she had beat it!” He cried.

“I always feared it was still there,” Paul responded philosophically. “I tried to hide my fear, but I always felt it. The doctors were very clear all along that we caught it too late; I doubted that she could have such a miraculous recovery.”

John was staring at Paul in open dismay. “Oh Christ. And here I’ve been throwing a juvenile tantrum, and you’ve been going through this alone.”

Paul said, “Actually, we haven’t known for long. Although we had some suspicions when the MRI was doubtful a few weeks ago, we only found out today - after her mammogram - that the cancer was definitely back.” Paul sounded fatalistic and unemotional. John read it correctly; he knew that this was just Paul’s coping mechanism. He also knew that there would be hell to pay at some point, when the coping mechanism failed.

“Baby, I’m so sorry...” This was one of those moments when words failed, John realized. He didn’t talk anymore. He moved his chair closer to Paul’s, and then surrounded Paul with comforting arms.

Paul didn’t want to cry, and he managed not to cry. But he allowed himself a few moments of being the comforted one. Today he’d been there for Linda, and then he’d been there for John. At least now it seemed as though John was going to be there for him for a while. From the depths of the embrace, Paul said, “I’m sorry about this, but I have to go back to the Eastmans’. Linda took a sedative, but I don’t want her to wake up and not find me there.” Paul held his breath. He felt fairly confident that John was going to accept this with grace, but there was always the chance that he’d go haywire again.

“Of course you must,” John said softly. “Can I come with you?” 

 

*****

 

Paul had been slightly worried that John and Jody Eastman would be upset if he brought the rampaging John Lennon to their home with him, but he didn’t want to test John’s recent recovery of his senses by leaving him alone so soon.

For his part, John had the decency to feel suddenly insecure as the concierge buzzed them up on the elevator to the Eastmans’ floor. It had suddenly dawned on him that they might not be his biggest fans just at the moment, and Linda too. She had been really furious with him in that voicemail message she had left. But now that he was committed to the visit, he was going to suck up his embarrassment and pride. And it was about time, too.

Indeed, John Eastman did look askance at John Lennon’s appearance at his door. But he covered it quickly with a perfunctory smile. “Hello, John,” he said politely, and then opened the door wider so John and Paul could come in. Jodie met them at the end of the hallway, and when she noticed John’s presence, she looked startled for a moment. Then, she, too, welcomed John politely.

Paul was oblivious to these awkward greetings, because his mind had already shifted over to his concern for Linda. He said, “Excuse me. I’m going to go look in on Linda.” He immediately headed for the guest suite, leaving John facing Jodie and her John, all three of them not quite sure what to do next. Jodie solved the problem.

“Come in and sit down, John. Can I get you anything?” She asked. They all moved towards the sitting room, and while the two Johns sat down, Jodie hovered, awaiting an answer.

“I’m fine, thanks. I’ve drunk so much tea today I could literally float in it.” He made a comical face.

John Eastman asked, “Maybe a finger of whiskey?”

Because things felt awkward, John nodded pleasantly at the suggestion, although he wasn’t really that excited about drinking anything. He figured he would nurse it, rather than risk offending John by refusing a drink.

This settled, the three of them sat in the sitting room for a while longer, trying to think of something to say. John figured it was on him, since his recent behavior was the reason for the awkwardness.

“I’ve behaved like a buffoon,” he announced apropos of nothing.

This announcement was met with a shocked silence, followed by Jodie’s giggles.

“You certainly have!” John Eastman responded, unapologetically, but with merriment.

“I do that from time to time,” John admitted. “I can’t seem to stop myself, once the brakes fail, you know?”

John Eastman actually didn’t know. His brakes had never failed. But he didn’t want to spoil the effect of John’s proffering of the olive branch, so he smiled and said, “Indeed.”

John was looking at his hands. He knew he had to say something; he owed it to Paul. “Paul understands me - why I do this stuff. I know it hurts him, but that isn’t my intent. I just strike out at the world. I am lucky to have him as a friend.”

Jodie melted a little. “Life is a lot easier if you have at least one person to share it with who really understands and accepts you the way you are.”

John looked up. “That’s it - ‘accepts.’ Paul doesn’t like this about me; in fact, he probably hates it. But he ‘accepts’ it. He doesn’t expect me to change, or to be someone I’m not.”

“It’s a gift,” Jodie said.

Just then Paul came in to the room, looking preoccupied. “Linda is beginning to stir. If you all don’t mind, I think I’ll just climb in bed with her so she won’t be alone.” They all made soothing and encouraging noises, even John, and then Paul turned to John. “Can you find your way home okay?”

“Of course!” John said. He was actually disappointed and feeling a little fearful. It wasn’t even 9 p.m. yet. He feared going back and being alone in his apartment again.

Paul immediately sensed John’s unease. “Why don’t you call Jason? He’ll want you to come over, I’m sure. From what I understand, you have some fences to mend there.”

John’s face perked up. “You think I should?” He asked hopefully.

“Yeah - give him a call,” Paul repeated.

John nodded affirmatively, and then Paul - ignoring his audience - walked over to where John was sitting, leaned over and gave him a long goodnight kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Johnny,” he whispered huskily. And, after saying goodnight to his in laws, he returned to Linda’s side.


	108. Chapter 108

Two Weeks Later  
Late July 1997  
The Hamptons, New York

 

John and Linda were stretched out side-by-side on lounges on the deck of the McCartneys’ home in the New York Hamptons. Both of them were carefully shielded from the sun by umbrellas, light-colored clothing, and sun block. After observing their individual attempts to cover every inch of their bare skin with some kind of protection, John had playfully referred to the both of them as “the Cancer twins, as opposed to the Gemini twins we’re both in love with,” which had made Linda laugh. 

“I think it is a fitting analogy - sun as enemy,” John said idly several moments later, as his sunglass-shielded eyes looked up towards the sky. 

“Oh?” Linda had asked, turning a page of her magazine.

“Yes - because isn’t it true that most evil comes from things that look benign or even attractive? You’re always looking for dark, squalid, slippery things, but in the end it’s the nice guy next door that does you in.” 

Linda guffawed. “You’re certainly bringing my spirits up,” she announced. 

“I aim to please,” John chortled. He turned to look over at her. She had found her ‘brave face’, as Paul would call it. She had digested the horrible news about the cancer returning, and she was showing her fortitude to the world. John was deeply in awe of her. 

Linda suddenly turned to meet John’s eyes. Her sunglasses warred with his sunglasses. She had felt him staring at her. 

John said, “How are you holding up, darlin’?” 

Linda smiled at the endearment. “I am carrying on... isn’t that what one is supposed to do in such situations?” She had affected a very plummy British accent as she said this. 

John figured this was false bravado, but he had no intention of stripping her of that defense, in case it was the only one she had. He had to tell her what was in his heart, though. He found the words. “This will probably surprise the hell out of you,” he drawled. He then straightened up a bit and his tone became more serious: “I hurt like hell for you; I wish there was some way I could make it better. I don’t want to lose you, and I want you to fight this bastard cancer with everything you’ve got in you.” 

Linda was touched. She was glad for her sunglasses and the shade cast by the umbrella, so her emotional reaction to his words would not be so obvious to John. She said, “Thank you for telling me that, John. You make me crazy, but I love you too.” Linda smiled then - it was like the sun, but the good side of the sun: the side of the sun that didn’t burn you. Linda had been weighing the pros and cons of undergoing a fourth round of chemo. She no longer was sure of a cure. Now she had accepted it was a fight to the finish. Only in this race, she wanted to finish last. Paul had been urging her to do the chemo, and so had her children, and now, apparently, John had joined the chorus. But something inside her was telling her Enough!, and she just couldn’t bring herself to approve the treatment. She’d spent a year and a half vomiting and fainting, and she had no intention of spending another three or four months like that. But John’s sentiment, so sweetly expressed, required an honest response.

“There are different ways of fighting you know,” she said gently. “I will use my will, my creativity, and every ounce of my energy to fight the disease,” she said, “but I don’t think I can take any more chemo. I don’t think I can face it. It hasn’t stopped the cancer yet, and it is doubtful that it ever will. So, I’m now prepared to consider alternative treatments.” 

John heard her words, and found that he could not argue with them. If he were in her place, he would undoubtedly make the same choice. He reached his hand out to her, and she met it halfway between the divide with her own. John squeezed the elegant, long fingers and said, “Whatever you choose, I’ll be behind you all the way.”

 

*****

 

Of course, this bucolic scene had not come without a price. It had taken a full two weeks after John’s reunion with Paul for the two of them to even begin to sort through the debris left behind in the wake of John’s month-long spin out of control. Paul had wanted desperately to avoid another dramatic episode, so he had, for several days, swallowed the pain that he had suffered. And John (although he still felt that his anger was justified) knew that his behavior had been hurtful to Paul as well as self-destructive. Consequently, the guilt in his head had been loud enough to cause him to gratefully accept Paul’s apparent decision to put the whole thing behind him and move on. 

In this regard it wasn’t just their usual ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ routine; the fact was that Paul was devastated over Linda’s new diagnosis, and was unable to express it in any way, either outwardly or inwardly. He was unable to cry, or to howl at fate, or even to act out over stupid things when the stress got too bad. He felt as though his chest was locked in a straightjacket, and there was no respite. He would lose the track of conversations, sometimes not even finishing sentences. When others were talking to him, they would suddenly notice that he ‘wasn’t there.’ It would only be for a few moments, but Paul’s ‘absence’ in moments like these felt like a visceral blow to those who loved him because the very essence of Paul was his presence. He still was able to chat with fans when he met them in the street. He would still offer a smile, accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture, to the odd paparazzo that caught him on the street or entering a restaurant. He still seemed to be participating in family life, and his devotion and attentiveness to Linda could not be faulted. But everyone around him who loved him knew that something important was missing.

John, bruised and miserable from his meltdown, and feeling terrible about Linda as well, was not in the best shape to reach out to and support Paul. For that first week to ten days after John had rejoined the McCartneys, John had been needier than usual, and of course this was just another draw on Paul’s much-depleted store of psychic energy. 

 

So it was about 10 days after his reunion with Paul when John finally realized that he needed to talk to an objective person, and that is when he picked up the phone and called Fiona. Long-suffering Fiona. He had disappeared without a trace into another month-long debacle. Each time John came back to Fiona after one of these episodes, he worried that this time she would not take him back. But Fiona had known he would be back, and had long since stopped trying to apply sanctions after John’s little excursions into self-destruction. He - more than most of her patients - sincerely required her help in order to function, and she had no intention of leaving him high and dry.

So John, in New York, had called Fiona, in London, at the appointed time. 

“You sound low,” Fiona had said succinctly.

John was quiet for a moment and then said, “Life sucks. And then you die.”

Fiona chuckled and said, “I have heard that before.”

“It may not be original,” John drawled, “but it sure is true.”

“So what is ‘sucking’ about it right now?”

“What isn’t?” John asked. 

“This isn’t ‘Twenty Questions’, John. I asked a sincere question, and hoped for a sincere answer.” Although the comment was direct, Fiona’s tone of voice was gentle and non-judgmental.

On his end of the telephone line, John ran a distracted hand through his hair and said, “So I’m guessing you read the tabloids...”

“They were impossible to miss.” She waited a strategic moment and then asked, “How true were they?”

“They were pretty much all true,” John admitted. He had the good grace to look ashamed, although of course Fiona could not see this on the other end of the phone. “This fuckin’ assistant the publisher hired for me overheard me making sweet talk with Paul on the phone. That happened. Then I did have a very lovely cocktail waitress stay with me in my apartment for 4 or 5 days. As far as I know she isn’t a ‘high class call girl’ or even a prostitute, though. And then I did go out one night and get a lap dance. I was totally high, and I don’t remember much about that one. There were other things I did, that the tabloids never found out about. More drugs and more prostitutes.” 

Fiona was only human. She half wanted to ask John if he and Paul had actually talked about knighthood services during their naughty phone conversation, but she forced herself to close that thought out. That thought led to a much too engaging fantasy. Instead she said, “These prostitutes - women or men?” 

John said, “Women only.”

Fiona was relieved for the sake of John’s relationship with Paul. She said, “You seem to have weathered that whole tabloid controversy well, at least from a public relations standpoint.”

“Yeah,” John snorted. “If you’re gonna go crazy you might as well do everything all at once. None of the stories stuck because they all contradicted each other, even though they were all true.”

“You don’t seem all that happy about it though,” Fiona observed.

“I am so disappointed in myself. Why do I do this shit?” The silence was brief before John added, “Of course, I know why I do it. I guess what I’m asking is why I can’t stop doing it even when I know why I do it?”

“You’re more self-aware about it now, aren’t you? And this time you didn’t break any of those ‘rules’ you set up with Paul about your relationship, right? No men? Not in a home you shared with Paul? I presume you used condoms?” 

“That’s a pretty pathetic bright side,” John chuckled, “although I appreciate your effort.” 

Fiona sobered up. “How did Paul react to all that controversy?”

John also sobered up. He felt very lost as he said in response, “He hasn’t referred to it specifically at all. He told me that he was hurt by what I did, but he loves me anyway.”

“That’s very touching. And very mature,” Fiona commented.

“I think it is mainly because he is so distracted by Linda that he hasn’t got any emotion left to waste on me.” John stopped for a long moment, swallowed hard, and said, “She’s dying, you know.” 

Fiona was shocked. “No! I didn’t know!”

“They thought she was getting better, but now she has cancer in her other breast. She’s having surgery to remove the lump next week, but so far she’s refused any more chemo. Paul and the kids are distraught. They want her to take the chemo, but they don’t want to load her down with guilt about it, so they’re not sure what to say or do. It is a very tense atmosphere.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Fiona said sincerely.

“Linda - I don’t know what to say about her. She is the bravest human being I’ve ever met. In my next life, I want to be like her.” John’s voice had wavered on the verge of a sob with the last phrase he had uttered, and Fiona heard it. She was deeply touched. 

Fiona felt a little awkward moving away from the Linda theme, but she also believed John needed to talk about the fact that he and Paul had not discussed their month-long separation. Gently, she moved the conversation back in that direction. “Paul must be very sad right now,” she said.

“Fiona, he scares me. He’s not all there. I mean he’s there, but he’s not there. Does that make any sense?”

“Explain what you mean,” Fiona suggested, although she had a good idea what John had meant.

“I thought he would be angry with me - jealous - furious. I had been reckless, and I had endangered his reputation at a time when Linda couldn’t take it. But he hasn’t said a word about it. All he can think about is Linda, and I feel like such a fucking asshole for doing this to him and Linda when they are going through this hell.”

“Have you told him that?” Fiona asked.

“Not in the depth I would have liked to,” John admitted. “But Paul is avoiding the discussion. He just doesn’t have time for anything else but worrying about Linda.” 

“What do you feel about that?” Fiona asked.

“I don’t feel that I have the right to be upset about it because she’s dying, you know? I mean - I’m going to whine about my little problems in the face of that? And even if I did, Paul would look at me like - really? Linda’s dying of cancer and you’re complaining because I couldn’t take you away for 2 fucking weeks? I just have to suck up this stuff, and try to be supportive.”

Fiona digested this. She finally said, “And how well does this work - your ‘sucking this stuff up’? What happens after you have done that for a while?”

There was a very long silence after she had asked this question. John knew the answer: of course he did; what ‘happened’ was first he would snap, and then he would have a temper tantrum, followed by a meltdown. He didn’t respond.

Fiona said, “You need to talk to Paul, and you need to do it regularly. You need to let him know what you are feeling and what you need. If you withhold it because you think you are being ‘supportive’, but then suddenly explode and act out against him when you can’t take it anymore, you are going to destroy your relationship, and you are going to hurt Paul very badly.”

 

*****

 

New York  
Two Weeks Later  
Late July 1997

 

Linda was lying in her bed in a hospital suite at Sloan Kettering. She was conscious again after the anesthesia finally wore off. She was still drowsy and loopy from the drugs, but she was aware of what was going on around her, now. She turned her head slightly to the right and saw her husband seated in a chair, dozing. Seated in a chair next to him, and holding hands with him, was her daughter Heather, who also appeared to be asleep. She turned slightly to her left and she saw her daughters Mary and Stella lying on the second bed in the room. In a chair next to them, James was sprawled. The three of them appeared to be watching the television, which was hanging from a truss on the wall opposite the two beds. These visual perambulations convinced Linda that she was still alive. Well of course I am! She thought. There was never any question of that, was there? Linda had only had a lumpectomy of the tumor in her right breast. In the moments between her regaining consciousness and her family noticing this fact, Linda saw with clear eyes what she was going to leave behind if the cancer got her. A mixture of sadness and fear was rising in her throat when Paul noticed that she was awake. 

He sat up in his chair, and leaned forward, grabbing her hand tightly with his right. “Hey Lin,” he whispered in that throaty voice he had when he first woke up. His left hand reached up and brushed hair off her forehead gently, and, noting that her skin there was a little clammy, he reached for a cloth and blotted the moisture away. 

Linda tried to speak, but only a croak came out. By now, her children had noticed and were facing her from their places in the room. 

“It’s okay,” Paul whispered to Linda. He turned to the kids. “Can one of you go get a cup of ice from one of the nurses please?” James was closest, and he jumped up to complete the task. While he waited for the ice, Paul poured out a cup of water, and then, wetting the cloth, pressed the wet cloth against Linda’s dry lips. 

This, Linda found very soothing. In a moment, when Paul gave her a spoonful of crushed ice, she felt the cool wetness as an exquisite pleasure. Such tiny little (even pathetic?) things Linda appreciated now; things that she had never fully appreciated before. But this appreciation was tinged with poignancy, because she knew she was noticing them, memorizing them, and enjoying them so much mainly because she feared she had so little time left to enjoy anything. No! She told herself. I’m not going to be defeatist! This is a setback, nothing more. Unlike her husband, whose thinking was more based in rationalism and reason, Linda believed in airy-fairy things like the mystery of nature. She believed that nature was smarter, subtler, and far more complex than the human mind. Thus, she still had hope that the death sentence that the doctors showed her in their eyes when they looked at her (as opposed to their mouths, when they talked to her) would not come to pass. 

Anyway. Here she was: surrounded by the five people she loved most in the world, and starting to feel a little less drugged up and confused. She decided to push the melancholy and the scary away, and deal with the warm present. 

“Mum, how’re you feeling?” Heather was leaning over her now, after Paul had left to make a quick phone call.

Linda smiled at her eldest child. She squeezed her hand. “I’m fine,” she croaked. The croaking was so at odds with her words that her children all laughed. Stella’s laugh was a downright guffaw. 

“Yeah, you sound ‘fine,’” Stella teased. 

Paul, meanwhile, had stepped out into the hallway to call John, who had remained at his flat. It was mid-afternoon, and the surgery had been in the late morning. John was making a light dinner that he planned to put in boxes and bring to the hospital when Paul gave him the high sign. As soon as John answered his cell phone, Paul said, “She’s awake now.”

“How’d the surgery go?” John asked.

“They removed the mass, and did the lymph node dissection. We are waiting for the biopsy results.” Paul had not noticed how he had slipped into med-speak. He could have been any one of the doctors who were wandering up and down the hospital corridor at that moment. So used to cancer terminology was John, that he didn’t even notice it.

“When do you think you’ll know?” He asked. 

“Probably around 4 or 5,” Paul estimated, based on his extensive past experience. 

“Shall I shoot for 5:30 or 6 p.m. for dinner then?” John asked.

“Sooner the better,” Paul said, his voice dropping to a lower, more intimate register. He turned his back to the open hallway and leaned in toward the wall. He did not want to be overheard by the nurses who were trying to busy themselves in order to look as though they weren’t trying to hear him. “I could use your company.” Paul meant, and John understood the meaning, that Paul would feel buoyed by John’s mere presence. It was a mystical thing the two of them shared.

“Ok, I’ll get there by 5:30,” John said back. “How are you doing?”

Silence - maybe for as many as ten seconds. Then: “We’re holding up.”

“I didn’t ask about the others. I asked specifically about you,” John scolded. “Are you ‘holding up?’”

Paul smiled into the receiver. It was one of those intimate, involuntary smiles one makes when a cherished thought or feeling goes through one’s mind. He said, “I’m much better now that she’s awake, and I’m talking to you.”

 

*****

 

One Week Earlier - July 21, 1997

 

In the two weeks preceding Linda’s surgery, John had called Fiona almost every day. It was about a week before the surgery when John had finally found the courage and - more importantly - the words to broach the subject of his June behavior to Paul. John had asked Paul to come over to his apartment for lunch (Paul and Linda were staying at the Eastmans’ apartment, the Eastmans having decamped to the Hamptons, bringing all of the cousins with them except Heather, who preferred to stay with her parents). Paul had arrived carrying a cd for John: The Colour and the Shape by the Foo Fighters. It had been released about two months earlier, but Paul had just heard snippets of it while browsing in a record store in London some weeks earlier, and had purchased it. He thought John would enjoy it too. This time, Paul had let himself in with his key, and surprised John in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a pair of really elegant looking pasta dishes, featuring artichoke hearts, black olives, and goat cheese. 

After exchanging what was a very domestic kiss, John saw the cd and said, “Put it on?” 

Paul laughed and said, “Not really the kind of music to listen to while having an elegant terrace luncheon on a quiet summer afternoon,” he said very precisely. “More for like when we are sitting out on the terrace in the evening, swilling beer.”

John laughed. “Okay, then. Let’s eat!” 

The two men had carried their plates out to the terrace, took in the 85 degree weather, and turned right around and went back into the apartment to sit at the table. “Nice thought, though,” Paul opined.

“That’s what comes of living in air-conditioned buildings, and driving around in air-conditioned cars, and parking in air-conditioned parking garages,” John pointed out. “You’re never exposed to the actual weather.”

“I took a run this morning in the park,” Paul chirped. “But it wasn’t hot yet.”

After this pronouncement, a kind of brotherly silence descended on them. But John was working up his nerve to begin the serious discussion. He made a couple of conversational feints that came to nothing, until Paul finally laughed and said,

“You’re wanting to tell me something. What is it?”

John sighed, thinking here goes. “I’ve been talking to Fiona everyday you know,” he said. 

“Yes?” Paul acknowledged. He was looking at John through heavily lidded eyes.

“...Mainly to get a handle on what the fuck I was up to last month,” John finished. 

“Umm,” Paul said, nodding. He had figured that eventually they would have to have this conversation. He wasn’t really one for autopsying unpleasant experiences, but he knew that this was an essential step for John to enable him to move on, so Paul figured he’d just have to ‘suck it up and deal.’ (This had become one of his most frequently issued self-demands.)

“Look, I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you it isn’t gonna happen again. It probably will.” John looked ready for an argument as he made this declaration, but Paul didn’t disagree with him. Paul had reached that conclusion years earlier. He had entertained hope from time to time that John would surprise him and never act out again, but he’d never really believed that this hope would be realized.

Paul nodded encouragingly, so John continued. “I do it because I’m afraid of losing you.” 

Paul took that in. He was thinking to himself - what strange logic. ‘I’m afraid of losing you, so I’ll push you away, and do everything in my power to piss you off and hurt you. Yeah! That’s the ticket!’ He asked himself: what kind of weirdness lived in John’s mind that this seemed - even for a moment - like a logical act? 

John was still talking. “I keep forgetting the three questions I’m supposed to ask myself - the ones Fiona taught me. I know I will not get what I want if I behave that way, but I do it anyway! I just go off half-cocked.” John had the good grace to look borderline ashamed.

“Full-cocked, more like,” Paul muttered.

John laughed. “Veddy funny Sir,” he trumpeted. “Anyway,” John continued, as if Paul’s interruption was veddy rude indeed, “as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...I need to know how you feel about what I did. I mean truly.” John’s expression was hopeful and inviting. It was an expression Paul found difficult to disappoint.

“Well,” Paul said, warming up, his eyes twinkling with mischief, “at first I was afraid. I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, and I grew strong - and I learned how to get along” - At this point Paul burst into song, “And so you’re back! From outer space! I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face; I should have changed that stupid lock! I should have made you leave your key!”

John stopped him with load groans. “Shurrup asshole! Come on! I’m trying to be serious!”

Paul laughed and said, “What do you want me to say? You fucked me over again! It wasn’t the first time, and I doubt it will be the last time. I don’t like it, but if I can’t stop loving you, then I guess I’ll have to take it. I suppose I don’t see where I have any choice.”

John heard this and it made him both sad and mad. Sad, because how awful that Paul thought that this was a price he had to pay just to be close to him, and mad, because Paul had put into words John’s greatest fear: that he was damn near unlovable. John said in a soft whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Paul waited for the “but”, but it didn’t come. He waited a few more moments and then said, “John, I love you. So sue me. I will love you if you hate me. I will love you if you fuck me over. I will love you if you betray me, and even if you tell me I’m the last person on earth you ever want to see again. I will just ... fucking ... love you. There’s not a thing you can do to make me stop. I don’t need you to love me back in order for me to love you. I wish I were cooler than that - more with it, and less embarrassingly cliché - but there it is: the ugly truth. You might as well know the worst about me.”

John had been stunned into silence. He hadn’t expected Paul to tell him that no matter how horrible he was Paul would still love him. How was that possible? In what universe was that possible? And yet - here was Paul, loving him, and not expecting him to prostrate himself because of his behavior. The man just sat there accepting the truth, and loving him in spite of it. John was moved beyond words. He stared at Paul, and then started blinking. He could not believe that Paul was so completely his. But on another deeper and more secure level, John knew that this was so, and had always been so. Paul was the soul the universe had sent him to keep him company through this life, and they were meant for each other.

John finally asked, “Why? Why me? You’re so ... perfect! You could have anyone in the whole fucking world! Why did you choose me?”

Paul was confused by what John had said. He’d never felt as though he was as all-fired wonderful as John seemed to think he was. He’d been a plump schoolboy, and he’d had his problems getting laid before he was in a band like everyone else, so he didn’t see why John had placed him on such a high pedestal. But maybe that was the answer! Maybe Paul was addicted to John’s adoration of him! Could that be it? No one else loved him so extravagantly, or with so much possessiveness over his body and his imagined gifts. He smiled at John and said with new insight, “You’ve always made me feel special. No one else has ever made me feel that way. It’s because your opinion means so much to me, that I can almost believe I am as wonderful as you say I am.”

John stared at Paul for a full five seconds, and then said, “We’re a fucking mutual admiration society, we are.” 

Paul laughed and said, “Let’s put last month behind us, shall we? Maybe something like that will happen again, but next time we’ll both know why you’re doing it, and how I’m reacting to it, so it won’t be so emotionally wrenching.”

John couldn’t feel down anymore. He couldn’t feel guilty or angry. Paul had made it all so clear to him. No matter how badly John behaved, Paul was going to be there to pick up the pieces, and Paul would still love him. No matter what.

 

*****

 

Back to Late July 1997,  
Linda’s Recovery room  
Sloan-Kettering Hospital

 

Paul was seated in a quiet patient meeting room a few dozen yards from Linda’s suite. Linda’s oncologists were there with him, discussing the results of the biopsy. 

“There are cancer cells in the lymph nodes,” one of them said in a soft voice. “It seems that the cancer is metastasizing more rapidly now. In a few months, it will probably alight in one or more of her other organs.” 

Paul heard the words. He heard and he understood. But his heart couldn’t comprehend. He managed to school his face so that it mimicked a rational, calm, reasoning husband. But inside all sorts of alarms were going off, and racing electronic signals were firing from one end of his brain to the other. He collected his scattered thoughts and asked, “How long?”

“Oh, we’re not talking about that yet,” the doctor prevaricated.

“How long?” Paul asked again; this time his voice was stern and demanding.

The chief oncologist answered. “We can’t tell you yet. But we can say that if the cancer shows up in a vital organ, it will be a matter of months at most after that.”

Paul swallowed this information whole. He had asked for it, and he had gotten it. “So what now?” He asked.

“Is she up for the high dose chemo?” The oncologist - Dr. Norton - asked. “We harvested the bone marrow during the operation, as you know.”

Paul stalled for a moment before answering. “She says ‘no’,” Paul admitted. “But we can always ask her again.”

“This treatment is a clinical trial,” Dr. Norton said. “It’s only open to patients where traditional treatments have failed. As we’ve mentioned before there is risk involved, but it may prolong her life, and improve the quality of it.” 

Paul looked at the chief oncologist and said, “This decision is entirely up to Linda. I will discuss it with her again and let you know what she says.”

 

*****

 

A bit later, when John got there with the seven box dinners, he noticed immediately with his Paul radar that Paul was upset. No one else would be able to divine this looking at Paul; he was doing his utmost to be strong and cheerful for his family. But John could tell he was boiling just under the surface. 

Each member of the family, including Linda, opened up the dinner boxes that John had prepared for them. Inside they each found a grilled portabella, eggplant, and Gruyere sandwich, some homemade applesauce in a ramekin, a little plastic bag full of nuts and dried fruits, and a generous portion of chocolate and caramel fudge wrapped in wax paper. 

Linda opened her box and cried with delight. “John! You’re priceless!” She cried.

It appeared, by the appreciative sounds coming from the McCartneys in the room, that everyone agreed with Linda.


	109. Chapter 109

Late July 1997  
John’s Apartment, New York

 

“So what did the doctors tell you?” John asked bluntly. He and Paul were seated at the table in the darkened kitchen, which was lit only by a light emanating from under the stove vent. The hot teakettle was sitting on the stovetop blamelessly, and John and Paul each had a cup of steaming tea in front of him. 

It had been a long day. Linda had been released from the hospital in the morning, and Paul had driven her all the way to the Hamptons, to stay with one of her sisters. The McCartney kids had gone too. After settling her there, Paul had driven back to the city, and spent the rest of the day at the McLen/ MPL New York City offices, taking care of the neglected business and finance for two large business enterprises as well as his family’s and John’s personal finances. He’d also participated in a conference call with Linda’s London and New York doctors discussing a laundry list of possible “next steps” in the fight against Linda’s cancer. After the last business transaction was completed, it was 7 p.m., and John Eastman dragged Paul to a late dinner at a favorite local restaurant. After the meal, during which Paul had drunk a little too much wine, the driver Paul had hired picked them up and dropped Eastman off at his apartment. Paul had intended to go back to Long Island, but he was exhausted and emotionally drained. He had needed to see John, so on a whim he’d directed the driver to John’s apartment, and had shown up on John’s doorstep at a little after 9 p.m.

John had spent the day quietly. He’d been writing poetry again. This was contemplative poetry, about life and death. Watching Linda’s struggle had activated John’s curiosity about not only the differences between life and death, but also the similarities. It was an intriguing line of thought, and he was trying to work out what he thought about it. At times like these, it seemed as though the ideas were just on the tip of his tongue - just out of his reach - and the process of reaching those ideas both excited and maddened him. He’d had a latish dinner in front of the television set; he’d made himself some white bean soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, and had been sipping on a snifter of brandy watching a nature documentary when his doorbell rang. He knew it was Paul of course, because Paul was the only person the concierge sent up without a warning call, and also because Paul had a kind of special rhythm when he rang the doorbell. It was surprising to John that Paul had come; he had thought Paul would be on Long Island with his family. He had approached the door with some irritation, though. Paul had the key to the apartment; he didn’t have to ring the bell first. Paul just refused to see the apartment as his too; he still had never stayed there for longer than an hour or two at a time, and they had never had sex in the apartment, either. 

(Of course, from Paul’s point of view, John was so unpredictable with his meltdowns, he felt he should always approach John’s apartment warily when coming uninvited, fearful that there was some kind of orgy going on inside. Best to ring the doorbell, so that John could hide the evidence before opening the door.)

 

After a desultory but fond greeting, John had taken one look at Paul’s sad and exhausted face and said, “You need some hot tea.” Paul had followed John to the kitchen, and now they were sitting there in a companionable silence in front of steaming cups of tea. 

“So what did the doctors tell you?” John had asked. 

Paul could have prevaricated, but he was too tired to make the effort. “She’s dying.” 

John hadn’t expected such a bald response. His hand stopped in the act of stirring his tea, and he met Paul’s eyes and read the despair there. “They finally told you,” John said in his surprised reaction.

“Not in those words. The cancer’s back with a vengeance, though. It is in her lymph nodes, and they believe it is only a matter of time before it starts growing in one of her vital organs.” Paul was so tired that the teacup looked heavy to him. The thought of moving his hands to pick it up and bring it to his mouth seemed to him, at that moment, like a herculean task. “After that happens,” Paul continued after a few seconds’ silence, “it will be only weeks or months. That’s what they said.”

“There’s nothing to be done?” John asked. As he said this, he urged Paul with a movement of his head and hand to pick up his teacup and drink. 

Automatically, Paul did so. He swallowed the hot liquid with eyes closed, and then said, “Oh, there are all sorts of things to be done. I mean, there is more chemo and radiation, and there are experimental pilot programs. Most of them have terrible side effects and would make Linda horribly miserable, while having very little chance of curing the disease. Maybe they would prolong her life, but if the treatments are so horrible, what price life?” 

John felt heartsick. He hated to see Paul this way: empty, hollowed out, sad-eyed, and sapped of all energy and joy. This Paul was antithetical to the Paul in his head. He wanted superpowers, so he could make this nightmare go away. 

After the tea, they moved into the living room, and got comfortable. Each sat on a sofa, opposite each other. John had poured Paul some whiskey, hoping it would help sooth some of the stress he could read in Paul’s face and body language. Paul played with the tumbler more than he drank the whiskey. He took a sip here and there, but mainly he preferred to hold it up to the lamplight, and watch the golden colors dance. 

John said, “You really should sleep here, you know. You’re much too tired to drive all the way back to the Hamptons tonight.” 

“I have a driver,” Paul said. “I don’t like Linda to be alone...”

“She’s surrounded by her family - the kids, her sister, her sister’s kids. She’s probably fast asleep.” John was trying not to let his irritation show. Paul could be so stubborn at times.

“I don’t like her to wake up alone...she would get scared...” Paul looked as though he was going to force himself to get up right that moment and leave.

John got up instead. “I’m calling Linda’s sister. I’ll make sure some one sleeps with her. Give me your phone.” 

Paul felt around his pockets ineffectually, in search of his phone. “I think I left it in the kitchen,” he finally said. 

John found the phone and made the call, and by the time he returned to the living room, Paul looked to be half-asleep, still holding the tumbler of whiskey. John gently prised the glass out of Paul’s hand and said softly, “Pud, it’s all fixed. I’m taking you to bed now.” 

Paul woke up sufficiently to follow John obediently to the bedroom. He cooperated with John’s attempts to prepare him for bed, and was soon in the bed and able to fall fast asleep with no further disturbances. John was a bit out of breath from his exertions in helping Paul, but stood over the sleeping man and smiled. He couldn’t help himself. Paul looked so angelic when he was asleep. It was also great to see Paul in this bed, in this bedroom, in this apartment. It was the exact place Paul had sworn he would never stay. Yet here he was. Shrugging, John disrobed, and soon joined Paul in the bed. He moved over to the center of the bed, and engulfed Paul in a spooning maneuver. He knew that he would sleep well this night.

 

*****

 

Paul awoke from a dead sleep and felt immediately confused. There was light coming in from a window to his left, and he tried to orient himself. The walls were a deep, dark Persian blue, but there were sheer white curtains billowing at the windows. He strained to remember where he was. Then he felt a foot running itself up his shin, and he turned his head to the right and saw John lying there on his side, grinning at him. 

“’Morning, babe,” John said in a very sensuous voice. His naughty foot kept playing with Paul’s right leg. 

Paul broke down and smiled. He remembered now. He vaguely recalled being carted off to bed the night before. He was in John’s apartment. With this thought came an immediate thrum of alarm. Linda! He started, and heaved up a bit until he was leaning on his elbows. 

John saw when Paul’s lazy sensuality changed to frightened guilt. He quickly said, “She’s okay, Pud. I talked to her sister last night. Mary was already in bed with her, and she isn’t waking up alone.” 

Paul fell back on the mattress, relieved. His hand went to his naked chest, where he felt his quickly beating heart. John snuggled up close to him, and kissed him on his right shoulder. 

“Hel-lo! I’m here!” He declared in a singsong voice.

Paul turned to his right and saw John’s mischievous face and laughed. “As if I could possibly miss that,” he chuckled. “I was supposed to go back last night...”

“But you came here instead,” John finished. 

Paul’s expression stilled as he looked in John’s eyes. He lifted his right hand, and with one long, slim finger, brushed the hair out of John’s eyes. He smiled lazily. “I’ll have to leave soon,” he pointed out quietly. 

“Oh yeah?” John asked, just as lazily, and far more naughtily. 

“Umm- hmm...” With that indistinct sound Paul turned over on his right side so that he was facing John. “You wanna fool around?” He asked, his eyes alight from within. “I mean - before I go?”

John’s laugh was in lieu of saying, Are you crazy? Do I wanna? He had been waiting for years to christen this bed properly! He let actions be his words. He pulled himself up and over until he was on top of Paul. “I’d like to take a ride,” he whispered in Paul’s ear, making Paul’s eyebrows both fly up. 

The moves came naturally to them now. There was nothing awkward or rushed about it after all these years. Paul knew exactly where to put his legs, and once Paul’s cock was erect, John knew exactly how to position himself over it. The exchange of lubricating unctions was expertly accomplished, and soon John was lowering himself on Paul’s cock. Paul knew to hold on to the bloody thing and keep pumping it so it would not waver or collapse under the pressure from John’s descending anus. Once engaged, the two body parts worked in perfect harmony, much as their voices did when they sang together. The truly erotic thing was not the physical intimacy so much as what their eyes did when they intermingled. An entire psychodrama played itself out in their eyes as they fucked. John feeling triumphant and Paul feeling ravished. John realizing that he was in actual fact the penetrated one; Paul feeling quietly victorious. All of this passed between them through their eyes, and also disbelieving smiles, heartbreaking tenderness, and even traces of despair: for it is a kind of despair when one person needs another person so much. Especially someone so special and priceless; in such cases, the cost of loss was unbearably high. So, between a mixture of naked passion and a whirligig of emotion, two men strove to experience orgasm. What was an orgasm anyway, but the physical manifestation of the conquering of life?

John threw his head back when his orgasm came. He had pulled himself up and away before Paul followed suit. With expert timing, Paul had moved some tissue to catch the jism just as John had pushed himself away, and off to the side. It was poetry in motion. John collapsed back first on to the mattress next to Paul, and soon had grasped Paul’s hand. They lay there silently for several moments, each staring at the ceiling with his own private thoughts.

“I feel as though I landed a whopping marlin,” John said in a philosophic voice.

To Paul, this crazy statement seemed to come out of nowhere, like a line out of ‘I Am the Walrus.’ His brows beetled in confusion. He finally had to give up and just ask. “What the fuck?”

John laughed. “I’ve got you in this bed, and you said you’d never stay here.” 

Paul digested that for a few moments. This last statement of John’s was almost as confusing as the one that preceded it. “I did?” He finally managed.

John hooted. “Yes! You did!” 

Another moment went by before Paul asked again, “Why did I say that?”

This question brought John back to earth with a bump. “Are you shitting me?” John blurted out. 

Paul turned his face until he could see John clearly. John’s face looked incredulous. “Why would I say I wouldn’t stay here?” Paul asked.

“You’re getting old, luv. You should get all your memories down on tape before it’s too late.” John had that crazy, comical look on his face that always did Paul in.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Tell we why I said that? Do you know?” Paul was chuckling now.

“You said that this place was a giant electric billboard hovering over New York and flashing the words ‘John and Paul are Fucking In Here!!!!’ You said if I bought this place you could never stay here because it was too loud and splashy.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Paul opined. “At least not the loud and splashy part.” 

“I was paraphrasing.” John pushed his head up on the palm of his hand, leaning against his elbow. “You really don’t remember the little scene you put on about it?” 

“I never!” Paul cried. “I never put on a scene! You’re the one who puts on scenes. You never like it if anyone else does.”

John snorted. “You’ve got my number, you have.” 

“I’m sorry if I pissed all over your idea, John,” Paul said sincerely. “I think perhaps I must have over-reacted about it.” He reached his hand out and pinched John’s nose. “You’ve got an aquiline nose, Johnny. I’ve always liked it.”

“You’ve already gotten laid, Paul, so what are you wrangling for now?” John was smiling in that goofy way he did when Paul was being enchanting. 

Paul was as charmed by John as John was by him. He thought vaguely that they were really very disgusting. No one should come near them for fear of catching diabetes. He laughed and said, “It was just a sincere apology, John. Sometimes all I can see is the downsides to things.”

John said, “Paul you so rarely see the downsides to things, that the few times you do it, you ought to be excused. I hereby forgive you for having such a stick up your butt about my apartment.” 

Paul moved closer to John, tugging him by the arm to meet him halfway, so John scooted closer. He then kissed John on his aquiline nose. “I can’t live here, but I don’t suppose the odd night here will do any harm.”

“Are you saying that staying here is odd, Paul?” John twinkled.

Paul turned back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m not saying another word. I keep putting my foot in it.”

 

*****

 

Long Island, New York  
The McCartneys’ Home in the ‘Hamptons  
August 2, 1997

 

Linda had recuperated from her surgery, and was back on her feet. She had made a momentous decision: she was getting ready for her fourth round of chemo, although this time it would be as part of a clinical trial. Her doctors had told her about a clinical trial being sponsored by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Center in Houston, Texas, called high-dose chemotherapy with amalgamous stem cell transplant. As the doctors had explained to Paul and her, the bone marrow that had been extracted from Linda prior to her surgery was saved for later return to her body after the chemo was finished. Now that her tumor had been removed, she was to be exposed to brutally high doses of chemotherapy for several days in a row for about a month. Then, after the chemotherapy ended, she would have the stem cells re-infused, or “transplanted”. The theory of the research trial was that the stem cells would restore healthy immune cells destroyed by the high doses of chemotherapy.

While Linda had only agreed to the bone marrow extraction prior to her surgery in order to have the option of taking the therapy later, she had - at the time of her surgery - not wanted more chemo. However, in the few weeks since the surgery, Linda had decided that the high dose chemo might be worth a shot: one last shot before she gave up on traditional medicine. Thus, she was preparing herself mentally for the ordeal that was to come. She had also insisted that her children sit in with a meeting with her Sloan Kettering oncologist, Dr. Norton, so that they would know that high dose chemo was extremely dangerous, and could even directly result in her death. While dying from reaction to the drugs was a rare occurrence, it was a statistically significant one, and so Linda felt her family should be prepared for the worst. They had all listened to the options, and decided to go for this treatment. One influencing factor in their desire for Linda to take the treatment was that she had seemed to respond positively to the second and third rounds of chemo, and those were at much lower doses. Perhaps one final high dose series would be successful.

As Linda was in the bedroom packing suitcases - hers and Paul’s - for their trip to Houston, where they were scheduled to stay for several weeks for the duration of the chemotherapy, Paul was down the hall in the sitting room with John. 

“You are welcome to come with us to Texas, John,” Paul said for at least the fifth time. Paul didn’t want John to feel left out, and wanted it to be crystal clear to John that he was part of the family, too.

John said, “I think I’ll go back to London and stay at Cavendish, so the kids will have somewhere to gather while you’re away.”

“We’ll be there for about a month to six weeks - I hope you will at least visit us.” 

John said, “Of course I will, although I’m told the weather in Houston in August and September is intolerable.”

Paul laughed. “They have air conditioning, you know.”

Just then the phone rang, and Paul went to answer it. It was Ringo.

“Paul, I thought you should know. George just called me, and asked me to call you and John so you wouldn’t hear about it on the news first.”

“What is it?” Paul asked, worried by Ringo’s tone. 

“He has just been diagnosed with throat cancer. They are going to remove the tumor and do a biopsy tomorrow...”

“To test the lymph nodes,” Paul finished dully. He couldn’t believe it! Another person close to him diagnosed with cancer! This was what American football commentators called ‘piling on.’ “Is it really bad?” Paul asked weakly.

Ringo didn’t know. “Either George doesn’t know, or he isn’t ready to share it with us yet. Either way, he should know this time tomorrow.” 

Paul looked at the clock. It was 11 a.m. in New York, making it 4 p.m. in London. “Is he going to call you after he finds out?” Paul asked.

“I asked him to,” Ringo said. “But you know George. He might tell me the whole truth, or he might not. He’s a bit of a stoic.” 

“Please let us know as soon as you know. I wish I could fly back to London to see him afterwards, but I’ve got to take Linda for her chemo to Texas, and we’ll be there about a month. But John will be in London - I’ll suggest to him that he should visit George.” 

“Texas, eh? More chemo?” Ringo asked sympathetically. “The rumor around here was that her cancer was gone.”

Paul sighed. “The cancer was never gone. It wasn’t getting worse, but it wasn’t getting better. And the standoff only lasted a few months before it got bad again.”

Ringo heard between the lines, and understood what Paul was telling him. “So do they think a fourth round of chemo will do the trick?”

“It’s an experimental treatment trial,” Paul said, his voice deflated. He seemed to be surrounded by deathly ill loved ones at the moment. “We will have to wait and see how it goes.”

Ringo grunted. “That’s one of the worst things about cancer. All the ‘waiting and seeing.’”

Paul agreed. “True. With cancer there are no quick answers, but quite often wrong answers, and sometimes no answers at all.”

Ringo’s heart went out to Paul. “I meditate for her regularly. Now I have to add George to my list.”

Having no more words to share, the two men hung up. Paul moved back towards the sofa where John was spread out. “What was that all about?” He asked.

“It was Ringo. George has been diagnosed with throat cancer.”

“What?” John shot up to a sitting position. “When?”

“Just recently - like today or maybe yesterday. His surgery is tomorrow.”

“Dear God,” John swore. “Can’t any of us catch a fooking break?”

 

*****

 

London  
Mid August 1997

 

John had opened up Cavendish, and had done his best to keep the home fires burning. In his more self-reflective moments, he thought of what he was doing as a penance: a penance for his outrageous and insensitive behavior in June. It had eventually occurred to John that he had not only completely forgotten Paul’s 55th birthday on June 18th, but had then compounded this insult by forgetting their 40th anniversary on July 6th. Forty years! And he hadn’t even thought about it because he was so buried in the troubles he had created by his acting out. He had tried to make up for it a few weeks earlier by taking Paul out to dinner in New York City and presenting him with a poem about their love affair. The poem had 15 stanzas, and Paul had been a little overwhelmed by it’s length. Still, he had been very grateful, and sorry that he hadn’t done anything for John. So, on the day they had parted - John to England, and Paul and Linda to Texas - Paul had handed him a letter to read on the plane. 

John had cheated and read the letter in the limo on the way to the airport. It hadn’t been the mushy expression of love John had been hoping for, but John decided it was more intriguing than that. It was like clues to find a buried treasure:

“At Cavendish, go up to my attic art studio. On the left hand side of the studio you will find two long racks of shelving holding dozens of finished canvasses. On the top rack, near the side closest the window, start looking at the canvasses. When you get to the 8th one, stop. That will be your gift from me. I finished it while I was in France in June, and had hoped to give it to you on our anniversary. Better late than never! Love P.”

Of course, as soon as John had arrived at Cavendish, he had sprinted up two flights of stairs to the attic studio, and (having memorized the directions) went straight to the place where his gift was to be found. It was wrapped in brown paper with a string, and scribbled on the top in pencil were the words, “John.” He had pulled it off the rack, placed it on one of Paul’s painting easels, and then ripped the brown paper off. Underneath he had found an amazing portrait, in multi-colors - psychedelic colors, but muted - of himself, circa 1967. It was the Sgt. Pepper era. He had wire-rimmed glasses on, and that sad, glassy-eyed LSD stare. But the portrait seemed alive somehow. It took John’s breath away, and he stared at it for several long minutes, taking in every stroke of it. He loved it. He had then called Paul right away on his cell phone, and Paul - who had been waiting in another sterile room while Linda was having a physical exam - was thrilled to hear from John, and relieved that John loved the portrait. It had been a fine and healing moment for both of them.

As John thought of it now, he smiled. Trust Paul to do just the right thing at the right time, he told himself. But now, today, he had an obligation to perform. He had finally been able to get through to George, via Ringo, and made plans to go to Friar Park to visit him. Ringo - in his chauffeur driven Rolls Royce - was coming to pick him up, and they were going together.

John thought of this as more of an obligation than a fun visit because he and George had never been able to fully mend their relationship. John was in a contemplative mood (the quiet after the storm) and acknowledged to himself that he was more than 50% of the problem when it came to his relationship with George, but the thought of having to admit this to George made him sick to his stomach. George could be so holier than thou - as if he expected to be treated as special. Since John thought he was more special than George, this would of course always cause conflict. As he thought this, John heard the horn honking. Ringo hated to pull into the gate when he was just picking John up; it took so much time to back out again, and once Ringo had started a trip he didn’t want unnecessary delays. So John grabbed his wallet and keys, and dashed across the car yard to the gate, unlocked it, relocked it, and popped into the back seat of the Rolls.

“Hey Ritchie,” John said as he adjusted himself in his seat.   
“Have you heard anything more about George?”

“According to Olivia, the lymph nodes were clear,” said Ringo, cheerfully.

John was genuinely relieved to hear it, for other than the obvious reasons. “That’s wonderful,” he said. He was thinking to himself, now I won’t have to prostrate myself and beg for forgiveness, because George isn’t going to die... Suddenly the imperfect status quo of their relationship was an option for him again, and this helped his mood considerably.

 

*****

 

At that exact moment, George was collapsed on his favorite sofa, and speaking with Olivia. “I don’t see why John should suddenly be concerned about my health. He hasn’t ever called me, in all these years, just to talk. So he thinks I’m dying, and now he comes along? And only after he had Ringo set it up?”

“John doesn’t strike me as a person secure enough in himself to pick up the phone and call people. He strikes me as a person who expects people to come to him. You could have called him, and I suspect he would have been quite happy to chat with you.” Olivia had said this same thing many times over the years, not that it ever made a difference in George’s opinions or actions. 

“I just don’t like to enable him, like Paul and Ringo do. His head is too big.” George had grumbled this in a ‘bah humbug’ kind of way.

Olivia smiled. “Well, if it is more important for you not to enable him, then you should be satisfied with the fact that you never see him.”

George looked up at her sharply. She was telling him he was being a curmudgeon about it, and she was no doubt correct. But John Lennon had tried the patience of an army full of saints! George knew he was no saint - far from it. And John had also made smart ass remarks about his religion. George knew that John did not think his religious beliefs were sincere, and that they were weird. John didn’t even do a good job of hiding his opinion on the subject. Oh, well. He was going to see John, and at least Ringo would be there to make it easier for the both of them. Anyway, he suspected John was only there because Paul had nagged him to go. This thought made George smile. Good old Paul: always the failed peacemaker, and always to be disappointed by naughty John and haughty George. Olivia had told George that Paul and Linda were in Texas while she underwent some wildly experimental treatment, which meant to George that no doubt she was losing her fight against cancer.

Cancer. At least he was going to beat his cancer. There had been no cancer cells in the lymph nodes, so apparently he had escaped the ravages that Linda was now partaking of. He felt very bad for her, and also for Paul and their children. It was going to be a very dark time ahead for them.

The doorbell rang. George was glad he could still pull off being an invalid, because he wanted to be lying in state in his sitting room when John came in, not slavishly answering the front door. Olivia opened the door and gave both John and Ringo huge hugs. She ushered them into the sitting room, and George said hello from his seat. 

John was in a surprisingly good mood. He came over to George and gave him a generous hug. “You old attention grabber!” He crowed in George’s face. “Get us all upset and then announce you’re fine!” 

George laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said wryly.

“Well, you should be. I had a whole speech prepared, and there wasn’t going to be a dry eye left in the place by the time I was done with it. It’s all gone to waste now.” John made a phony sad face.

George said, “Well cheer up, John. Maybe the doctors are wrong, and maybe it’ll turn up in my ass next. That would be worthy of your speech, I’m sure.”

John laughed at the idea of ass cancer. (He didn’t realize that there was such a thing as ass cancer - rectal cancer - and it could be an excruciating way to die.) 

Olivia walked in with a tea tray and Ringo jumped up to assist her. He then poured out tea for George and himself.

“I’m on my own then, am I?” John asked cheekily, as he set about making his own cup of tea.

“You’re able-bodied,” Ringo pointed out. “When you get cancer again, I’ll make a cuppa for you, too.”

“When I get cancer again I’m gonna be like George, here. I’m gonna lay about on a chaise longue and demand to be waited on hand and foot!” John announced playfully.

“And that differs from you now, how?” George asked snidely. 

“The chaise longue bit,” John illuminated. “I wouldn’t be caught dead on a chaise longue if I wasn’t dying.”

“This sad talk has gone on long enough,” Ringo announced. “Let’s talk of something more cheerful.” Ringo turned to George. “So George - tell us about your surgery!” His two former band partners snickered at Ringo’s little jest. But they did then move on to less depressing subjects. 

 

*****

Houston, Texas  
Late August 1997

 

It was almost midnight, and Paul and Linda were soaking in a warm Jacuzzi outside their casita. For the last week they had been staying in a quiet hotel, made up of dozens of little casitas, in the hills outside Houston. It was several miles from the hospital, but they went to and fro daily in a chauffeur driven car, so it wasn’t too bad. During the worst early weeks, Linda had stayed in the hospital, and Paul had slept there with her on a camp bed they’d set up for him. She had been miserably sick for the first two weeks, moderately sick the third week, and now - in her fourth and last week - she felt merely weak and nauseous. Although it was late at night, the air was still warm; thankfully, it wasn’t as muggy at night as it was during the day. The Jacuzzi helped relax her sore and aching muscles, caused by the chemo. There were a million stars in the sky, and the only sound Paul and Linda could hear besides their own occasional gentle splashes came from a chorus of nearby crickets. 

“John will be here tomorrow,” Paul mentioned (for the third or fourth time that day). 

Linda smiled, glad of the darkness so Paul could not see her amused reaction to his obvious excitement over John’s visit. “It will be good to see him. Mary has told me he’s been a perfect angel.”

Paul’s guffaw expressed his disbelief at this observation. “That’s when he’s at his most dangerous - when he’s pretending to be an angel.”

Linda chuckled. “Well, we’ll see for ourselves tomorrow,” she opined. She then changed the subject. “Did he tell you how his meeting with George went?”

Again, Paul guffawed. “He said George was as healthy as a horse, but was laying about on the sofa like the Queen of Sheba.”

Linda was a little amused by this, but her own experience was a heavy counterweight to John’s observations. “He’s starting radiation, Olivia told me. As you know, Paul, that’s no walk in the park.” 

Paul looked up and saw Linda’s serious expression. He said defensively, “George wasn’t having radiation when John saw him, and of course John knows just as well as we do what radiation is like.”

Linda was a little hurt by Paul’s defense of John, but then she did realize that John suffered far more from radiation treatment (and for far longer) than she had done. Perhaps her comment had been ungracious. She decided to let it go. “Well, I’m incredibly glad that George’s cancer, though malignant, had not yet gotten to his lymph nodes. That has to be a huge relief to George and Olivia. They won’t have an ending like ours.”

Paul’s head jerked up at that remark. “What do you mean by that?” He asked her sharply. 

Linda smiled. Paul clearly wasn’t ready for frank talk about her impending fate, and she wasn’t really ready either. “I mean,” she said softly, “he won’t find himself in Texas in high summer enduring high dose chemo,” she said lightly. She was pleased to see Paul’s taut face relax.


	110. Chapter 110

Houston, Texas  
September 1, 1997

 

John arrived at the McCartneys’ casita in the late afternoon. He had come fresh with the latest news on George’s cancer treatment, which he had obtained from Ringo on the phone the night before, specifically because he knew that Paul would ask about it. John felt a little guilty that he hadn’t really been there much for George in the month following George’s surgery; John had retreated to the study in his own house to focus on his poetry, instead. He figured Paul would be disappointed in him for not being a more proactive friend to George, so he figured the least said about that the better.

The three of them sat around the little enclosed patio that evening, fuchsia bougainvillea spilling lavishly over the 5’ tall white stucco walls. The patio was paved with polished 24 sq. inch terra cotta tiles, and there were flourishes of wrought iron in the gate, window grills, and furnishings. Paul had made some blue agave margaritas, and their festive aqua color matched the part of the Texas sky that was still blue; it was slowly fading into magnificent oranges and purples. 

John had been quietly shocked by Linda’s appearance. She was hairless, and wore only a light scarf on her head - mainly to deflect the waning evening sunlight, and obviously not for vanity’s sake. She wore no makeup, which was usual for Linda, but without eyelashes she looked a bit alien. She was bloated by the steroids again. However, her face was so thin as to be almost gaunt, and her skin had that unmistakable yellowish color that John remembered so well from obsessing over his own skin while he was undergoing chemo. Still, she was smiling brightly and enjoying the warm evening, the turquoise margaritas, and the company of Lennon & McCartney. 

“So George is handling the radiation okay?” Paul asked for the second time. 

“Yes - he’s pretty monosyllabic about it,” John said, feeling like a heel for speaking Ringo’s impressions and comments as if they were his own. 

“How often did you see him?” Paul asked. 

John was beginning to be irritated by Paul’s persistence. It was almost as if Paul knew he was lying about it. “He really didn’t want visitors,” John said truthfully (as Ringo had told him), “but he was available by phone.” It was getting harder and harder to keep the façade up. Thankfully, Paul abandoned that line of inquiry.

“It seems like a terrible coincidence George getting his diagnosis while we are going through the same thing,” Paul mused. 

“We’re of a certain age,” said Linda.

“Meaning?” John asked. 

“Meaning that we’ve all hit that age - mid to late fifties - when bad things start happening to people’s health.” Linda was trying to be philosophic about it all.

John gave that some thought. “It never occurred to me that I’d be alive long enough to see us all declining in health and falling by the wayside. It was bad enough in our twenties and thirties, when we had friends dropping dead left and right from drugs.”

“Speaking of friends with ill health,” Paul said, roused from a mini-depression caused by all this sad talk, “I had a call from Neil this morning. He says Derek Taylor’s cancer has come back, and he has been hospitalized again.”

“Derek?” John asked, surprised. “I was just in London, why didn’t Neil call me? I could have gone to visit him.” 

Paul said, “You were probably on your way here. Derek has been working on the Anthology book, you know. Neil was giving me a status report on the project.” 

“Crap,” John swore, thinking of the charming and attractive Derek Taylor: his loyalty, his quick wit, and the millions of times he’d pulled all four Beatles out of the muck over the years. Mother Nature had a lot to answer for.

“Crap indeed,” Paul agreed.

The three of them sat in a subdued silence as the sky’s outrageous colors faded into blue grey. It was that time in the evening just before the stars come out. 

“Let’s go inside,” Linda suggested. “They’ll be delivering dinner soon.”

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

John went with Linda to the hospital for her treatment the next day. Both he and Linda had insisted that Paul stay at the casita and get some rest. Paul wasn’t really resting. He had a piano in the casita, and tape recording equipment, and had been sending tapes back and forth to the conductor Lawrence Foster with respect to a composition he had been working on for several months: Standing Stone. It was going to be recorded at the end of September at Abbey Road, with Foster conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; its premiere was set for October 14th at the Royal Albert Hall. This had been a project Paul had been able to focus on periodically during Linda’s illness. He was at that stage now where he began to panic a little, because he felt that he had so much more to do, and so little time to do it in. So as soon as the limo pulled away with John and Linda in it, Paul went straight to the piano.

This was Linda’s last day of high dose chemo. She would remain in Houston for daily observation for another few weeks, and then she would be released from the outpatient clinic’s care. Her tests looked good so far, and she had begun to build up hope that this ‘hail Mary’ pass might actually result in at least a first down, if not a touchdown (borrowing from American football terminology; it was something her father and brother had frequently done when speaking about business with each other). Consequently, her spirits were verging on high when she and John entered the chemo room. John was immediately visited by memories from his past. He almost expected the technician to ask where his chemo port was. Instead, he sat in a comfy chair next to Linda’s comfy chair, and as the chemo was dripping into Linda’s port he was reading aloud from The Secret Garden, which was Linda’s favorite book from childhood. Paul had resurrected it from the library at Cavendish, and had begun with chapter 1 on her first day of the treatment, and now John was reading her the last chapter on her last day of treatment. Linda put her head back, closed her eyes, and lost herself in the beauty of the story and its words. She almost could hear her mother’s voice, reading this same book to her nine year-old self on a hot summer night when she was ill and couldn’t sleep. 

John’s voice was hypnotic, and he lost himself in the story. Somehow, he hadn’t really enjoyed reading this one as a child, although he had loved most of the children’s classics he’d read while growing up. He knew that the little boy Colin was stuck in a wheelchair, and that the restorative effects of the newly blossoming garden - the one that had been so neglected for so long and brought back to life by Colin and his friend Mary - had somehow helped heal the boy in the wheelchair, and therefore also heal the boy’s grieving father. For a moment John paused, and looked up over his glasses to where Linda sat, eyes closed and very still. Paul had been right to read this particular book to her during these treatments. He looked back to the last page of the book, as the last of the poison on the last of her chemo sessions dripped steadily into Linda’s body. He read,

“When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek and every man and woman servant within hearing bolted across the servants’ hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes almost starting out of their heads.  
"Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And by his side, with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter, walked as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire—Master Colin.”

 

*****

 

One Week Later  
September 8, 1997  
Houston

 

The phone rang in the casita at 8 a.m. John, who had returned to London the day before, knew that Paul and Linda would be awake by then, because Linda had her appointment at the hospital at 9 a.m. Paul answered.

“It’s me,” John said. “I’ve just had a call from Neil. Derek died about an hour ago.” 

Paul was shocked. Of course he knew Derek was ill again, but he hadn’t expected him to die so soon! His cancer had only been rediagnosed a little over a week earlier. Paul probably wasn’t thinking consciously what that meant to him personally - that if Linda’s cancer came back again, it could take her away in such a short period of time. No doubt at that moment this fear was still in the background, as Paul absorbed the news that Derek was dead. 

Noting that Paul was speechless, John said, “I did manage to go see him two days ago. Joan was as strong as ever, and he looked very weak and caved in, but he still had a plucky smile.”

Paul damned the situation he was in. On the one hand he had his wife, fighting for her life, and undergoing a painful experimental treatment. He could not leave her side. And on the other hand, Derek dying in his home...Paul would have wanted to go visit him if things had been different. Throw in George Harrison’s radiation therapy, and Paul felt overwhelmed with tragedies and obligations to old friends. At least John had been able to go, Paul told himself. He finally thought of something to say. “Did you tell him how much I wanted to come? Did you explain about Linda?” He asked.

“Yes, I did, Paul,” John said softly. 

“I didn’t know you were going to see him,” Paul said sadly. 

“I didn’t want to make you feel guiltier than you already do. I hoped he would last long enough for you to get back from the States.” John had known that Paul would have been very upset to know the state Derek was in just prior to his death.

“When is the funeral?” Paul asked. He hoped it might be a few weeks in the future.

“On the 12th,” John said.

Paul swore under his breath. “Linda can’t get on a plane for at least two weeks. Her immune system you know...”

“Paul, I’m telling you, Joan will understand. Anyway, I’ll go, and I’m sure George will too.” 

Paul felt terribly guilty, but he knew there was no point in beating himself up over it. Linda was clearly his first priority. 

 

*****

 

London  
September 12, 1997

 

John arrived just as they were closing the doors. The press had all just relaxed their positions, thinking there would be no more interesting action until after the service was over. They’d photographed George Harrison, Neil Aspinall, Neil Innes, Michael Palin and Jools Holland, along with Joan Doughty Taylor and the Taylors’ six grown children (plus wives, husbands, and grandchildren). Thus, they were caught flat-footed when a limo pulled up, and John Lennon jumped out and literally flew up the stairs. The usher shut the door quickly behind him. The photographers were all groaning and complaining. The lucky few who had caught some photos discovered later that many of their shots were out of focus. It was a blur of a Lennon dashing past them in a white suit. How Lennon-like to wear a white suit to a funeral, they all thought. Well never mind - they thought - they’d catch him on his way out. 

John was ushered to the seat that was saved next to Neil Aspinall and George Harrison, and he slipped in as quietly as possible. A few moments later the service started. 

Later, after talking with Joan and a seemingly endless stream of Taylor children and grandchildren at the reception, John turned to George and Olivia and said, “Do you want to come over to mine for some drinks?” 

Caught without a chance to come up with an excuse, George nodded lamely while casting a look at Olivia. She smiled warmly and said, “That sounds lovely.” 

“Let’s sneak out the back, like we used to do,” John suggested. 

“Have you got a spare ambulance out there we can jump in?” George asked, twinkling. 

“No, but the mews is private. We can get in the limo - windows blacked out - and blast out of here.” 

George was actually touched by John’s plans. He knew John was not a shy person, and wouldn’t mind being seen by the photographers. George assumed correctly that John was thinking of him, instead. He, who was so allergic to fame, and who was not looking his best because of the radiation treatments, and who was going to have to go through another gauntlet of reporters screaming, ‘How is the cancer George?’ as if ‘cancer’ was a houseguest or something. He smiled at John. “That sounds like an idea I can get behind,” George drawled.

“Follow me, then!” John had led them out the back door, down to the mews and into the waiting limo. Their car had burst out of the private mews to find angry photographers shouting and waving cameras at them. George, Olivia and John couldn’t help it. They burst out laughing. 

“It’s almost cruel,” Olivia opined. “They’re so disappointed.”

“A bunch of ghouls,” John growled, “hovering over a funeral.” He was thinking ahead to Linda’s funeral - would it be in a year’s time or less? Or would it be another two or three years? He knew the press would have a giant feeding frenzy on that day.

When they arrived at John’s home (through the private mews), they entered casually through the kitchen and went on in to the sitting room. John fixed them all glasses of gin and tonic. 

“Paul would be furious with me if he knew how little I’ve talked to you since your operation, George,” John said after they all settled.

“Oh?” George asked.

“You know our Paul - he’s a worrier. He feels he needs to be there when his friends are ill. This whole Derek dying thing has been hard on him - and also your surgery. He can’t leave Linda, so he feels guilty. He wanted me to sort of take his place, and visit you more often.”

“Is it really bad - Linda, I mean?” Olivia asked.

John sighed deeply. “To me it feels like a roller coaster. I never know from one doctor visit to the next what to expect. All along - for almost 2 years now - they’ve been telling Paul that the cancer was caught too late. But every now and then she seems to be getting better. At times it seems that Linda believes she is going to beat it, but Paul - I’m positive of this - he thinks it is a case of diminishing returns. At this point, honestly, I think for him and the doctors it is a delaying strategy - you know, keep the end at bay for as long as possible.”

“Not at all costs, though, I hope!” George spoke this with real pain in his voice. “I hope she isn’t suffering!”

John smiled warmly at George’s concern. “She is suffering I’m afraid - this latest treatment, high dose chemo, it was really tough. Now she can’t go anywhere while her immune system comes back. Not for a few weeks at least. Paul hopes to bring her home in time for her birthday, in a few weeks. Supposedly she should feel better then. This is supposed to buy her some time, and Linda says this is her last chemo, no matter what.”

George and Olivia took the information in. They both felt very sad for Linda, but couldn’t be begrudged for thinking how lucky it was that they had missed this particular bullet. George’s lymph nodes had been clear; Linda’s and Derek’s had not. It reminded George of the ‘fickle finger of fate’ jokes from the late ‘60s. 

 

*****

 

London  
September 24, 1997

 

Paul and Linda had finally returned to Cavendish from the United States a few days before Linda’s 56th birthday. The children greeted them at the house when they came in the door, and Mary and Stella had made a lovely dinner. Later, John had come by and sat with Linda while Paul and the kids cleaned up the kitchen. She was thoroughly exhausted, so he offered to take her up to bed. She had given him an ironic smile and said, 

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into with that offer, mister.” 

John laughed and said. “I think I just offered to walk you upstairs.”

“Ah, but given the state I’m in, that’s only the opening number,” she shot back. “Paul also undresses me, helps me on the toilet, helps me brush my teeth, gives me my meds, tucks me in, and then gets in with me.”

John shouldn’t have been stunned by this litany of tasks, but he was. “Every night?” He asked incredulously.

“Every night,” Linda said firmly. “So instead why don’t you go offer to relieve Paul in the kitchen, and he can help me upstairs.”

John nodded speechlessly, and went off to get Paul. For whatever reason, he had not realized the extent to which Linda had been made helpless by the chemo; nor had he realized the extent to which Paul had become a caregiver. Paul never spoke of it at all - never complained or even boasted - he had just quietly done what had to be done. Shaken, John found Paul wiping down a counter and said, “Linda’s exhausted. She needs to go to bed.”

Paul was grateful to John for the heads up. “Thanks, mate,” he said.

John put his hand out for the sponge, which Paul handed to him. “I’ll take over down here,” John said.

Paul laughed his magical McCartney laugh. “Just like you, too, Johnny!” He hooted. “Now that it’s almost finished!” 

Anyway, here it was two days later, and Linda’s birthday party was in full swing. The only invitees were Paul and Linda’s children and John. And they had all gone to a great deal of trouble to make the birthday special. They weren’t sure - they couldn’t know - if this would be the last birthday they would be able to celebrate with her, so they had pulled out all the stops. Mary and John had done all of the cooking, and Stella and James had done all of the decorating. Heather had spent months making the plates and bowls to be used in the dinner, (throwing them in her pottery studio); they were also a gift to their mother. In fact, this birthday the children’s gifts were all going to be handmade: In addition to Heather’s beautiful pottery, Linda was to be gifted by a photo album full of family pictures Mary had taken, a few sets of lovely soft pajamas and bed jackets that Stella had designed and handmade, and a recording of guitar music composed and performed by James. Paul, meanwhile, had worked with James to put together a master recording of music that Linda herself had recorded, with James and Paul providing accompaniment. Paul hoped to engage Linda in the project in the coming months to help keep her mind off her illness, and James wanted to work on it with her. Paul had also dedicated his new piece, Standing Stone, to her, a recording of which he was going to play that evening. (It was to debut in America the next day, and in the UK on the 29th.) 

John had been amazed by the creative offerings of the McCartney children. These were not the kind of handmade gifts parents usually cherished from their children. These efforts were of utterly professional quality. Paul and Linda had given birth to amazingly talented children, and then had provided them with the training, education, tools, and seed money to help them realize their talents. John thought of his two sons - both talented musicians. Yes, they had both been helped by their father’s name and money, but he really hadn’t been active in seeing to it that they had the kind of grass roots support that Paul and Linda had given their children. John felt, for a tiny moment, ineffectual. He could have done so much more for his sons. In fact, Paul had done more to ensure that they had the proper contacts and seed money to get their projects done than John had. It was uncharacteristic for John to be brutally honest about himself for too long (he saved his brutal honesty primarily for others), so he soon reassured himself that this was why he had picked Paul to be his life partner: Paul was good at, and wanted to do, the things that John sucked at. So by giving his sons Paul, he had given them the paternal support they needed by proxy! With that self-serving thought he shrugged and nudged Mary, reminding her that it was time for the birthday cake.

 

*****

 

London  
Late at Night  
September 30, 1997

 

Standing Stone had gone straight to the top of the classical music charts in England, just as it had done in America a few days before, where it stayed for an impressively long time. MPL had been inundated with requests for interviews with Paul, and he had agreed to a few very short interviews by classical music critics and reporters. His spokesperson Geoff Baker had told the press that Paul would not be answering questions about his personal life, so no questions about Linda’s health, or John’s recent hijinks were asked or answered during these little interviews. The work had gotten quite good reviews - even from the classical critics - and for whatever reason Paul had been surprised by this. He felt quite insecure still about his work in this genre, whether it was called classical music or British light music. Many classical music critics felt that his work was ‘light classical’, but Carl Davis and George Martin had told Paul it was actually ‘heavy British light music.’ Whatever. To Paul it was just what came out of his head. 

He had found this kind of instrumental piece very soothing to work on while he digested all of the frightening and sad feelings thrown up by Linda’s illness. He hadn’t been able to put words to it - not sufficiently to truly express how it was. In Standing Stone he had done so without words - from the hopes he’d had that were dashed, to the bewildering nightmares that had brought him wide awake from a dead sleep, to the uneasy surcease, always ready to slip back into hopelessness. And all of it heavily influenced by the music of Gaelic Ireland - the place where his deepest roots were to be found. 

John - when he finally heard it as a finished piece - had been quite impressed. He hadn’t been paying much attention while Paul had been composing it because he hadn’t been around Paul as often in the past year as he had grown used to, given Paul’s constant attendance upon Linda. When Paul had explained the piece to him several months earlier, and when John had seen the names given the various movements, he had been confused and a little worried that Paul was in over his head. He didn’t want Paul to be a roaring success (at least, not without him), but he certainly didn’t want Paul to be a laughing stock, either. (Even aside from the fact that this would reflect badly on him, he didn’t want Paul to be too badly hurt by the reviews.) So the final result stunned him to a respectful silence. Paul had compositional abilities beyond his own, John had known for decades now, but he hadn’t realized by how much. The Liverpool Oratorio had been impressive, but somehow John had come away with the idea (or had he convinced himself of this?) that Carl Davis was more responsible for it than Paul. But this new piece was very much Paul’s - the conductor Lawrence Foster had made that very clear to John when he asked about it. 

“I did the orchestrations,” Foster had told John at a celebration party for the album’s release, “but I honestly didn’t suggest even a single chord or note change.” John didn’t like to explore why he had been so eager for Paul not to have this much more musical talent than him. It made him feel ashamed to be so envious, and he once more ordered himself to be a more giving and generous friend. He knew he’d have to get his attitude in gear before the piece was debuted live in a few weeks’ time. 

John had been having this conversation with himself after returning from the celebratory party at Abbey Road. Linda had been too ill to go and Heather too shy (she stayed with her mother), but he had gone with Mary, Stella and James to help Paul celebrate. So later he sat in his sitting room thinking while Paul had stayed home to be with Linda. John hadn’t expected to see him anymore that night so was quite surprised when he heard Paul’s voice calling from the back door -

“John?”

“In the sitting room!” John shouted. Soon Paul was with him. “I thought I’d seen the last of you for the night,” John told Paul with a warm smile.

Paul plopped down heavily on his side of the sofa and said, “Linda’s asleep now. I thought I’d pop in so we could chat alone.”

“About what?” John asked, trying to keep anxiety and suspicion out of his voice. 

“I wanted your opinion on my piece,” Paul said, looking a little embarrassed. “You haven’t said a word about it. Do you think it’s too corny?” 

John felt shame wash over him for his blasted ego and its refusal to give Paul his due. “I’m very impressed Paul,” he said honestly. “I haven’t been paying much attention to it, and I’m sorry. We’ve been apart so much ever since... Well, since Linda got sick. So I guess I hadn’t been as exposed to this piece as much as I have been to your other work.” 

Paul was relieved to hear John’s opinion. No one’s opinion meant more to him than John’s. “Do you think it is pompous of me to think I can compose classical music?” 

John melted a little inside. “No, Pud, of course not. You have all that beautiful stuff inside your head. You just feel the need to let it out. The rest of us are lucky that you share it.”

Paul blushed a little at the unaccustomed compliment, but he still looked uncertain. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better - I mean, because of Linda?”

John said, “Paul - I’ve spent almost my entire creative life with you. Do you really think I don’t know and appreciate the depth of your talent? If I didn’t, why would I stay?” 

Paul relaxed a little. He thought for a while and then said, “The older I get the less secure I feel about everything. I had so much confidence when I was 21. Where did it go?”

John smiled with recognition. “I feel the exact same way. I think it is what happens to you when you grow up. You begin to realize how little you actually know about anything.” 

“I still take chances though, John,” Paul said. His tone was that of a supplicant. “Even if they don’t turn out, taking chances is something laudable all on its own, isn’t it?”

John stared more closely at Paul’s face, and he thought he saw tears glittering in his friend’s eyes. “Paul - what’s wrong? The reviews have been great and the album is at the top of the charts. What’s bothering you?”

Paul looked down at his hands. “I guess I don’t want to look like a deluded fool: the emperor with his new clothes.” Paul stopped for a moment to fight back tears. “I need you to be there for me, John, giving me feedback. I really haven’t got anyone else I can rely on for that right now.”

A little cry escaped John’s mouth. He said, “Paul!” and moved until he was close to Paul, and gathered him in his arms. “We have been distant from each other for months, haven’t we? It’s that fucking cancer! It ruins everything! Linda - George - Derek! It’s like we’re surrounded by fucking cancer! We don’t know who or what to grieve first!” 

Paul looked hopefully at John. He wanted it to be the fucking cancer, he really did. But he feared it was something worse. Did he tell John too much? Did he reveal the depths of his love by telling him no matter what he couldn’t stop loving him? Would this be the death of their intimacy? To Paul it had seemed that John always sneered at things that came easily; he only respected and loved things that were just out of his reach. Paul had endeavored to be just out of John’s reach for forty years. He had finally broken down and told John the truth, and now he feared that John’s adoration would wane. 

John could tell that Paul was having some kind of existential crisis by looking at his face. But he had no idea what it was or how to help. Little did he know that his own quixotic nature and faithlessness had finally come home to roost. Paul had digested John’s behavior in June and it had gelled into a kind of hard ball of fear in the pit of his stomach. Now it was eating away at Paul’s confidence. He only ever believed in himself when John believed in him, and now he wasn’t sure where he stood in John’s eyes. Again. 

“Something’s wrong,” John whispered. “Tell me what it is.” His heart was thumping now. 

Paul couldn't tell him the truth. He just could not put it into words. But he wondered if he should tell John about the call he’d had from Frank earlier in the day. It would upset John, and although the information had added to Paul’s concerns it wasn’t the main cause of it - it was just an extra drop in his bucket full of fear. John was going to find out anyway, so he might as well tell him.

“Frank called me this morning,” Paul said slowly.

John was watching Paul carefully for any kind of clue as to what was going on. “Yeah?”

Paul swallowed. “You have a friend in New York named Harvey?”

John’s heart bumped hard again. “Yeah?”

“Well, he’s sold his stories about you to the Daily Mail.”

John sat still with shock. He hadn’t expected Harvey of all people to turn on him! “Is that why you’re upset?” John asked. He was starting to froth up with resentment. Was all this deep sadness connected to his frolics in June? John had thought that was behind them! “He’s just a drug dealer and a procurer,” John sneered.

“Frank has seen an advance copy of the first installment. It’s about when you first met in 1978 and he claims that he set you up with drugs and women.” Paul actually looked calm and in control of his emotions as he said this.

“Well, he did,” John admitted. “That’s ancient history though, isn’t it?”

Paul cleared his throat. “Frank’s contact at the DM says in the next installment he will discuss how he continued to do this for you every time you came to New York since you left Yoko, and will also discuss last June’s events.” Paul was looking down at his hands again. John knew that Paul looking at his hands in a difficult social moment wasn’t a good sign.

“Everyone knows all the crazy shit I did in New York in June - so what?” John figured the best way to get through this was to bullshit his way through. 

“I just thought I’d tell you before the paper comes out tomorrow,” Paul said honestly. 

“You can't be so worried about that,” John said. “You never let the tabloids get you down. Is there something else bothering you?”

Paul didn’t want to tell him everything that Frank had told him: about the trash talk Harvey was saying that John had indulged in: trash talk about him - Paul. The comments were very hurtful. Paul prayed they weren’t true. He could almost bear the stuff that Harvey claimed John said about him in 1978, but last June? After agonizing quietly for a few moments, Paul decided there was no way he could mention this to John. The article would just have to come out, and he and John would just have to deal with the disclosures one by one. He looked up at John and said with a smile,

“No John. Nothing else.”


	111. Chapter 111

October 9, 1997  
London

 

John woke up slowly. He was tucked up in his bed in his home in London. As he always did, reflexively, he moved his arm around on the mattress next to him to see if Paul was there. He was. John felt sure that Paul had only spent the night with him because it had been his birthday eve. These days Paul usually slept with Linda. Still, John would take what he could get. All things considered, he’d rather not have cancer, so he was finding it difficult to resent the amount of time that Paul was spending with Linda, especially now that he fully understood that Paul was really a kind of nursemaid to Linda. It was something that he had finally digested in full. He turned his head so he could see Paul and was treated to the view of his back. John’s hand gently brushed its way down the length of that back but it didn’t awaken Paul. Let him sleep; he needs it, John thought.

Fifty-seven years old today. John could hardly believe it. He didn’t feel that old inside. Inside, he felt like the “normal age,” whatever that was. Still, he did have to dye his hair now, and he found it more difficult each year to stay in at least as good as shape as he was the year before. It was beginning to become exponentially more difficult to defy the aging process. He could imagine a time when he’d have to actually exercise in order to keep his weight down. John shuddered at the thought. He liked to take a brisk walk around the neighborhood or through a park just like the next guy, but dedicating himself to hours in a gym several times per week like Paul did seemed like hell on earth to John. He didn’t mind that Paul did it, though. The man’s body was holding up really well, much to John’s benefit. 

He decided not to bother Paul, and he got out of bed as quietly as he could. Paul walked around looking like a zombie these days, exhausted emotionally and unable to sleep much. They’d had some exuberant sex the night before, and that was probably why Paul could sleep this morning. John went downstairs and made himself some morning coffee. 

Paul woke up about forty minutes later, and was surprised to find himself alone in the bed. John usually slept later than him, and on the few times when he awoke before Paul, John tended to poke and tickle him until he woke up and agreed to play. He flopped over on to his back, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light. For the first time in months he felt well rested. I ought to sleep over with John more often, Paul thought to himself. Sleeping with Linda was seldom restful, because Paul was so conscious of the fact that she might suddenly awaken and need him for some reason. He couldn’t allow himself to fall into too deep a sleep for that reason. Of course, this wasn’t possible most nights because Linda could not be alone, and he felt it odd to ask his daughters to stay over too frequently. He hated to intrude too much on the lives of his adult children in that way. Sighing heavily, he threw the covers off and urged himself to get out of the bed. 

A few minutes later, Paul came down stairs and found John at the kitchen table reading the paper and savoring his second cup of coffee. 

“Good morning sleepyhead!” John trilled.

“’Morning, John,” Paul said, chuckling. “Did you sleep well?”

John grinned in a very naughty way and said, “I did.” He waited a moment and then added, “I know you did as well. You were dead to the world when I woke up. Did I wear you out last night?”

Paul was yawning as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He turned and joined John at the kitchen table. He decided to ignore John’s provocative question because it came too close to the truth: it had taken all of Paul’s energy the night before to meet John’s expectations. He just gave John a smartass smile and said, “Happy birthday, Johnny. You want your present now, or later?” 

“I thought I got it last night,” John joked, with Groucho eyebrows. “You mean there’s more where that came from?”

“There’s always more of that,” Paul said with faux exasperation. “But I was talking about a more conventional kind of gift.”

“Well, bring it on man! I’m quite excited about it now,” John laughed. 

Paul pushed his chair back and got up from the table. “I’ve got to get it out of its hiding place, so you have to wait here.” 

“Hmmm,” John remarked, “I thought I knew all of your hiding places.” It was a naughty double entendre, and Paul decided to take it the more innocent way.

He smiled. He enjoyed surprising John. It wasn’t that easy of a thing to do, since John was such a snoop. He made his way back upstairs, and into one of the guest bedrooms. There, on the highest shelf of a large armoire, under a spare blanket, he found the gaily-wrapped present he’d decided upon for John. 

John waited impatiently in the kitchen. He had always loved feeling like a kid on Christmas. Thankfully, he didn’t have long to wait. Soon Paul was back, carrying a small package - and it appeared to be a book. Paul handed it over to John; his eyes were alight with eagerness. 

“It’s a very old book, John, so be careful. It was published in 1866.” 

“1866!” John cried. “Crikey!” He had planned to just rip the paper off like he usually did, but now he slowed himself down, and picked tentatively at the red and yellow paper and the bright yellow ribbon until he had teased the paper and tape away. He could see a red cloth cover which was not even slightly faded. He turned the book over and saw gold embossing. It was Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. John looked up to meet Paul’s eyes. “1866?” He asked.

Paul was happy now, because he could see that John was pleased with his choice. “It’s a first edition, second issue, and it is signed by Lewis Carroll and the illustrator, John Tenniel. There’s a card inside that explains that the first issue, published in 1865, was not up to the standards of Carroll and Tenniel, so this second issue was the one they preferred.”

John lay the book down, and turned to the frontispiece. There were the familiar drawings - the king and queen glaring at each other above a tableau of knights staring at blackbird pie, and across from it was the title page. Two faded and spidery signatures appeared below the title. John’s eyes filled with tears. “How did you find this?” He asked.

“I’ve been looking for this for a few years, you know. They don’t come on the market that often. I hired a rare books agent.” Paul didn’t explain how the book, with both signatures and in such excellent condition had cost him over £8,000! But Paul believed that it was worth it at 10 times that price because Alice in Wonderland was one of the things that had bonded the two of them, back when they were kids. None of their other friends were as obsessed with the book, and none of their other friends could quote whole sections of it, either. It was just one of those magical things that meant they should be together - the fact that they were both trying to write songs when none of their other friends were, the fact that they both loved Lewis Carroll, and not long after they met, the fact that they had both lost their mothers...

“Paul, this is...I mean, this is...too much! This is the best gift ever...” John was practically speechless, and this made Paul even happier. John closed the book again, and ran a gentle hand over the front cover. “I don’t see how I’ll ever top this, especially since I forgot your birthday this year.” 

Paul chuckled. “I don’t mind people forgetting my birthdays anymore. I wish I could forget them.”

“I’m so sorry about that...I feel like a heel, now.” John had begun to look sad, and that is not what Paul had wanted.

“Johnny, it’s okay. I had a wife and 4 children showering me with gifts. The fact that you choose to live with me - even with all the sacrifices you have to make - that is the biggest gift you could ever give me.” 

 

*****

 

Later That Day

 

John was not going to receive any special treatment for his birthday - at least not from the tabloid press. This was the day the Daily Mail chose to publish the first installment of its interview with Harvey Cutler, John’s erstwhile dealer / procurer. Caught up in their idyll that morning, John and Paul had not been aware, but Linda had a call from her brother telling her all about it. 

“Oh good lord,” Linda grumbled as her brother explained that this Harvey person was quoted as saying that when John got drunk or high back in the late ‘70s he would first become belligerent and start verbally attacking Paul, and then, when totally polluted, he would become melancholy and begin to sob and call Paul’s name. “What a fucking tool this guy is,” Linda swore. Swearing was fairly unusual for her. “But this claim is nothing new.” 

“I don’t think Paul is going to like this though,” John Eastman said. “The way it is written, it is that whole John is a crazy genius but Paul is an arrogant lightweight kind of vibe.”

Linda sighed heavily. This meant she would probably be picking up pieces again. This might also put somewhat of a damper on the birthday party she and the kids (including Sean) had planned for the evening. (Julian was invited too; but he was in his thirties now, and lived primarily in Italy. He hadn’t been in on the planning.) Why wouldn’t the press just leave them alone? At least for John’s birthday, for crying out loud! Linda wasn’t going to say anything to either of them. They’d find out soon enough, but hopefully not before the family had spent an enjoyable evening all together.

Almost as soon as she had hung up, she heard John and Paul approaching from the sitting room. They had known from habit to go looking for her in the kitchen. She was feeling a lot better, and was up on her feet more often. She found she could putter around with her cameras and negatives and not get tired out too soon. Her hair had started growing back in, and she was also enjoying cooking again. The high dose chemo had been a good decision. She was feeling very much better. 

“Hey Lin!” John greeted her, as Paul approached, swept her up romantically, and gave her a sloppy kiss. 

After she had gotten her breath back, Linda laughed and said, “You two are in good spirits.”

“Did you see what Paul got me for my birthday?” John asked Linda eagerly.

“I did, yes. He was after that book for years,” she said, smiling at the two men in a very maternal way. Sometimes she felt like their mother, and they seemed like teenaged boys. 

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” John asked, full of frisky energy.

Linda laughed again. It was lovely to see John - but especially Paul - in such light, happy moods. “Well, all the kids will be here, of course, and of course your Beatle-brothers. Lots of surprises, loads of presents, flotillas of food and drink. You’ll be fat and happy before the evening is over.”

Paul disappeared to go upstairs and change his clothes, and John said to Linda softly, “You look lovely this morning. You haven’t looked this chipper in a very long time. You must be feeling better?” 

“I am. Every day I’m feeling a bit better. The doctors say that after I have the stem cell replacement I’ll feel even better.” 

John thought to himself that this, by itself, was a peerless birthday gift.

 

*****

 

That Evening

 

The party was everything that Linda had promised. John had found himself surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, and Linda and her two amazing daughters, Mary and Stella, had done most of the planning and work. The girls had then gone about the business of charming the pants off George Harrison, who still had a weakness for a lovely young woman. It was blasphemous of course to think of Paul’s daughters as anything other than the children of one of his oldest friends, but they were both so alive and charming and stylish that it was a pleasure to be in their company. 

John had received a lot of wonderful gifts. The one from Linda was smashing: a rare cobalt blue Spode tea service. John was unusually chuffed by it, and kept stealing a peak in the box every half hour or so. When had he become so domesticated that a tea service would send him over the moon? And how rare a friend was Linda that she knew how much he would appreciate it? Each time he stole a look at it, he’d look up and around the room until he saw Linda. One time he had caught her eye, and he had winked and smiled at her to show his appreciation, and the youthful and sincerely surprised smile she gave him back filled him with warmth. She was one girl in a billion.

At the end of the evening, the four former Beatles had ended up in Paul’s study, sharing whiskey and (in Ringo’s case, a cigar). The topics ranged from Linda’s health, to George’s health, to the loss of Derek Taylor, to Apple business, to how crazy it was that John was 57 years old. This brought about memories of Liverpool childhoods, punctuated by much sarcasm and laughter. Ringo had some business ideas he had wanted to float with the others, but the vibe in the room was so relaxed he knew better than to raise them. Not the time or the place. He had become fixated on the idea that he hadn’t built enough of a fortune and his earning days appeared to be waning (he was 57, too). 

Oblivious to Ringo’s quiet thoughts, Paul was following the back-and-forth that John and George were engaging in; they were taking the piss out of each other, but it was amusing, not hurtful. It was the usual disrespecting humor displayed routinely in places like Liverpool and any other heavily working class city. Something about the pace and ruggedness of the life in such cities inspired this kind of disparaging humor in their denizens. Paul sat back and let the familiar speech patterns flow over him. In that moment he felt almost carefree, albeit in a detached way. 

John finally noticed Paul’s quietness, and asked, “Cat’s got your tongue, Paul?”

To which George responded before Paul could even open his mouth. “Can’t get a word in, more like.” 

“Are you suggesting that I am hogging the conversation?” John asked, as if he had taken umbrage at George’s remark.

The other three laughed - this served as a kind of response to John’s indignant question. John had always been the loudest one, the bossiest one, the one who grabbed first pick at everything. Somehow in all these decades it still hadn’t sunk in with him that the other three allowed him to do these things. He was still laboring under the misapprehension that he earned and deserved the right to be first and foremost. Because they all loved him (except when they wanted to throttle him), none of them had ever burst John’s bubble by telling him this inconvenient truth.

 

*****

 

October 14, 1997  
London 

 

October was going to be another one of those crazy McCartney months, like the previous March had been. Tonight was the premiere of Paul’s classical work Standing Stone at the Albert Hall. In less than a week later Stella’s first Chloe collection debut was scheduled in Paris. Despite these triumphs, problems kept popping up. Linda was still rebuilding her strength and worried that attending these events would be difficult for her, but she was determined to attend the premiere for the piece Paul had written for her, and Stella’s fashion show too. She knew her hair was short and choppy, and that she was heavier than she wanted to be because of the steroids. She knew she would have to face overly curious cameras and people - both fans and friends - that she’d rather not have to deal with. But she was determined to be there for Paul and Stella. 

To complicate matters, of course, the Daily Mail’s three-part tabloid interview of Harvey Cutler had caused quite a stir. The picture Cutler painted of a hopelessly dependent, hopelessly addicted John Lennon was not pretty at all, but the picture of Paul McCartney was even less flattering. According to Cutler, John had described Paul as vain, manipulative, backstabbing, money-hungry, and egomaniacal. But, Cutler claimed, despite all of these alleged flaws in Paul’s character, John was also supposedly addicted to the sexual hold Paul had deliberately held over him. This tawdry story had been bruited all the way around the world in other tabloids within days. 

Paul had read these revelations in the privacy of his study, nursing his hurt feelings, humiliation, and indignation in equal amounts. I have never even met this guy! He doesn’t know me! But as soon as this thought occurred to Paul, he would then remind himself: but this is the picture John painted of me. This is how John described me to a third party. Paul had been around the block sufficient times to know that the tabloid itself no doubt threw in several of the insults and possibly all of the adjectives. But Paul was still paranoid over how John had treated him in the ‘70s, and one of his deepest fears was that John spoke of him that way to others even now. Consequently, these particular claims reinforced Paul’s own insecurities, and thus made his reaction that much more painful. 

John, of course, thought the whole Harvey betrayal was an outrage, and he assumed that Paul knew that he wasn’t badmouthing him to people after all these years. The truth was, he didn’t badmouth Paul to others anymore. Thus, it hadn’t occurred to him that Paul might think he did. Instead, he saved his wrath for the betrayal itself - especially the stuff Harvey had said about John’s ‘male prostitute’ adventure (with Brad). Harvey had no part in that, and didn’t know the first thing about it! John raged to himself. He’s making that shit up! Harvey had been quoted as saying, “He should have come to me for that; I know some discreet guys who wouldn’t have gotten him in the tabloids.” The nerve! Who was getting him in the tabloids now?

Linda, as usual, saw both men’s points of view. She didn’t believe John was badmouthing Paul to other people - he had done so in the ‘70s, of course, but she very much doubted he had done it since. He’d had plenty of opportunities and had never done so to her knowledge. But she also knew how emotionally maimed Paul had been by John’s hurtful remarks in the ‘70s, and she doubted very much that Paul would ever get over them completely. There would always be a little voice in his head saying, he did it to me before. What’s to stop him from doing it again? Consequently, Linda had taken the laboring oar in talking Paul through the embarrassment of the stories going ‘round by constantly reassuring him that John would not have said the things attributed to him. The most embarrassing allegation from Paul’s point of view, Linda knew, was the claim that he deliberately held some kind of sexual power over John, as if he were some kind of modern day Mata Hari. John hadn’t made this embarrassment any easier for Paul to swallow by repeatedly joking about that particular barb: Hey, Paul, you’re doing it again! I can feel it all the way over here! I can’t think straight when you’re holding that fucking sex power over my head! He’d shouted across the room once. He had said something like this a few other times in front of Linda, and she suspected he had done it even more often to Paul when they were alone. She would have to talk to John about that. Honestly, he could be so tone deaf at times...

But tonight was the premiere of Standing Stone, and it was time for everyone to get dressed up and head for the auditorium. Sean was still visiting John, so he attended along with all the McCartneys. Ringo and Barbara were coming as well. Not George, though. Paul had put it down to his radiation treatment, but John had put it down to George’s disapproval of Paul branching out to other genres of music. If George didn’t like a kind of music, then he decided it was crap, even if millions of others loved it. So experimental music, tonal music, swing music, and even whole swaths of classical and light music had been deemed to be “crap” by George. John said nothing to Paul about this though; he thought Paul was better off with his illusions. 

The piece was performed magnificently, and it received a hearty standing ovation. Paul was privately relieved, and as everyone gathered in the reception area later, he felt as though he had been freed of a great weight. The press moved in for photos. First, they shouted for the three ex-Beatles to pose together, and they agreeably complied. Then the reporters started shouting less acceptable questions:

“John! What do you have to say about your friend Harvey Cutler and the things he said to the Daily Mail?”

“Paul! What is your reaction to the things John said to Harvey Cutler?”

“John! Is it true that Paul has a sexual hold over you?”

Paul managed to smile (if a bit stiffly) throughout this onslaught. He did not respond to the questions at all. Linda held on to his arm tightly, and she smiled bravely throughout as well. John was quietly furious at Harvey Cutler, and wanted to go on the attack, but he could tell that this reception for Paul’s premiere was not the time or the place to do so. But one way or the other he was going to take a huge, Jaws-like bite out of Harvey Cutler. Instead, he aroused loud guffaws from the press pool when he made a loud joke about reporters who believed their own bullshit. 

 

*****

 

October 19, 1997  
Paris, France

 

The crowd was on its feet. The first Chloe show had gone off without a hitch, and the buzz was good. Linda had found the experience of being confronted with dozens of flashing cameras and clamoring people as dreadful as she had expected, but this did not keep the hopeful and beatific expression from her face: she was so painfully proud of her daughter that she could not help literally beaming with it. She again wore the bespoke mint green suit that her daughter had made for her, and of course her daughters had fussed over her by having a makeup artist and hairdresser give her a complete do-over for the show. She looked much older than people remembered, in fact, significantly older than her husband looked. But no one could deny how alive with joy she seemed that night.

John had enjoyed the evening at the fashion show. He sat behind the McCartneys with Ringo and Barbara, and rode back to Cavendish for the party with them as well. He wanted to seek Ringo’s advice about something, but didn’t want to discuss it in front of Barbara. Somehow, he would find a way of separating Ringo from the herd during the party so they could have a private conversation. 

The problem was that the fallout from the Harvey tabloid stories had been a little worse than John had at first thought or expected. It had finally dawned on John that Paul was apparently worried that Harvey’s recollections might be more accurate than not. John hoped that Ringo might be willing to talk to Paul and find out how bad it was. Paul, of course, had clammed up, and was behaving as though nothing was wrong, so John hadn’t found the nerve to ask about it openly and brazenly.

John had discussed the problem with Fiona, who had given him the very good advice to talk to Paul about it directly instead of guessing what he was thinking. It was just that John doubted Paul would tell him how he really felt. John had considered asking Linda, but decided not to stress her out for such a stupid reason. John was very aware that she needed a stress free environment while she was rebuilding her immune system. The last thing she needed was to deal with the problems caused by his stupid behavior. 

His thoughts were interrupted when Ringo’s Rolls cruised up in front of No. 7 Cavendish Avenue. The car’s occupants got out and went through the open gates where the McCartneys’ car was simultaneously unloading. A lot of congratulatory hugs and greetings were exchanged as everyone tried to funnel through the bottleneck of the house’s front door. Inside they were greeted with champagne and all sorts of savory vegetarian hors d’oeuvres. Stella was still at the event site, finishing up her glad-handing and interviews with critics, and so the entire McCartney family went into high gear and began pulling the party into shape. Paul was in the kitchen fussing over the alcohol, and in this organized chaos, John was able to grab Ringo by the elbow and whisper that he wanted a private interview. Together they ducked into Paul’s study, with John locking the door behind him. 

“What’s all the hush-hush about?” Ringo asked, amused.

“I need your help,” John said in a conspiratorial whisper. “We can’t talk for long, so I’m just gonna blurt it out.”

Still amused, Ringo said, “Go for it, man.”

“You know all that tabloid stuff about me in New York?” John asked.

Ringo didn’t say much, but his expression spoke volumes. 

Seeing this obvious ‘yes’ response, John continued. “I didn’t think Paul would take all that crap seriously,” he said in a defensive tone. “The man is a drug dealer and a procurer, and I felt sure that Paul wouldn’t believe a word he said.” 

Ringo suppressed the incredulous look that he wanted to display on his face. Instead, he maintained his cool, and summarized briskly, “And yet Paul did take it seriously.”

“Yeah,” John said, with only a little bit of shame. 

Ringo was thinking that it was no surprise that Paul would believe it; John had said stuff like that about Paul all through the ‘70s, even during times when Paul thought they had made their peace. Ringo had watched it all with sadness, at the time not understanding the deep, silent undertones in their relationship. He wondered how John could have known Paul for his entire teen and adult lives and not know that Paul would be very hurt by that kind of gossip. Paul had taken a lot of crap talk in the clubs, because of his baby face and delicate eyebrows, and because of his love for more traditional music as well as rock music. He had been bullied - in Ringo’s impression - by the Hamburg 'Exi’s' (who Ringo had never particularly trusted or liked) and even a little by John when he was showing off around his older, ‘cooler’ friends. Although Paul had always behaved outwardly as if none of that stuff fazed him in the least, Ringo had figured out how sensitive, empathetic and insecure Paul could be, and he doubted very much (even in the early days) that Paul was as sanguine about the teasing/bullying as he pretended. So here they were, full circle, John’s chickens coming home to roost. The expression ‘hoist on his own petard’ ran through Ringo’s mind.

“So what do you need from me?” Ringo finally asked.

“Can you talk to him? He’ll never tell me if he is hurt by it. He just wants to pretend like its no big deal, but then he acts so odd. I feel as though he is pulling away.” John looked very worried, and this melted Ringo’s skeptical mind.

“I can ask him how he is dealing with the gossip, but he is likely to pretend to be fine with me, too,” Ringo pointed out.

“But you can tell him you don’t believe him, and you can pressure him to tell you the truth. I can’t.” John was openly pleading now. “It is the kind of thing I used to ask Linda to do for me, but right now I don’t want to bother her.”

That caught Ringo’s attention. “No - by all means! Don’t bother poor Linda! I’ll talk to Paul, and see if I can get to the bottom of it.”

“Thanks, Ritchie. I’m sorry to drag you into our drama...”

Ringo threw his head back and laughed. “So what else is new?” He asked rhetorically.

 

*****

 

A Few Days Later

 

Ringo had called Paul the day after Stella’s party and invited him over to his London flat for lunch. He told Paul he had some business issues to discuss (which was true), and Paul, intrigued, readily agreed. Ringo had the meal catered by a nearby restaurant, and the two old friends sat down to discuss Apple business. But first they had small talk to get out of their way.

“What are your plans for the near future?” Ringo asked Paul politely.

“Well, Linda has to be back in New York for a checkup in two weeks, so we’ll be going back there for the Thanksgiving holidays. John and I are booked to be interviewed on the Oprah show while we’re there. And then we’re all going on a Boxing Day holiday after spending Christmas at home.”

“You guys sure know how to keep busy,” Ringo chuckled. He then suggested a few ideas that he hoped Paul would support at the next Apple board meeting. He knew Paul carried John’s proxy, so if Paul was on board then Ringo knew his suggestions would carry, because George could never bring himself to vote against Ringo. And if Paul didn’t agree, then the ideas would go down in flames. The conversation was fruitful from Ringo’s point of view. Paul was scrupulous about vetting every idea until he had squeezed every penny out of it, and so his promise to study Ringo’s ideas in detail was promising. It was then that Ringo brought up the touchy subject.

“John’s been in the tabloids again,” he said with a gentle smile.

Paul immediately schooled his face, and Ringo saw him school it. Paul said, “More crap, where all the other crap came from.” 

Ringo chuckled and said, “Guy claims John said some pretty harsh things about you.”

Paul nodded, and looked down into his glass of wine to hide his true emotions from his old friend.

Ringo tried again. “It’s got to hurt - at some level,” he essayed. 

Paul said with a chipper smile, “It’s not my favorite thing, that’s for sure.”

Ringo asked the $64,000 question: “Do you believe any of it is true?”

Paul finally met Ringo’s eyes, and he saw warmth, compassion, and understanding there. He wondered if Ringo was a safe person to speak to; he couldn’t bother Linda with this silliness. She had much more serious things to worry about at the time. “He has been known to say things like that about me before,” Paul said as matter-of-factly as he could. “I was surprised to find out he was still doing it. I thought we had gotten past all that.” 

“So you think he actually said those things about you to that lowlife?” Ringo asked, allowing his surprise to show.

Paul noted Ringo’s surprise, and pulled back a little. He went on the offensive. “Well, John deals with that bloke - what’s his name? ‘Harvey’? - only when he’s really mad at me. He gets mad at me, and goes off in a huff to New York. So I guess it wouldn’t surprise me to find out he is talking trash about me when he’s mad at me.” Paul hadn’t realized that his true emotions had started to show on his face. The look on Paul’s face was a mixture of irritation, resignation, humiliation and pain.

Ringo softened. He tended to agree with Paul, but didn’t want to believe that John was so thoughtless and cruel. “Have you told John what you believe?” Ringo asked.

Paul looked startled. “No!” He responded abruptly.

“Why, ‘no’?” Ringo asked softly.

Paul had to think about that. There wasn’t a reason except that it wouldn’t accomplish anything. John would deny he did it, or he would say if he did say it, he didn’t mean it, but it wouldn’t stop him from doing the same damn thing the next time he got mad. And Paul would then be confronted with the age-old question: to accept this behavior from John and pretend it didn’t hurt him, or to walk away. Given the status of his life at the moment - with Linda hanging by a thread - Paul did not have the strength to deal with the loss of John, too. He didn’t feel that expressing himself on the subject was going to accomplish anything. He had to give Ringo an answer that wasn’t so revealing, however.

“It never accomplishes anything,” Paul finally said. “John either dismisses my concerns or he overreacts to them. It’s best to just let it go.”

“Best for whom?” Ringo asked, wisely.

“For both of us, I guess,” Paul answered, but with hesitation.

“Personally, I think it isn’t best for either of you, but that’s just me,” Ringo said, taking the bull by the horns.

Paul thought about Ringo had said for a while, and then asked, “Why do you think that?”

“Well,” Ringo expanded, “if I were John - I’m thinking like John now - I would be very hurt if I thought you believed I’d said those things. Personally, I think there's a very good chance that John never said those things about you - at least not since after you made it up. He absolutely adores you, and I think the tabloids just made that shit up to make the story juicier. If I were John, I would want to have a chance to explain. If you don’t raise the subject with him, he’ll never get that chance, because he is more than likely afraid to raise the subject with you.”

Paul listened attentively to Ringo’s opinion. He allowed it all to seep in to his conscious mind. He wouldn’t be making any decisions on the spur of the moment, but he knew he’d be taking that advice out again sometime, while alone, and giving it more serious consideration. He smiled at his friend - the most loving and most loyal of all of the four Beatles. “Ritchie, I really appreciate your opinion. I want to believe John wouldn’t talk that way about me any more. I hope you’re right.”

“But you’re not going to do anything about it?” Ringo asked, figuratively tugging on Paul’s collar a little.

“I have to think about it,” Paul responded honestly. “I’m so busy dealing with the whole cancer thing. I haven’t got time for another emotional breakdown with John.”


	112. Chapter 112

New York City  
Late November 1997

 

John and Paul were ushered into the ‘green room’ in the New York theatre that the Oprah Winfrey Show had leased for the afternoon in lieu of filming in her regular studio in Chicago. Backstage, there were very excited and chattering people, craning their necks to see their idols. Outside was a large and disappointed but clamoring crowd; many of them had slept out on the sidewalk the night before trying to get the first-come-first-serve tickets to the show, but had not been lucky. Inside the theatre, the lucky audience members were already squealing and giggling with excitement. It was an equal 50/50 of men and women, but the interesting thing was that the audience members ran in age from the youngest allowed in (15 was the eligible age) to people in their 70’s. Each generation in between seemed to comprise an equal share of the audience total. 

Oprah was very excited, because Paul had been her idol as a young girl. This would be her first time meeting him, and of course John was an extra-added attraction. Oprah had been the victim of tabloid stories told by disloyal friends and employees herself, and she had no intention of asking questions about the recent gossip about John. People shouldn’t be forced to deny lies that were made up out of whole cloth; repeating such gossip only gave it more credibility. She had also been asked not to pursue in too much detail the subject of Linda’s health. Paul was prepared to answer the innocent question, “How is Linda doing?” to which he would provide a careful and upbeat answer, but beyond that he would not go. He had made it very clear (through his publicist) that he would not violate Linda’s privacy in that way. Oprah had no problem with this restriction: again, in her view, privacy in such matters should be the norm, not the exception. Beyond these two restrictions - one self-imposed and one imposed by Paul - Oprah had free reign to discuss anything she wanted to with her subjects, so long as time was given for John and Paul to perform 3 songs from the Flaming Pie album. 

The idea to perform live on Oprah was born out of the simple fact that John and Paul could not tour America behind the album, given Linda’s health. The album had legs, and was still doing well, and this special performance was meant to give it another push just before the Christmas buying spree. Oprah had agreed to move her show to New York for the interview since that’s where John and Paul were (while Linda was having tests at Sloan Kettering, and while they all celebrated Thanksgiving in the City). 

Paul was wearing a black long-sleeved polo shirt with black slacks and a leather belt with a silver buckle. John had on his ubiquitous blue jeans and a black cashmere V-neck pullover sweater with the edge of his white undershirt showing an inch or two just above the bottom of the “V”. They each wore Converse shoes, although of differing styles. John wore his silver Peruvian bracelet, and one of the rings Paul had bought him in South America, but Paul was devoid of all jewelry except his modest wedding band. Paul had recently cut his hair shorter, and he had dyed his dark brown (almost black) hair. John still had a head full of auburn curls, although the auburn was out of a bottle now. He had given up contact lenses because they no longer worked as well as the glasses he wore in his favorite granny-style. His eyesight had been getting progressively worse. However, they both looked great, and far younger than their respective 57 and 55 years.

Oprah, like Paul, was in all black, and she excitedly scuttled down the hallway when her assistant told her that John and Paul had arrived and were waiting for her in the green room. 

Meanwhile, as they waited, the two men spoke in soft voices about random things to mask their nervousness. It was difficult to be interviewed live on TV in front of a large audience; neither one of them had ever liked doing it, feeling uncomfortable and canned. 

John said, “Tell me again why we agreed to do this?”

Paul laughed. “You tell me,” he responded pertly.

“It reminds me of that horrible Johnny Carson show we did - back when we were pimping ‘Apple’, remember?” John asked.

“And Johnny wasn’t even there. It was some football player...” Paul remembered.

“Most embarrassing thing I’ve ever been involved with,” John commented. “Who was that bitchy woman asking questions?”

“I don’t remember it. Barely remember it at all. When something has been excruciating, I try not to remember it.” Paul’s knee was jumping, and his hands were tapping on the chair arms. John was sitting way back in his chair, almost swallowed by it, but the foot balancing on his knee was jittery. 

Into this tableau exploded Oprah, full of personality, emotion, and cries of welcome. Both men stood up, having been taught proper manners as little boys by mother and aunt respectively, although their old-fashioned manners were in some ways in conflict with their job description. Hugging and kissing took place, and then not long after that Oprah was gone - she had left the green room to go directly to the stage to deliver her fawning introduction of Lennon & McCartney. 

John, followed closely by Paul, strolled out on to the stage a moment later to screaming and applause. It was deafening and went on for several minutes. They both were grateful for the reception, but nervous about disappointing people. They each took an armchair on either side of Oprah. Paul was quietly relieved that there was distance between him and John on the stage. It was less suggestive, and it would keep both of them from doing some stupid telltale nervous thing like touch each other too much. Oprah enjoyed the long, warm hug that Paul gave her. This was she, ‘living her dream’. 

Once settled, Oprah started by mentioning the crowd sleeping outside all night, and all the screaming and yelling from the audience. “This kind of fame - how does it feel to you?”

The fame question again, John thought. It was very hard to be surprising and original when they all asked the same damn questions over and over. It taxed his creativity to the limit to answer the same questions a little differently each time. Paul never bothered. He just repeated the same answers he’d given a hundred times before, but did it as if it was the first time he’d done so. 

John said, “I like to think that it wasn’t us that changed, but the people around us. But that really isn’t true. You can’t help but be affected by it. I didn’t realize this until the ‘70s when I wasn’t really famous anymore, except for being famous. I could go anywhere in New York and people pretty much left me alone. It got to the point where I felt cheated somehow, if I wasn’t made a fuss of.”

The audience laughed and clapped vigorously.

“Is that your opinion too, Paul?” Oprah asked.

“I suppose I would miss it if I lost it. But mainly I just think I’m normal - you know, ordinary. I’m a bit surprised when people make a fuss over me, as John says. That’s when I realize, ‘I’m Paul McCartney!’ I’m surprised every time I think of it.” 

The audience laughed and clapped vigorously.

John thought, this audience is a pushover - too easy. Better watch my step and not get carried away.

Paul thought, nice people, they want us to do good - silly to be afraid or nervous.

Oprah thought, what the hell did I get myself into? What should I ask next? They’re so fantastic. They’re sitting right there - I can touch each of them. In fact, Paul pats my hand every once in a while to comfort me. I like him! I knew I was going to like him!

Oprah said, “Paul, how do you raise such great kids when you’re so famous? How do you do that?”

John felt a little insulted. So his kids weren’t ‘great’? 

Paul said, “All the Beatle kids are good kids - all of them. But I agree with you about mine, of course: they’re fantastic and I love ‘em. Linda and I weren’t very academic, but what we wanted was for them to have good hearts. If they were good academically, that would be nice, but the main thing is we wanted them to have their feet on the ground, follow their dreams, and have good hearts.” 

The audience applauded enthusiastically. A few women were heard going, “ahhhh...”

John thought, this audience is a Paul audience. They’re a bunch of middle to upper middle class toffs of all races who love Paul.

Paul quickly thought to add, “John’s sons were quite good at school, weren’t they?” Paul looked to John for a response.

John had no earthly idea about Julian (sadly) because he had been absent from his son’s life for all of his school years. But he knew Sean was very bright and did very well at school. He nodded and smiled at Paul’s comment. So like Paul to make sure Julian and Sean got a specific mention.

Oprah said, still focusing on Paul, “Is it true what I read, that you and Linda have never spent a night apart?”

Paul didn’t like that question. It was his own fault - he had made that comment to a reporter only weeks before John came back in his life in 1980, and so it was a tricky thing to talk about now. “I might have been away a few nights,” he joked, “when I was kept beyond my will...but that’s another story.” Paul had defaulted to the Japanese jail bust as a way to get out of the question. 

Again the audience oohed and ahhed, especially the women. They were still madly in love with Paul, obviously.

John had witnessed this question and answer with interest. Paul had carried it off so well, that even he - John - almost believed it! Most of him was hurt, though, at having his role in Paul’s life erased so very thoroughly and effectively with just a few careless words. 

Oprah turned to John. “Your sons have both followed you into the music business. Do you give them advice, or do they want to go their own way?”

That’s a new question, John thought. He said, “Julian is very much his own man. Sean is heavily influenced by his mother’s avant garde music. I think both of them are great. I love their work, and have gone to their club shows. I actually envy them that - the club life. When I was in it, I wanted out of it - I wanted ‘the big time’. But once I made ‘the big time’ I missed the spontaneous and uncompromising nature of club music. My sons don’t need to make it big, because I already did that. So they can afford to do the luxurious thing, which is not compromise, and play to small, appreciative audiences.”

The audience clapped enthusiastically. Well, thought John, they seem to like me too. I wonder if I could just say random nonsense and still get applauded. 

During a commercial break, John and Paul joked with the audience, who were shouting out “I love you’s” in between squeals and giggles. For John and Paul it was surreal because they had thought this kind of hero worship was in their past. But apparently the pendulum had swung back, and they were again squeal-worthy. Then the break was over, and Oprah smoothly eased back into interview mode.

“Paul,” she said coquettishly, “when I was a little girl I had your pictures on my wall. I used to look at them every morning, and ask myself where you were and what you were doing. Did you think of me?”

The audience laughed and applauded, the women members clearly signaling that they had done pretty much the same thing as Oprah when they were younger.

Paul was a little embarrassed, and a lot humbled. He didn’t understand what it was that made people love him so much. He wished he could believe in it 100%, but he was always afraid they wouldn’t love him if they knew how ordinary he really was. He said, “Yes, I did think of you. You and a lot of others, of course...” He winked roguishly. 

“Of course,” Oprah laughed. “I think Linda is good for you. I wanted you to marry me, but I think you made the right choice.”

The whole audience lit up with laughter. They were vicariously living through Oprah’s memories.

John was a little fed up about getting the short end of this stick. He wasn’t used to being the one in the background - that was Paul’s job! He decided to make a splash. “I used to have Paul’s picture on the wall in my bedroom when I was younger, too,” he said jokingly, “and I wondered what he was up to each morning. Did you think of me, Paul?”

The audience burst out in unrestrained laughter and applause. There were very appreciative belly laughs coming from a half dozen male audience members. 

Paul said, “You always knew what I was up to. We were in the same band! Don’t try to horn in on Oprah’s scene!” 

Again, monotonously, the audience screamed with laughter and delight. 

This is a bleeding cakewalk, John sneered to himself. We’re gonna get pilloried by the rock press for this gig.

“How is Linda?” Oprah asked, quieting her voice and expression to a more subtle and somber level.

Paul had expected the question, but was still taken unawares when it happened. He said, “She’s doing good. She’s a strong girl. A brave girl.” That was it. That was all he wanted to say, except, “Thanks for asking.”

Oprah could see that Paul was tearing up, so she turned to John so Paul could regain his bearings. “John, what about your album, ‘Flaming Pie’, do you like the most?”

“That it is done!” He declared, causing everyone to laugh after the unexpected somber moment about Linda. “I also like the spare nature of some of it, and the raw rockiness of other parts of it. I’m proud of that album.” 

More applause and cheers...it was almost tedious now, John thought.

“How does your process work - yours and Paul’s? It seems like magic to the rest of us,” Oprah posed.

“It is a bit like magic,” John admitted. “Paul actually dreams some of his music, and we seem to speak our own non-verbal language when it comes to our songwriting.”

“You’re the most successful songwriters in the history of music; isn’t that amazing to you?” Oprah asked.

Paul said, “We’ve been lucky.”

“Lucky - hundreds of times?” Oprah asked incredulously.

“Yes!” Paul answered.

John laughed and said, “Paul really means that, Oprah. He’s a musical genius, so he thinks this stuff just pops out of him, and it is ‘luck’. I realize that it is more than luck - it is talent and concentrated effort. But the truth is we don’t work that hard to write songs. We have a rule - 3 hours to finish a song, and if we can’t finish it in 3 hours it must suck so we put it aside.” 

“Three hours! I can’t even do my laundry in three hours!” Oprah exclaimed to hearty audience appreciation. 

“Well,” Paul said soothingly, “There are two of us each spending three hours, so it is actually six hours, if you see what I mean. And if you can’t write a song in six man-hours, then the song idea really needs to be put on the shelf.”

“The two of you seem to have a very close, very special relationship. How would you describe it, John?” Oprah meant the question in the most innocent of ways, and John took it that way.

“You know, we grew up together, we learned to play instruments and write songs together. We each lost our mothers, and helped each other through that. We had a lot of dark and hard days back in the early years, and we had our share of disagreements and fights. But a relationship grows under all that pressure - it either grows or it explodes. And ours finally exploded after about 11 or 12 years, and we needed time apart.”

Oprah asked, “What happened there? Why did the Beatles break up?”

Paul said, “We were getting a bit testy with each other; all of our egos had reached this point where we couldn’t adjust our attitudes anymore. It was time to move on to something new.”

“And the weird thing,” John added, “was that we needed to figure out who we were as individuals - him, Paul, and me, John. We’d been a hyphenate so long, since we were boys, really - John’nPaul - that we each thought we needed time and space to figure out who we were as individuals - if that makes any sense.”

“Oh yes,” Oprah says, “It makes total sense. But it was hard on us fans.”

“It was hard on us, too,” John stated. “I mean, I really didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t Paul’s partner. I latched on to my new wife, but I never felt comfortable in any other creative partnership. Once you’ve driven around in a Rolls Royce, it is difficult to settle for even a Cadillac.”

“Am I the Rolls Royce?” Paul asked hopefully, playfully.

John laughed and responded, “Top o’ the line, mate.”

The audience melted. More plaudits. More squeals. It was almost too perfect an atmosphere. 

 

*****

 

November 27, 1997  
Thanksgiving  
New York City

 

Jodie Eastman had taken the laboring oar in preparing a bountiful Thanksgiving experience for not only her family of five, but also Linda’s family of six, plus John Lennon, and her two other sisters’ families. They had a huge long adults table in the dining room, and a rented large round table for the teenagers in the sitting room, and a smaller round rented table for the under 12’s in the kitchen breakfast room. 

Linda and her two younger sisters, Laura and Louise, helped Jodie with her preparations. Linda was frustrated with how often she had to sit down and rest. Suddenly her legs would be weak, her back would be aching, and her breathing would become shallow, and one of her sisters would guide her to the sitting room for a rest. She would watch the activities from afar, and already feel disembodied, as though she were dead, and watching everyone from a floating position near the ceiling. This would cause such anxiety, that she would force herself up off on the sofa, and back into the work force. Her sisters obviously were worried about her, but she did everything in her power to set them at ease. She used her lovely smile, and her everyday common sense, and for the most part she could convince them that all was well. Yes, she was fighting off cancer, but this new treatment was giving her hope. That was the message that she wanted to send, and she was successful in doing so. Her sisters and her sister-in-law were encouraged by her ability to rally her strength repeatedly over the course of Thanksgiving morning and afternoon. 

It was a bit difficult for the McCartneys, because the Eastmans - including Linda’s sisters and their families - were not vegetarian. Linda had to bite her tongue, and all of the help she provided went towards the non-meat menu items. But she had to stomach the fact that there were two huge turkeys, one large duck, and one large ham, each with appropriate gravies, along with the more acceptable mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, and three varieties of salad, Brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, and hot rolls that were also traditional Thanksgiving fare. Linda had thrown in a hearty macaroni and cheese dish and an equally hearty eggplant and cauliflower casserole so that her own family would not leave the table feeling unsatisfied. The main thing, at this moment in time (given her health issues) was that her children feel stability from and connection with her family. They would need the support of their various aunts if things turned out badly - if Linda died while still fairly young.

John was quite happy to dig into the various meat offerings along with the rest, but he had the good manners to seat himself far down the opposite side of the table, so he was not near or across from either Paul or Linda. He didn’t want to rub their noses in the fact that he still liked his meat from time to time. They were good-hearted people with perhaps idealistic views of humans and animals, but they believed what they preached absolutely, and they also lived what they preached, so John totally respected that about them. 

Paul took his cues from Linda. Ordinarily, Linda would not sit down at a table that had meat on it as a matter of principle. He had been willing to boycott if that is what Linda wanted, but this year it seemed so important to her that she spend the time with her family. Thus, she was meeting them more than halfway. She made not one comment about poor, suffering animals. Paul knew this took an enormous amount of self-discipline for Linda, and then thought to himself that it must be because she worried that she might die, and thus she needed to be close to and in harmony with her siblings. A big family man himself, Paul totally understood, so he sat next to Linda at the table, periodically squeezing her thigh or her hand in reassurance, and they both smiled bravely as Linda’s brother John carved the poor, unfortunate turkey carcass. 

 

*****

 

London  
Boxing Day 1997

 

The house on Cavendish was in a bit of an uproar. The grown McCartney kids were all moving restlessly through the sitting room and front hall, wearing car coats and warm clothes. They were waiting for their parents to be finished preparing for their post-Christmas holiday in the sun. John was also coming, and this year Sean had accepted an invitation too. When John and Sean came over from across the mews, they were presented with this lively tableau. 

Linda had not slept well the night before. She had been anxious about the packing and tasks that needed to be done before they could leave for the airport. So now she was struggling through those tasks (having finished the last of the packing), and she was giving the housekeeper who was housesitting in their absence a long list of instructions as her family milled around eager to leave. Paul could see she was spinning her wheels, but knew better than to interrupt her. She would not be able to relax on the trip if she was worrying about anything back home. 

Finally, though, the logjam had cleared, and the McCartneys and Lennons dispersed into two large waiting limos for delivery to the airport. Because of Linda’s health, this year the holiday would be in the Bahamas, which was favored not only for the weather but for the less than an hour flight time to Miami. Because southern Florida was the retirement destination for much of New York and New Jersey’s well to do Jewish community, there were topnotch medical services available there in case of an emergency.

The weather as they landed was in the high seventies, and there was a kind of fresh balminess in the air. Everyone had divested themselves of their overcoats, and appreciated the warmth of the sun as they climbed down from their chartered private plane and into the cars that would take them to the villa they had rented. It was a magnificent mansion right on the ocean on the west end of Grand Bahama. The place had a huge pool overlooking the ocean, and there were beds enough for 12 people. In fact, the party was 9: Paul and Linda and their four children, plus Mary’s long-term boyfriend, and John and Sean. The villa came with a daily maid service, and this year Paul had insisted that they have a cook/housekeeper on call because he didn’t want Linda to overtax herself. Linda had grudgingly agreed; her experience at Thanksgiving with her frequent losses of energy had convinced her that Paul was right - she needed a default net to support her. Otherwise, Mary and Stella would end up spending the whole two weeks handling household matters instead of enjoying the break. 

The more senior adults had decided to take the two master suites on one wing of the house. This was convenient for them, because Paul and Linda had one of the suites, and John (and Paul) had the other suite. They were adjacent, but with two en suites separating the bedrooms. Having the separate wing provided additional privacy to the three adults. The six young adults stacked up in the slightly smaller suites on the other wing of the house. There were five bedrooms with smaller en suites on that side, and so it was decided that James and Sean would share the largest suite on that wing, leaving each of the girls with her own bedroom (although Mary obviously shared with her boyfriend, Alistair Donald.) Thus happily situated, the family began to enjoy their holiday.

 

*****

 

It was a few days into their stay that Linda found the opportunity she had been looking for to talk to John. The two of them enjoyed lying on chaises by the pool, however covered up and protected by umbrellas they needed to be, whereas Paul was more of an action man. He could lie still for about 15 or 20 minutes, but then he’d remember something he needed to do, and then he’d run around keeping busy, whether it was sailing a small boat with Sean and James, or playing beach volleyball (badly) with Mary, Stella and Alistair, or going into Nassau for a day’s activities with one or more of the kids. On one of those afternoons when Paul was off being Paul, and Linda and John were relaxing by the pool, Linda chose to speak. 

“What’s going on with you and Paul?” She asked suddenly.

John looked up from his book, Cold Mountain. “Whatcha mean?” He asked. 

“I sense a kind of restraint between you two. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong,” John admitted, after stalling for a few moments. “I’m pretty sure Paul is disappointed in me, and believes all that crap from the tabloids. But he is pretending that he’s cool with it.” 

Linda was relieved that John had taken her intrusion so well. This was her chance to help. “I don’t believe you have been badmouthing Paul behind his back - not since the late ‘70s, anyway,” Linda said staunchly. “I think you’ve hit back at him by having ill-advised affairs and doing crazy things, but I don’t think you trash talk him.”

John looked gratefully at Linda. He appreciated her trust. “I don’t, you know. And even in the ‘70s all the crap I told was to reporters, which wasn’t behind his back, really, since I knew they would publish it; as often as not when asked privately about Paul by friends, I would say nice things about him, not bad things. It sounds perverse, but I only trash talk Paul to his face or in public, not privately behind his back!”

Linda laughed. “You’re both perverse. Honestly. But I know why you do it, John. You have the uncanny ability to find a person’s Achilles Heel, and then you aim your wit at that weakness in order to do the most possible damage. You know as well as I do that Paul is extremely sensitive to criticism. You know that it cuts him very deep. If you want to hurt him, it is a waste of time to insult him privately when he will never find out about it. You’d want to do it publicly, so you could achieve your goal of hurting him.”

John was staring at Linda with fascination. He couldn’t disagree with what she said, but he was momentarily embarrassed by the cruel accuracy of her assessment of his motivations. “That’s a harsh judgment,” was all he could think to say.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Linda responded.

John was silent. 

Linda took this to be a positive response. She continued: “So, you used to abuse him publicly in order to inflict maximum damage, and you did it so well and so believably that you have marked him for life. He will probably always have a deep down fear that you actually meant all those things you said, and that you still think them. You went for his deep insecurities, and you got them. So now you are reaping what you sowed. Up pop these tabloid stories that you are still badmouthing him, and there is that permanently damaged part of him who believes it is true.” 

John was blinking back tears. Linda had just put into clear, uncompromising words what he had feared was true all along. “So, he does believe I said those things about him to Harvey?” John asked, his voice small and beseeching. 

“Yes, I’m afraid that is what he believes. He doesn’t want to believe it, which is why he pretends he doesn’t believe it, but he can’t help himself. It’s a reflexive reaction.” Linda was not going to mince words. If you didn’t hit John over the head with a two-by-four he never got the point. 

“So what can I do?” John asked plaintively.

“You have to sit him down and talk bluntly to him about it. You have to explain why you said those things in the ‘70s, and you have to keep confronting him until he opens up to you. If you get upset, angry, or hurt, he will clam up. So you have to be the strong, mature one, and maintain a calm demeanor throughout. Can you do that?” Linda’s face was dead serious.

John said honestly, “I don’t know.”

Linda showed a little exasperation then. “John - I’m not going to be around much longer. You do know that, right?”

“Linda, don’t say that...” John started

“No! I have to say it! When I’m not here Paul will fall apart - totally - if you’re not the strong one. He leans on me emotionally, the way you lean on him emotionally. Unless you pull up your socks and grow up, he’ll fall totally apart - at least for a while. He is resilient, and he will be strong again, so you won’t have to sacrifice your ego for long.”

John sat there staring at Linda, unable to speak. She continued with what she had to say:

“When I’m no longer here, he will be all yours. You’ve wanted that forever, right? So soon it will happen. Will you be able to stand up to it? Will you be there for him?” Linda’s voice had become almost messianic. She allowed a few emotional seconds to pass before she added, “I think you can do it. But you have to force yourself to grow up and carry your share of the load. You might as well start now. Find a moment alone with him, let him know it is safe to tell you the truth, and then push him gently until he tells you how he really feels.”

John allowed a few tears to fall after this speech. He hadn’t really wanted to think about Linda being gone. Too late, over the last year or so, he had come to see how Linda made his relationship with Paul possible. She was the strong center, the adult presence, that made the two of them work. This realization filled him with fear. He didn’t have a lot of faith in his own ability to cope. If he got bored, angry or afraid, he would go off at extreme and crazy angles without warning. This forced Paul to be the strong, resilient one. But Linda was right - Paul was as insecure in his own way as John was. He needed someone strong and resilient to be there for him when things were going wrong. Without Linda, what would Paul do? He would look to replace that feeling of security and common sense that Linda provided. The ‘replacement’ could be him - John - if he was up to it; but if he wasn’t up to it, Paul might find someone else...

 

*****

 

That night at dinner, Linda fell ill. She had to excuse herself, and just made it to the bathroom where she was sick. Paul had followed right behind her, and insisted upon helping her. He then assisted her to their bedroom, where he helped her to bed, and climbed in with her. He clung to her as if to life itself. He was deeply afraid for her. The bloom was off the rose - the improvements they had seen after the stem cell transplant were waning. In his bones, Paul knew something was very wrong. 

Safe in Paul’s arms, Linda said, “I’m not sure I can make it through the whole holiday. I feel so sick.” 

“We can fly to Miami or New York first thing in the morning,” Paul said staunchly. 

“No, let’s see how I feel. I’d like to stay as long as I can.”

Paul reluctantly agreed. He supposed there wouldn’t be much they could do for her in New York anyway if the cancer was back again with a vengeance. It was in that moment that he remembered Derek Taylor’s quick decline after the reoccurrence of his cancer. Linda eventually fell asleep as Paul quietly sang in her ear, but Paul was awake all night, his heart an aching, throbbing thing, and his soul frozen by fear.


	113. Chapter 113

New York City  
Mid-January, 1998

 

Paul and Linda had insisted upon leaving John with the kids while they flew back to New York. Linda was feeling much worse, and needed to be tucked up in bed with some new meds. She had sadly lasted only 6 days of the 14-day vacation. But she didn’t see why the rest of them should have to cut their trip short. Of course, the kids had all complained that they didn’t want to be there if their parents weren’t there, but had been reassured that maybe Paul and Linda would fly back once Linda had her meds adjusted, and she was feeling a little better. When they made that promise, neither Paul nor Linda believed it, but they didn’t even admit this to each other. It was a convenient fiction, and it did encourage the kids to stay and try to enjoy the rest of the trip. 

John had felt torn. He had preferred to go with Paul and Linda. The kids were all adults and didn’t need his monitoring presence. In fact, all six of those young people had better heads on their shoulders than he did, with the possible exception of Heather. But he had not been invited. Paul hadn’t even left the question open - John sensed that Paul believed that taking care of Linda was his job, and his job alone. Thus, feeling bereft, John stayed behind. Linda’s health had declined so rapidly, that John had not even yet found the time to pull Paul aside and have the tough but loving conversation that now Linda as well as Ringo and Fiona had suggested. And raising such a selfish issue while Linda was so ill seemed like the heights of inconsideration to John. So he had kept his big mouth shut, and had given Paul and Linda big hugs and reassuring smiles as they left the villa and got into the car that would take them to the airport. 

Now Paul was seated in Dr. Norton’s office at Sloan Kettering, while two other doctors were conducting more tests on Linda. “I wanted to get you alone,” Dr. Norton said softly, “so that you can decide how best to handle this information.”

“What information?” Paul asked, his voice a dull drone. 

“No easy way to say this - the cancer has spread to her liver.”

“Liver?” Paul repeated listlessly. Paul stared at the doctor blankly. The liver? What the fuck did the liver do again? Why was it necessary? Was this one of those organs you could do without, like a spleen? Could it be removed? Or could she have a transplant? All of these questions were racing through Paul’s brain with lightening speed. He’d never paid much attention to ‘the liver.’ It wasn’t something you wrote songs about, like the heart or the eyes or the mouth...There was nothing even remotely romantic about it.

Dr. Norton could see that Paul’s brain was stuck. He knew he had to get through to Paul soon, before Linda came back in. “The liver is essential to the body’s metabolism, Paul.”

“What about taking the cancerous part out?” Paul asked hopefully.

Dr. Norton’s head shook ‘no’ very slightly. “The cancer has already progressed to the point where removal is not an option.”

“But what about a transplant?” Paul was grasping for straws now.

“She would not qualify for a liver. We have to give them to people who have a good chance of living a normal life after receiving them. In any case, Linda’s cancer would only move to her other organs.”

“So what options are there?” Paul asked weakly. 

Dr. Norton sat silently returning Paul’s intense gaze but saying nothing. 

“There are none.” Paul said, answering his own question.

“We have no more experimental treatments. All we can do is try to make her comfortable.”

Paul’s heart stopped beating for several seconds. Or at least it felt as though it did to Paul. He stared at the doctor, his confusion writ plain upon his face. 

Dr. Norton got up and placed a chart on the table in front of Paul. He turned it so Paul could read it right side up. It was a drawing of the mid-section of a female body, with all of the organs drawn in. Dr. Norton pointed to the liver, which was depicted in a dark brown color, and looked roughly like the shape of half a square. It was sitting on the right side of the body, in the top of the chest cavity. The left side of the liver was smaller, and was located just above the stomach. The doctor had drawn some markings on the left side of the liver - some black lines. They covered a small portion of the left side of the liver and were in an irregular crescent shape. 

“This is the diseased part of Linda’s liver,” Dr. Norton intoned. 

Paul stared at it accusingly. It was awfully small. It had to be only 15% of the left side of the liver, and the left side of the liver was only about 15% of the whole liver. “It doesn’t look very big,” he said hopefully.

Dr. Norton’s face reflected his sadness, although Paul didn’t see it as his head was still bent over the chart. “The important point to keep in mind is that one month ago when we last did an MRI, it wasn’t there at all.”

Paul looked up with a question in his eyes.

“In other words,” Dr. Norton explained, “this much growth occurred in less than five weeks. It is very aggressive.” 

“Oh.” Paul had a deer-in-the-headlights look. Dr. Norton immediately felt bad, but there was not a thing he could do to make it better. It was frustrating for a doctor not to be able to make a thing better. That was his whole raison d’etre, and it made him feel next to useless when he had to confront a terminal patient or her close family members. 

Dr. Norton continued. “If we thought we could contain the cancer here in the liver, we could remove the diseased portion, and maybe that would prolong the inevitable. But the MRI has found more cancer cells growing here and here.” The doctor made a few small dots in the middle of the right side of the liver. “Very small, but if they split as fast as the cells in the left side of the liver, it is only a matter of time before the entire liver is diseased.” 

“Is that it? Is that the whole of it, or is there more?” Paul sounded angry, but it was mainly his fear talking. “Are you sure we can’t do a transplant?” He asked this question for the third time, hoping that three times would be the charm.

Dr. Norton responded patiently. “Linda’s doctors in London told you two years ago that there were cancer cells in her blood. Since then the cells have multiplied and metastasized to other parts of the body. They are probably now starting to grow in others of her vital organs; we just can’t see them yet on the MRI. We can’t remove all her organs, and even if she could qualify for a transplanted liver - which with her diagnosis she can’t - the cancer cells are still there in her blood, and if her body didn’t reject the transplant, the new liver would most likely soon be infected by the cancer cells.”

Paul listened very intently to what the doctor said. The words came out of him without being bidden: “It’s a zero sum game. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“It gives me no pleasure,” Dr. Norton said gently.

Paul sighed. “I know. I know you’re all doing your best.” He sat quietly for a moment and said, “So - how long?” 

Dr. Norton said as gently as possible, “She could die within a few weeks, but in any case, statistically she is not likely to live longer than six more months. We can keep her as healthy as possible with diet and pain medication, and this may help her live a bit longer.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Finally, Dr. Norton broke the silence again to ask, “Do you want me to tell Linda, or would you rather do so yourself? And how much do you want to tell her? We will respect your choices, I promise you.”

 

*****

 

Later that Evening  
The Bahamas

 

John was laid out in his bedroom, trying to read his book. He knew somewhere in the house the kids were all getting dressed up. They were planning to go out on the town that night for dinner, and John had been invited, but he had declined the invitation, not wanting to end up in the tabloids again. Instead, he’d eaten a light dinner he prepared himself, and had thought to spend the evening reading, with some soothing Brazilian music playing deep in the background. The phone rang.

“Hey John. It’s Paul.” The voice was low and very subdued.

“How is Linda?” John asked immediately.

Paul did not hold back. “The cancer is back, and much worse than ever. It’s in her liver now.”

John was as surprised by the mention of this organ as had been Paul. “Liver?” He asked incredulously. 

“I know. It’s a very improbable place for it to turn up,” Paul joked darkly. “I never would have guessed it in a million years.”

John snickered a little. “Yeah, I would have gone for the lungs, or maybe the stomach, if I had to guess. One of the more popular organs.” 

It was Paul’s turn to snicker. "Linda always did go her own way."

They understood each other’s sick senses of humor. They’d been thrown out of one of Paul’s uncles’ funerals back when they were teenagers for laughing during the sermon because the priest had an unfortunate difficulty with pronouncing the letter ‘r’. They had also often enjoyed making people uncomfortable about their dead mothers: John- how is your mother? She’s dead. Oh how terrible, and Paul, your mother? She’s dead too. That was one thing that the outwardly iconoclastic Lennon and the outwardly bright-as-a-penny McCartney had always shared: a very, very dark sense of the absurd. They were a lot more alike inside than they appeared to be on the surface.

The moment of humor vanished as if it hadn’t happened. 

“So what’s going to happen now?” John asked, scared.

“She’s going to die. They told me it could be a few weeks, or maybe as long as six months, but probably somewhere in the middle. The cancer is spreading very fast in her liver, and they think it is probably growing now in other vital organs.”

“Christ Paul,” was all John could say. “Nothing to do? No hope?”

“No - no hope.” Paul’s voice sounded dead to John.

“Does Linda know?” John asked.

“We haven’t told her yet. The doctor left it up to me, and I needed to think about it. What do you think I should do, John? Should I tell her?” 

John was glad that he was trusted enough to answer this all-important question for Paul. “You should have the doctor tell her that it has spread to her liver. You don’t have to mention the ‘how long’ question unless she asks, and then you should tell her the truth.”

“But won’t she give up if she knows?” Paul worried.

“Paul, she already knows. She knows she’s dying. She told me she knows it isn’t long now. I don’t think she’s telling herself it is only weeks or months; she is probably telling herself it could be a year or more. But she knows she isn’t going to hold the cancer at bay much longer.”

“She told you she knows she is going to die soon?”

“Yes.” 

“Why would she tell you, and not me?” Paul asked, feeling insecure.

“Because she is protecting you, Paul. That’s what she does, isn’t it? She protects you.” 

Paul was silent on the other end for a few moments. “Thanks John. I’ll take your advice.” 

John said, “Should I fly up to be with you?” 

Paul was grateful for the offer. He gave it some thought. “I guess the kids will be fine without you there.”

John guffawed. “They’re all more mature than I am, Paul, and far less liable to get into trouble, too.”

Paul had to smile at that. “In that case, I think Linda and I would be very grateful for your company.”

 

*****

 

The Next Day  
New York City  
Sloan Kettering Hospital

 

“The cancer is in your liver, now,” Dr. Norton told Linda. Paul was seated next to her in the doctor’s office, as a heavy rain slashed against the windows behind them.

“What does that mean?” Linda asked. Her brain was stunned by the sound of all kinds of alarm bells going off. She couldn’t figure out which one to focus on first.

“The cancer has settled in one of your organs, your liver. It is growing there.” Dr. Norton said this as slowly and as clearly as he could, because he could tell that Linda was having a difficult time understanding his words.

“So what do we do about it?” Linda asked, turning to Paul for support. He had his arm around her, and he squeezed her tightly. He gave her a brave smile and patted her leg with his other hand.

Dr. Norton said, “We are going to adjust your meds to give you something for your nausea and pain, as well as some to boost your immune system.”

Linda sat stone still. No one was suggesting any kind of treatment. This must mean there were no more treatments available to her. As she had feared, it was now a matter of how long she could stave off the inevitable. She didn’t want to show her emotions in front of the doctor, so after listening to (but not really hearing) all of the doctor’s instructions about taking her meds, she allowed Paul to lead her by the hand out of the hospital, and into their waiting car. Still she refused to break down - not while there was a chauffeur present. She and Paul were absolutely quiet all the way to the apartment they had rented. Paul had his arm around Linda, and had laid his head on hers as she leaned on his shoulder. He knew there would be many tears ahead, and he was prepared to receive them from her with as much strength as possible.

 

*****

 

Later That Night

 

John had arrived from JFK airport at dinnertime. The apartment the McCartneys had rented near the hospital was very nice, but it seemed cold and dark that particular evening, as John was let in by Paul. 

After a desultory hug, Paul said, “Linda is asleep. They’ve given her some pretty strong sleeping pills. She cried herself to sleep.”

John drew Paul back into a real hug this time. He whispered in Paul’s ear, “I’m so sorry.” They pulled apart, and Paul said,

“The caterers came about 45 minutes ago, but Linda wasn’t hungry and neither was I. They put stuff in the warming oven. Are you hungry?”

“I’m a little peckish,” John admitted. “Let’s see what there is.” He led the way in the direction Paul had indicated, and found a nice vegetarian repast on three serving dishes in the warming oven. He took them out, and dished out helpings on two plates. Paul was seated at the nearby table, and he was absent-mindedly tracing a set of keys back and forth over the marble tabletop. John set the plates down and then poured out some red wine for them both. He joined Paul at the table. “You look exhausted, Pud,” he said softly.

Paul’s eyes were averted to the table as he kept playing with the keys, but he did say, “Can’t sleep.”

John reached out and put his hand over the keys, and for a few seconds Paul held on to the keys fiercely, but then he let go, and John took them and threw them up on the nearby counter. He turned back to Paul. “You’ll sleep with me tonight,” he said firmly.

“Linda...”

“We’ll both climb into her bed and you can be in the middle. You don’t want Linda to be alone, and I don’t want you to be alone. So we’ll nip two birds with one stone and all three sleep together.”

Paul had to smile at that. “Lovely imagery that: nipping birds with stones.” 

“It’s what I’m known for,” John pointed out comically. That decision made, John moved on to more dangerous territory. “When Linda dies, it will just be you and me, mate. Have you given that any thought?” 

Paul was watching his hand as he played with his food with a fork. “I can’t even think about a world without Linda. My mind won’t go there.” 

“You may have to start thinking about that now - to prepare yourself,” John said gently. 

“I’ll just have to figure it out when it happens; I just can’t go there yet.” Paul’s mouth was set in a stubborn line. 

John recognized that as Paul’s line-in-the-sand expression. He nodded acceptingly. He hadn’t really expected Paul to talk about life without Linda; he had just wanted to create the opening for the conversation. Later, after Paul had a chance to digest things a bit, they could talk about it together in a little more depth. “I feel I have some ‘splainin’ to do,” John said impishly, imitating Ricky Ricardo’s Cuban accent. 

“Oh?” Paul finally looked up, giving John his full attention. What’s he done now? Paul was worrying. Did he get up to trouble in the Bahamas after I left?

“This whole mess with Harvey Cutler and the tabloid stories. I’ve neglected to sit down and discuss it seriously with you. I should have done so, weeks ago.”

Paul was confused. Why was John bringing this up after all this time? He must be ready to tell me the truth about it. Paul’s face looked grim as he said, “Okay, what do you need to tell me?” He was expecting a confession of guilt.

John saw the expression and he felt bad about it. Paul trusted him so little, and he could see why he didn’t, even though it hurt him to acknowledge it. “I don’t have much to tell you, Paul, other than the stuff about me bad mouthing you to Harvey is not true. I haven’t been slagging you off to other people - I haven’t done it since we reconciled. I swear.” 

Paul was looking uncertainly at John. Showing on his face was the plain desire to believe John, warring with the memory of all the times when John had let him down. Paul didn’t say anything, but waited for whatever else John had to tell him.

“I don’t know why Harvey decided to do this. He is going to be sorry. He’s a drug dealer, you know, and if he is going about dealing dirt on others, he leaves himself open to dirt being dealt back.”

“You’re not going to turn him in to the cops, are you?” Paul asked, perplexed. “There is no point to doing that.”

“But I can tell a reporter that I saw him dealing drugs, or something like that, and let the world cave in on him.”

Paul gave that some thought. “I think you should leave well enough alone, John. I’ve never been a believer in an eye for an eye. It always escalates from there, and you can’t control the consequences.”

John studied Paul for a while, knowing full well that Paul was right. Nastiness always bounced back on the purveyor, sooner or later. He pushed that issue aside. “Mainly, I wanted you to tell me how you feel about that stuff - that gossip. Do you believe it?”

Paul was exhausted, depressed, and afraid over the whole Linda thing. That night he was very vulnerable, and very few of his usual defenses were up. “I guess I thought it was within the realm of possibility - you talking shit about me to people when you were mad at me. That seemed quite possible in fact.”

John winced. He knew Paul thought this, because Ringo had told him after he’d had his conversation with Paul. Still, it hurt to hear it. But at least he didn’t have to chase Paul all over the room to get him to tell him this hard truth. John said, “I was a fool - an insecure, jealous fool - after we broke up, babe. I was lashing out in pain. I wish I could take it all back. I would if I could. But ever since we’ve been friends again, honestly, I won’t let anyone say a word against you. What passes between you and me - well, that’s private, and I haven’t violated that privacy. I have not talked to Harvey Cutler about you since 1980. The subject has never come up.” 

Paul wanted to believe what John said very badly. He didn’t know why that tiny voice in his head kept saying, ‘beware!’ He chose his words carefully, to better explain his fears. “I know I can be annoying, John. I know that about myself. But with any person, you have to take the bad with the good, since no person is without bad and good. By being your friend, I am asking you to be loyal to the bad in me, as well as to the good. It is very important for me - being able to be entirely myself, and know that my friends will love and protect me no matter how much of an asshole I can be. I guess I worry that you really don’t like the bad side of me. That you have contempt for it, and that you can’t help making jokes about it in front of others - you know, taking the piss out of me over things that embarrass me. Makes me want to hold myself back.”

John heard this remarkable confession with remarkable restraint. He remembered Linda’s words. He was determined to show no fear, no anger, and no pain. He said, “I know I earned your distrust, Paul. I’m very conscious of that fact. I overestimated your ability to take my crap and not be hurt by it. You always seem so placid and untouched by it. I guess I thought I could say what I wanted to or about you, and that you would deal me no permanent consequences.”

Paul leaned closer to John over the table. “None of this means I love you any less, John. I’m just fearful that the parts of me you hate will finally add up to disgust, and I will lose your friendship.”

“Paul, first, I don’t hate any part of you. I rarely find you annoying. You have me confused with George, or something. When you are a bossy perfectionist, I think it is entertaining. I just sit back and enjoy the show. And when you are talking all that conservative Liverpool family stuff, I find it kind of cute. I’d never admit it to anyone else, but I dig that about you. What I have found maddening about you is how you can just close yourself off, and I can’t reach you. But that just makes me try harder to get closer- it doesn’t push me away. I don’t know what you are talking about when you say you have a bad side. What do you think this bad side is?”

Paul was fully engaged in the conversation now. John was telling him things he didn’t know, and they were things he very much wanted to hear. But he had to remind John that he had, on other occasions, said things that were quite the opposite. “You told reporters I had a devil side and an angel side. So at least back in the early ‘70s you thought I had a bad side.”

“Paul, all of that was just exaggerated garbage! I would be ranting about how awful you were, and then some damned reporter would say, ‘but he did that nice thing for you,’ and then I’d have to come up with an explanation for the nice thing you did. I was angry with you because you were in love with someone else; I wasn’t really angry about our partnership at all. You know that - since we couldn’t talk publicly about our personal relationship, the only thing left was to talk about our partnership. It was going to be an incomplete story for that reason alone.”

Paul nodded slowly in recognition of that salient point: the press back then wasn’t even speculating about them in that way. Nothing could be further from the rock press’s mind. Since John wasn’t about to blurt out, ‘yes, Paul and I were close - we were lovers for years, and I got pissed off when he married someone else,’ he found that in order to explain his anger he had to exaggerate the problems they had experienced in their partnership - most of which problems were themselves driven by this underlying truth: Paul had ended their sexual relationship in the spring of ‘68, and John had been enraged by this perceived betrayal even though he was deep in the throes of his faddish affair with Yoko. 

Paul sighed heavily. “I do see your point,” he admitted. “But my fears are not rational. I can’t seem to control them.”

John added, “And I haven’t helped at all, with all my acting out and crazy betrayals. I guess I’m reaping what I’ve sown.” John echoed Linda’s heavy words.

Paul felt sympathy for John. He knew John couldn’t help his outbursts, his little rebellions. To love John meant accepting a lot of behavior he would never accept from anyone else. John was special, and thus he received special treatment from Paul. As Paul had these thoughts, John reached out and grabbed Paul’s left hand in both of his and squeezed tightly. Paul said, “It’s like that song you wrote before we made it up - ‘I’m Losing You.’ You said in that lyric, ‘I know I hurt you then, but man, that was way back when. Do you still have to carry that cross?’ You wrote that about me, didn’t you?”

John remembered writing the song one very hard day in the late ‘70s. He couldn’t remember the exact month or year. He had been desperately missing Paul that day, filled with a kind of anxiety-driven rage. “Yeah, it was about you,” he agreed. 

“It is hard for me to show my emotions in the best of times,” Paul pointed out, “never mind after I’ve had them ridiculed in public. But I do wish I could put the cross down. I think my load would be so much lighter if I did.” 

John heard this acknowledgement and was touched by it. “It will take time, I’m sure, but maybe we can make these things up to each other. We keep promising each other we will, and then forgetting our promises. Maybe this time we can actually put them completely behind us.”

“I hope so. That would be nice,” Paul responded.

 

*****

 

January 26, 1998  
Jackson, Tennessee

 

A few days earlier Paul’s old friend and mentor the Rockabilly Cat Carl Perkins died. The funeral was set for January 26th, in Perkins’s hometown of Jackson, Tennessee. This was yet one more funeral Paul could not attend. He and George Harrison had spoken to each other over the phone about it. George, too, had been very close to Carl. Paul had fretted over the fact he could not attend the service because of Linda’s health. George fully understood and said that he would definitely go, and would give the Perkins family Paul’s best regards.

So it was on a brisk Monday morning that George Harrison found himself in a small church in Jackson, Tennessee, with his long hair parted in the middle and trailing his shoulders. Olivia and Dhani had come with him, and they all were given seats of honor up near the front. Paul had handed over video of him talking with Carl Perkins a year earlier, and this was played along with other videos at the service. The service went on for a good hour before Wynonna Judd, who had just finished singing a spine-tingling version of How Great Thou Art and was acting as a kind of master of ceremonies, called George up to see if he wanted to contribute something to the service. Nervously but gamely, George went up to the front, borrowed a guitar, and began to tune it. He warned the audience it had been “a long time” since he had played the song, and then he performed a perfect rendition of one of Perkins’s oldest songs, from 1957 and the Beatles’ club years: Your True Love.

 

*****

 

Peasmarsh  
Sussex, England  
February 1998

 

Upon their return from New York in mid January, Linda had wanted to go to their home in the Sussex countryside. James was living there most of the time now, and Heather had moved in near the end of the previous year to be closer to her family. John, unwilling to be separated from either Paul or Linda, went with them. This time he stayed in the big house, and took the room nearest to Paul and Linda’s. All controversy related to their father’s relationship with John had long since died a quiet death in the minds of the McCartney children. They had grown so accustomed to it that they rarely thought about it, and never spoke of it. It just was. John had taken over most of the kitchen chores from Linda, but she often sat in the kitchen while he prepared meals, offering opinions and advice, providing some sous chef services from the safety of her seat at the kitchen table, but mostly she was just enjoying John’s company. 

John had told her about his successful conversation with Paul, and Linda had been both impressed and relieved to hear it had gone so well. Maybe there was hope for John in the role of strong supporter after all! Paul, of course, had said nothing about it to her. He was still the Gemini twin - treating each relationship as a separate, unique entity. The fact that Linda and John had stopped their competition and had become close allies didn’t seem to sink in to Paul’s thick head. They neither of them needed to be protected from each other any more. Linda supposed it was important to Paul to keep the relationships separate because otherwise it would be too confusing for him. But for herself, she was extremely grateful that John had dropped his guard and had become - aside from Paul - her closest companion during this last, sad ride. 

Her most recent tests had been bad. The cancer was out of control, and she didn’t have long to live. That February Linda swallowed that truth with as much grace as she could. While they had been in the Bahamas, Alistair Donald had proposed to her daughter Mary, and Mary had accepted. They had come back home to announce this happy news to Paul and Linda, and so Linda had this goal in mind: she wanted to live long enough for Mary’s wedding, which they had scheduled in May. She spent long hours helping Mary plan the wedding, and she also spent many hours arranging gifts for Paul’s June birthday, Mary’s August birthday, Stella and James’ September birthdays, and John and Sean’s October birthdays. Then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas of course. She might not make it to all of these events - in fact, she knew she would not last until December - but she was going to be there through the offices and proxy of the special gifts she had purchased and wrapped, and put away. John had watched her do this, and so had Paul. They didn’t know what the gifts were, but they knew she had been doing it. They realized that this no doubt helped Linda deal with the idea of losing her family. Death to her was only upsetting because it would separate her from her loved ones. 

One late afternoon as John was preparing dinner and Linda was seated at the table chopping vegetables for the salad, John spoke. “You and I haven’t talked much about your own fears. You always talk about your worries for Paul or your kids, but what are your worries?” 

Linda said, without thinking, “My worries are...Paul, the kids, and you; you’re my worries. I hate leaving you all behind. I want to see my kids get married; I want to see my grandchildren. I want to grow old with you and Paul. Remember when we used to worry about what we would do when we retired? And we thought we were going to have a war over it - city or country?”

John laughed. He stopped what he was doing to join Linda at the table. He was too interested in the conversation not to give it his full attention. “I was freaking out over having to live in the fucking desert, or down here on the farm...”

“And I couldn’t wait to get out of London and do nothing but rusticate on a farm or a ranch. Of course, neither of us factored in what Paul wanted.” Linda stopped for a moment, captured by a thought. “Paul is just never going to retire, is he?” she asked abruptly.

John made a face. “He’s going to drag me across the finish line, that’s for sure. I agree - I can’t see him without an audience for long.”

“I feel bad that my illness is keeping him from doing what he loves.”

“He loves you, Linda, so you’re not keeping him from anything.”

The two fell into a companionable silence, and then Linda said, “Anyway, it seems nutty to me that we spent so much time competing over him. We should have enjoyed each other more than we did, and looked forward to the variety of lifestyles we would share when we got old. Now that I am fully at home with the idea, I won’t be able to live it. It’s a cruel joke, isn’t it?” Tears were rolling down Linda’s cheeks, and this caused John to cry too. Linda managed to control her emotions long enough to say, “You’ll have to live it all for me - you and Paul.”


	114. Chapter 114

Mid March 1998  
Peasmarsh

Heather, Mary, Stella and Linda were all stretched out on the queen size bed Linda shared with Paul. Linda was bedridden that day - it hadn’t been a good day for her, health-wise. Mary had her camera out, and decided to take some photos of her mother. She had begun to enjoy photography more and more in the last two years, and now she felt that focusing on photography would be a way to honor her mother’s memory. Mary thought her mother looked beautiful. She had been off steroids for a few months now, and all the bloating had gone away. She had lost a great deal of weight since November, so that she was actually on the slender side. The bone structure in Linda’s face was gorgeous, Mary thought, and she took a number of photos of Linda with Stella, with Heather, with Stella and Heather, on a time-delay with herself, and with herself and all her sisters. 

In between taking photos, the four women spoke of everything under the sun. Stella talked about her designing business at Chloe, Heather spoke about her ambitious plan to create housewares products for sale in the U.S. - she was in the design stage at the time - and Mary spoke excitedly about her future with Alistair Donald. Linda just soaked it all up, and tried to keep her thoughts on the happy side rather than the sad. She had the privilege of giving birth to these women, to raising them, to having them grace her life, and to see them all be a success in their chosen fields. That was the positive she decided to hold on to; she wouldn’t focus on what she would not get to share with them. She was mindful not to spoil the present gain with fear of the future loss. 

Sean had made arrangements to join the McCartneys in Sussex, and on a chilly, windy day in March he drove himself down from London. He had always loved Linda, and everything about her. She was the polar opposite of his mother (and he loved his mother fiercely) but he loved that extreme difference about her. He hated to see her brought so low, and dying so young. It was immensely unfair, he thought, that someone so good should be dealt this terrible hand. John, meanwhile, had been proud of his son for showing up. He knew that Yoko laid a kind of guilt trip on Sean when he spent time with the McCartneys, but Linda deserved to be able to say goodbye to Sean, and receive Sean’s love and respect in return.

A day after Sean’s arrival, the whole family was gathered in the sitting room, surrounding Linda who was tucked up on one of the sofas. They were telling each other memories of their trips together when they were younger, and all the fun they’d had and crazy things they’d done. There was much laughter and love in the air. As this was going on, Paul suddenly said to himself, we’re missing Julian. It was like a stubborn itch he could not satisfy, so he slipped into his study and gave Julian a call. Julian was at home in Italy. Paul said,

“Hey Jules. Look, we’re all here in Peasmarsh... we’re all arrayed around the sitting room. And it suddenly occurred to me we had a huge hole. You! We’re missing you!”

Julian said, “Dad told me about Linda. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“I know I’ve been out of it, but I’ve been swallowed whole by this awful disease. I can’t even think straight,” Paul apologized.

“You don’t have to explain it to me. Is it true that she hasn’t got much time left?” Julian asked.

“At most another four months,” Paul said darkly.

“Geesh,” was all Julian could think to say.

“Can you come join us?” Paul asked. “I’m sure it would mean the world to Linda if you could.” 

“I’d like that very much; I need to see her again. I’m living with someone...”

“Lucy, I know. Bring her too. Mary’s fiancé is here. We’re all family, after all. Call Helene at McLen. She’ll arrange your travel.” 

After this conversation, Paul drifted back to the sitting room where laughter was rolling across the room. Linda looked great; she really had never been more beautiful to Paul’s eyes. She was smiling that irreplaceable smile of hers, and her eyes were dancing with merriment. She loved it when the young folks were being sarcastic and hilarious. 

Mary was saying accusingly, “You raised us in a bleeding lumberyard!” She was referring to when they lived in Scotland, in a two-bedroom house. 

“We were building a studio in the barn by ourselves,” Linda corrected, as if this was a perfectly normal thing for parents to do. Didn’t everyone?

John was listening raptly, because he still was very much in the dark about how Paul spent the years in the early ‘70s up in Scotland, and away from the spotlight. Paul rarely spoke of those days, except to say they were among the happiest of his life. 

“I seem to remember going out to the yard to a kind of shed to pee,” Heather piped up.

“Well, that was when we first moved up there. We hadn’t added a toilet to the house yet,” Paul explained. “I built one myself!” He added proudly.

John looked in shock at Paul. While John had been borrowing heavily from Apple to live the life of Riley in New York, Paul had been living in a virtual hovel in the outlands of Scotland, complete with outhouse! This added another layer of respect to his feelings for his partner. 

“I just remember all the animals, and just lazing about on the hillsides in the summer. It was heaven,” said Stella. “Best childhood ever.”

 

*****

 

Two Days Later

 

Julian arrived with his girlfriend a few days later, and this was a huge surprise to both John and Linda. Paul had kept his secret close, and was thrilled to see his lovers’ eyes light up. Nothing made him happier than to make Linda or John happy. To do both at once was genius! 

The other young folks were delighted to see Julian. He was a deal older than all of them except Heather, who was three months older than Julian. A youthful looking 35, although with receding hairline, Julian was eternally young because he had never felt obliged to hold down a “real” job, and had no inclination to take on the adult responsibilities of marriage and children. In his mind, he blamed this on his father’s neglect as he was growing up, and the resentment he felt about how Sean had been treated by his father versus how he had been treated. He should have left those feelings behind him once Paul had come back into his life. Paul had moved heaven and earth to make sure that Julian received just as much money and attention as Sean did. And it was true that Sean really loved and looked up to Julian. But Julian had just enough of that resentful Lennon nature - that his grandfather and father both had before he did - so he still nursed these quiet grudges.

He had no such grudge about Paul, who he loved unreservedly, as he did his mother. He remembered that when he was a young boy, after his father had left his mother, he had fantasized that Paul would marry his mother, and they would be a family. That obviously didn’t happen, but here he was - part of Paul’s family nonetheless. Perhaps it was a little untraditional, but it was still a family. Julian gave Paul and Linda all the credit for this result; he didn’t know how much his father had sacrificed to make the family possible. He wasn’t in a forgiving enough mood to give his father that credit. But externally, he was warm and loving to his father, and internally he was perversely grateful for every crumb of attention and affection his father gave him. 

Not long after his arrival, he and Sean sought out Linda, who was in the sitting room intermittently reading and dozing. They caught her in an ‘awake’ moment, and sat quietly with her, trying to show her their love. 

Julian said, “You always made us feel like part of your family.”

Linda said, “You both are a part of my family - along with your Dad. It’s not a question of making you ‘feel’ like you are. Come hell or high water, we’re a family!”

Sean said, “When I got old enough to understand what was going on, I had a hard time seeing why you would put up with it. I mean - my Dad and all.”

Linda smiled. “Well, I wasn’t always that accepting about it. Many times I felt left out or competitive with your Dad. But the older you get the more your attitude about love changes. Possessiveness seems to be such a hollow thing. I love Paul, and I love your Dad - in different ways - and I am glad I had them both in my life. I wouldn’t change it now, if given the chance. I’d make all the same choices.” 

Julian listened intently. He was still angry with his father for leaving his mother, and that was 30 years earlier! How could Linda be so giving and forgiving? He decided to ask her. “I still resent my father for leaving my mother. I don’t know how you can be so accepting of all this.”

Linda heard what Julian had really said - he was sharing with her his bitterness against his father, even after all these years. She decided to answer the real question, rather than the one he had superficially asked. “Your father is a one-off; an original character. It is hard to be a child of such a man. My father was like that, too, and I didn’t measure up to what he wanted in a child. I hadn’t really dealt with that bitterness by the time he died. I was still harboring these hurt feelings - feelings of being rejected. He died almost 7 years ago, and I’m just finally getting to a place where I have utterly forgiven him. We expect so much of our parents. We expect them to be perfect, like super humans. But they’re not. They’re just people, like everyone else. In the end, if you carry this bitterness with you, you will be the prime victim of it. Take my word for it - been there, done that.” 

 

*****

 

Sean left for New York because he had a solo album debut being released, called Into the Sun. Sean had recently begun an affair with the much older Japanese artist Yuka Honda, who had inspired Sean to write. It had been his father’s money proffered up by Paul that had paid for the album’s production. Thus, he did not have to answer to any studio suits, and could indulge his every whim. A music video for ‘Home’, a single off the album, was produced by Spike Jonez and produced by Yuka Honda. 

The album was released on March 24th, and Sean scheduled a concert tour and a press offensive for the summer in support of the album. Of course, all this was assisted by advice from not only his mother but also Paul and McLen/MPL. Sean was to find this experience embittering, since all the press wanted to do was talk about his father and mother, and ask insinuating questions about his father’s relationship with Paul. 

About the time of Sean’s album release, Linda had finally been able to deliver herself of some heartfelt feelings in a three-way conversation with John and Paul. 

They actually had all been curled up in Linda’s bed - Paul in the middle - and were laughing and talking about inane things until Linda, propped up by several pillows, announced that she had something serious to say. John and Paul sobered up like two good little boys, and prepared themselves for some tough honesty. That’s how Linda handed out her sermons, and they were both very much accustomed to this fact.

“Okay you two,” she said firmly in her mom voice, “you need to listen to me.”

John, amused, had a face alive with delight. “Yes, mum!” He chirped. He moved until he was lying on his side lengthwise across the foot of the bed, his head in his hand, staring adoringly at Linda. Paul sat up Indian-style, and faced Linda like a perky puppy. 

“I can’t die in peace if I don’t feel certain you two will look after each other - properly, I mean.”

“She has a point, Paul,” John pointed out cheekily. “We tend to look after each other improperly. That’s the problem.” 

“Well, yes you do,” Linda said, refusing to be distracted by John’s word play. “You do do it improperly for sure. You need to be more mindful of each other’s point of view, and how it feels to the other one, instead of always thinking only of yourselves.”

Paul said, “Linda, please don’t leave us alone to drive each other crazy.”

Both Linda and John looked at Paul in surprise and burst out laughing. Paul grinned proudly at his joke. 

“I haven’t got much say in the matter,” Linda pointed out. “But I’ve been worried about you both - much more than I’ve worried about the kids, although I worry about Heather and James, too.”

“I will take care of Heather and James, no matter what, I promise,” Paul declared.

“I know you will. So I worry mainly about you and John. You’ve got to be open with John, and tell him your worries, like you do with me. Just pretend John is me, and talk to him without holding anything back.” Her glare at Paul was fairly severe. She was clearly dead serious.

Paul opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word in, Linda turned to John. “And you - like I told you! Paul is going to be a mess when I die. I’m counting on you to be strong for him, and not to obsess over your own feelings. He won’t be weak for long, but while he is, it is your job to be there for him!”

John saluted Linda smartly. “Yes, ma’am.”

Paul saw this and his face reflected irony. “Why don’t I feel that you are taking this seriously?” Paul asked John, open affection showing on his face. 

“Don’t worry Paul. You won’t recognize me. I’ve promised Linda I will be like Mother Theresa.”

“Oh dear lord,” Paul muttered. “Just what I need.”

“There you both go! Making fun of a perfectly serious issue!” Linda was exasperated, but this was said not without fondness. “You have to promise me solemnly that you will be there for each other - put each other first. Otherwise, I won’t be able to die in peace.”

Paul sobered up first. “I’m sorry, Lin. John and I are from Liverpool. We have a hard time being sentimental in front of each other. But I promise you I will take care of John...”

“And more importantly - I need you to promise that you will let John take care of you! That will be the hard part for you, Paul,” Linda lectured. 

John said, “Amen to that! You’ve got to stop hiding your feelings from me!”

Paul scowled at John, much like he used to scowl at his younger brother when their mother had chastised him for something both boys had done, after Mike had smirked at Paul getting the blame. John grinned at him and winked. 

“All well and good John,” Linda said. “But I’m still waiting for your promise.” 

John turned his gaze to Linda, and his face became very serious. “I promise, Linda. I will take care of Paul, even if he fights me all the way.” 

Linda wasn’t entirely sure she had gotten through to them. But with these assurances, she would have to be satisfied. She could die easier knowing that Paul would be with John. She absolutely hated the thought of him being vulnerable to some sharp-eyed pushing woman who would take advantage of his sweet, romantic nature in order to garner money and fame for herself.

 

*****

 

For the last several months, Paul had been working on a new classical piece. He had been commissioned to write the music for Magdalen College, Oxford, by Anthony Smith, the new President of the College, to debut the opening of a new concert hall for the college in the fall of 1998. Paul had envisioned this piece to be a full on homage to and lament for Linda. He had taken for his motto upon being knighted the Latin phrase “Ecce Cor Meum” (“behold my heart”). He had decided to name this new classical piece - the one he intended to be his deepest cri de coeur - after this motto. After all, in so many ways, Linda was his heart. John was his soul, but Linda was his heart. 

To complete this commission, Paul had been working steadily on the piece. He spent a number of hours a day in the windmill recording studio, while John kept Linda company up at the house. It was one day while he was working in this way that John tracked him down, and interrupted his session.

“Paul, I’ve got to tell you what Linda just told me. She said she feels as though her time is very near. I think it is time to set her last wishes in motion.”

Paul’s hands were still hovering over the piano keys when John said this. They came down with a crash, and then they flew to cover his face. No! It could not be! It cannot be! How would he face it? How could he go on? This crisis rushed over him in 30 seconds, and then he felt himself crying. He felt his crying before he heard it. By the time he could hear it, John was seated next to him on the piano bench, gathering him in his arms. They sat there for a good 10 minutes, Paul sobbing, and John comforting. Paul’s sobs were torn from the bottom of his soul, and John was shaken to the core. He had never seen Paul so devastated in his life. A few minutes later, Paul’s sobs lessened and then stopped. Gradually, Paul was pulling himself together.

Linda had told him that she wanted to die in her home country - America. But not in New York, where she had often felt so inadequate, but in Arizona, at their Tucson ranch, where she had always felt most at peace. Heather would be near her biological father, and that was important. In the last few years Heather had worked very hard to rebuild a relationship with him, and Linda believed that Heather might be able to handle her death better if her biological father was close by. Paul knew it was his duty to make the plans for the family to travel to Tucson, and to make every day that remained count for Linda. Having had his cry, and with John to prop him up, Paul wiped his face dry of tears, and sat up straight. 

“I guess I should go now, and make the plans, then.”

John’s hand cupped the back of Paul’s neck and he shook Paul’s head a little. “From here on in, it’s you and me mate. I’m going where you’re going. You’ll never be alone.”

 

*****

 

Thursday morning, April 16, 1998  
Tucson Arizona  
The McCartney Ranch

 

Linda felt as though every muscle in her body was sore. Sweats would descend upon her, followed by chills. It was as if her body could no longer regulate its internal temperature. Linda suffered through these unwelcome variations, and did her best to focus on her loved ones, and the things they were saying to her. Much of her spirit had diminished, and she found that she had less and less to say. Her eyes and ears were too hungry, and they only wanted to watch and listen to those she loved. She had arrived at the ranch with her family two weeks earlier, and they had spent the days around the house together - Paul, John, her children and her future son-in-law. She still hoped she would make it until May, for Mary’s wedding, but she had begun to doubt that she could hang on that long. The family gave some thought to having a slapdash affair thrown on in the privacy of the ranch house, but Linda didn’t want to do that. She had arranged her wedding gift for delivery in England, and she wanted her daughter’s day to go off without a hitch and not be a rushed affair shrouded in pain.

At this point she knew that she had already done all she could do to make sure her family could go on without her. Her bucket list was finished; there were no more lingering aching desires. She had gotten to the point where she didn’t want her loved ones to suffer any longer than they had to, so the sooner she died, the sooner they would have to confront it, and the sooner they would start to heal. She could see that they all would have good lives ahead of them, filled with lovers and children. And Paul...her knight in shining armor? She smiled as she saw in her mind’s eye the image of him riding off into the sunset with John at his side, although John always appeared to be a little lopsided and uncomfortable on the horse, even in her mind’s eye. She hoped they would get their act together, and not self-destruct. This was her last remaining doubt: had she said enough to them to make them see? She didn’t have any other advice to offer. She would just be repeating herself if she said any more. Thus, all she could do was hope that what she had said was enough to do the trick. 

 

 

*****

 

That Afternoon

 

Paul had helped Linda get up and get dressed. She had expressed a strong desire to take a ride on her horse, an Appaloosa. She and Paul had often ridden together of an afternoon when out on the farm or the ranch, and although Linda suspected she wouldn’t be very comfortable on the horse, and doubted that the ride would be very long, she had this driving need to be on the back of a horse. She had always loved that old horse-riding adage: there was nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse. 

Paul had helped her up on to the horse, and Linda bravely took control of the reins and urged the horse forward. Paul followed right behind her on his own Appaloosa. He had stopped worrying about the wisdom of her going on a gallop in the coolish, windy air. Linda was going to die, and she was going to die soon, and whether it was today or a month from now, she should be permitted to do whatever she wanted, no matter how impractical. Soon he was reassured that he had done the right thing by enabling this activity: Linda and her horse took off with a gallop and Paul was forced to race afterwards, laughing happily. When he caught up with her, Linda’s face was flushed with warmth and delight, her eyes were literally sparkling, and her smile was carefree. 

The ride was not a long one, though. Within thirty minutes Linda was clearly exhausted and in pain. Her smile was forced; she was faking her enjoyment now. 

“I’m tired Lin,” Paul lied. “And soon it will be getting dark. Maybe we should go inside.” 

Linda knew he was saying this so that she wouldn’t have to, and she gratefully acceded to his suggestion. It was with great care and tenderness that Paul assisted Linda very slowly out of the saddle and on to the ground. John was standing in the doorway as Paul led Linda, walking slowly now, toward the house.

“You went riding?” He asked with great surprise. 

“Yes,” Linda managed to huff. “It was wonderful.”

John was staring at how weak and slow Linda was, and wordlessly stood aside and led the way in to the sitting room, where he quickly arranged pillows and throws for Linda’s comfort. Soon Paul was tucking her in. 

“How long were you out there?” John asked. He had fallen asleep while reading and had lost track of the time.

“Not long,” Paul answered. “It’s a bit chilly, and starting to get dark.”

While it was true that the wind was a little brisk, a quick look out the window informed John that maybe shadows were getting a little long, but it wouldn’t be dark for at least another hour. He suspected that Linda had become overtired, and that is why Paul had encouraged their quick return. He was still amazed that they had managed it at all! 

The ride had been a thrill for Linda, but now she was paying for it. She struggled to stay awake and interested in her family’s conversation that evening. Mary and John had made dinner, while Paul and James had gone out to chop wood for the fireplace. Stella and Heather sat with their mother, keeping her company. When dinner was over, they ate it casual-style sitting around on the sofas, chairs, and floor cushions off of the long, rectangular heavy-wooded coffee table. Linda barely ate. Paul put a few things on her plate, and even fed her a few bites by hand, but Linda was fading fast. It wasn’t long before she fell asleep.

When it came time to go to bed, Paul lifted her up as if she were a child. She weighed almost nothing now. He carried her to the bedroom, where he settled her. He didn’t notice until he absent-mindedly wiped his face that hot, salty tears covered his face. He felt a choking sensation in his throat, and hurried into the bathroom so he wouldn’t stand there gagging where Linda could see and hear him. His grief and worry were so strong that he had made himself nauseous. Afterward, he quietly climbed into bed, and held Linda: his girlfriend, his baby, his almost everything. 

John stayed up a few hours longer, drinking wine with the McCartney kids. They were starting to drag out old memories of their mother, almost as if she were already gone. John listened respectfully, laughing when appropriate, soothing when necessary. It was a long, difficult night made more difficult for John because he knew how much Paul was suffering. Linda was almost beyond suffering now, but Paul - his suffering had only just begun. 

 

*****

 

April 17, 1998

 

The morning was absolutely clear, and the wide desert sky was turquoise. There were busy insects buzzing in the back patio, where John stood with a steaming cup of black coffee. He wore his usual uniform: jeans, a t-shirt with a slogan on the front, and flip-flops. He was staring down the patio and across the desert, which stretched out for a few miles before ending at some foothills that were the color of amber, terracotta, and burgundy. The kids were dead to the world; James had fallen asleep on the sitting room sofa, where he was presently snoring. It had taken them all a long time to fall asleep the night before. 

John cast his eyes in the direction of the sliding glass doors off the patio that opened into the master bedroom. The shutters were closed, and no sound came from there. He was holding his breath, hoping that Linda had not died in the night. He did not want Paul waking up to a cold, dead wife. How would Paul ever get that experience out of his memory bank if it were to happen? Sighing, he turned back into the house, and settled in the kitchen. It was almost 8:30 a.m. He sat quietly sipping his coffee and thinking intricate sad thoughts and waited for someone else to wake up. 

Paul was the next one to awaken. He awoke with a start from mid-dream, suddenly worried that Linda was gone. It only took a few seconds to realize that Linda was still warm in his arms, and when he pressed his ear to her shoulder he could hear the slight hiss of shallow, weak breaths. She was still alive! He hadn’t realized until that moment how much he had feared that yesterday was going to be her last day. He didn’t know where that idea had come from, and how it had gotten lodged into his subconscious, but he was incredibly relieved to find out he had been wrong. Maybe today would be a strong day for her; that Linda should have a good day was the length and breadth of Paul’s hope that morning. 

He slowly disentangled himself from Linda, and got out of the bed as quietly as he could. A few moments later, covered in a grey and red Navajo-blanket bathrobe, he wandered into the kitchen, where he found John. 

John looked up. He stared at Paul’s face and satisfied himself that Linda had not died during the night. “Pour yourself some coffee, Pud,” John said softly. “You look like you could use it.”

Paul did as he was told, and then joined John at the table. 

“How’s she doing?” John asked.

“Sleeping peacefully,” Paul answered. He was quiet for a few moments and then added, “I was afraid that yesterday was too much for her, and that she wouldn’t make it through the night.”

John made a comforting sound in his throat, but said nothing.

“But she really needed that horse ride,” Paul continued, as though he was defending himself for taking her out. “For a few minutes she looked like a young girl again.” Paul’s voice cracked a little at the end of this sentence, and this nearly did John in. John struggled mightily not to weep. This whole thing they were going through - the whole damn thing - was the most exquisitely accurate definition of the word “heartbreaking.” Thus far Paul had seemed pretty strong. John wondered how it would be when Linda died. Would Paul puff himself up in an attempt to look strong? Or would he fall apart, like Linda thought he would? John told himself that whatever it was, he would have to be ready for it with the right stuff. 

 

*****

 

Linda made it through the morning and into the afternoon. She was very weak, and didn’t want to leave her bed. Paul understood this to be symbolic: she had taken to her bed, and she would soon have to leave them all. Paul stayed by her side all day, and the kids periodically dropped in the room throughout the day to see how their parents were doing. After a local doctor had visited Linda and left, John spent the lunch hour in the room with Paul and Linda. He had made Paul his favorite of Linda’s homemade luncheon specialties - a cheese and pickle sandwich. Paul nibbled at it, but didn’t eat much. John engaged him in desultory conversation as the time passed.

In the late afternoon, Paul felt that Linda was very near the end. He had spent so much time with her while she had been ill that he had come to understand almost by osmosis how Linda was feeling at any given moment. Earlier, the doctor had confirmed Paul’s intuition - that the end for Linda was very near: just hours away. Now Paul could tell she wasn’t really all ‘there’, in the sense that she seemed foggy. The drugs the doctor had given her for the pain were no doubt largely to blame for that. But it was now time. Paul knew that. He called everyone in to the room, and he suggested that each of them tell Linda why and how much they loved her, and one by one, starting with Heather, and then Mary, and then Stella, and then James, and then even John, they each spoke to her softly, and she did seem to understand what was being said, although her eyes kept closing, and then she’d force them open again. Finally it was Paul’s turn.

Paul allowed his voice to drop to a very low register. He spoke almost as if he were reading a poem or some beautiful prose, but he spoke from the heart:

“You’re up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion; it’s a fine spring day, and we’re riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is clear blue.”

Paul had barely got to the end of the sentence when Linda closed her eyes and gently slipped away.

 

*****

 

The silence that had followed Linda’s quiet passing was deafening. At least two minutes went by before Heather started to sob loudly. Stella moved over to sit near Heather, and put her arm around her. Stella was crying too, but silently. Mary, always the nurturer, got up and immediately went ‘round to her father, and pulled him into a deep hug.

“I’m so sorry Daddy,” she whispered in her ear. “I’m so very sorry that she’s gone.” 

James was tearing up, but all he could do was rub his hands together and stare at his bare feet. John sat down next to him and started rubbing his back. James allowed himself to be comforted in this subtle way. 

While he rubbed James’ back, John was watching Paul. Paul looked like a statue almost. There was nothing lifelike in his body language, even as Mary embraced him. As she pulled away from the embrace, however, John was able to see Paul’s ravaged face. 

So, John thought, feeling wretched. It is going to be just as Linda predicted.


	115. Chapter 115

April 17, 1998  
The Aftermath

 

A little over an hour after Linda’s death, Paul was on the phone to his staff at MPL/McLen making the necessary arrangements. Pursuant to local regulations, the coroner had come, pronounced, and begun the paperwork for the death certificate. He opined that an autopsy was not necessary. A funeral home in Tucson was selected to take custody of her body, and then to cremate it. They had come quickly, and had quietly taken Linda’s body away. 

Paul could just about function so long as he had these quotidian tasks to accomplish: travel arrangements for the family, the contacting of relatives, dealing with the publicity people. Paul had decided that to get his family out of Tucson and back to England without being tormented by the press, he would keep Linda’s death a secret for as much of the weekend as he could. He was able to do this legally, because Linda had died on a Friday evening just after business hours, and the funeral home and coroner would not be filing any public records until the Monday as a matter of course. If there were a release of information before Sunday, Paul had decided to be prepared with a misleading leak. He instructed his press agents to tell any early callers “off the record” that Linda had died in Santa Barbara, California, and to cling to this untruth just long enough for the McCartneys and John to get back to their Sussex home, where they could safely barricade themselves behind it’s fences, acres, and beefed up security detail. 

It was past dinnertime when John melted away from the grieving family and into the kitchen, where he found in the freezer some of Linda’s famous lentil soup. He pulled it out, and began to defrost it, using the microwave oven first, and then pouring the warming liquid into a soup pot on the stove. While the soup was simmering, he began to make some biscuits and a vegetable salad. He worked quietly, almost without thinking, except for the thoughts necessary to perform the rote steps of his cooking tasks. About halfway through, Mary joined him quietly, and began to set the table, and to act as sous chef. They neither of them spoke, but it was a sympathetic, not a cold, silence. When they were done, Mary quietly removed her apron and disappeared back to the sitting room, where her sisters and brother and fiancé were huddled around the fire; each of them in turn was sobbing, or quietly crying, or just feeling miserable. Mary told them dinner was ready in the kitchen, and then she went to find her father. She found him, as she expected, in the master bedroom, sitting on the side of the bed where her mother had recently been, his hand on her bed pillow. He looked stunned, unbelieving. 

“Daddy?” She asked quietly. 

Paul said, “Her pillow has gone cold now.” 

Mary fought back tears. She needed to be strong, for her father’s sake. “John has made dinner; it’s Mummy’s lentil soup.” 

Paul did not feel hungry. He felt something blank in the pit of his stomach, but it wasn’t the lack of food. It was something less natural and more skittish - a kind of fluttery hopelessness. It wasn’t just an emptiness he felt, it was an emptiness tinged with barely contained anxiety. Paul remembered that he’d felt this way before; it had been this exact feeling. It had been how he felt after his mother died. Afternoons had been the worst: about the time he would have come home from school to find his mother starting dinner. That had been the worst time of day for the 14 year-old Paul. How long had it taken for that feeling to go away? Six months? A year? Paul couldn’t remember, but he knew that when he met John eight months after his mother’s death, and then had been swept up in the excitement of the band, he had been distracted from that terrible feeling. Eventually, little by little, it had gone away. At least a year then, Paul told himself, before the absolute worst of it went away, to be replaced by a less persistent, more malleable, but trailing sense of loss. And he had lived with his mother for only 14 years. He had lived with Linda for 30 years! So twice as long for the worst of it - two years, he estimated. Would he be sitting somewhere two years from today and suddenly realize that he wasn’t in unsupportable pain anymore? Paul hoped so, but was doubtful that could ever happen.

“Daddy?” Mary repeated. She was worried now. Her father was staring straight ahead of him as if into a crystal ball that foretold a dark and lonely future. She sat down next to him, and hung her arm over his shoulder. She nuzzled his cheek with her nose, something she had done to him in intimate moments since she was a toddler. 

“How am I supposed to sleep tonight?” Paul asked, his voice a dull sound. 

Mary whispered, “John will be with you.” 

Paul nodded. This was true. All was not lost. Just as when he was missing his mother, he had found John - and now he would have John as he missed Linda. 

“Hell, we’ll all sleep in the damn bed with you if you want!” Mary teased, squeezing her dad’s shoulder. Paul made himself chuckle. It was a pitiful sound, but it was an attempt. Mary recognized it as such, and was heartened by it. “Come on, Daddy, John went to a lot of trouble to make dinner. Everyone’s together in the kitchen. Let’s go.” 

As they entered the kitchen, John looked up from his place to assess Paul’s state of mind with an anxious look at his face. Mary had her arm hooked through Paul’s, and for a moment - just a brief second - she looked so like her mother that John had to blink. Paul took his usual seat at his end of the table, but when he looked up and saw the seat at the other end - Linda’s seat - empty, he paled. John noticed and whispered to Stella, who was seated next to him, “Go sit in your mother’s seat, so it won’t be empty.” She obediently complied. This did seem to make Paul relax a little. 

Now that he was at the kitchen table with his children around him, the bossy, pragmatic Paul came to the fore. He had to be the head of the family, and fulfill that role no matter what. “We’ll be leaving for London by private plane tomorrow morning. I’d like to get on our way early in case there is a leak to the press. At least we’ll be in the air if that happens. Can you all get up at 6 a.m.?”

Everyone nodded and mumbled their agreement. None of them expected to do much sleeping that night, so the earlier the better was their philosophy. 

Paul took a sip of his soup, and involuntarily smiled. It tasted of Linda. He looked up and saw that John was watching him, worriedly. Paul winked and said, “Ta, John. This is the perfect meal.” He then reached for a biscuit and the butter. 

 

*****

 

After dinner, Paul insisted on cleaning up the kitchen. That had been his chore when Linda cooked, and it was also his chore when John cooked. John decided to join the kids in the sitting room, where they all again huddled around the fireplace. As John passed in to the room he saw on the shelving unit all the parlor games boxes stacked up, and one of them in particular caught his eye. He grabbed it off the shelf and joined the little tribe of blanket-wrapped mourners, looking for all the world like war refuges. 

“Let’s play Twister!” He declared loudly, holding the box over his head.

Heather let loose with a shocked gasp, but Stella started to laugh. Mary, too, laughed and said, “Mum would think this is hilarious! I’m game!” 

Determinedly, John laid out the plastic sheet and said, “Who’s gonna be the monitor?” 

James half raised his hand. “I will. It’s more dignified.”

“I didn’t realize ‘dignity’ was high on your repertoire list,” John snarked. James snuffed, but with humor.

Heather pushed herself further back into the leather sofa, snuggled further into her blanket, and said, “I just want to watch.” 

Back in the kitchen, Paul was finishing up by wiping down the counters and table. Suddenly he heard laughter. It started out tentatively at first, but was growing louder and more uproarious by the minute. His curiosity piqued, he moved into the sitting room, still wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. And there he saw John, Mary, and Alistair all twisted up together, arms and legs flailing, and his ears were immediately assailed with sharp cries and oomphs and ‘your elbow is in my eye!’ Stella and Heather were cheering loudly for different contestants: Heather for Mary, and Stella for Alistair. John, of course, was the most obnoxious and the loudest, and had no fan club at all. In spite of himself, Paul laughed. As he did so, Alistair fell with a huge plop onto the ground. 

“Oh - you’re out! Poor excuse of a player you are!” John shouted gleefully from his awkward position on the mat, causing everyone to giggle helplessly, including Alistair, who was (truth be told) grateful he had been eliminated from the game. These McCartneys and Lennons, he thought, are a little on the wild side. 

“Paul, get your ass in this game!” John shouted out from under his armpit. “You’re very nimble, but not nimble enough to beat me!” In truth, John was double-jointed and extremely flexible as a result. 

Reluctantly, Paul found himself drawn into the game. He was pretty flexible himself after decades of disciplined yoga practice. When he was able to meet John’s eyes, he saw that they were squinting at him. So it’s like that! Paul thought. He thinks he’s going to beat me! As if! 

John noted that Paul’s eyebrows went up. He’s calling my bluff, is he? John thought. Well, we’ll have to see about that...

The course of the game was pretty predictable. Stella had switched with Mary, and again it was a 3-man game. It was a pretty competitive combination - John, Paul and Stella. They all had the cunning and determination to win. They even each had an almost ruthless quality to their competitiveness. Eventually, however, the odds ran out for Stella. James, as referee, announced, “Your right hand, blue!”

At this point, Stella had one leg stretched out in front of her so her left foot could land on a red dot. She was sitting on her right thigh as it hovered over a yellow dot. Her left arm was on the green spot right next to her, and her right hand, which was free, needed to find a blue spot stat! But before she could, her father grabbed the blue spot closest to her right hand. She looked for the next nearest one, and John nabbed it. The only other spot she could possibly reach was just below John’s crotch.

“Don’t even think about it!” John growled protectively. 

Stella gave him a smartass look and reached for the spot. She just about made it, but then John gave her a very adept elbow (which James missed), and she collapsed in a puddle on the mat. 

“You cheated!” She shouted in between giggles.

“Prove it you loser!” John shouted, his eyes gleaming with wickedness and an anticipated win. 

Stella appealed to James, but he shrugged. “Didn’t see it, Stell. John’s big fat ass was blocking my view.”

“Hey!” John shouted indignantly, while Paul struggled not to collapse in giggles. “My ass may be big, but it’s not fat! It’s all choice!”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” James responded sotto voce to no one in particular. Again, Paul had to fight off an attack of the giggles.

Now John and Paul squared off. They were each in improbable positions, but determined to stick it to the end. John said, “Paul, you’re going down! James - spin that wheel for chrissakes!”

James spun, and then announced, “Right foot on yellow!” 

The game went on with much hilarity, with neither man giving up the ghost. By now, John and Paul were deep in their competitive zones, and all else was forgotten. The kids had each decided for whom to root. Heather and Stella were heartily rooting for their father, and Mary - soft hearted and feeling sorry for John - rooted for John. Alistair knew better than to get in the middle of such fierce loyalties, and James was required to remain neutral due to his role as referee, which he did, but barely.

“Your left hand on green!” James announced. That was the move that turned the tide in Paul’s favor. As a left-handed person, he was more dexterous on that side of his body and grabbed the green spot closest to John lickety-split. John was forced to pick one a bit further away from him, and for a moment he thought he had done it. He teetered there for a few suspenseful moments, and then slowly, like a tree in the forest, he felt himself heading for the ground. 

“Tim-ber!” James shouted triumphantly, at last giving up his neutrality in favor of his father.

Paul was not a gracious winner. He jumped around like a prizefighter in the ring who had just one the decision, arms up in the air, hands pumping. “I won! I won! I won!” His kids all ran to him, giving him high fives, and then surrounded him with smothering hugs. A chant started:

“We’re number one! We’re number one!”

John, still sprawled on the rug, leaned on his elbow and watched, a smile on his face. He had done his best to bring Linda’s spirit in to the house that night, and he felt that he had succeeded. He knew that she would be proud of him, wherever she was.

 

*****

 

It was after midnight now. The kids had wandered off to their various bedrooms: Mary and Alistair to one, Stella and Heather to one, and James to his own. Paul was deflated again. He sat stumped in the sofa in the sitting room, his head leaning against his fist, which was propped up by his right elbow on the arm of the sofa. The television was on, and it was broadcasting a gangster film from 1930’s Hollywood. The sound was so low that only the sharp retorts of tommy guns could be heard. Paul had the thousand-yard stare.

John was sitting not eight feet away from him, in the generous leather club chair, his legs outstretched on the matching ottoman. The book he was trying to read, but had mostly ignored, Holes, was spread out on his chest. He was peering at Paul through his glasses, his face reflecting intense concern. He knew he should persuade Paul to climb in bed and try to get a few hours’ sleep before they all had to wake up and get on an airplane. But how to broach the subject? He cleared his throat.

“Hey, babe,” his husky but honeyed voice crooned. “Let’s go to bed. Let me hold you. You don’t have to sleep. We can just lie there together.” 

“I can’t sleep,” Paul said defensively. “Linda should be there!”

John swallowed this, and said, “We can sleep in my room.”

Paul shook his head. “Our bed still smells of Linda,” he reminded himself.

John allowed the ‘our’ to pass him by, although it brought a poignant twang to his heart as it did so. 

“Then let’s get in your bed, and you can hold the pillow. The one that smells like Linda,” John suggested.

This idea had not occurred to Paul until John suggested it. Slowly, his hand (holding the remote) moved upwards, and he switched off the television. He pushed the sofa throw off his lap, and groaned as he got up. Seeing this, John got up too, bringing his book with him. Maybe he should read the book out loud to Paul; maybe that would help him think about something else...

John stripped off all his clothes, and got in the bed naked. Paul looked to be putting on his pajamas. “Paul - you don’t need those...” John said gently.

“The kids - they might come in the night...”

“They’re adults now. They won’t come.” John’s voice was persuasive. 

“I feel defenseless without my pajamas,” Paul said, his face reflecting an unnamed anxiety.

“Then wear them,” John conceded, patting the mattress beside him. 

Paul climbed in to the bed from Linda’s side, and immediately grabbed her pillow. He sank his face into it and breathed in as deeply as he could. 

The first whimper was so soft, John wasn’t sure he heard it. But soon Paul’s whole body was shaking with silent sobs. 

“Oh my god,” John murmured, and he immediately grabbed Paul around the waist, and pulled him closer to him until they were in a tight spoon. Paul still held on to the pillow with a death grip, his face buried in it, the sobs still racking his body. John could only hold on tightly. He found his own sobs - the ones he had staved off for Linda’s family’s sake - beginning to grip him, and pretty soon he was sobbing too. 

 

*****

 

The first light was coming through the slats of the wooden shutters on the master suite window across from Linda’s side of the bed. Paul’s eyes blinked open in horror and he stared straight ahead as he oriented himself. Was it all a dream? Was Linda still alive? But little by little his memory reasserted himself. He felt John’s arm around his waist, and he realized he was squeezing Linda’s pillow. He noted that her lovely embroidered pillowcase looked tear-stained. 

John was snoring lightly as Paul carefully turned from his right side on to his back. John’s face was next to Paul's shoulder on his left-hand side. As if by some magical auto-communication signal, John’s eyes flew open. He blinked his eyes a few times and then stirred. 

“What time is it?” He croaked.

“It’s time to wake up, around 6 a.m.,” Paul said back softly. 

“Did yesterday really happen?” John asked wistfully.

Paul heaved a great sigh and said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

John forced himself to sit up. “Well, let’s get up, get packed, and get the troops moving, shall we?”

Paul chuckled at John’s terminology. John’s instincts were so like Linda’s in that moment that Paul was momentarily distracted. 

Soon, all the kids were awake, and the rustling sounds of bags being packed and delivered to the foyer filled the house. As John had packed up his and Paul’s things, Paul had gone to the kitchen, where he was cooking up scrambled eggs. Paul hadn’t known what to do about Linda’s things, but John persuaded him to let a personal assistant fly over and do the honors in the coming week. Weakly, Paul agreed. He was finding it difficult this morning - his first full day without Linda - to be his usual decisive self, so he was grateful that John was taking control. He remembered Linda’s lecture: let John take care of you! He also remembered that he had promised her he would. So he did. 

 

*****

 

On the plane on the way back to Gatwick (where a helicopter would quickly deliver them to the Sussex farm in Peasmarsh), Paul was writing furiously on a yellow legal pad, obviously in deep concentration. John - before he fell asleep - had thought that Paul was making his plans and lists for what to do in the coming weeks; plans about memorial services and such. But Paul was writing a press release. He struggled over it, choosing each word carefully. He had decided to describe Linda’s final moments on earth, and then reassure everyone that he and his family would be fine. He worked steadily on the statement, and when he finished, he looked up to see how his family was. 

They were all clearly exhausted, seated around the aircraft and wrapped up in blankets, reading business papers (Stella), quietly talking (Mary and Alistair), listening to music (James), and watching a rom/com movie on the miniature screen (Heather). Then his eyes shifted across a short divide to John, whose seat faced his. John’s head was leaning back against the headrest, his mouth a little open, his eyeglasses propped on top of his head. In his lap was the book he was reading. John’s snores were very light. He studied John’s sleeping face. He studied every angle and nuance of that well-known face. He made himself feel things about it. One thing he must not do is forget how much John meant to him, and how much they needed each other. Yes, he was just at the start of his grieving process, but he reminded himself not to push John away. He had to allow John to be a part of his process. As he had that thought, he had another: how glad he was that when they finally landed in England, and then made their way to Peasmarsh, at the end of it all he would have John there to hold him at night. 

 

*****

 

Peasmarsh  
A Few Days Later

 

The small straggling band of souls moved through the meadow in the very early afternoon. They were headed for a small wood, where massive swaths of bluebells were showing. They all wore their warm country clothes, and barely spoke as they moved. 

Paul was in the front, and he was leading a horse, followed by Stella who was holding the urn. Mary and Alistair came next, and each of them carried a hamper. Holding up the rear were John and James, with Heather between them. Both John and James were holding guitars. They found the slight opening in the wood where the family always picnicked while out horseback riding, and they gathered in an uncertain circle. Paul let the reins go, and the horse wandered off to chew on interesting bits of plants. 

Silently, Heather, Mary and Stella began to lay out the picnic lunch on the ground, and James set off to find tinder to help his father build a small warming fire in the pit they’d had purpose-built years before. Paul had taken hold of the urn, and was holding it tightly against his chest. John approached him. 

“This is such a beautiful place, Pud,” he said softly. 

“Linda loved it here,” Paul agreed.

“This is the best place for her to rest,” John assured him. He saw the near death-grip Paul had on the urn. He knew when the moment came to scatter the ashes Paul would have a hard time giving up that urn. 

Not twenty minutes later, a fire was built and providing much-needed warmth. While they had been walking they had felt warm, but now, sitting on blankets on the ground, the chill had begun to seep in, so the fire was welcome. Quietly, the family passed the picnic items around amongst themselves. They were all the things Linda had always packed for their picnics, made lovingly by her daughters that morning. James began to play a little melody on his guitar. John’s eyes didn’t leave Paul. He was still waiting for the total collapse that had not yet come.

 

*****

 

From John’s perspective, upon their return from Tucson and for the few days after that, Paul had seemed detached. He did all the busy work related to the family’s everyday life, and for all intents and purposes he appeared to be in control of his emotions, if in a foggy sort of way. John put some of this down to the tranquilizers he was taking; Paul’s doctor had been quite firm about Paul using them for at least a week or two, since Paul had looked so shocked and bereaved upon his immediate return from the States. John had been determined to enforce the doctor’s advice, and literally watched Paul while he swallowed his pills. 

Immediately after arriving back in England, John had contacted Fiona on the phone, and she had prescribed something for his own anxiety. John was finding it as difficult to sleep as Paul did, and he wandered around the house all day feeling helpless and clumsy. He didn’t think he could possibly fill the place that Linda had occupied in Paul’s heart. He doubted he had the personality traits to even qualify for an audition. Consequently, he had mostly felt ineffective and even at times like a fifth wheel. Did Paul even realize he was there? Sometimes, John wasn’t sure. 

From Paul’s perspective, one healthy thing was that he spent a good deal of time in the windmill studio working on his classical piece. He had already contacted Oxford and stated that he would not be able to finish the piece in time for the new auditorium’s opening. Paul knew that he had much more to say in the piece, and he didn’t want to rush its completion. Somehow, much of the anguish he felt seemed to be coming out in music. Paul found that he couldn’t connect with his own feelings on an intellectual level, but somehow he could reach them through music. The hours he spent at the piano were a blessed relief. But eventually he had to go back to the house and join the family. John would be there, looking worried and preoccupied. Paul felt John’s presence, but it seemed like a tentative, hovering thing. At night, at least, when they were in bed, they would hold each other, and while this didn’t help either of them sleep, it did make the night hours bearable. They barely spoke. What words were there to say? Paul, for one, had no words.

 

*****

 

The picnickers had finished their meal, and were cleaning up the bits and pieces, folding the blankets, and packing up the hampers. The time had come that they all dreaded, and there was no putting it off any longer. The afternoon was becoming quite chilly, and they were about to lose what was left of the sun behind some threatening clouds. They had a few miles to walk to get back to the house, and were worried they’d be rained on the whole way. 

Now they all stood in a circle again, Paul holding the urn. John was standing next to him, and he put his arm around Paul’s shoulder and squeezed. Paul took this as a signal to act. He took the lid off of the urn, and said, “We’ll each take a handful, and spread the ashes wherever you want. You can say whatever you need to say privately as you do so.”

Each of Linda McCartney’s children put their hands out and into each pair of hands Linda’s husband poured a share of ashes. Alistair stood a slight bit back, and indicated non-verbally to Mary that he would accompany her. John didn’t want to put himself forward at this moment. This was a very intimate thing to do - holding on to and distributing the earthly remains of another man’s wife. But Paul came to him in turn, and when he saw John’s hands were not out his eyes looked up in questioning concern. John’s expression said, ‘are you sure you want me to?’ and Paul’s face softened somewhat as if to say, ‘of course, John, don’t be silly.’ So wordlessly John held out his two hands together and received his share. Paul took whatever was remaining, and they all wandered off in different directions, spreading the ashes over bluebell patches and next to mossy tree trunks and some went so far as the meadow to let the ashes fly free there. When they were done, they each returned to the clearing, and when everyone had returned, they picked up guitars, horse reins, and hampers, and headed in a dispirited fashion back across the meadow to the house.

 

*****

 

A Few Weeks Later

 

Mary had decided to postpone her wedding from May until September. Her mother had told her to have the wedding when she - Mary - could feel strong enough to be happy and really enjoy the day. Stella had already made the wedding dress for her sister, but she packed it away in lavender-scented tissue for a few months. Paul had released his public statement about Linda’s death shortly after the scattering of the ashes, and he had suggested to fans they could best remember her by donating to breast cancer research charities that did not support animal testing, or - even better - “the best tribute - go veggie.”

Paul had already known the terms of Linda’s will, but the lawyers came down to Sussex to have him sign scores of documents as the executor of Linda’s will. Linda had left her entire fortune to her husband in a Qualified Domestic Trust; such trust instruments allow beneficiaries to defer all estate taxes due on assets until after their own death. Thus, all of the royalties from Linda’s books, records and photographs would be Paul’s. Paul had spoken to his children, and they all decided to make sure that Linda’s vegetarian food business would continue. They had also divided amongst themselves Linda’s numerous charitable interests, and pledged to take her place going forward to the extent possible.

All of this business had taken place against the backdrop of the family’s varying grieving styles. Heather was devastated, and would spend half the day in bed, and the other half cuddled up on a sofa watching sad movies and sobbing heavily. Paul was worried about her, and consulted her therapist. The therapist had told him that Heather would get through it in her own time, but had stepped up the number of Heather’s weekly sessions for the time being. James spent much of his time in his bedroom, listening to music, from whence Paul would try to persuade him to emerge to assist in hastily thought of projects around the property. Stella had gone back to work after a week, setting up in her father's study. She kept herself busy at her design work much as Paul did with his music, and this helped her to mask the sense of loss that accompanied her everywhere. Mary and Alistair also stayed in Sussex. Mary needed to help her father and John take care of Heather and James. Also, Mary wanted to be there for her father.

And John? John spent an hour everyday on the phone with Fiona, needing her support to help prop him up while Paul was holed up in the windmill, James was holed up in his room, Stella was holed up in the study, Heather was on the sofa sobbing, Alistair was hanging around following Mary everywhere and looking as though he wanted to be anywhere else, and Mary was doing a much better job of being a substitute Linda than John could ever hope to be. He hadn’t found his sea legs yet, and he had begun to worry - (he couldn’t help himself) - that Linda’s death was going to also be the death of his relationship with Paul. Paul had drifted away from him, his head in a cloud like the fool on the hill. 

One afternoon about two weeks after Linda’s death, John called Fiona for his daily session. Thus far, he hadn’t been very honest with Fiona about how empty and lost he felt, and he especially hadn’t told her how useless and unprepared he had been for stepping into Linda’s place with respect to Paul. But today he was so haunted by his anxieties that he could not contain these feelings and blurted them out to Fiona.

“It’s like he’s on an iceberg, and he’s floating off to sea, and he can’t see me or hear me, and I can’t hear him - I just watch him drift away.”

“Have you tried joining him on the iceberg?” Fiona asked.

“It wasn’t meant to be funny,” John grumbled.

“Nor did I mean it to be. I’m serious. You say he goes off to the windmill and stays there for hours. Why don’t you go with him? Why not join him there?”

“I don’t think I’d be welcome. He seems to want to be by himself,” John complained.

“John - really. The man is grieving. He doesn’t know what he wants or needs. You have to be there for him.” Fiona’s voice was firm but kind.

“What would I say?” John asked fearfully.

“You don’t have to say anything, John. In fact, it would be better if you didn’t. You just have to be there with him. Don’t let him be alone.” 

After this bracing session, John sat at the kitchen table for a few moments feeling sorry for himself. He began to lather up in self-pity: he doesn’t love me as much as he loved Linda; he doesn’t need me as much as he needed Linda; he doesn’t want me as much as he wants Linda. I’m far down the totem pole in Paul’s heart. 

And then it happened. It was literally like a dream, but a dream that one has while wide-awake. He could feel Linda’s presence. Then he heard her words: Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You’re putting yourself first, just like I warned you against. Get up off your ass, and go to Paul. He needs you more than he knows, and he’s too proud to ask. I’m not there to bang your stupid heads together anymore, so you’ll have to do it yourselves. The two of you are so perverse - honestly! 

Chuckling, John got up from his seat, picked up his book, found his coat hanging in the mudroom, and, hands plunged deep into the coat’s pockets, he started down the driveway in the direction of the windmill.


	116. Chapter 116

June 8, 1998  
Church of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, London

 

The crowd began to accrue at about 1:00 p.m. It was a very un-June-like day, with drizzling rain and a penetrating chill, so the gathering witnesses wore raincoats or warm overcoats, and carried umbrellas. They were hushed and respectful. They stood their vigil for over six hours, and were 10 deep by the time the invited mourners began to arrive. Many of the guests arrived in limousines, which had been ordered up and paid for by Paul. Into the church came Elton John with his partner David Furnish, Sting and his wife Trudie, Sir George and Judy Martin along with their adult sons and their families, Mike McCartney with Rowena and his six children, Neil and Susie Aspinall and several of their adult children, Paul’s celebrity cousins Ted and Kate Robbins along with spouses and children, numerous other McCartney and Mohin family members who were not famous, Paul and Linda’s former band mates with their families, John and Paul’s band mates, the animal-rights activist Carla Lane, Neil Tennant (formerly of Pet Shop Boy), the artist Peter Blake, Geoff Wenfor (who had produced Anthology), some actors, actresses and models such as Tracey Ullman, Joanna Lumley, Sheila Hancock and her husband John Thaw, and Marie Helvin accompanying her ex-husband, the photographer who had taken those slash-worthy 1965 pix of John and Paul, David Bailey. The celebrities were not alone. There were also many others - over 400 guests arrived - who had known Paul and Linda, had worked with or for them, and who Linda had touched in some way: the people from MPL/McLen, the people from Linda’s vegetarian food business, photographers’ assistants, and numerous friends of her children. They were all there. Each of them had received a beautifully engraved invitation with a personal handwritten note from Paul or one of the kids: “Hope you can be there!”

Just before 8:00 p.m. Ringo and Barbara arrived, along with Ringo’s son Zak and daughter Lee. Ringo smiled and waved to the waiting throng with his folded umbrella. The crowd was still quiet and respectful, and only called softly across the road, ‘Ringo!’ The press was huddled off to the side, contained by crowd suppressors and watched carefully by the police. They elbowed each other and tried to figure out who they were photographing as the guests had moved quietly into the church. While the press was distracted and elbowing each other, a limo pulled up and George Harrison got out of the car quickly, followed by his wife Olivia, and Dhani. Dhani had his arm around his mother. George wore a long raincoat with a hoodie, and looked straight ahead as he went in to the church, thus frustrating the groaning photographers. 

About a half hour later, three silver Mercedes sedans came around the corner and slid up to the front of the church. Out of the first car, John Lennon emerged; he was accompanied by Sean, Julian and his girlfriend Lucy Bayliss, and his ex-wife Cynthia Lennon. The crowd became a bit louder and more intense at the sight of Paul’s writing and performing partner. The press corps went crazy, with cameras flashing and voices clamoring. They were shouting at each other to get out of each other’s way. Julian escorted his mother up the stairs while John took the time to face the crowd and wave, mouthing the words ‘Thank you’, and Sean put a protective hand on his dad’s shoulder. They disappeared into the church.

The second silver car carried Mary and Alistair, along with Stella. Stella wore a striking white pantsuit she had made herself for the occasion and her bright red hair made her instantly recognizable. Mary, however, had on a dark coat, and unobtrusively had gone up the stairs to greet the church elders who had come to meet the family at the door. The crowd didn’t even register her, as they were staring at Stella and waiting for the third car. 

Stella waited at the sidewalk for the third car which was only seconds behind, and almost immediately out of it came her father, his hair short and tastefully coiffed, but looking completely ravaged as though he were just barely holding himself together. Heather and her boyfriend got out next, followed finally by James. Heather was wearing a lovely aqua pantsuit that Stella had made for her, and on this evening she looked so like her mother that the crowd gasped at the sight of her. She immediately began to sob as she heard the crowd’s loving clamors, and both her boyfriend and Stella moved towards her, each grabbing a hand, to rush her up the stairs. Paul and James followed up the rear. Paul turned to the crowd, obviously on the brink of tears, and James said to him quietly, “Are you okay Dad?” Paul turned to his son, and threw his arm around his shoulders and said, “Let’s go in.”

 

*****

 

The Day Before  
(June 7th)

 

Paul had gone to the church the day before Linda’s London Memorial Service. He had gone with John and Mary to make sure the plans they had made for the service were coming together properly. Mary was there to make sure her family’s vision was realized, Paul to supervise and second-guess every single detail (and because he could not settle anywhere else), and John to keep his eye on Paul. John sat in a pew where he quietly read a book, and periodically looked up to see if Paul needed comforting. And Paul had needed to be comforted numerous times. Every ten minutes or so he would start to cry. John and Mary would rush over to him, comfort him, and then he’d shake it off and go back to work. It was heavy sledding. 

John thought back over the six weeks since Linda’s death. James had managed to graduate from a local college. Julian had released an album, ‘Photograph Smiles,’ and one of the songs had been a hit. He was preparing for a press junket and concert tour, and he checked in with John and Paul each week or so. The family had hunkered down together in Sussex as they planned a Memorial Service, comforted each other, and told each other Linda stories. Tears of all kinds were shed in copious amounts in and out of several pairs of eyes: sobs, floods, trickles and standing pools. 

Paul had cried at least two or three times an hour for the whole six weeks. John, too, had cried, but he had been truly amazed at the amount of latent bereavement he was seeing coming from Paul and his children. The five of them were absolutely bereft and behaved as though they didn’t know what they would do after the reality of Linda’s death had finally sunk in. They could not be parted from one another. Stella ran her business out of her father’s study. John and Mary shared possession of the kitchen and the cooking, while Mary took control of the housekeeping and the shopping, and was main comforter-in-chief of her siblings. John’s job was the care and nurturing of one Paul McCartney. Since John’s trek down the drive to the windmill, he had rarely left Paul alone, even for increments of less than an hour.

The florist arrived and delivered an entire truck full of lilies of the valley, which was Linda’s favorite flower, along with white roses and pale pink and white peonies, which she also favored. The lilies of the valley were in bunches, each bunch with it’s roots wrapped with a protective sleeve so that it could be planted in a garden as a permanent memory of Linda. The family intended to hand out a bunch each to the invited mourners, and give whatever was left over to the fans who came to witness the private ceremony from the outside. Paul had needed to negotiate with the curate to get permission to bring two small Shetland Ponies into the church for part of the ceremony (he had given them to Linda the previous Christmas) - the church elders felt that perhaps this was not the most dignified way to treat the church. Soon, however, they gave way, when Paul reminded them of St. Francis. 

As the chorus warmed up and practiced “Celebration” from Standing Stone, and the Loma Mar string quartet practiced the medley of songs that Paul had written for Linda, Paul felt raw and jumpy inside. He wanted it to all go perfectly of course, and then he suddenly remembered that Linda had always tried to coach him out of his perfectionist proclivities. She had been easygoing about things - utterly informal - and often had reminded Paul that things happen for a reason, so no point in trying to control everything. With this thought, he dropped down on to a pew, and began to weep again. 

 

*****

 

From the New York Times:

June 23, 1998: The surviving Beatles came together today to pay an emotional farewell to Linda McCartney, who died of breast cancer on April 17 at age 56.  
The memorial service at the Church of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields was the first time that Sir Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison had appeared in public together for three decades.  
Sir Paul, who with John Lennon composed many Beatles classics, said he wanted the service to be a celebration of his wife, a photographer and vegetarian who started a successful food business and was a strong advocate of animal rights.  
Crowds lining the streets 10 deep cheered as Sir Paul arrived flanked by family, friends, fellow Beatles and two Shetland ponies. He was joined by his children, Mary, Stella and James, along with Heather, Ms. McCartney's daughter from her first marriage.  
Mr. Starr turned and waved his umbrella to the crowd. Mr. Harrison, his head bowed, strode into the church wearing a long, hooded raincoat.  
The guests, a ''Who's Who'' of pop music, ranged from Elton John and Sting to George Martin, the producer who used to be known as the fifth Beatle.  
Sir Paul praised his wife as a great lover, fantastic photographer, passionate rock-and-roll fan and fervent crusader for animal rights. Up the church aisle were led Ms. McCartney's ponies, Schou and Tinsel.  
''She said one day if I could save just one animal, that is all I would like to do. I saw a light bulb come on over her head,'' Sir Paul told the congregation. ''Over the years, she has become the first vegetarian tycoon and I understand they have sold more than 400 million meals. So that is a couple of animals she has saved.''  
Animal rights campaigners, some sporting ''Go Veggie for Linda'' badges, held a candlelit vigil in Trafalgar Square outside the church, which was lined inside with white lilies, peonies and roses.  
In the church, the 700-strong congregation sang ''Let It Be,'' the poignant ballad that Sir Paul wrote for his mother, Mary, who died of breast cancer when he was 14.  
The last time the Beatles sang in public together was in 1969 when an impromptu session on the rooftop of their Apple record building in central London brought traffic to a halt.  
Sir Paul scattered his wife's ashes over their family estate in Southern England. The couple, who played and sang together in the 1970's band Wings after the breakup of the Beatles, recorded six songs written by Ms. McCartney shortly before her death in Arizona. There are plans to release them as a tribute album.  
The service began with the refrain from Sir Paul's 1977 hit ''Mull of Kintyre.'' The choir sang ''Celebration'' from his classical composition ''Standing Stone,'' which recently became a top-selling album on both sides of the Atlantic. Students of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, which Sir Paul helped found in his hometown, sang the gentle refrain from ''Blackbird.''  
The fashion photographer David Bailey read a poem by the comedian Spike Milligan:

 

It was heaven. You were 7 and I was 8.  
And we watched the stars suspended  
Walking home down an apple lane  
Me and Rosie, a doll, a daisy chain  
On an evening that would never come again.

 

*****

 

One Week Later  
June 14, 1998  
Cavendish

 

“Mary - when you come, don’t forget to bring the candles,” John said again - it was his third reminder. 

Mary giggled at the other end of the phone. “I’ve put a post-it on the door, to make sure I don’t forget.” 

“I can’t believe I went to that stupid party store yesterday and forgot to buy candles!” John grumbled. “Brain like a sieve.”

“They will be a pretty idiosyncratic collection, though,” Mary commented warningly. “I have 18 baby blue ones leftover from Alistair’s birthday, 13 pink ones from Stella’s last birthday, a half dozen larger white ones from a friend’s wedding shower, a multi-color pack of blue, yellow and red that I never got around to using for some reason - 20 of those, plus 3 old yellow ones - they’re kind of squat - from some old party or other, one huge blue and white number ‘1’ we can reuse from a friend’s son’s first birthday party, and a pack of tea candles - 6 exactly, although they are much wider and shorter than the rest: just 57 exactly. The big ‘1’ can be the good luck candle, I think.”

John grimaced on his end of the line as he heard this miscellany described. He tried to picture this hoard of oddball candles on the elegant cake he’d had delivered - a chocolate and strawberry cake, of course, Paul’s favorite. How would be ever be able to persuade Paul that the candles weren’t an afterthought?

“Maybe I should send someone out to the grocery store to see if they have any candles, so they all match,” John wondered. “I didn’t realize you would bring such a motley grab-bag.” (John was throwing this party on a Sunday, June 14th, to surprise Paul before his 56th birthday. The party stores were all closed on Sundays.)

Mary laughed. “Oh, Daddy will think it is hilarious. Don’t bother. Stella and I will put them on the cake, and we’ll make it look original - like we did it on purpose, sort of like a little joke.”

“O-kay,” John said dubiously. He had to struggle with an overwhelming desire to take over the whole damn party and do everything himself. A week earlier, just prior to Linda’s Memorial Service, John and Paul had moved back to London, and they were staying at Cavendish with Heather and James. (Mary and Stella had their own London homes.) John had moved some of his things into a guest room, where he and Paul spent their nights. Paul still could not fathom sharing the master bedroom with anyone but Linda - not even John. This was a lingering pain for John; although hurtful, it was something he could understand, but his attempts to suggest that Paul move over to his house across the mews instead had been rejected by Paul out of hand. 

Including the kids in on the surprise party planning had been difficult for John; it was surprising to him how quickly he’d grown used to having Paul mostly to himself, and being the one to provide Paul with his most basic needs. John felt continuously protective of Paul, who would suddenly just break down and start crying at the most unexpected moments. John knew that some word, some object, some scent, some taste, some sensation or some sound must have reminded Paul of Linda, and that would cause Paul to fall apart instantly. 

“Don’t worry, John, honestly,” Mary chuckled over the phone line, bringing John back to the present. The way she said ‘honestly’ reminded John of Linda, and he couldn’t help tearing up a little himself. “We’ll all have a good time. So, I’ll hang up now, because I have to get ready to leave.” 

After hanging up, John wandered into the kitchen where he stood surveying the feast surrounding him: the stuff he’d made, the stuff he’d ordered and had delivered, and the stuff he had to finish making. There was a box full of party decorations sitting on the kitchen table, and he was waiting for some of the kids to arrive to decorate the place. Linda’s former personal assistant, who was working for John now, had brought over the present Linda had purchased for Paul and wrapped before her death, and John had handled it with kid gloves before hiding it in one of the closets in the master bedroom. He and the kids planned to give that special gift to Paul on his actual birthday, four days away. John wanted to feel excited about the party, and he wanted to look forward to Paul’s reaction. But he couldn’t get past the feeling that he was just making empty faux-cheerful gestures in the face of overriding sadness. As he stood there it suddenly occurred to him that a party thrown so soon after Linda’s death might upset Paul. John had only invited the McCartney kids and his brother and his family, so it wasn’t as if it were a full-on party, and John had operated under the theory that Paul would be okay with it. But now John was worried: what if he wasn’t?

John had chosen this particular Sunday for the party in part because Paul had planned to spend the day with Carl Davis, the composer, playing him his work thus far on Ecce Cor Meum, hoping to get some helpful advice. John looked at his watch, and noted that they still had three hours left before Paul was due home. As he was musing, he heard a loud,

“We’re here!” echoing from the front of the house. It was Stella’s voice.

John wandered in that direction and found Stella and two of her grown female cousins in the sitting room. Stella had gone with the limo to pick up the Mike McCartneys at the airport, and had just delivered them to Cavendish. Mike came in the front door last, after his wife and five of his six children had already entered the house. He was carrying numerous suitcases. John went to help him by taking a few suitcases away from him, and then directed him upstairs to the bedrooms. Mike had been a little surprised when he’d been offered the master suite to stay in for the few days he would be there.

“Are you sure?” Mike asked, as John plopped luggage down on the floor of the master suite.

“Paul can’t sleep in here - it is too evocative,” John explained quietly. “I’ve changed all the linens - they’re brand new. And the girls have gone through Linda’s clothes and jewelry, and removed them. But it is still too hard for him to stay in here. You and Rowena might as well be comfortable.” 

“Where is he sleeping then?” Mike asked, worried. 

“In the guest suite,” John said promptly. 

Mike didn’t ask more. He wondered if John was staying with Paul here, or whether he stayed at his own house nearby. He also wondered what effect Linda’s death had on Paul’s relationship with John. While Mike had come to terms with the John/Paul thing quite a while ago, it still wasn’t something he liked to know about in any detail, so he didn’t ask questions about it, and certainly never encouraged any disclosures about it from either Paul or John. Live and let live: that was his new approach.

For his part, John divined that Mike didn’t want to know about Paul and him. He had long-since noticed that Mike grew anxious and was quick to change the subject if his brother’s intimacy with John was even hinted at in conversation. John had learned to eliminate all displays of affection towards Paul in Mike’s presence. It felt a little awkward and phony to John, but he knew that family was important to Paul, and he didn’t want to be the cause of another rift between the brothers.

 

*****

 

Paul had finished playing his piece to Carl Davis, and now the two men were relaxing in easy chairs drinking Earl Grey tea. Carl felt that Paul seemed to be doing okay, although he was far more lacking in ebullience than Davis remembered from his days working with Paul on the Liverpool Oratorio. Back then, Carl had sensed the incredible bond between Paul and Linda, and knew that her loss must have been a breath-stopping blow to Paul. However, when he asked the question, he had not at all expected the intense reaction.

“What’s the piece influenced by, Paul?” He asked conversationally.

Paul started to say, “Linda,” but he could not finish pronouncing the name. He suddenly covered his face with a hand, and began to sob. 

Alarmed, Carl leaned forward and said, “Oh, my friend. I should have known...”

Paul could hear Carl’s words, but he couldn’t catch his sobs long enough to respond. Instead, he merely shook his head up and down in the ‘yes’ gesture, trying to convey that it wasn’t Carl’s fault. Paul could not control his feelings of loss. They were so close to the surface that almost any little thing could set them loose. He felt stupid blubbering all the time; it was most undignified. But what could he do? It was beyond his control. After a few moments he managed to catch his breath, and talk himself down to reality again. He took the tissues that Carl was offering him, and wiped his face and blew his nose. He finally was able to speak.

“I’m so sorry about that,” he apologized, with a slightly sheepish grin. “I’ve turned into a walking waterworks.”

Carl was relieved that Paul had pulled himself together and was able to summon a smile, no matter how sickly it appeared. He patted Paul’s knee in a fatherly way and said, “You don’t have to apologize for grieving, Paul. I’m glad to see that you can express your grief, and you’re not holding it in.”

 

*****

 

A few hours later, all of the McCartney kids had arrived at Cavendish. Mary and Alistair had arrived last and soon they were all decorating the sitting room and foyer with ridiculous signs and ribbons and balloons and what-all. Their merriness had a soothing effect on John, who had begun to worry that his surprise party had been a terrible idea. 

Mike might not like the idea of his brother having John as a lover, but he did enjoy John’s company as a pal, and so he hung out with John in the kitchen drinking ale and making Liverpudlian jokes about John’s domesticity, while his wife Rowena assisted by putting out plates. Mike’s three young sons by Rowena were running around being kids, through the kitchen, out through the dining room to the sitting room and back again, and this somehow brought a more genuine cheerfulness to the proceedings. 

One of the security guards hired for the evening to chase off any potential paparazzi had been deputized as a spy by John, so he rang the doorbell twice in quick succession as Paul’s car was maneuvering into the driveway as a pre-arranged signal. Immediately, the family went into overdrive, shushing each other, giggling a little, hiding behind sofas and chairs. John didn’t want them to hide and jump out and yell ‘surprise’ because he thought Paul wouldn’t like it, but the kids were operating out of their own sensibilities, and there was no way to stop them now. Mike thought this was all beneath his dignity, so he lounged impudently in an easy chair drinking his ale with an ironic look on his face while Rowena hovered indecisively in a corner. John went to the foyer to greet Paul as he came in, who was shaking out his wet overcoat on the porch.

“John!” Paul said, his face showing clear relief - it was a look that pulled on one of Johns’ heartstrings in a good way. “Right at the door! Can’t wait to see me, eh?” Paul joked.

“I just want to warn you,” John whispered, “when you go in the sitting room everyone is going to jump out and yell ‘surprise’.”

Paul looked at John first in confusion and then in skepticism. “You haven’t thrown on a surprise party for me, have you?”

“I have, yes,” John confessed sheepishly. “But I didn’t want them to do that jumping out thing. The kids decided that on their own. So you have to pretend to be surprised when they do it.”

Paul smiled at John, thankful for the warning so he could prepare himself. Paul hated to be taken unawares, as John well knew. Bravely, he headed for the sitting room trying to look nonchalant, and caught a glimpse of his brother in the chair. “Mike!” he greeted in honest surprise, just as people jumped out from behind curtains and furnishings shouting,

“Surprise!” A dozen voices were joined in hysterical loudness.

Paul did a good job of feigning surprise; he had been genuinely surprised to see his brother’s family there, and for whatever reason their presence filled him with a sense of wellbeing. He turned to meet John’s eyes and gave him a grateful wink, causing John’s anxiety to dry up and blow away in an instant. 

The party was lovely. The food was great, and everyone complimented John over it. Stella and Mary even whispered together at one point over how John had insisted on doing all the food without help, and how this reminded them of their mother.

“Do you think he’s trying to take her place?” Stella asked Mary.

“No one could ever take Mum’s place in Dad’s heart. I think he is just trying to do something nice for Daddy, to help him feel a little better.” Mary always saw the best in people. 

Stella thought about this for a moment. “John has been almost like a different person for the last several months; ever since we knew Mum was dying. He isn’t as spontaneous, and mischievous, and free-spirited, except that night with the Twister game. I kind of miss that about him.”

Mary knew what Stella meant, but she had a different view of it. “Mum told me how much she loved John. He’s grieving too, you know. He and Mum got very close at the end, and he spent hours with her, reading to her, singing her little ditties, holding her hand. Losing a close friend is enough to dampen anyone’s spirits.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” Stella grudgingly agreed. “But I have this feeling that Dad needs John to be John - you know,  
for John to be his crazy self - and that would make Dad feel better.”

Mary wasn’t sure she agreed, but didn’t feel strongly enough about it to say so. Who knew what someone else needed when they were deep in the grieving stage? Mary knew that she spent 20 minutes a night in the shower, sitting on the floor and crying, while all the rest of the day she pretended to be calm and on top of things. Stella was working even longer hours than usual, and never seemed to be free to go out to dinner or for a drink, or even to just drop by and chat. James had gone deeper into his shell, and was almost completely monosyllabic most of the time, and Heather was even more fragile and emotional than ever. All of them weren’t entirely themselves; or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that maybe what they had become were extreme versions of themselves as they tried to make sense of a world without Linda in it. 

 

*****

 

Later that night, after the young adults had all left to go visit a club, and Rowena had put the boys to bed and then showered and slipped in to bed herself, John, Paul and Mike were left in Paul’s study, sipping whiskey. Mike was deep in his cups. Paul worried a little about how much Mike was drinking. It seemed as though every time he saw his brother these days he was either drunk or on his way to being drunk. Mike could be a lugubrious drunk, but tonight he was mean as well as morose. He was sloppy and self-pitying. 

John had held back on the alcohol all night long, and barely touched his whiskey now. He felt as though he was on high alert being Paul’s caretaker. He wished he didn’t take the responsibility so seriously, but he had promised Linda. As he sat there, John studied Mike and listened to the things he said. A few of the things Mike said were truly offensive towards Paul. Mike clearly didn’t realize what he was saying, and Paul had a tendency to gloss over thinly veiled insults because it was so unpleasant to confront them. But John heard them, and he was beginning to get angry. He was glad now that he had not had much to drink, because otherwise he would not have been able to control his anger. 

Mike had said to Paul at one point, looking into his whiskey, “So I guess your life isn’t so charmed anymore.” 

John had to force himself not to respond. He had looked quickly, protectively, at Paul, and Paul had his ‘meh’ expression on: bland and unaffected. After a few seconds Paul said, “My life was never as charmed as some seem to think.”

Mike had guffawed, but not in a particularly friendly way, as if to say - ‘look who’s talking. What does he know of trouble?’ 

John had jumped in to change the subject. He asked Mike what he was up to these days. This had been a tactical mistake.

“We scrape by,” he said mournfully. “I sell a few pictures. School fees are killing us.”

“They’re not in comprehensive schools?” John asked. It wasn’t an innocent question, but it was asked innocently.

“The boys can’t go to those, because they get picked on because of their last name,” Mike defended. “The girls went through that when they were at school.”

“Paul’s girls went to comprehensive schools,” John said mildly, as if by random. “They managed and turned out great.” 

“With boys it’s harder,” Mike protested.

John could hardly argue with that, because he knew that Linda and Paul had put James in a private school when he was about 9 years old because of bullying. But that bullying had been over the gossip about John’s relationship with Paul. He cleared his throat, and gallantly tried to change the subject again. 

“So which of your old aunties is still alive?” He asked the two brothers. They had always been full of hilarious stories about their old aunties, who they both clearly adored. 

“Oh, they’re all gone now,” Mike said darkly. “You wouldn’t know because Paul never came to the funerals.”

Fuck! John swore to himself. 

“I couldn’t come to the last two because Linda was ill and dying,” Paul answered numbly. “I couldn’t leave her side.”

Mike rolled his eyes as if to say this was a paltry excuse, and did so while Paul wasn’t looking and directed it at John. John had to grab hold of the chair’s arms so he wouldn’t take a flyer at Mike’s neck. He couldn’t keep completely still, however. He said loyally and with a sense of indignation,

“You weren’t there, Mike. You didn’t know how much Linda depended on Paul. He literally carried her around, and helped her get ready for bed, and she couldn’t bear to be away from him. I used to sit with her when he had to go off on business for a few hours, and she would keep looking at the clock and wondering where he was.” 

Paul looked up and watched John as he spoke. He felt gratitude and love for John in that moment. Paul understood why John was angry with Michael, even though Paul could not find it in his heart to be mad. Paul knew his brother had a deep resentment of his success. It was a resentment that he managed to keep deeply buried when he was sober, but when Mike was drunk, it all came out. And Mike was drunk more and more often. Paul wondered if he should say something to Mike about it later, when he was sober again. He’d have to give that some thought. And, Paul thought, it wouldn’t kill me to pay the boys’ school fees. He’d have to arrange that later, when Mike was more himself. 

Mike had felt duly chastened by John’s remarks. He didn’t know why this poison would slip out of him. He loved his brother, but it was so galling to be rubbing mere coins together while his brother approached billionaire status. And this whole super-star thing was a great annoyance, since to Mike Paul was just his brother - like anyone else’s brother. Yet he had to deal with all these fawning people who wanted to tell him how much they loved his brother. He did his best in public to play the game, but it grew tiresome very quickly. Still, he knew he shouldn’t have said that thing about his aunts’ funerals. That had been below the belt. Before he could open his mouth to apologize, John’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Paul, it’s been a long day. I’m thinking it is time for bed.”

For a moment Mike thought that was good - John would go to his own home and then he could apologize to Paul in private for his ill-advised remark. But as soon as this thought had gone through Mike’s mind, John added,

“Come on Pud. Give me that whiskey. Let’s go up to bed.” 

Mike heard this declaration and felt a reflexive shock run through him. So John was staying here with Paul in the fucking guest suite! Of course John would drag Paul off to bed after making that speech about poor Linda! What a hypocrite! And how sincere could Paul’s grief really be, if he immediately jumped from her bed to John’s? 

Paul saw Mike’s expression, and knew instinctively what he was thinking. He said to Mike as he got up, “Hug goodnight, Mike. It’ll look brighter in the morning.” It was something their father used to tell them after a bad day, and Mike couldn’t help but smile with the memory. He got up and gave his brother a fierce hug. Paul whispered in his ear, “You don’t have to understand. Just love me anyway.” Paul then pulled away, and left the room, following John up the stairs.


	117. Chapter 117

June 15, 1998  
Just after midnight  
Cavendish

 

They were finally alone in the privacy of the bedroom, having left Mike McCartney alone in Paul’s study with the whiskey bottle. Paul was in the bathroom doing his ablutions, and John, who had already finished, was sitting up in bed wondering if he should say anything about Mike’s behavior. Surely some of those bitter remarks must have hit their target, and wouldn’t Paul need to talk about it? 

To John’s relief, Paul had finally gotten over the ‘pajamas’ thing, and came into the room unconsciously nude. He climbed into the bed and looked over to where John sat, staring at him. “What?” Paul asked.

John smiled and said, “Just enjoying the scenery.”

Paul winced. “Thank god you have terrible eyesight.”

John laughed. “I have me glasses on, mate.”

“Shall I turn off the light? Or are you going to read?” Paul asked. Sexual interludes had been far and few between since Linda’s death. John suspected that Paul would feel guilty about Linda, and this would deflate his usually amorous nature before they could even get started. 

“That your way of saying I’m not getting any tonight?” John joked. 

Paul gave John a slow double take. He knew that John was telling him he was letting the side down. It had been hard, ever since Linda was sick, to feel sexual. He had done his best to keep John satisfied, but sometimes it had been an actual effort. He didn’t want to fail to perform and have to answer a bunch of embarrassing questions, so more often than not he had chosen not to initiate sex. It had been two and a half years since Linda’s diagnosis. Two and a half years of living a bit like a nurse or a monk. Or a monk who was a nurse. Now, Paul was stuck in this place where he found it hard to be sexual. 

“I’m sorry I’m a disappointment,” Paul said sincerely. “I find it difficult to get in the mood.” 

John sighed heavily. “Fuck it, Paul. This is me - John. You don’t have to tiptoe around. If you’re not feeling it, you’re not feeling it. I’ll survive.” John stopped for a moment and then added with a twinkle in his eye, “Of course, I’ll be very grumpy, but I’ll survive.”

Paul chuckled in spite of the anxiety the subject had brought to him. Paul was a perfectionist in sex, as he was in everything else, and he didn’t want to do sex badly. Better he should not do it at all than make a mash of it. But Paul was also a generous lover, and so he forced himself to turn over on to his side and face John. 

John took the cue, pushed a few pillows away, and slipped further down under the covers on his side until he was eye to eye with Paul. 

“Did you enjoy your party?” John asked flirtatiously. 

“I did,” Paul flirted right back with a naughty twinkle.

“I made almost all the food myself,” John said, begging for praise.

Paul’s hand reached up and began stroking John’s hair. “It was awesome,” he responded in a low, throaty voice, aping an American accent.

John felt his nether regions pricking up in interest. Was Paul finally going to seduce him for a change? That never happened anymore! But Paul was surely taking his time about it. John forced himself to be patient and to lie still. He said, “Your brother was saying some pretty crazy shit tonight.”

Paul said, “Ummm...” but he was distracted by the closeness of John, and the smell of John, and the sound of John.

“He’s getting really bitter with age,” John pointed out softly.

“It’s the alcohol speaking,” Paul assured him, allowing his hand to move down John’s arm, to his side, and in the direction of his bum. 

“Well then,” John said even more softly, his eyes closed and his mind focused on Paul’s hand, “that alcohol is an asshole.”

Paul chuffed in his throat in amusement, and decided he was sufficiently aroused now to initiate some more vigorous foreplay. He gently pushed John on to his back, and then moved, very slowly, until he was on top of him. John groaned deep in his throat. He threw his head back and just allowed every one of Paul’s touches to echo throughout his body. Paul’s initiating touches felt so...new... after so long a time. He almost couldn’t believe it, but he was actually seeing stars!

Paul looked down into John’s eyes. John’s eyes always looked so naked and vulnerable when he took off his glasses, because of his extreme near-sightedness. Paul loved this about John. For Paul it was like a metaphor for John himself - on the outside a suit of armor, on the inside a quivering mass of insecurity. This thought flitted through Paul’s mind, and then he began to move in earnest. 

It was the age-old rhythms again. Thousands of years had gone by and still human beings felt the intense need to rub their bodies together to create that hot, tingling feeling that robbed the mind of its senses for blessed minutes at a time. Soon, the rubbing became more persistent. There was no need for penetration tonight; the pure ecstasy of the rubbing and the rhythm were more than enough to bring the cascades of pleasure that soon followed. It happened in a rush - much quicker than either of them wanted it to. Instead of falling off to the side, Paul remained lying on top of John for a few moments. He was murmuring something in John’s ear, and John strained to make sense of it. He was rewarded when he made out the words,

“I couldn’t go on without you.” 

 

*****

 

June 18, 1998  
Cavendish

 

Paul’s actual birthday came, and John had prepared a quiet but refined dinner for just the family. He had persuaded Julian to come too since he was in London briefly to do the press for his latest album release; other than that only Paul and Linda’s children and the three girls' boyfriends were there. As usual, Mary had come over to help John set the table, arrange the flowers, and act as sous chef. The two of them had struck up a relationship much like the one John had shared with Linda, and so John felt that Mary was his substitute Linda; he had begun to treat her as an intimate and equal friend. Every time Mary visited, she and John would cook side by side peacefully, each telling the other what was going on in their lives, repeating little jokes, and discussing their concerns about the rest of the family members. Tonight was no different. 

“How’re you holding up little Mary Contrary?” John asked her gently. (He sometimes called her ‘little Mary’ and ‘Mary Contrary’, and had done so in poignant moments since she was young.) 

Mary smiled at the childhood nickname John had bestowed upon her. He was the only one allowed to call her that. “Just fine, Johnsy Ponsy,” she retorted with a pert smile. “And you?”

John threw his head back and laughed. “I asked for that,” he admitted. “But I was serious. How are you doing? You always seem so serene.”

“I have a lot of my mother in me,” Mary said honestly. “She was always cool and calm in a crisis. It was one of the truly amazing things about her. I have a little of that, and I’m using this experience to build on it.”

John held a respectful silence. 

Mary saw John’s sober profile and added, “How are you doing, John? How’s it going with you and Dad?”

“He’s so sad,” John said softly. “It is hard sometimes to communicate with him.”

Mary said, “You make him laugh, though. I’ve seen you. He lights up when you’re around.” 

“Does he?” John asked, sincerely surprised by this revelation. 

“He always has done - as long as you’ve lived with us. I’ve noticed it. And it is especially obvious since Mum died.” Mary had stopped her busy hands, and had turned to face John. 

John felt tears flooding into his eyes and he didn’t want to show these tears to Mary. She shouldn’t have to comfort him because her father was grieving for her mother and thus wasn’t as attentive to him - John - as he had been in the past. 

Mary didn’t care about any of that. “John - he loves you. Look what he did for you - he brought you into our family. It’s just that he and Mum had a special bond, too. But if I had to be 100% honest, I would have to say that if you were the one to die, Daddy would never recover.”

 

*****

 

While this conversation was going on, Julian was lazing on the sofa in the sitting room in his casual but nice clothes, watching a football match on television with James, and Mary’s boyfriend Alistair Donald. Alistair had met James first, and James had introduced him to his sister, so the two were friends. During a boring part in the match, James turned to Julian and said,

“I didn’t get a chance to say more than ‘hi’ to your mum the other day. Even when she came to the dinner after the Memorial Service I didn’t run into her. How is she doing?”

Julian turned to James and was startled by how thoughtful James was to ask about his mother, when his own mother had just died. Julian said, “She’s in fine fettle. She’s just broken up with her fourth husband - ‘the chauffeur’- “ Julian said those last words with heavy sarcasm. “He was a real winner.”

James was shocked by the fact that Julian’s mother had been married four times, but he was much too polite to comment on it. “She looked lovely at the Service,” was all he could think to say. He floundered around for something else to say. He had always been in awe of Julian, and had never been able to broach what he thought was the protective wall around the man in all the years they had known each other. He tried again. “I really love your Dad,” he said sincerely. “He’s such a cool guy.”

Julian looked at James and it suddenly occurred to him that here was another kid who had grown up in a child/father relationship with his dad when he hadn’t. He tried not to feel bitter. Still, he found himself saying to James, “You know him better than I do.” 

Having flunked out at trying to make pleasant conversation with Julian, James turned back to the television in a worried silence. He felt confused and sad for Julian: a mother who had brought three stepfathers into his life, and divorced them all, and a father who had apparently neglected him for almost his entire childhood. As unfair as life seemed to James at the moment due to the loss of his mother, he had to admit to himself that Julian had it much worse even though both of his parents were still alive.

In just that moment, John came in to the sitting room and saw the three young men sprawled on the sofa watching sports on telly. He stood with his hands supporting his lower back. “Well, this is a very macho picture,” he announced comically. The three young men looked up and chuckled. 

“Come join us,” Julian suggested. 

John plopped down right next to Julian and put his arm around Julian’s shoulders. He pulled him a little closer. He said in a low voice, “It’s so good to have you here.” 

Julian felt nervous and untrusting. Would his father rip this rug out from under him, too? He said, “It’s good to be here.” His voice sounded a little tentative.

John said, “Why don’t you and I go down to the pub later tonight, after dinner. Just us two? I’d like to find out more about your new album, and your upcoming tour.”

Suspicious, but eager, Julian said, “Sure.” His next thought was to wonder if Paul had put his father up to it.

 

*****

 

The family gathered around the glowing candles on the rectangular mahogany dining table, which was covered for the evening in an expensive cream-colored tablecloth. All the leaves were in the table, extending it to its fullest length, and ten adults stood around the table wondering where to sit. Paul sat first, at his usual seat at the head of the table. John began to sit at his usual place but Mary bumped him and said matter-of-factly, “No John, sit at the end.” 

John whispered back, “That’s your mother’s seat.”

Mary said out loud, “Not anymore. It’s yours. Right Daddy?” Mary turned to her father for support.

Paul, who had witnessed this exchange in surprise, had absent-mindedly stood up again and said, “Yes, of course.” He had been taken aback by Mary’s taking control of the situation, but as he thought about it, Mary was right. John was his sole life partner now, and he belonged at the other end of the table. John still felt sheepish as he took the seat, but none of the McCartney children seemed upset by this at all. Stella gave him a cheeky grin, and James, who was seated next to him, patted his arm in a comforting way. Even Heather leaned towards him and gave him a beaming smile.

Julian observed all this and felt left out. The McCartney kids had just anointed his father their other parent, and had done so with such gracious unanimity that it hadn’t even felt awkward or strange. Paul calling his name suddenly distracted him: 

“Julian, come sit here next to me,” Paul said, patting the seat on his right hand side. “We haven’t really talked in a long time.” 

Yep, Julian thought, Paul obviously told Dad to take me out to the pub. He even used much the same words! But Julian sat down and smiled warmly at the man who he - alone and especially compared to all the men who had married his mother - considered to be his father. 

 

*****

 

Later That Night

 

“I’m taking Julian out to the pub for a few hours,” John mentioned to Paul, as Paul and Stella were cleaning up the kitchen.

“Oh? That’s great!” Paul said. He turned to the kitchen table and said in a mock serious voice, “Jules, look after your dad. Make sure he doesn’t drink too much and then wander off into traffic or end up in the tabloids.” 

From his seat, where he was nursing the last dregs of a glass of red wine, Julian heard this and was amazed. It appeared that the pub visit had been his father’s own idea! Paul hadn’t been put him up to it as he had believed! Julian tried not to allow his hopeful surprise to show. He decided to play along as if this were not a watershed moment in his life and suggested, “Maybe you should be warning Dad to look after me!”

Paul signed theatrically, and said to Stella (but loudly enough for all to hear), "Just what I need - two Lennons!"

Within a half hour John and Julian entered the local pub. It was the one John and Paul had frequented for years. The publican waved at John from the bar, and then came ‘round to settle his star customer in a booth.

“This is my son Julian,” John said very proudly, introducing Julian to the bartender. “He’s just released a new album, and has a hit record off it.” The bartender greeted Julian warmly, took their order, and said he’d have the drinks delivered. “Don’t bother, Ned,” John said with fake indignation. “You know I always collect my own drinks. Just give me the high sign with your bloody bar towel when they’re ready.” Ned chuckled and scurried away. A few moments later, John collected the two bitter ales, and brought them over to the table, where Julian was anxiously waiting. 

Julian had noted the pride in his father’s voice and face when he was introducing him to the barkeep. This had meant a great deal to Julian, although he was also confused by it. It was something he was not used to, and so he didn’t know what to make of it. 

John settled in and said, “I spoke with your mum a bit at dinner after the Service. She told me she is divorcing again.”

Julian nodded cautiously. His loyalty lay with his mother, and he was very protective of her.

John added, “Were you close to this Christie guy?”

Julian shook his head ‘no.’ “I didn’t really like him or Twist, either. The only one I liked was the first one after you - Roberto Bassanini. But he was only around for three years.”

John was curious why Cynthia had not been able to establish a lasting relationship with someone, but worried that the reason might be that he had damaged her in some way and so she could never love or trust a man fully ever again. He said to his son in a gentle voice, “I was a terrible husband to her. I loved her when I was young, and I needed her too, but I was basically mentally ill when I was younger. I went on to be a horrible husband to Yoko. I couldn’t love anyone properly. You should talk to Paul about that. He got the worst of it.” 

Julian was watching his father’s face as this confession came out. He said nothing. John continued.

“I was a terrible father to you. I’ve told you this before. I had no idea how to be a father. You think I was a good father to Sean, but you should talk to him sometime about my temper tantrums, and the time I burst his eardrum with my shouting.”

Julian made an inarticulate sound in shock. “You what?”

“When he was about four, he was fooling around at the table, playing with his food, and I yelled directly in his ear because he wasn’t listening to me, and then Sean was crying out in pain. We took him to the doctor, and were told his eardrum was burst.” John looked very ashamed.

Julian said nothing; he sat in a shocked silence.

“I’m telling you this because it seems to me that you think I was some kind of idyllic parent to Sean and I loved him more than you, but it isn’t true. Sean lived with me for most of his childhood, this is true, but at least until I was back with Paul it wasn’t exactly nirvana for him. To the extent he was fathered consistently, it was by Paul. And as bad as the divorce was between your mother and me, the end of my marriage with Yoko was far worse. This is because your mother had so much class, and Yoko - well - she could give as good as she got.” John stopped for a moment as he took a long sip. “I’m not proud of any of this of course. These are my greatest regrets. I am so very sorry, Julian. I can see that I damaged you in some way. Is there something I can do - anything - to make it up?” John’s eyes were misting with tears. He was still raw from the loss of his dear friend/sister Linda, and so was not fortified against his own regrets. 

Julian’s eyes watered up too at the sight of his father’s unshed tears. He smiled ruefully at his dad - the man the rock world idolized more than any other. Julian knew his bitterness came from the fact that he felt the world knew his father and got more of his father’s love and attention than he did. But here was the great John Lennon, fighting back tears, beseeching him to forgive. “I will try to put my bitterness aside,” Julian pledged. “The last time I spoke to Linda, she told me my bitterness would hurt me more than anyone, but maybe not. Maybe it hurts you more.”

 

*****

 

John and Julian got back to Cavendish at 11:30 p.m. They had stayed until closing time, and had gotten sloppily drunk. They’d cried, apologized to each other, told each other they loved each other, and more or less had to be poured into a cab by the publican to be driven the mere half-mile to Cavendish. As they staggered in the front door, John remembered with a terrible shock that he had forgotten to give Paul his birthday present from Linda! All the other presents had been unwrapped after dinner, but he had plumb forgot Linda’s. He felt horrible. He staggered up the stairs, pointed Julian in the direction of a spare bedroom, and then entered the guest suite he was sharing with Paul. The bedside light was on, but Paul was snoozing with earphones on his head. He had been listening to his new piece for inspiration when he had nodded off to sleep. 

Seeing this, John smiled and went to the master bedroom closet to get the gift. It was a rectangle of about 12 inches by 18 inches, and it appeared to be a portrait or painting underneath the colorful paper that Linda had wrapped. He brought this back to the guest suite, and propped it up next to the bed. He then sat down next to Paul and gently shook one of Paul’s arms.

Paul’s eyes shot open, and he instinctively reached to remove the earphones from his head. “How’d it go?” He asked immediately.

John was obviously a bit drunk, and Paul tried not to smile openly as John struggled to answer in a coherent manner. “He loves me, he told me so!” John managed to say.

“Of course he does,” Paul said, chuckling. He was no longer able to hide his amusement at John’s state.

“I owe you an apology,” John said, suddenly sober in the way only drunks can be suddenly sober. 

“Oh?” Paul asked, his eyes dancing.

“I forgot to bring down Linda’s present for you after dinner,” John drawled.

Paul’s face clouded over at the mention of Linda, and then it brightened again. “Where is it?” He asked eagerly.

John turned around, and with great and uncoordinated effort, managed to pull the large present on to the bed, narrowing missing Paul’s head in the process. 

Paul sat up eagerly and touched the gift lovingly as if it were one of Linda’s hands. He then pulled the gift towards him and tried to sniff one of the edges, as if he might be able to smell Linda on the paper. He was unsuccessful in that, so he began to carefully remove the wrapping paper to reveal the back of a portrait or painting. Curious now, he turned it over and he was stunned into a shocked silence. 

John cried “Ooooh!” very sharply at what he saw. 

It was a photograph - landscape shape - that Linda had taken of John and Paul together, when they did not know Linda was watching. They were both on the sofa in the Cavendish sitting room, inches apart, lazing sloppily with their arms identically crossed across their own bodies, but their faces were turned towards each other and they each had the fondest, most adoring smile on his face as he gazed at the other.

“Oh my god,” Paul whispered. He began to weep. 

“She was a fuckin’ saint, babe,” John agreed drunkenly, weeping also.

“It’s a good thing we opened it alone,” Paul was finally able to opine, when the tears had finally dried up.

 

*****

 

June 20, 1998  
New York City

 

Two days after Paul’s birthday, the McCartney family packed up and headed for New York City. Because Linda’s large and loving family lived in New York, there was to be a second large Memorial Service for Linda in the Riverside Church. It would be for the most part the same ceremony, although different friends and family members were to eulogize Linda. The family had arrived in the early afternoon on that Saturday, and that night a kind of non-religious ‘shiva’ had taken place at John Eastman’s apartment in the City. Linda’s two sisters, and all of the spouses and children were there, along with some of Linda’s cousins and other relatives. For this meeting, Jody, Laura and Louise had agreed there would be absolutely no meat in honor of their beloved sister, and so the spaghetti marinara and the salads and the vegetables were plentiful. 

After the hordes had left, and the McCartney and various grown Eastman cousins had gone off to explore New York a little with Sean (who had joined them for dinner), John and Jody Eastman, and John and Paul sat alone in the Eastmans’ sitting room, having aperitifs. John Eastman was also smoking a cigar that smelled faintly of nuts and wood. The smell always reminded him of his father, Lee. The lamps were low, and the golden light emitting from them were reflected in the windows that looked out on the sparkling night-lights of New York City. 

Jody said, “The kids seem to be holding up to all this well.”

“They’re strong kids; kids with good hearts. I’m a lucky dad,” Paul said. He stared curiously at the Kentucky bourbon in his glass, it was a much redder shade of gold than Scotch or Irish whiskey and thus appeared more exotic to Paul’s eyes. 

“You seem to be holding up pretty well, too,” Jody added with a warm smile, directing her comment to Paul.

Paul looked at John who nodded back in warm acknowledgement. “I’m not, you know,” Paul said honestly, “but John here keeps me from going down the deep end.” He smiled impishly and John made a comical ‘who me?’ face to grace the end of Paul’s sentence.

Both John and Jody Eastman laughed at the John’nPaul act. 

“Wait ‘til you see me on Monday. I’ll be a basket case,” Paul added darkly.

“We all will be basket cases,” John Eastman declared firmly. “I find myself crying in the shower, and doing stupid things like locking myself out of the apartment, and standing on the doorstep weeping. At work the other day I was discussing swaps and futures with my associates, and I suddenly burst into tears. They were all looking at me in shock. I don’t often show my emotions publicly, especially at work.” 

John said, “I know what you mean. Linda wasn’t my biological sister, but she was more like a sister to me than any of my real half-sisters. She had such a ... a presence about her...” John struggled for words.

Jody said, “It was a kindness, I think. She was never judging you.”

A sound was heard and they all looked over to Paul. His face was in his hands and he was crying again. 

 

*****

 

June 22, 1998

 

The New York Times:

When Linda McCartney died of breast cancer in Tucson on April 17, a spokesman for Paul McCartney, her husband, asked that the family be allowed to grieve privately. For six weeks, that was what the McCartneys did, mostly at the family farm in West Sussex, England.  
But yesterday evening, Mr. McCartney, their four children and 400 invited friends and relatives gathered at the Riverside Church to pay tribute to Ms. McCartney and celebrate her as a campaigner for animal rights and vegetarianism, and as a photographer, mother and wife. It was the second such gathering this month. The first was in London on June 8.  
Although John Lennon was there, along with his son Sean, neither Ringo Starr nor George Harrison, who attended the London service, were expected last night, and neither was seen.   
Mr. McCartney and the children, Heather, Mary, Stella and James, arrived at 8:20, 10 minutes before the memorial was to begin. But apart from the McCartneys, Lennon, Diane Sawyer, Mike Nichols and Ralph Lauren, few celebrities were seen at the church.  
Like the London memorial, the tribute yesterday was a private affair, with a guest list of around 400, said Joe Dera, Mr. McCartney's spokesman. Reporters were not allowed.  
Also in the service was a brief appearance by a brown and white appaloosa, Ms. McCartney's favorite riding horse, Pay ‘n Go, ridden by equestrienne Pam Fowler Grace. The horse had been brought in from Tucson, Arizona, for the service. Church officials at first objected that bringing a horse into the nave would reduce the sense of sanctity at the church and that congregants would protest when they heard about it. But when Mr. McCartney said the family considered the horse an essential part of the tribute, the church relented, provided that the animal was led in through a side door rather than down the center aisle.  
Fans of the McCartneys were also asked to wait outside the church. About 300 were on hand, some from as far away as Michigan and California. A few brought posters that said ''Forever in Our Hearts'' or ''Go Veggie for Linda.'' Others held candles.  
For the occasion, several large portraits of Ms. McCartney, 56 when she died, were arrayed across the nave, which was festooned with flowers, said the Rev. Robert G. Gentile, an official at the church.  
The program for the memorial, provided by Mr. Dera, listed the singers Chrissie Hynde and Neil Young among the speakers. Ms. Hynde, like Ms. McCartney, has been a vocal proponent of vegetarianism and opponent of using animals for food or scientific testing. Other speakers included the 1960's model Twiggy, as well as Ms. McCartney's brother, John Eastman, and her two sisters, Laura Malcolm and Louise Weed. Mr. McCartney was scheduled to offer his own comments at the end of the evening.  
The service began with a lone bagpipe player performing ''Mull of Kintyre,'' a song Mr. McCartney wrote in the early 1970's. The Loma Mar String Quartet played several of the songs Mr. McCartney wrote for his wife, including ''The Lovely Linda,'' ''Somedays,'' ''Maybe I'm Amazed,'' ''Calico Skies'' and ''My Love.''  
The Boys Choir of Harlem sang the McCartney song ''Blackbird'' and the gospel hymn ''His Eye is on the Sparrow.'' The choir and congregation were to sing the hymn ''All Things Bright and Beautiful'' and the Beatles song, ''Let It Be.''

 

*****

 

The formal dinner after the Services this time was held at a French restaurant in lower Manhattan that was owned by a friend of John and Jody Eastman. There were about 150 guests, and they all enjoyed a fully vegetarian meal (despite the earlier tantrum of the chef when he had found out) and outstanding wines. 

Some of the New York guests were surprised to see John Lennon sitting next to Paul McCartney at the head table, acting for all the world as Paul’s spouse. He had his arm permanently arrayed on the back of Paul’s chair, and often leaned in comfortingly whenever Paul looked as though he were choking up. The two men chatted with the other people at the table, but many noticed how much they appeared to be a single unit. It was hard to reconcile with Paul’s obvious distress and ravaged face during the Memorial Service for Linda. While they were glad to see that Paul had such a close friend to help him through the loss of his wife, some were a little uncomfortable with the obvious intimate nature of the relationship. One of those who had this impression happened to mention it to a friend of his, who mentioned it to his friend, who, after a few weeks, mentioned it to her friend - a reporter.


	118. Chapter 118

New York City  
Summer 1998

 

“It seems a bit soon after her death to be publishing a story like that,” the editor of the Post said to the reporter.

“The fact that it is so soon after her death is what makes it a bigger story,” the reporter argued.

“As far as I can tell, you have hearsay based on hearsay based on hearsay, and at the bottom of it all is a person saying that John Lennon was basically protective of and affectionate to his lifelong friend and partner at the poor man’s dead wife’s memorial dinner. Hardly a world-shaking story, but one I’m willing to publish as is. But if you want to imply more, I’m not good with that. That would set the Beatles fans on fire, and not in a good way, so soon after the woman’s death,” the editor scoffed. 

The reporter shrugged. “I told you several months ago that Gore Vidal said that odd thing to me off the record when I interviewed him.”

The editor made a face. “Gore Vidal thinks everyone is really bisexual, if they’d only just be honest.”

“He said that John Lennon admitted that he and McCartney are lovers.”

“The man is an inveterate gossip, Jim,” the editor said with finality. “And he won’t be quoted directly for attribution, I can promise you that. However, if you do obtain his agreement to be quoted, I’ll reconsider that twist to the story.”

The reporter was frustrated. Gore Vidal had already told him that he would never be quoted for attribution, and would deny saying it if anyone claimed he had done so. “I can go to the Daily News,” the reporter said, in a direct threat to his editor. (The New York Daily News was the enemy of the Post.)

“That’s fine with me,” the editor said, waving his hand in the air. “If they’re stupid enough to publish it, they can deal with the poor-widowed-Beatle-fan backlash.”

“It will sell a lot of papers,” the reporter tried one more time.

“Not necessarily. The story is intriguing and provocative, and that is all well and good. That usually sells papers. But timing is everything. Maybe in a year the story would work. But right now, with such a sympathetic target and no real evidence? No. When I was a very young reporter just out of school the paper I was working on published a story that suggested that Jackie Kennedy was having an affair with her brother-in-law, Bobby. This was about 2 or 3 years after Jack’s death. The story was very subtle, but oh my god! All hell broke loose! People were throwing bricks through our windows. It took a long time to get a large part of our base subscribers back again after that.”

“So did she?” The reporter asked, momentarily forgetting his own story.

“Did she what?”

“Have an affair with Bobby Kennedy?”

“Oh shit, I don’t know. They were seen around a lot, but maybe he was just helping his brother’s widow, you know? It was before that Greek guy came along. Anyway, if your theory is true and you wait long enough, there will undoubtedly be some stronger corroboration for it.”

The reporter shrugged and brought his mind back to his own story idea. If he ‘waited long enough’, all the other reporters would have the same story too! He felt well and truly checkmated, so he gave up in defeat. For now. He figured that sooner or later the right time would come, and he would be ready. He’d have to dig up the name and number of that reporter who had been doggedly pursuing the Lennon gay prostitute story some years earlier. Perhaps the two of them should compare notes and join forces.

In the meantime, the less suggestive version of the story was run. The newspaper was quickly deluged with letters to the editor from outraged Beatles fans accusing the paper of suggesting there was something odd about Lennon comforting his creative partner on the occasion of his wife’s memorial service. The outrage! Of course he was comforting his lifelong friend! All in all, the editor was pleased; the story had been subtle enough to avoid a loss of subscribers, but controversial enough to sell a lot of papers. He had threaded that needle just right. 

 

*****

 

September 25, 1998  
Peasmarsh, Sussex

 

It had been an emotional summer for the McCartney ménage. They had spent most of July tying up loose ends over Linda’s estate and legacy. They had worked with director Oscar Grillo to produce a six-minute cartoon fantasy film about the beauty of nature and animals that he had developed with Linda before her death, called Wide Prairie. It was debuted at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 19th as the lead in to the British premiere of The Horse Whisperer. The entire McCartney family had traveled to Scotland to attend the premiere. John had gone too, but had insisted upon staying at the hotel rather than face the spotlight. Too much whispering was going on about his relationship with Paul, and John sincerely didn’t want that to overshadow this moment that rightly belonged to Linda. The only reason he had gone to Scotland at all was to keep Paul company - or, more accurately, to keep his eye on Paul every fucking waking minute. It was exhausting.

A few weeks later, on August 28th, the family had celebrated Mary’s 29th birthday in London, by renting a private room in a favorite restaurant, with just the core family there (which included John of course); the subdued but elegant dinner had been Mary’s preference. After they had returned to Cavendish, the kids had chosen that night to open the gifts Linda had wrapped for them before she died. All three of the younger McCartney children had birthdays within two weeks of each other, and rather than go through the emotional process of opening their gifts from their mother during a wild party or individually, they elected to do so quietly all together, in the sitting room at Cavendish, with only Paul and John as witnesses. Linda’s gifts, as usual, reflected her thoughtful understanding and acceptance of her children’s disparate interests and gifts. Mary’s gift was Linda’s first Hasselblad Rolleiflex camera - an antique that she was still using until just before her death. It was one of Linda’s most prized possessions. Stella had received Linda’s jewelry box, empty of her jewelry (which had been divided up evenly between her four children according to her will months earlier) except for the one necklace that Stella had always been fascinated by since she was a little girl. It had been a gift from Linda’s father, and the pendant was an exotic smoky topaz that had come from Lee Eastman’s mother’s necklace. The jewelry box itself Paul had bought for Linda while they were touring in Austria with the earliest iteration of Wings in the big yellow bus, and while Linda was pregnant with Stella. It was handmade out of various inlaid woods and semi-precious stones, and had been an object Stella had always admired. James, meanwhile, had loved the metal sculpture of a horse his mother had purchased at an auction when he was about 9 years old. It was a conceptual horse rather than a representational one. James had admired the sculpture openly, and now that James himself was studying sculpture, the gift was especially meaningful to him. As one might suspect, the evening had been extremely emotional, and John - again - felt that he had witnessed something about the true nature of love and family that he should store away for future use.

Two weeks later, when the adjacent birthdays of James (21 on September 12th) and Stella (27 on September 13th) happened over a weekend, the kids had taken over the Peasmarsh estate, and, in a kind of throwback to the days of country house parties, had invited dozens of their friends to stay the whole weekend. The house was filled with the kids’ friends and cousins from both sides of the family, and even Sean Lennon, Lee Starkey and Dhani Harrison had been included.

John and Paul stayed in London and out of the kids’ hair that weekend, but they had watched all the preparatory action in a kind of awed stupefaction. “We’ve created a monster,” Paul had observed laconically. “They’re like their mother quadrupled on steroids with these parties.” John had chuckled, because it was true: the McCartney kids had turned into a highly functioning event -planning operation. One only had to stand back, try not to get in the way, and then watch it all come together in the end. Out of chaos: perfection.

Now, less than two weeks later, the whole family was at Peasmarsh, as the final plans went into the upcoming nuptials of Mary McCartney and Alistair Donald. On this Friday night, September 25th, Paul was sitting alone in his study nursing a tumbler of whiskey and thinking about the past, and how quickly it had whirled by. One moment he had babies and toddlers, the next he had school-aged children, and the moment after that he was surrounded by adults who bore striking resemblances to those babies, toddlers and children of old. And now he was their only living parent. A sheaf of memories flickered past him like pictures in a magazine shuffled quickly from page 1 to 100. He wanted the pictures to shuffle more slowly, and he wanted a few to stop entirely so he could linger fondly over them, but the shuffle went relentlessly on at a frustratingly fast pace until he was himself, age 56, sitting alone in his study with a tumbler of whiskey.

Paul wasn’t always the cheerful, uncomplicated character he preferred to show to the world: “Mr. Thumbs Up.” He had a deep melancholic streak that usually manifested as anxiety, resulting in manic activity, but very occasionally descended into a bleak sense of hopelessness. Tonight he could feel the veil of that old depression falling over him. Tomorrow he would be walking his daughter Mary down the aisle, and the wedding would go forward without his wife at his side. Mary was the most like Linda of all his children, and tomorrow she would belong to her own husband and start to create her own family. The grounded part of Paul was trying to reason with this dark thought process. He told himself that Mary hadn’t lived at home for years before Linda died, so things were just going back to the way they had been before. But the truth was Mary had been with her father for most of the time since Linda died and as long as she was there Paul could get a Linda ‘vibe’ off her. Now he worried that, having gotten used to having Mary with him for the last seven months, he would miss her terribly when she left for her new life with her new husband. These were feelings Paul could not allow himself to show to anyone else, because he was deeply ashamed of them. These feelings were so entirely selfish, and Paul had been raised by his parents to believe that it was best to think of others first, and one’s self, second. He hadn’t always lived up to that expectation, of course, but he knew that Mary deserved happiness and that meant she had to make her own life away from him.

And what of his life? Paul reflected on what was left of it. His wife was dead, and his children were not only grown up, but more to the point, they were growing away. That was natural. His old life was over. There was a definite period sitting there at the end of Book I. This was the first time since Linda died that Paul had allowed himself to wallow in such thoughts. He hadn’t wanted to before, fearing that he would fall into a vortex of depression whence he would never return. Perhaps it was a sign that he was starting to come to grips with Linda’s death that he was allowing himself to entertain these thoughts. Now that he was brave enough, he asked himself, “What’s left? Where do I go from here?”

The obvious answer was: John. John was still there. It seemed to Paul in that moment as though John had been the bass counter-melody of his life. Sometimes hidden deep in the background but filling out and grounding the melody, and sometimes springing to life to compete on equal par with the melody. But there was a nagging doubt in Paul’s mind: could he really leave that part of him behind - the part of him that needed a good woman? It wasn’t just that he enjoyed sex with women. It was also that there was something the right woman brought into the room with her - something essential. There was the John-part of him, but now there was this aching empty place where the Linda-part of him used to be. Who or what could fill that hole? Just having the thought made Paul feel guilty. John was special, and Paul acknowledged how much he needed him. But John had proven himself not to be - over time, at least - the reliable nurturer that Paul really needed in his life. Women had always done that for him, starting with his mum. And he had never really fallen in love with a woman who didn’t nurture him at some level.

It was that old joke about the gardener and the flower again. John, like Paul, was primarily a flower. And without a gardener to care for them, would they wilt together in the hot sun? This was the doubt that was eating at Paul. It hadn’t escaped his notice that John had been extremely nurturing and protective of him ever since Linda died. It had frankly surprised Paul that John had stuck to it so long and with so much dedication. But he wondered how long John could carry on stunting his own needs and neuroses to cater solely to Paul’s. Thinking of this, Paul had to smile. He and John - alone and together - were a veritable minefield of neuroses. Could they keep their boat afloat, and paddle in harmony? Or would they end up hitting each other with the fucking paddles as the boat slowly drifted towards a killer waterfall? This last image finally forced Paul to stop this unfruitful line of thought. He had to laugh out loud. He was being a bit of a drama queen. He would just take it day by day and hope that slowly he would find himself back in the sunshine again. And at least he still had another mainstay in his life - music. 

 

*****

 

September 26, 1998  
A Church in Peasmarsh

 

The afternoon was disappointedly overcast, and there was a bit of a brisk breeze. The breeze caught Mary’s hair as she grasped her father’s arm. She was nervous, worried, happy, sad, worried, hopeful ... She never thought she would be walking down the aisle without her mother waiting at the other end, standing near her new husband. At least her mother had known Alistair and approved of him. Her three siblings would not be able to even introduce their life partners to their mother. (Both Stella and Heather had recently broken up with their latest boyfriends; they hadn’t fit into the family’s intense mourning period, and had fallen by the wayside as a result.)

Paul, meanwhile, felt a little bruised emotionally, as though he were walking in a daze. He saw the flowers, the streamers, and the homely crowd. How like Linda Mary was, to want this low-key, family-and-very-close-friends-only wedding in a small country church, with no wedding planners or extravagant expenses. Stella had made Mary’s pink satin with lace overlay gown, and her hair adornments were blooms from the garden. James and his friends had done a clumsy job hanging the streamers, and sleazing up the getaway car. Paul had composed some music, and John had helped him. Everything was homemade.

There weren’t many celebrities at the ceremony - just Chrissie Hynde, Linda’s great friend who had always been like a pseudo-aunt to Mary, and of course Ringo, a kind of pseudo-uncle. John was family, of course, so Mary didn’t think of him as a celebrity. She had invited both Julian and Sean, but both were touring and could not come. They had each sent a lovely letter along with a gift, though. Mary caught a glimpse of her uncle Mike with his ever-present camera bag slung over his shoulder, camera in hand. She noted that he was focusing, so she smiled especially brightly for his lens.

The party afterwards was at Peasmarsh, and featured the same people who had attended the service: family members and very close friends. It wasn’t catered. It was a bunch of casual vegetarian picnic food that the McCartney daughters had made themselves, although the wines and liqueurs were expensive (Paul had insisted; a true Irishman, he knew every party needed primo alcohol, and a lot of it, to succeed). Perhaps most touching was the fact that everyone ate off of paper plates. The whole day had been just the way Mary wanted it - simple and homespun - as homage to her mother. Mary, like her mother, never did like to make a fuss out of anything. As she took in her wedding party, she felt as though there was an unreal quality to being married. She repeated it over and over again in her mind: Mary McCartney-Donald: her new identity. The trick, she knew, was to figure out how to fill this new role while not losing sight of who she was, and where she’d come from.

The house at Peasmarsh was quite large - seven bedrooms plus a large converted attic and a large converted barn - but there were so many people staying the night that all the bedrooms and the windmill were booked solid for the night. (James and all of the young male family members and friends had taken over the windmill.) Paul had been slow on the uptake, so it didn’t occur to him until bedtime to wonder about where he would sleep vis-à-vis John that night. The house was filled with people who knew about John and him but had never really witnessed it in practice, and with people who didn’t know anything about it (and this group included most of the young people’s friends, who hadn’t been let into the family secret). Even Alistair’s family members didn’t know. Alistair had faithfully never repeated what he had learned in the three years he’d known the McCartneys and dated Mary to anyone, not even his family and closest friends. Paul hadn’t given any of this even a moment’s thought until it was nearing the end of the evening and about time to go to bed.

In the days leading up to the wedding, he and John had been using a guest suite and not the master suite, but Paul knew that the housekeeper had cleaned out the guest suite earlier that day to prepare for the onslaught of guests. At that particular moment, when he noticed it, he hadn’t thought to ask why she was bothering. So, at about midnight, when he was tired, he headed for the guest suite. He was brought up short when he noticed that the door was open, and his brother Mike was standing in the doorway speaking to his wife, who could be seen in bed. Mike turned and said, “Hey Paul. Turning in?”

Paul nodded, trying not to look confused and surprised, and he headed back down the hall to find Mary. He quickly found her as she came out of her bedroom (which was filled with female cousins) in her going-away outfit. “Where am I sleeping tonight?” He asked her in a whisper.

“The master suite, of course,” she whispered back.

Paul hadn’t stayed in that room since he’d last slept there with Linda - about seven months’ earlier. He almost started to complain, and also to ask where John was sleeping, but it suddenly seemed improper for him to be peppering Mary with household questions while she was eager to drive off with her new husband in their getaway car. So he followed Mary downstairs, and stood in the large hallway, shaking Alistair’s hand, kissing and hugging his daughter, and then watching from the doorstep as all of the young people chased the car partway down the drive shouting naughty phrases of encouragement all the way. He then turned around and headed up the stairs and down the hallway to the master suite. When he entered the room he was only mildly surprised to find John there, already in bed, sitting up with a book. Paul shut the door quickly, and then stood awkwardly just inside the room. He hadn’t been ready to face sleeping in this room again, much less with someone other than Linda.

John had noted Paul’s dilemma as soon as he saw Paul’s face. He had warned Stella that this might not be a good idea, but she thought that everyone would find it stranger if Paul slept anywhere else but in the master suite, and she also pointed out that if he and Paul were discreet, no one would need to know that he had slept there with Paul. He had seen her point, but doubted that Paul would. So there Paul stood just inside the door, staring blankly at him. John’s reading glasses were down on the edge of his nose, and he peered up over them to meet Paul’s stare. He knew he would have to speak first.

“It was Stella’s idea,” he said flatly. “She didn’t think you would want to answer people’s questions about why you weren’t in the master suite.”

“I should have thought that would be obvious,” Paul grumbled.

“Maybe so, but people will be people. They can’t help being nosy. I mean, why do people slow down to look at a bloody accident scene?”

“Are you comparing me to a bloody accident scene?” Paul asked jokingly.

“No, I’m comparing us to a bloody accident scene. Surely you’ve heard the gossip and the whispers. No matter what we do from now on, we’re going to be scrutinized.”

Paul felt only momentary alarm. He couldn’t hold on to the state of alarm because he already knew the truth of what John had just said. He knew that in light of Linda’s death, and once a respectable period and gone by, people would turn their gaze to his relationship with John and begin to wonder. It was, Paul supposed, only natural, no matter how annoying he found it. But he didn’t think seven months was nearly enough time for anyone to forget about Linda, and what she had meant to him.

John was speaking.

“Stella’s point, and I agree with her, is that as long as they are going to be guessing and comparing notes and questioning, we should always choose the less provocative thing to do. I mean, knowing that everything we do will be provocative, what will be less provocative? And we think you being in this room is less provocative than you staying in a guest room.”

Paul shrugged, and then moved to remove his jacket and then his tie. He moved to the end of the bed, and sat down to remove his shoes and socks. He thought to himself that it really didn’t matter which room he stayed in that night, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep. Might as well stay awake all night being miserable in his own bedroom, rather than in a guest room. He moved to the bathroom as he stripped off his shirt, dumping the shirt on a chair as he went. A few minutes later he came back in the room, this time wearing an intimidating pair of pajamas.

Great, John thought, back to the fucking pajama game again. He willed himself to be patient and so he pretended not to notice Paul’s suit of armor as he climbed into bed.

“I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight,” Paul said to John in a preemptive strike. He reached for his headphones. “I hope you don’t mind if I listen to music?”

John looked up from his book again, and gave Paul a neutral smile. He thought to himself, the man will be asleep within 5 minutes. He’s thoroughly exhausted, physically and emotionally. John turned calmly back to his book, and then waited patiently until be began to hear - it had been almost exactly 5 minutes - the soft rhythmic breathing of Paul asleep. John then put his book down, leaned over and gently removed Paul’s headphones and turned off the music. Sighing in his sleep, Paul nestled further down into his pillow and was soon lost to the world. John smiled at the sight, and then leaned over to his bedside table and turned off the light. He moved on to his side and into the middle of the bed, until his front was close against Paul’s back and, ever so softly, he put his arm lightly around Paul’s waist. Within moments he too was fast asleep.

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

Paul had awakened very early. His first coherent thought was surprise that he had actually slept. He could feel John nestled up against him and this caused an involuntary smile. He’d survived his first night in a bedroom and a bed that he had shared with Linda. And he had shared the bed with John. He ought to feel guilty, but his heart wasn’t in it. It felt as though a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The world hadn’t crashed in, and he still felt pretty much the same as he did the day before. But still...

He got out of bed quickly and quietly, and ran through his ablutions. He wanted to get up and out of that bedroom as soon as possible, and he needed to make sure John did, too. He sat on the edge of the bed and shook John’s shoulder until he saw John’s eyes fly open. They were squinting in order to keep him in focus, Paul knew, and a wave of fondness rolled through him. He pushed the hair out of John’s weak eyes.

“Hey sleepyhead,” he whispered. “We need to get up as quickly as possible, before everyone else does.”

John groaned. “What if I just stay here until everyone leaves?” He asked rhetorically.

“I’ve got news for you, baby. Maybe the other guests will be polite and leave before noon, but my family will hang in until late in the afternoon. You’re gonna get hungry long before those freeloaders leave.”

John was pleasantly surprised at how cheerful and in charge Paul seemed to be this morning. He had been so melancholy for the last few days, feeling the impending loss of Mary so much. Now that it was a done deal, it seemed that Paul was doing that very Paul thing; he was picking himself up by his own bootstraps and ramming on.

“John, I’m serious!” Paul pleaded.

John felt goofy inside. There was something about the way Paul said ‘John’ when he was begging or chastising him. It made him go all warm and gooey inside. He reached up with both arms, and tried to pull Paul down into the bed with him.

“Noooo, John....” Paul’s voice sounded high and even a little girlish. It made John laugh. “Later,” Paul whispered, “when everyone’s gone...”

John let his arms fall down to his sides again. “Promise?” He asked hopefully.

Paul laughed. “Promise.”

So Paul had gone down first, and immediately went about setting the world to rights. He had grabbed a large plastic garbage bag, and was going around collecting the party detritus and throwing it away. It was just before 7 a.m. and even the housecleaning crew they’d hired wasn’t due for an hour, but Paul couldn’t stand sitting around doing nothing. He felt antsy and needed to be doing something constructive. 

About a half hour later, a hung over John Lennon wandered down the stairs. By this time, Paul was already in the kitchen, throwing stuff away, and putting things in order. A pot of still hot coffee was freshly brewed, and John poured himself a cup and flopped down at the long kitchen farm table. He knew at this point his job was to try to stay as much in the background and act as much like a guest (and not a family member) as possible. It would be hard, because John had been a member of this family for almost 15 years. He fortified himself with hot coffee and reminded himself repeatedly, I’m a guest here, I’m a guest here, over and over.

The other guests began to filter down. Alistair Donald’s parents were among the first. By then, Paul was cooking scrambled eggs and was grilling vegetarian sausages. John stared at the pale whitish pseudo sausages and sighed deeply. They looked terrifically healthy and disappointingly unappetizing to John. He knew that he would forego the ‘sausages’ and stick to the eggs and toast. He chuckled to himself as the non-vegetarian guests politely selected a ‘sausage’, and took tentative bites. He watched their faces. He had to keep from laughing out loud. They’d each put the thing down again, and didn’t bother to finish it. Been there, done that, John thought in silent solidarity. Some of them noticed John watching them, and they would look a bit chagrinned, but John would flash each of them a conspiratorial grin, and then put a finger to his lips as if to say, ‘our little secret, but those things suck.’ John liked vegetarian food just fine; it was just when they tried to make vegetables, soy, or wheat products taste like meat that John objected.

If people were confused about why John Lennon was hanging around all day, they didn’t show it. Maybe that was because John tried to stay in the background and act as though he didn’t know where anything was. It was a bit of a struggle. The worst bit was when he was in a group in the large sitting room, and everyone was talking and laughing, and James told an anecdote about a family experience, and inadvertently revealed in his telling that John had been part of it. No one but those in the know even noticed it. Stella and Heather both shot looks to James as if to say, zip it! And John had loudly changed the subject. However, it seemed as though the paranoia was not justified, because no one seemed to remark on it at all. 

 

*****

 

At noon, Alistair’s parents and siblings left. As they drove towards the outer suburbs of London, Alistair’s mother said, “John Lennon was very nice. I don’t know why everyone says he is such a mean and scary person.”

“No one has said that about him in some time,” her husband said mildly.

“All the kids are very close to him,” Mrs. Donald continued. “They treat him as if he were their favorite uncle.”

“He probably is. Their father grew up with the man, and they’ve been creative partners for decades.”

A brief silence followed, and then Mrs. Donald finally issued the final verdict: “I don’t understand why people are always gossiping about those two. They seemed like perfectly normal friends to me.”

 

*****

 

As Paul had predicted, the last of the McCartney relatives left late in the afternoon. They had booked an evening flight to Liverpool out of Brighton Airport, and so off they went in three rented vans, hooting and hollering and waving out the windows as they went. Paul and Stella stood on the doorstep waving at them until they were out of sight.

“It’s like being related to the Chelsea FC fan club,” Stella observed, making her father groan.

“Wrong side! Everton all the way!” He responded in mock outrage.

“Whatever,” Stella said, rolling her eyes. “All football fans are alike: a bunch of hoodlums in search of a scrum.”

Paul smiled as he put his arm around his daughter and guided her back into the house. “You women just don’t understand,” he said, his voice dripping with overdone patronization.

As they entered the sitting room they noted Heather, James and John all seated around in a similar state of social exhaustion. They didn’t seem to be in the mood to move, much less socialize. Father and daughter looked at each other and instinctively knew what to do. If Mary was Linda’s daughter, then Stella was most definitely Paul’s. They both headed for the kitchen and began unwrapping leftovers to heat up, and plating meals for the rest of the family. Still bounding with energy, they rounded up the others, fed them, and entertained them with their jokes and anecdotes. After dinner, they cleaned the table and the kitchen, and still had energy to spare.

The others had moved sluggishly back into the sitting room, and Stella came in and announced a family movie night. “Okay, we’re gonna vote - “

“I don’t need to vote!” John shouted the loudest. “ ‘The Big Lebowski’! That, or nothing at all!”

Stella shrugged. “ ‘The Big Lebowski’ it is,” she said, and handed the DVD to James to start up.

Paul came in just as the movie started, and slipped into the sofa next to John. John didn’t even think. He moved in Paul’s direction immediately, and then turned on his back, leaving his head cradled on Paul’s thigh. Paul was having a nice drink, and he thought John’s move was sweet. He looked up and saw Stella’s amused expression and he winked at her. Aren’t we just the happy little family? Paul asked himself with irony as he cast his eye around the room. James was stretched out on the floor directly in front of the television screen, Heather was already snoozing in a corner of the other sofa, and Stella was in the armchair, with her legs tucked up under her. He felt a momentary cozy sense of wellbeing come over him. It had been a long time since he’d had that feeling, and Paul was grateful to welcome its presence for however long it chose to linger.

Mustn’t be greedy, he reminded himself.


	119. Chapter 119

London  
October 10, 1998

 

John was relaxing in the kitchen at Cavendish. He had gotten up late that morning because he was still living down the crazy family birthday party they’d thrown for him the night before. It never ceased to amaze him how much effort the McCartneys put into celebrating a person’s birthday. Even though there were so many McCartneys, and even though they each had birthdays every year, still every single birthday was approached with the same high degree of enthusiasm and excitement by all of them. He shook his head. Those crazy McCartneys. And here he was: surrounded by them. Voluntarily. His own sons were far less attuned to family tradition and celebration. John was sad about that; he knew that it was the unfortunate but inevitable result of his two broken marriages. 

John was alone this morning, because Paul had gotten up and rushed out of the house quite early. He was meeting Martin Glover, also known as ‘Youth’, in the studio. Years earlier, back in 1993, Paul had run into Glover while hanging at George Martin’s Air Studios, and the two men had struck up a friendship based on their mutual love of playing with sound on tape. The result of their first time playing around in a studio had been a collaboration released under the pseudonym The Fireman. It had been an interesting collection of electronica called Strawberries Ocean Ships Forest. They had spent no more than a week in the studio and this had been great fun. It had happened during one of John’s escapes to New York, when Paul had been at a loose end.

Because Glover had been a friend of Linda’s as well, he had been invited to the London memorial service, and he and Paul had talked at the dinner afterwards. From this renewal of their connection, they had decided to go back to the studio and spend several days together playing around with sound again. Of course, Paul had to break this news to John, who had not been terribly happy about the earlier collaboration. It wasn’t that John had said anything about it, but it was just that John had said nothing about it. Paul had interpreted this reaction as John not being pleased that he had collaborated with another musician, even if the collaboration was in avant garde electronica, and under a pseudonym. 

It was a week before John’s birthday when Paul finally broke the news to John. They had been having a quiet dinner at home, which they had cooked together, Paul acting as sous. Heather and James were planning to move back to Sussex after John’s birthday a week later, but that particular night both of them were out, and it had been just John and Paul alone for dinner at Cavendish. Paul had put off talking about the Youth collaboration until the very end of the meal. He hadn’t intended to put it off that long; it was just that each time he started to mention it, he’d lost his nerve. But by the end of the dinner, both John and Paul were finishing their second glasses of wine, so Paul felt John was in a prime state of mellowness: not enough wine to be drunk, but just enough to be relaxed.

“I’ve been talking to Youth,” Paul said abruptly.

“What youth?” John asked, confused because the subject had come up seemingly from out of nowhere. 

“No, you know, Martin Glover - Youth.”

“Oh. Him.” John’s voice sounded flat. This did not sound promising to Paul.

“Yeah, we saw each other at the memorial dinner,” Paul continued bravely, surprised at how nervous he felt.

“Paul, what are you on about?” John asked in a grouchy voice. “You’re up to something. What is it?” 

Paul was irritated by John’s mood. A moment ago the man was chillin’, and now all of a sudden he looked as though he was on a slow boil. “You make it sound so nefarious,” Paul grumbled. “We just thought we’d get in the studio and play around a bit.”

“We?” John asked pointedly.

“Don’t be an arse,” Paul said, disappointment showing on his face.

“So you’ve already decided you’re going to do this, eh? I haven’t got a say in it?” John was doing his best to hold his temper back, but he was having a hard time with it. He had been so patient and nurturing for so long, and he felt that this new move of Paul’s was a kind of betrayal. 

“It is just fun, okay? You’re welcome to come, too; it fact, I’d much prefer it if you would come too.” Paul’s voice was cajoling, now.

“I don’t get all that stuff,” John snuffed, mollified a little that Paul had invited him to participate. “I guess I just don’t understand why you and I can’t start writing an album instead.”

Paul was excited at the idea, but knew that he was not yet ready to write songs - he wasn’t yet able to deal with Linda’s loss at that level. “I was going to take a year off from songwriting after Linda died,” Paul said softly. He had mentioned this to John before, but John had found it hard to believe that Paul would actually be able to follow through. “This stuff in the studio, playing with instruments and synthesizers, it is a non-verbal way of expressing myself. It’s all I’m ready for right now.”

John heard what Paul was telling him: he wasn’t ready yet to creatively address Linda’s loss in a straightforward way. He needed to create using an inarticulate, chaotic method first. But John was insecure, and he wondered why Paul would choose the same man to collaborate with after so many years. Not for the first time did he wonder if Paul and this Youth-guy had some kind of thing going on that time while he was in New York. Subtlety not being one of John’s strongpoints, he asked the question straight out.

“Are you gonna fuck each other?” 

Paul was thoroughly taken aback. He even chuffed in an unbelieving kind of way. John must be joking, Paul assured himself. What a crazy thing to ask! “No,” Paul said, laughing. “It isn’t on our agenda that I know of. We haven’t got much studio time to waste for one thing.”

John had seen Paul’s reaction, and he was very relieved by it. The expression on Paul’s face had told him everything - surprise, humor, disbelief ... It was obvious to John that whatever else Paul and Youth did together, it wasn’t sexual. He sighed. “So when is this going down?” He asked fatalistically.

Paul was tremendously relieved. Despite a few bumpy moments, it had gone rather well. “The 10th - the day after your birthday - George had a few days free on the studio calendar.”

 

*****

 

So here John was, sitting at the Cavendish kitchen table on October 10th, nursing a hangover and thinking about his relationship with Paul. He was wondering where it was going. Right now they seemed to be drifting along in the wake of Linda’s death. At least they were together drifting, and in the same direction. That was a good thing. They weren’t fighting often, and even when they did have words, they quickly sorted it out. Paul was being more and more sexual as the weeks went by. The kids had accepted him whole-heartedly into their family, and shown him that he was still one of them. Yes - a lot of things were going well. There were other things, however, that troubled him.

John barely even visited his own home across the mews anymore, except to pick up personal items from time to time. It had finally come home to him that Paul was never going to leave Cavendish, and so he could either be with Paul there, or alone in his own home. Maybe that would change in the future, but John doubted it. Still, his house played an important role: it was a way to leave the impression that they weren’t living together. 

They were sharing a bedroom, but that bedroom wasn’t the master suite. John felt that until Paul was back in that master suite, he would still be half-living. It was a hurtful symbol of Paul not fully committing to life without Linda. In fact, Cavendish as a whole felt like a way station to John - a place suspended in time. It was in some ways a haunted house, with reminders of Linda at every turn. And of course it was still very much Linda’s house in that the furnishings, the kitchen, the color scheme - such as they were - were not John’s taste. Linda had never been very house proud, and she had been the first to admit she didn’t have much in the way of house decorating talent, or even interest, truth be told. Mary and Stella both had great style in the way they were decorating their homes, but that had never been much of a priority to Linda. Her style had been country and even a little bit kitschy, with old-fashioned style sofas and chairs, and even some mismatched pieces. Paul’s amazing art collection was not displayed at Cavendish; Paul and Linda had felt the house should be thoroughly kid and animal friendly, and so expensive carpets, rugs, furnishings and art work were impractical and thus banned. Now it looked drab, down at the heels. Although it was kept very clean by the housekeeper, one could see signs of wear and tear everywhere. And Paul was showing every inclination to avoid changing anything ever.

If Cavendish was to be John’s home, he felt as though he needed to make some changes. But how could he even broach such a subject with Paul? He couldn’t. Not now, and maybe not ever. How long would John be forced to live in limbo? How long was long enough for John to be able to say to Paul, we have to make Cavendish ours, now? John didn’t know, and this added to his frustration. Paul was all over the place, and though he was physically near John almost all the time, he was often emotionally and mentally somewhere else. How to bring Paul back to earth? That was John’s puzzle. He had to get Paul’s feet back on solid earth, and he needed to feel that his Paul - the one he counted on to feel secure in life - was back in business. 

 

*****

 

October 19, 1998  
Cavendish

 

John had spent the day in the kitchen, and a few hours before the dinner Mary arrived to help John. Mary was slightly bemused by the fact that she seemed to have slotted John in as her substitute mother ever since Linda died. She called John every other day to say ‘hi,’ just as she once had called her mother every other day. On the days she didn’t call John, he was very likely to call her. It was just a quick check in, a discussion of how Paul was, and how their lives were going. And at least once every other week she and Alistair would spend an evening at Cavendish, having dinner with what she thought of as her two dads and enjoying their company. Because of this, Mary had come to really understand John, and to see the world from his perspective. She understood that he was dying inside.

This night Mary had come over to help John put dinner together for Martin Glover and his wife, who were invited to dinner. They would all be celebrating the release the next day of the McCartney/Youth collaboration of Rushes, their second electronica album as the Fireman. Mary, Alistair, and Stella were all invited as well. Because the Fireman was an anonymous appellation and a very impromptu one at that, there would be no official release party. A private one would have to do.

As they cooked quietly side by side, John and Mary felt at peace. Meanwhile, Paul was up in the music room listening to Wide Prairie, Linda’s album; it was scheduled to be released in a week, and as he listened tears were running down his cheeks. He often went up there to listen to this tape just to hear Linda’s voice, and he often ended up sobbing in grief as a result. Tonight his tears were silent, and downstairs, the house, too, was a ghostly kind of silent. In the kitchen, John finally said to Mary,

“I’m not used to this house being so quiet. Without you kids crawling all over it, it isn’t recognizable.”

Mary smiled. “The house looks very dingy, actually. I’ve been noticing it more and more now that I don’t live here anymore. Honestly, it needs a complete makeover.”

John looked up hopefully when Mary said this. He was afraid to say anything that might be considered critical of Linda, so he said, “We have all been so distracted by that fucking cancer for so long...”

Mary nodded. “Yes. I think it is time to throw the windows and doors open, and let in the fresh air. Mum wouldn’t want us to behave as though this house was a mausoleum.”

John couldn’t believe his luck. How had Mary understood how suffocated he felt in that house? “Well, your dad doesn’t want anything touched...”

“That’s just silly,” Mary said firmly. “Stella and I will give him a piece of our minds. As long as everything stays the same, there is no chance for a bright new beginning, right?” Mary turned to John and engaged him in a searching look that lasted several seconds. She said, “How are you doing, John? This has got to be really hard for you - living in her shadow. Mum wouldn’t want it this way.”

John actually felt as though he might cry. Instead he said, “I do kind of feel like I’m hanging here in suspended animation. But I have to remind myself that whatever I’m going through, it’s worse for your dad.”

Mary was still looking at John in a searching, empathetic way. She said softly, “He needs to think less about what he lost, and more about what he has. You’re the one who’s here for him all the time. It’s not good for anyone to make a fetish out of grief.” She reached out her arms to give John a hug, which he returned. She patted his back and said in his ear, “Daddy will come around. And if Stella and I have anything to do with it, it will be sooner rather than later.” 

John chuckled and said, “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s very fragile right now.” 

“We’re all fragile,” Mary said staunchly. “But we’re all strong, too. We get to take turns being fragile, and right now it’s your turn.”

 

*****

 

The dinner was very pleasant, and so was the conversation. John felt very silly that he had ever suspected Paul and Youth of engaging in any hanky-panky. The Glovers were obviously a stable and loving couple, and Paul’s interactions with Youth were clearly the kind he had nurtured with dozens of musicians over the years. When it came to experimental music, they had something in common that they both loved. Friendships are based on such things. John slowly relaxed and began to enjoy Glover’s company. He turned out to be a very nice and interesting guy. The evening went quickly, and soon everyone was hugging the Glovers goodbye in the front foyer. 

Martin Glover had never allowed himself to think about the rumors that swirled around Paul. All he had seen in 1993 was a man very much in love with his wife, and very much the family man. The first time he’d worked with Paul in the early '90s, John wasn’t even in the picture; he had been living in New York at the time. And now Paul was clearly devastated by the death of his wife, and at times absolutely inconsolable. Martin had had to quietly comfort Paul in the studio more than once when something had made Paul break down. Consequently, Martin had always taken the gossip about Paul and John Lennon with a huge grain of salt. That night, sitting around the dining table, what he witnessed was a family. John was very much part of it. For all Martin knew, it was in the capacity of brother to Paul, and uncle to the children. But there was something in the way John treated Paul that made him think... Martin and his wife had discussed it in the car on the way home, and had wondered if John wanted to be Paul’s lover, but his desire was unrequited. It was subtle, and they were probably dead wrong, but there was just something in John’s protectiveness over and even possessiveness of Paul that rang more of conjugal love than fraternal love.

The “kids” hung around for another hour after the Glovers left. They were shooting the breeze with the two men they considered to be their parents; even Alistair had gotten to the point where he felt that John and Paul were his very cool in-laws. John and Paul were being playful with their teasing of each other. It was very Liverpudlian and the kids were cheering on the competing insults. Paul had started to get up to clean the kitchen, but Mary had insisted he stay with them, pointing out that the kitchen could wait until the next day. Normally, leaving a sink full of dirty dishes alone all night would have weighed on Paul’s conscience, but tonight for some reason he felt very comfortable and relaxed. He was surprised that life could still offer him these lovely moments. Somehow he had thought with Linda’s death he wouldn’t be getting any more moments of unalloyed joy. Mary noticed her father’s mood, and exchanged a meaningful glance with Stella. 

On cue, Stella said, “Good lord! Look at this carpet! You can see straight through to the floor over there!” She pointed at a balding spot in the carpet.

“No one has carpets anymore,” Mary announced. “Everyone likes to expose the wood floors and use space rugs instead.”

“I bet there is wonderful old wood under this horrible carpet,” Stella opined. She got up, wandered to the balding spot, and tore at the remaining strands until she could see straight through to the floor. “It is! It’s great! Let’s tear this old carpet up and get rid of it!” 

John could barely keep from laughing. He hid his lower face behind folded hands, not wanting Paul to see his amusement. Paul was amused by the girls’ disrespect, not upset at all, and poor Alistair was clueless. He thought it was incredibly tactless of Mary and Stella to tear up their father’s carpet, but he had learned long ago that the McCartney family lived by their own rulebook, so he stayed out of it. 

“What do you think, John?” Mary asked sweetly. Innocently. John wanted to throttle her, because he was holding back laughter at this point.

“Yeah, John - why don’t you just rip out this carpet, and get the floor refinished!” Stella suggested, full of excitement. “I just did that to my new house, and it is fantastic!”

“It’s not my carpet to rip up,” John finally pointed out, as sedately as he could.

“Oh, fudge!” Stella snorted. “It’s as much yours as Dad’s. Right Dad?”

Paul didn’t really care about the carpet. Now that the girls had pointed it out, he agreed that the carpet looked pretty threadbare. Paul said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to remove the carpet. If the wood doesn’t look good, we can always get another carpet.”

“While we’re at it,” Mary said thoughtfully (as though it was just occurring to her), “almost all the flooring in the house is pretty beat up. Maybe we should just make a clean sweep of it, and tear up all the carpets, and see what we have underneath?”

Paul was getting a bit nervous now. It sounded like a whole lot of change, all at once. He said, “Well, let’s start with the sitting room floor, and then we can decide if and where to go from there.”

Mary sighed and pouted a little, as if she had lost the point. But in fact she had won the point. Her father had just agreed to tear up the sitting room carpet and to refinish the floor. She then brightened up and said, “John - let’s work on it together! Daddy doesn’t care about such things as stain colors and rugs. Stella, will you help?”

Stella said with a suspiciously innocent expression, “Sure, why not?” And the deal was done.

John was amazed at how well the girls had handled that tricky interaction, and a few days later, on the weekend, the two of them - and poor Alistair - showed up early in the morning wearing their oldest clothes, and carrying all kinds of tools and equipment. Paul was still at the gym when they arrived, and so John came down the stairs in his dressing gown to greet them, glasses set on the end of his nose, and said, “What the hell?”

The girls had charged past him straight to the sitting room, so only Alistair stood there, still holding on to a toolbox and a bag from a local hardware store. Alistair said, “We’re here to rip up the carpet.”

“You’re going to do it yourselves?” John asked, incredulous. “We can afford to pay people.”

Alistair said, “You know Mary and Stella. They get an idea in their heads...”

 

John nodded in resigned agreement and said, “Well, I’ll go put some clothes on, and then I’ll come down and help.” He retraced his steps back to the guest room. A moment later Mary came looking for John, and went to the master suite in her search but found it cold, empty and even a little dusty. There weren’t any cobwebs, but it was clear that no one had slept in there for a long time. John then approached her from the other end of the hall. 

“You’re not using the master suite?” She asked him disapprovingly. “Still?”

John sighed and lifted his arms in the well-known gesture of ‘search me.’ 

“Hmm...,” Mary said, thinking furiously. 

John saw trouble. “Mary, don’t get any ideas... We have to take tiny steps.”

Mary smiled. She said, “After the sitting room, we’re starting on the master suite.” With that, she turned on her heel and tripped lightly down the stairs. John followed, shaking his head. 

When Paul came home an hour later he was surprised to find an old rolled up carpet and carpet pad discarded to the side in the front yard. He went inside and heard the echoing sounds of people clomping around on a wood floor in an empty room. He stuck his head in to the sitting room and found it completely empty of furnishings, and Stella had a scarf on her head and was cleaning the floor with a damp (but not wet) mop. John, Mary and Alistair were kneeling around a spot covered in newspapers, looking at a newly opened can of floor stain.

“You’re not doing this yourself!” Paul declared in shock.

They all looked up. 

“No, we’re just choosing between these colors,” John assured him. 

“I’ve got a friend who is a decorator who is sending along a professional floor refinisher,” Stella said quickly. “He’ll be here in an hour or so. We promised him we’d remove the carpet, the nails, and the furniture, and he said he’d sand and stain the floors for a reduced price.”

Mary and Stella both knew how frugal their father was. He really didn’t like to spend money on what he thought were fripperies and unnecessary luxury items. They didn’t want him to use expense as a reason for not redecorating the house or delaying the process. 

Paul approached the three cans of stain, and looked at them. One was light, one was medium, and one was dark. Paul instinctively liked the darkest one the most. “I like that one,” he said.

“No Daddy!” Mary cried, as Stella simultaneously groaned. 

“Why not?” Paul asked, clueless.

“Because this room doesn’t have a lot of light in the winter time. The very dark floor will make the room seem gloomy,” Stella explained (as if she were speaking to a rather stupid eight year old.) 

John decided to rescue him. “We’d just decided on this one,” he said, pointing at the medium hue. “It will be dark enough, but not too dark.” 

Paul shrugged. “I guess it’s okay. If it doesn’t look good, we can put a carpet over it.”

Stella groaned in disgust. “You have zero taste, Dad, that’s all I have to say,” she announced, making the others laugh. Even Paul laughed. 

“In that case, I’d better go up and take a shower and get changed,” Paul decided, retreating from the field. 

After he had been gone a few moments, and they’d heard the door close upstairs, Mary turned to the others and said, “Well, that went well.”

 

*****

 

The sitting room was uninhabitable for several days after the floor was stained. No one was allowed to walk in there. Finally, some workmen came and laid down plastic that covered the entire floor. Paul came back from the gym that morning to find a painter’s van parked in the driveway. He hurried into the house. He headed straight for the sitting room, where John was standing in the entryway.

“What’s going on?” Paul demanded.

“The girls said now that the floor was done the walls looked terrible, and they needed to be painted,” John explained.

Paul looked at John helplessly. “Couldn’t you stop them?” He asked. John gave Paul a meaningful double take. Paul nodded in agreement. “I hear you,” he admitted, “they’re unstoppable.” 

“John!” Stella called imperiously from the deep recesses of the sitting room. “Come over here!”

John grinned at Paul and whispered, “I wonder who she reminds me of?” He strolled nonchalantly over to where Stella was standing, and Paul - a little perplexed - followed a bit after. When he caught up to them, Stella was pointing at the wall where a series of soft, pale, yellowy and golden hues were displayed in streaks on the wall. 

“These are the colors you liked,” Stella said. “Which is your favorite?”

Paul looked at John suspiciously. “You picked out these colors?” He asked.

John said, “They asked me which chips I liked best, and I told them.”

Paul looked at his daughter with a stern expression. “Why not just paint it the same color it was before?”

Stella’s expression was pure frustration. “Daddy, you have to get with the times,” she exhorted. “Style evolves over time. You need to trust us. You’ll love the result.” 

Paul looked skeptical, but decided it was too late to do anything about it. At least John hadn’t picked that blinding shade of white he’d slathered his own house with. Paul had never felt comfortable with all that bright white. He looked around to see the painters sanding the walls in preparation of delivering a smooth paint job. He said to Stella, with a large dollop of irony, “So how much is this costing me?”

Stella said, “They’re a company my decorator friend uses. We’re getting a discount, because I’m going to design and make a few dresses for her at a discount.” 

With nothing further to complain about, Paul shrugged (John could tell he was not entirely happy with what was going on) and went upstairs to shower and change. 

After he left, John said to Stella, “We’re pushing him pretty hard. I feel bad about it.”

Stella said, “He’ll feel so much better when it’s done. It will be all fresh and new, no ghosts, and it will be a place he can share exclusively with you.” 

John nodded. “All true. But I hope it doesn’t kill him first.”

 

*****

 

All the sitting room furniture had been stacked up in the sun porch when it had been emptied for the floors and the painting. Paul had thought it was waiting there just until the paint dried. But the next Saturday when he got back from the gym, he found a ‘goodwill’ truck in his front yard. He stumbled into the house after having to wait for two moving men taking out the old sofa, and another pair of men taking out the old coffee table. He became quite upset. He finally made it to the kitchen, where John was making coffee for everyone. 

“What the hell is going on?” Paul demanded of John.

“I woke up this morning to the doorbell,” John explained innocently. “There was an Oxfam truck. A moment later Stella showed up. She started directing the men to remove all the old sitting room furniture into the truck.”

“What the fuck are they up to?” Paul shouted at no one in particular, referring to Mary and Stella.

“They’re redecorating the sitting room, apparently,” John responded mildly. 

“Why?” Paul asked. “What’s this all about? They don’t even live here!”

John handed Paul a cup of coffee. “Sit down, Paul. Calm down.” He pointed at the kitchen table, and reluctantly Paul sat down. John sat next to him, and leaned across the table and grabbed Paul’s hand. “They want us to start fresh - without ghosts. They want it to be all new and shiny, so they can stop worrying about us.” 

“They’re worried about us?” Paul asked, surprised.

“Yes. They think you’re being swallowed by grief, and as a result, they think I’m depressed.” 

Paul stared at John with suddenly aware eyes. “Are you depressed, Johnny?” He asked in a much quieter, shaken voice.

John gulped. He saw the world of worry and pain in Paul’s eyes. He didn’t want to add to it with his own selfish fears. He finally said, “I don’t know if I’m depressed, it’s just what the girls think. But it’s true I sometimes feel lost in this house. There’s nothing of me in it.”

Paul heard this quiet confession and said solemnly, “I’ve been selfish. Blind and selfish. I’m sorry, John. If it makes you feel better to brighten up the house a bit, then I’m fine with it.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s a little scary to see things change, though, I have to admit.” 

John patted the hand he had been holding. “We can go slowly. There’s no race.”

Just as he finished saying this, Mary and Stella came in (having waved the workmen goodbye) and threw a bunch of fabric samples and photos of furniture down on the table. “Okay John, here’s some ideas,” Stella declared. “My decorator friend loaned these to me.” She and Mary sat down at the table after pouring themselves a cup of coffee each. 

John said, “I’ll take a look at these, but I may want to meet with this decorator friend of yours to discuss our preferences.” He smiled at Paul. “You in this with me?”

Paul shrugged and said, “I never had anything to add to Linda’s choices so I don’t see why I should start now. Whatever you like, John, but I don’t like loud and flashy, I like comfortable, and I don’t like too expensive.” 

Mary and Stella smiled with relief. “It’s gonna be beautiful in there when it’s done, you’ll see,” Mary said sweetly. “I really love that buttery color you chose for the walls,” she added, grinning at John. “It warms the place up, along with those auburn floors.”

“I didn’t think this would be so much fun,” Stella mused. “I think next we should start on the master suite.”

“Stella!” Paul cried. 

John and Mary laughed. Paul had sounded like Stanley Kowalski for a moment.


	120. Chapter 120

December 24, 1998  
London

 

James and Heather had travelled up from East Sussex the day before, ready to participate in the public launch of Wide Prairie. To say they were shocked to find the sitting room empty except for newly stained floors and a new paint job would be an understatement. Somehow, none of their various family members had mentioned the redecoration scheme to them. Neither of them was overly pleased with the overhaul. They both felt that things were moving too fast. It felt to them like their mother was being swept out of the house too soon. 

Paul could read their minds when he saw their reactions to the changes. He hugged each of them in greeting - they were a very physical family - and said, “the carpet was kaput!” as a kind of a jokey explanation for the changes. Their return smiles were a bit anemic. But soon they were swept up in the greetings from their sisters and John, and once in the kitchen they could ignore the changes going on around them.

Because there was no furniture in the sitting room, the family had been forced over the last week to inhabit the more formal parlor, which was smaller than the sitting room, and a bit out of the way. John had finally settled on the basic furnishings and fabrics he wanted for the sitting room, but it would be weeks before the new furniture and drapes were delivered. While having that bright room to look forward to, John found inhabiting the other rooms, especially the old-fashioned dark parlor, to be almost more depressing than it had been before. And it really had to be said: the rest of the ground floor rooms looked drab compared to the bright look of the sitting room. John had managed to tamp down his urges to just go through all the rooms ripping off drapes and pulling up carpets. He had to be patient, and let Paul catch up with him. Now he could also plainly see that Heather and James too would be reluctant to see changes at Cavendish. 

 

*****

 

Two Days Later

 

The occasion of the family’s reunion was the public release of Linda’s album, filled with all the songs that Linda had recorded privately over a twenty-six year period. They included cuts from the Wings days, both early and late, some stuff she had worked on in the ‘80s, and even a few things she had done in her last months on earth. The favorite was clearly Seaside Woman, which featured a reggae sensibility. James had performed lead electric guitar on The Light Comes From Within, and it was this song that always caused James to tear up. He could remember working on it with his mother just before she died. Could it really have been only nine months ago they had been together in the Sussex studio - before they left for Arizona on that last family trip? It seemed like a lifetime ago to James. 

They had all dressed nicely and arrived at the press event, held in a swank hotel. John had stayed home. This had been the subject of much debate amongst the McCartney children, who felt he should be there, since he had been Linda’s close and loving friend and confidante during her battle with cancer. Paul had been open to John coming as well. But John was more aware of the level of scrutiny and gossip he was under than the McCartneys appeared to be. He didn’t want this event to be ruined by a lot of suggestive and intrusive questions. He knew if he showed up he would become the sinecure of all eyes, and the whole point of the evening as a testament to Linda would be lost. Paul had asked him privately why he wouldn’t come, and John had said succinctly,

“Do you want them asking about you and me, or do you want them asking about Linda?” 

Paul had swallowed that comment and he knew immediately that John was right. Still, he felt very alone as he worked the room that night. He wanted very much to look up over everyone’s heads and see John across the room, making a face and clowning. He also felt guilty. He worried about John home alone in the house, upended by the sitting room remodeling. He had tried to encourage John to go out on the town with friends, but John had declined. How to explain to Paul that the headline ‘Macca honors his dead wife, while John goes clubbing with pals’ would be just as distracting as his appearance at the event itself?

After the event, Paul and his five children (he was including Alistair in the count) crowded into one Rolls limo, and headed back to Cavendish. He was quiet and thoughtful, staring out the window. Mary was squeezed in next to him, and she whispered to him, “Missing John?”

Paul turned to her in surprise and said, “I hope he’s okay.” 

Mary smiled warmly at her father. “There’s something you could do that would mean the world to him.”

Paul’s expression invited her to continue.

Mary’s voice was hushed but emotional. “You need to let him make that house a home for both of you. And you have to let him share the master suite with you. Don’t leave him on the back shelf for an emergency; put him front and center now.” 

Paul’s eyes clouded up, and he nodded in a kind of guilty surrender. “I know I should, but it would feel so disloyal,” was all he could say, before the tears came again. 

Mary hugged him. “Then turn the guest suite into a new master until you feel better about it. How about that?” She whispered. “You both can stop living out of suitcases and boxes, dragging your things when needed from other rooms. That’s so disorienting.”

Paul’s tears did not stop but he nodded his head in a kind of resigned agreement. 

The other kids thought he was crying about their mother again. 

 

*****

 

“Oh Jo-hn,” Paul trilled as he climbed into bed. This got John’s attention, and made him smile. “How did you spend your evening?” Paul asked, as he leaned over for a kiss. John had been sitting up in bed reading when Paul arrived home. He gracefully accepted the light kiss.

John said brightly, “I had some soup and a sandwich, I watched ‘Midsomer Murders’ - really, those people ought to just move out of that area - it’s teeming with murderers - and then I came to bed and began to read my book.”

Paul was feeling very sentimental about John at that moment. His heart had been filled with equal amounts of love and guilt during the car ride home, and now here was John waiting up for him - looking sane and cheerful - and this was very reassuring to Paul. It made him feel expansive and generous. After he had answered John’s questions about the evening’s event, Paul decided to surprise John.

“I had a thought on the ride back,” he said slowly, as if he weren’t about to make a huge concession.

“Oh? That’s dangerous: you and thoughts, I mean.”

“Ha-ha,” Paul sang. “But I’m serious - I had an idea. I was thinking maybe you would like to fix up this suite so we can stay here in more style. I mean, we can have our clothes in the closets and everything.”

John froze in his spot. He’d heard the words, but he wondered for a moment if he had dreamt them. His book had fallen down on to his lap and he turned his head slowly towards Paul. He met Paul’s eyes and they stared at each other for a few seconds. “Did Mary and Stella put you up to this?” He asked.

“I think all they did was open my eyes,” Paul responded honestly. “I was so busy missing Linda, that I wasn’t feeling grateful for having you.”

“You don’t have to feel ‘grateful’, Paul. I mean, between me and you, we don’t need to say ‘thank you’ for just being there for each other.”

“No, I suppose we don’t,” Paul agreed, a slight gleam in his eye, “but I want to. I haven’t told you enough how much I’ve depended on you, how much you’ve come through for me. It’s a very confusing time for me - I guess for you too - and I think I should take some kind of concrete step towards showing you how much you mean to me.” 

John was honestly surprised by Paul’s openness. He worried that it was a dramatic proposal that Paul would later regret, but he didn’t want to refuse the offer, either. “Well, if you want to make it official, and us move into this house properly together, then I’d be happy to oblige.”

“What will you do with your place?” Paul asked softly.

“I was thinking that as long as it is there, people won’t be able to say for sure that we are living together.” 

Paul thought about what John said. “It seems like a waste. It is a beautiful house, and it is just sitting empty.”

“I keep it up. The maid keeps it spotless,” John said wryly. “It isn’t particularly difficult, though, since nobody lives there,” he added with a smirk.

“If you’re going to keep it, then I guess I won’t worry about it,” Paul said. “But I would like it if you would make this your home.” 

John blinked away tears and said, “No argument from me!” 

“You wanna fool around now?” Paul asked, twinkling. He let his eyebrows bop up and down several times. 

Comically, John threw his book over his shoulder, and jumped enthusiastically on top of Paul. From underneath John’s chest Paul was heard to remark,

“I guess that means yes.”

 

*****

 

Christmas Eve, 1998  
Cavendish

 

It was a full house for the holidays, and one part of the house looked considerably different to the McCartney kids as they came home to Cavendish for the holidays. The sitting room in all its glory was done. With the lamps on, the walls seemed to glow a golden color, and the polished floors were covered by a 17’ x 17’ square Aubusson rug from the Directoire period in yellow and gold, woven with a large dominant floral shape outlined in light and dark blues and oranges. Amongst the floral and vine motifs one could see watering cans and scissors depicted in the carpet, apparently to represent the cutting of fresh flowers. The deep Persian blue custom-made sectional sofa was a cross between traditional and contemporary, with very deep seats, and extremely comfortable cushions. Orange and yellow accent pillows were strewn about. John had strategically placed flowers around the room, and the built-in wall unit housed stereo equipment, television, books, cds, dvds, and objets d’art - most of which were from Paul’s art collection. The paintings on the wall were modern, and were from Paul’s art collection as well. The Christmas tree was beautifully decorated, mostly in whites and golds, but also some blues, and numerous gifts were piled up underneath. 

“Oh, my!” Heather breathed as she stepped into the room. “It’s really beautiful in here!” 

Stella said, “It’s all John’s doing. He chose everything.”

Heather looked at John and smiled. “I was feeling weird about changing it, but it really does look wonderful,” she admitted. John walked over to her and gave her a side hug. 

“Well, come on in and make yourself comfortable. The stuff may be new, but it is meant to be used,” he told her. 

Soon the family had made itself totally at home, and Paul felt very relaxed, stretched out on his easy chair and watching all of his children interacting in their seats on the sofa. And this Christmas there was something extra special to celebrate. Mary had announced a month earlier that she was expecting a baby. This Christmas she was six months along, and looking very pregnant indeed. Everyone was catering to her, and she was amused by it. John, especially, was behaving like a hovering momma bear, and Mary found it very endearing. 

John had felt very pressured about this Christmas. The last of Linda’s gifts were distributed to her family, and so he felt that this was still Linda’s family and her holiday. He was still the stand in for her. But then, he hoped the changes he was slowly bringing to Cavendish would have the effect of insuring that next year’s Christmas would be his Christmas. 

After the meal, John went in to the kitchen mainly to leave the McCartney clan alone to admire the gifts they had received from Linda. John had received a gift from Linda too; touchingly, she had paid for Cordon Bleu lessons with a private chef. The chef would come to Cavendish, and Linda had paid for 14 lessons focusing on vegetarian cooking techniques and recipes. This had surprised John very much, and pleased him as well. It was one of the things - cooking - that he and Linda had in common. And now Linda’s less-than-subtle hint was a way of reminding John that if he was going to cook for Paul he had to focus on vegetarian meals. John made himself some herbal tea, and sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy it. He was lost in his thoughts when they were interrupted.

“What’re you thinking about?” Mary asked, moving in to the room, and taking a seat across from John. John jumped up to pour her a cup of the tea. “You don’t have to do that,” Mary chided.

“Yes, I do,” John told her flatly, placing the cup down in front of her, and plopping back in his seat at the table. Mary giggled. She liked that John didn’t explain his answer. There was a lot she liked about John. 

“So - your thoughts?” She repeated.

“Not very meritorious, I’m afraid,” John responded. “I was feeling a bit melancholy.”

“Why?” Mary asked gently.

“I guess I really feel the absence of your mother tonight. She’s here, but she’s not here, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s like that all the time for me,” Mary confessed. “I have dreams about her, and they’re stressful. I dream that she has left us - gone off without explanation. She’s still alive, but separated from us. I wake up feeling terrible.”

John considered what Mary said as he savored a hot mouthful of tea. He slowly swallowed and then said, “Your dad dreams about losing her, too. Sometimes his arms and legs are like the blades of a windmill while he’s sleeping. I have to shake him awake and he is usually covered with sweat.”

Mary nodded with understanding. “He and Mum were dependent upon one another. It was like losing half of himself.” 

John was silent for a few moments. “Do you think he is dependent on me?” He asked. He knew he shouldn’t ask this of Linda’s daughter, but there were times when he forgot she was only twenty-nine. 

Mary smiled sympathetically. “You would know better than me. But I always thought that you depended on him more than the other way ‘round, but he enjoyed being the one you could count on. Just lately, since Mum died, he seems to be depending on you more and more.”

“I’ve had the longest adolescence known to man,” John chortled. “I refused to grow up. I put your dad through a lot.”

“I don’t think he minded,” Mary said, chuckling also. “You are the apple of his eye.” 

John looked up quickly to see if Mary was teasing him, but her expression was both empathetic and sincere. “’The apple of his eye...’” John repeated softly. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by that.”

“I mean that he is proud of you,” Mary said succinctly. “He is proud to be your closest friend, and proud to be your creative partner. It makes him feel good about himself, to be needed by you. Anyway, that’s the vibe I’ve always gotten.”

John listened intently to what Mary said, and was formulating a response when Paul stuck his head into the kitchen.

“Hey you two, what’s up? Why aren’t you out here with the rest of us?” Paul’s energy was much bouncier and energetic than John’s and Mary’s. But the two of them shrugged their shoulders at each other and exchanged knowing smiles, and then they got up, taking their teacups with them. They followed Paul back in to the sitting room.

They weren’t long back in the room before the phone rang. John went to answer it. He listened quietly to the man on the other end of the phone, and finally said,

“Well, we’ll have to think about that.” He hung up the phone and returned to the family.

 

*****

 

John entered the bedroom to find Paul already sacked out. Stella and Mary had gone home, Heather had gone to bed, and John had spent some time with James chatting in the sitting room before the exhaustion finally overcame him. Now he smiled at Paul, who was already curled on his side but not quite asleep. After preparing for bed, he slipped in on his side. Paul roused himself enough to acknowledge John’s presence.

John said, “Before you go to sleep I have to tell you something.”

Paul’s eyes flew open, but it was an effort to keep them open. They wanted so badly to close.

“I had a call from Jann Wenner tonight,” John said flatly.

Paul’s face was covered in confusion. “Jann ... why?”

“He informed me that we were both nominated for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. The ceremony is in a few months, in March.”

Paul was silent for a few moments. “He calls you on Christmas Eve to tell you that?” His voice was dripping with skepticism. 

John sighed. “Jann thinks this museum thing is a big damn deal. He probably thought it was a nice Christmas present.”

Paul contemplated this remark. “It’s kind of spoiled by the way it all went down,” he finally remarked.

John nodded his head. “That whole thing four years ago - that was a mess.”

“So how do you feel about it?” Paul asked tentatively.

“At least we’d be together,” John pointed out.

Paul turned over on to his back and stared at the ceiling. “Why do I feel that they’re throwing me a crumb in order to get you to accept?”

“Paul, I told you last time that only Jann blackballed you - not the others. And Jann said then that you would be eligible 25 years after Band on the Run, which is in fact next year.”

Paul said, “What do you want to do?”

“I think we should accept the ‘honor’ and show ourselves to be good sports.” 

“Whatever you want to do, that’s what I’ll do,” Paul decided. 

 

*****

 

January 1999  
Cavendish

 

Paul had been working on a classical piece for a few months as homage to Linda. He called the piece ‘Nova.’ The haunting chords and words continued to repeat in his head, even as he went about his daily routine. In a way he was obsessed with it. In the first part of the piece he questioned the existence of ‘god,’ and in the second part of the piece he had his answer. Already he was using his computer software to translate his chords into notes on a music sheet. The next step would be to seek assistance from Carl Davis or George Martin, to polish the result.   
Several other classical composers had agreed to work on or contribute pieces in Linda’s honor as well. Paul - given his numerous forays into classical music in the last several years - had established many relationships with classical composers, arrangers and performers. 

Down in the sitting room, where he spent most of his time these days, John was feeling philosophic about losing Paul to his music room. Between the classical music and the electronica, Paul was working out his grief and John supposed that it was for the best. Still, he was feeling the rumblings of creativity in his own inner ear, and had been scribbling lyrics, and plonking on the piano trying to capture some of the ideas before they floated away. He had finally accepted that Paul had meant what he said when he declared that he would not be doing any pop composing in the year after Linda’s death. Maybe by then - it was only three months away - John would have enough material stored up to make their new album’s recording process easier than the last one. 

As if John’s thoughts had conjured him up, Paul suddenly appeared before him. John noted immediately that Paul appeared to be in an upbeat mood. 

“I’ve got an idea, John!” He declared cheerfully.

John had to stifle the groan. Paul and his ideas. Exhausting. “Oh?” He asked, his face a study in irony.

“I think we should go back to that place we stayed...in Costa Rica... remember?” 

John heard this idea as if a herald with a trumpet had introduced it. “Wha-what?” John looked suspiciously at Paul. “Are you high?” He asked. He was finding it hard to believe Paul’s ebullience.

“I’m not, no,” Paul laughed. He plopped down on the sofa next to John. “I’m just tired of all this grey and drizzle. Need to get away to the sunshine.” 

“Do you think it is possible to rent that place?” John asked. “I seem to remember the owner didn’t normally rent it.” 

“Well, I’m prepared to find out if you agree that you’d like to go,” Paul responded. 

John snuffed and said, “Like I’d say no...”

“Good! Then I’ll make some calls!” Paul got up and sailed out of the room. John watched him go with a look of consternation on his face. One of the things that both delighted and annoyed John about Paul was his unpredictability. If Paul had been predictable John would have lost interest in him decades ago, he supposed, but it was still disorienting not to be able to know when Paul would suddenly stop dead in his tracks and change his direction by 180 degrees.

 

*****

 

A Hideaway in Costa Rica  
February 1999

 

The roads had been even more rutted than they’d been almost 5 years earlier, when John and Paul had last visited this tropical paradise. Paul had found out when he called his travel agent that February was the height of the season in Costa Rica - the weather was ‘perfect.’ This had worried Paul; he was afraid the owner of the property would be using it himself. But the agent surprised him by telling him that the owner of the property had died 15 months earlier, and it was now an asset in a probate estate. The agent had done her magic, and had arranged for a six-week rental with the probate administrator. John and Paul had already decided they would decompress, relax, but also do some songwriting while gone. Paul also wanted to finish up his work on Nova, his classical piece for Linda. To that end, he had brought an electric keyboard with him. 

As sometimes happens when one revisits a place one has idealized, the front of the property looked a little more rundown than John had remembered, and while the vegetation around the front patio was abundant, it was not well manicured. Still, what mattered most to John and Paul was what lay beyond the front door. John entered first, while Paul paid off the driver, and dealt with the luggage.

The large round room with the umbrella-like ceiling was still there, with its large 24” x 24” pale terra cotta tiles. The glass doors and windows that comprised one wall still opened out to the outdoor room under the shelter of the roof. And the pool and the surrounding patio were waiting for occupation - John noted that no one had removed the pool cover. While maids had come in to wipe away the cobwebs and air out the place, the house had a shuttered feel, as though it had been completely unoccupied for years. And perhaps it had been. John was still standing in the middle of the living area when Paul joined him. 

“Is anything wrong?” Paul asked John, because it seemed that John was very pensive.

“No - it just feels like an echo of the past, doesn’t it?” John turned to Paul for reassurance.

“It feels like no one has been here in a long time,” Paul agreed. “But we’ll soon take care of that.” He turned towards the bedroom and began taking the luggage in. There was a lot of luggage, including their instruments and enough clothing and supplies for a six-week stay. Shaking off the spooky feeling, John went to the kitchen area and began checking out the fridge and the cupboards and was greatly relieved to discover the place had been well stocked. He figured an exotic drink would cure what ailed him, and so when Paul came out of the bedroom finished with his luggage carrying, John asked him to make some ‘colorful drinks.’ 

John wandered out on to the pool patio and wondered how to remove the pool cover. He hadn’t done it before - always Paul had been the one to worry about such things. But he shouldn’t have worried. Within a few minutes Paul came out with two turquoise rum drinks, and noticed the pool cover. He moved to a shed along the side and messed around with something, and soon the pool cover was retracting. Paul manhandled the cover, once it had been reeled in, and placed it in a long wooden cupboard, which seconded as bench seating. John, meanwhile, sat down on the side of the pool, his jeans legs pulled up, and his feet felt refreshed in the cool water after the dusty ride from the makeshift air strip up on the plateau above. Paul soon joined him.

“Ah, this is just what I need,” Paul sighed as he moved his feet around in the water and took a healthy sip of his drink. “I wonder if we’ll see a toucan this trip,” he said to John, elbowing him slightly to gain his attention. John was in a very contemplative mood, and it had begun to worry Paul a little. “Are you sorry we came?” Paul asked, noting John’s expression.

“No!” John answered quickly. “I just need to soak in the peace for a while, and then I’ll feel right again.”

“What’s making you feel wrong?” Paul asked tentatively.

John met Paul’s eyes and smiled. “It just felt kind of like déjà vu walking in to this place, only this time the place was not as well-kept or well-loved. I sense that in the last years before he died, the owner didn’t come here, and didn’t pay to keep the place up.” 

Paul gave it some thought. “Perhaps his heirs weren’t interested in spending the money, since none of them wanted the property.”

“What heirs? And how do you know they don’t want the property?” John asked, intrigued.

“The owner - he was from Mexico, a wealthy man - had no wife or children. His only heirs were an aged sister and her grown sons, neither of whom want this place.” 

John kept staring at Paul. He finally said, “The travel agent told you all of this?”

“No, actually it was the lawyer for the probate administrator,” Paul said, his voice exaggeratedly slow.

John was still staring at Paul. “And why did you speak with the probate administrator?” John asked.

“To negotiate the lease, of course,” Paul said logically.

John wasn’t satisfied. He was still staring at Paul. Finally, Paul couldn’t take it anymore.

“When I found out the owner had died,” he said, “I expressed an interest in purchasing the property.”

“Really?” John asked, excitement thrumming in his stomach. He’d known Paul was up to something!

“Yes, really, and we came to an agreement. Turns out that Costa Rica has very friendly foreign purchaser laws. I formed a corporation in which you and I own all the shares, and the corporation owns the property. The escrow will close in a few weeks. It will be ours. So, while you’re here you might want to think about how you want to spruce it up. And we really do need to hire a decent property manager to keep it up while we’re not here.”

John was filled with a mixture of joyful surprise and gratitude. “Paul!” Was all he could manage to blurt out. That was what had been bothering him since he got here, John now realized. He loved the place so much and had hated to see it rundown and uncared for. Paul had just given him this gift - this pearl of a property for him to take care of. He put his glass down and immediately grabbed Paul and pulled him into an intense hug. “Thank you!” He whispered in Paul’s ear.

“I did it for both of us,” Paul admitted. “I like that it is small - just the one bedroom. I think this should always be just ours - our hideaway. No one will ever stay here but us.”

John’s spirit had undergone an amazing transformation. He jumped up and cried, “I’m making dinner! Will you help?” And then he headed for the kitchen. Chuckling, Paul followed behind holding both drinks. Of course he would help. This place was magic, and it had a healing effect on both of them. It was just what they needed after the stressful weight of the last three years.


	121. Chapter 121

February 1999  
Costa Rica

 

It didn’t take long for the alluring rhythms of the tropics to work their magic on John and Paul. While the first few days of their getaway saw John eying everything as if he were calculating what he needed to do to improve it, by the third day he had given up this activity in favor of just lying by the pool on a chaise lounge under an umbrella while pretending to read a book. (He had finished maybe one chapter on that third day.) Paul spent at least half of each day working on his various compositions, and while John napped beside him on a lounge, Paul sat in a chair and worked on song lyrics. John hadn’t yet felt the urge to write, figuring he had the better part of six weeks still ahead of him.

In his perambulations around the little house on the first two days, John had found a huge bag of tropical birdseed. He couldn’t find a birdseed feeder, though, and had expressed his frustration to Paul, who had gone off on a property search and had found an old planting box and cleaned it up. Into the planter went the birdseed and a selection of sliced up fruit, and the planter was then placed in the yard away from the pool patio. (Paul had pointed out to John that if they placed it near the pool, they’d end up with a lot of bird poop in the water. “Oh,” John had said.) By the third day birds had discovered the seed, and the yard had become - during early mornings and late afternoons - almost like an atrium filled with exotic, colorful birds. Paul would watch them intently; bird watching had been one of his boyhood hobbies, and it was one of those things - seeing birds going about their business while intermittently singing - that had a soothing effect on Paul.

Nights in their little paradise held a magic all their own. John preferred to use candlelight to enhance the ageless, romantic feel of the bedroom with the large 8’ diameter round bed. Paul had joked that the first thing they should do was get rid of that huge bed because it was so hard to get in and out of. But John had pointed out that once you were in it, it was fantastic. Paul could not argue with that. It was terribly romantic: the velvet darkness with puddles of golden light from a few strategically placed candles, the sliding door open to the patio outside the bedroom, with only a screen there to keep out the insects, and the mosquito net that seemed to seal out the unwanted parts of the world while letting in the atmospherics as they lay facing each other in the large round bed.

One night after making love, as they relaxed in the bed while the sweat was steaming off their bodies, John asked plaintively, “Do you ever think there will be a time when you and I will be able to be honest about us?”

Paul was quiet and his eyes blinked for several moments. Then he said, “I don’t know. The thought is terrifying.”

John knew what Paul meant, but still felt a jab of pain when he heard it. “What scares you the most about it?” John decided to ask, telling himself in advance not to get emotional or upset by Paul’s response.

Paul looked uncomfortable. He moved on to his back, and whether it was purposeful or inadvertent this had the effect of severing the deep intimacy that had existed between them only seconds before. Paul didn’t want to talk about this in the worst way. How could he explain it to John? How could he tell him that it would be best if they just went about their private lives and not opened this particular Pandora’s Box?

“Paul?” John asked softly, feeling Paul’s withdrawal with a mixture of sadness and suppressed anger.

“What scares me the most,” Paul finally said, the words escaping slowly and painfully, “is that people will say that I didn’t really love Linda the way a man loves a woman; that she was just a ‘front’ to protect our masculinity.” Paul stopped to swallow. He heard John’s breathless silence, and added unnecessarily, “I couldn’t bear for people to write that about her.” 

John didn’t know what to say next. He fumbled around in his mind, and couldn’t help the words that eventually came out. “They’ve been saying that now for 15 years - ever since our first album came out, remember? There’s no stopping some people from saying stuff like that. Why should we let them rule our world?”

Paul felt himself closing up. He wanted to be open and intimate with John. He didn’t want there to be barriers or minefields between them. But it hadn’t even been a year yet since Linda died, and there was a large well of emotion inside Paul - an intense desire to protect Linda from the terrible things people might say - and at that moment in time he could not see a time when he would voluntarily give those people ammunition to strengthen their arsenals. And while Paul believed that he would always feel this way, although perhaps not as intensely as time went by, he also knew that this was a huge obstacle to John being able to live ‘loud and proud.’ Paul had no need to share his private world with the public, but he understood that John had always needed to declare his beliefs and his love affairs to the world. Living a secret life was extremely difficult for John - he had struggled with it since he was a teenager - and Paul knew that he was bursting at the seams to shout ‘this is my life, this is my lover, and you can take it or leave it!’ Of course Paul also knew that once John had this cathartic release he would then become frightened and overwhelmed by the negative response. It didn’t matter if 50% of the world was fine with their situation; the other 50% of the world’s population would be disgusted, outraged, and many of those would be very verbal about it, too. And Paul knew his determined detractors in the press would come after his “family man” persona, and tear it limb from limb. While this would hurt Paul, certainly, it would absolutely devastate his family, and Linda’s siblings. It would also negatively impact - in a serious way - the Lennon/McCartney legacy - and it would impact their private lives to the point where they would be followed and provoked relentlessly by paparazzi, and it would impact the lives of all the people who were closest to them, and who they loved the most - especially their children. Their whole damn private world would have to circle the wagons.

No, ‘going public’ was not something Paul wanted to do, and he sincerely believed it was in John’s long-term best interest to keep the whole thing secret as well. John might talk tough and act impervious, but he was not tough, and he was incredibly affected by negative gossip. Paul didn’t have to go any further than remembering John beating up Bob Wooler at his 21st birthday party because he cast aspersions on John’s sexuality, or his slapping that female reporter who asked him about cheating on Cynthia, or the paroxysms of paranoia he suffered when he thought ‘everyone’ was taking Paul’s side in the breakup, or the time he insisted on leaving England and hiding away when their first album as a duo came out and he feared that it would fail. No - it didn’t matter what John said, he just wasn’t able to stand up to public censure of any kind. Paul felt once again that - as often happened in their forty-some year relationship - he was protecting John from himself by insisting on keeping the full nature of their relationship secret from the press and the general public. After all, John and Paul had let their very closest friends and family members know the truth, and their children understood and accepted it, so once the doors of Cavendish closed behind them, they could live as openly and honestly as they wanted. It wasn’t as if they had to live a lie in every aspect of their lives.

None of this would sit well with John, though. Paul knew that. This is why he much preferred not to talk about such things. They only ended up in the same place at the end, with neither of them feeling satisfied by the exercise.

John had lain there quietly digesting what Paul had not said in response to his comment that there would always be unwanted gossip. He knew he should just let it go, but something made him want more. He poked Paul’s arm with his finger and said, “Hey - Pud! You still there? Did you hear what I said?”

Paul sighed heavily. John was not going to let it go. He hoped this wouldn’t ruin their idyll in the jungle, or sour the special magic of this property he had just bought for them. “I heard you,” Paul said softly. “I’m trying to find a way to explain. If I thought something good would come of it, maybe I would agree with you. But, honestly? I don’t think it would turn out well at all.”

“Why do you have such a pessimistic view of it?” John insisted. He had now propped his head up on his hand, supported by his arm, akimbo.

“Well, the people we love the most know, and they’re the ones we actually live with. We don’t have to hide or lie to them. And many of our fans and probably some of the general public have sort of accepted the fact that there is probably something going on with us, but they really don’t want their noses rubbed in it. And of course there would be a politically enthused group of people who would welcome the news, and immediately turn it into a kind of soapbox to stand on. That would just be horrible for me; I don’t want to be the poster boy for anyone else’s political agenda. And then there will be the people who love you but hate me. They would come after me, John - Linda and me. They will say that you are an honest person, who tried to live openly, but you were hamstrung by me, that I forced you to live a lie, and I was hiding behind my wife. And the people who like me and hate you will say that you forced your way into my marriage, and brainwashed me or something, and that the stress you put on us caused Linda’s cancer.”

John couldn’t help it; at this last comment he had to stifle a bark of laughter.

“You think not?” Paul asked angrily. “You think they won’t? They will!” His voice had become a shout. Paul caught himself and forced himself to calm down. He began again, with a calmer voice. “The press will feel that we lied to them - which we have - and they will lay it on thick on both of us, and they will tear my marriage apart in print. My children and yours will be drawn in. And that isn’t even the worst of it. The worst of it is, people will start burning their Beatles records again, and the whole legacy we’ve constructed will be attacked. It will impact George and Ringo, and they’ll be upset. We will receive death threats and hate mail from bigots, and we will set off crazies with homosexual fantasies. This thing is way bigger than you and me, John, and I don’t want to go through this! I haven’t even been able to recover yet from losing Linda!” Paul’s heart had begun to race, and his voice had risen into the higher registers, and also in pace.

John suddenly put his hand on Paul’s chest and said, “Stop! Paul!” He leaned over Paul’s torso until he was looking intensely into Paul’s eyes.

Paul took a deep breath and met John’s eyes with surprise and uncertainty. Surprise that he had ‘lost it’ like that, and uncertain of John’s reaction to it.

John slowly rubbed Paul’s chest with his hand and he said reassuringly, “I’m sorry, Paul. I shouldn’t have persisted with this. I didn’t realize how much you’ve internalized the fear of it.”

Paul absent-mindedly nodded. He hadn’t realized how much he’d internalized the fear of it either. He had shocked himself with the train of internal panic he had set loose. Slowly his breathing began to calm down again, as John continued to rub his chest.

John spoke soothingly. “I can see how much this means to you, and I hope you know I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt you or Linda’s memory.” John’s hand moved from Paul’s chest to his face, and he was gently pushing the hair off Paul’s forehead, and wiping the sweat off Paul’s face. “You never tell me your fears or your worries. How am I supposed to know what they are if you don’t talk to me about them?”

Paul finally found his voice again, and in that moment of supreme vulnerability he said a very honest and poignant thing: “It’s all bottled up inside me. I don’t even know what all is in there.”

 

*****

 

Two Weeks Later  
Costa Rica

 

In the two weeks following Paul’s emotional reaction to John’s prodding about ‘going public,’ John let the dust settle. He didn’t raise the subject again, and he was very gentle and sweet in his treatment of Paul. In truth, he was worried about the strong emotions that had built up inside of Paul. How long had Paul been hoarding those fears? Paul had been through hell in the last few years, that’s for sure. He had to be the strong one for Linda, and had gone through all that crazy medical stuff, and then her death. It had been a long, terrible road, and it had obviously taken its toll. And Paul was nowhere near the finish line when it came to this fear and grief. Linda hadn’t been gone even a year yet. They still had the first anniversary of her death to survive. Fortunately - or perhaps it was due to a greater force in the universe - Mary’s baby was due in early April, just days before the first anniversary of Linda’s birth. Having that baby there would make that anniversary so much easier to withstand, John knew. Anyway, John was treating Paul with kid gloves. He didn’t want to trigger any more near-anxiety attacks by probing into subjects that Paul was not yet ready to face.

Paul, for his part, had wandered around with that half-numb feeling that sometimes overcomes one after a huge emotional download. He had actually scared himself a little with the strength of his vehemence over having his private life exposed to the public, and now he was riding the wake from that trauma, like a surfer holding on to his board after a speedboat passes. He knew his reaction was an overreaction, but he still believed everything he had said. What had surprised him was the near hysteria he had led himself to in explaining it. Not normal. 

Not for the first time he began to wonder if he needed to go to counseling to deal with the loss of Linda. He was still breaking down and crying over the flimsiest of triggers. He was still suffering from insomnia, although lying awake in John’s arms as John snored away was comforting in and of itself. Still - he longed to have a deep, carefree sleep. Just one. He had hoped to find that elusive sleep here, in Costa Rica, but the peace had been well and truly shattered by his emotional outburst. So maybe a therapist would be good - someone of his own, who was not closely allied with John. He thought he would ask John Eastman to ask around and get a reference for someone in London he could go to. John Eastman was someone who Paul trusted with all of his darkest secrets when he needed help. In truth, John Eastman had been to Paul what Paul had been to John Lennon - a more stable, more sensible friend. This decided, Paul gave himself a pep talk. He needed to snap out of his doldrums, and commit himself to this time away with John and their work.

To that end, one morning about two weeks after the “event”, (as Paul had started referring to it in his thoughts), he jumped out of bed in the morning with something approaching real enthusiasm. He made a lot of unnecessary noise in the master bathroom, singing catches of songs, and turning the hairdryer on high with the door open. He wanted John to wake up. He wanted to show John he was back to his saucy self. He stuck his head into the bedroom, and although John had turned over on his side so his back was facing the bathroom, Paul knew that John was awake. Awake, and a little pissed off about the noise. 

Paul laughed. Whipping the towel off his naked body, be jumped up on the bed with both feet, and then allowed himself to ‘fall’ on top of John, being careful not to hurt the poor man. 

“Oomph!” John grunted. “What the fuck?” He squealed.

“You said it mate!” Paul declared cheerfully. “Me on top!”

John began to laugh, a deep belly laugh that was contagious. Paul laughed too, and pulled John’s shoulder down so his back was now flat against the mattress. Paul’s eyelashes fluttered flirtatiously.

“Oh no, not that,” John gasped in between giggles. “The dreaded eyelash treatment! You know I can’t withstand that torture!” 

Paul laughed and let his eyelashes flutter some more just for good measure. John’s face was a study in amusement. “Too much?” Paul asked, indicating his eyelash movement and thinking he’d allowed it to go too camp too soon. 

John squeezed Paul tightly around his waist, and wrapped his legs around Paul’s hips and thighs. “Never too much for me,” John growled, the voice deep and sexy, from the bottom of his throat. Whatever had gotten into Paul was playing havoc with John’s hormones. And John’s voice had done things to Paul’s libido. He went from playful to passionate in a single tick of time. Soon they were in a tight embrace, their mouths wide open and joined, and their tongues hard at work. Their hearts pounded, their arms and legs moved to accentuate the feel of their bodies rubbing together, and John’s hand manipulated Paul’s penis; he was pumping it with an expert rhythm. It was powerful and gentle at the same time. Paul began to moan deep in his throat. Although he and John had enjoyed sex several times after their ‘argument,’ this coupling was over the top intense. Both of them were exorcising negative emotions - fear, anger, pain - and it felt good. Because it was so intense, it was over within minutes. Neither man could hold himself back any longer.

Paul rolled over on to the mattress, and was left on his side, gazing at John. John remained on his back, but he brought his legs up until the flats of his feet were on the mattress. They both breathed heavily for a few minutes. John finally said, “Wow.” 

Paul chuckled. He had been thinking the same thing. It was great when you had a lover you never got tired of and who was always willing to give it a go no matter what else was going on. Women were different kinds of lovers than John was, Paul had decided. If they were upset with you, or if there was tension, they did not want sex. But somehow tension and even anger led to very intense sex between John and him. Paul wondered if this was true of all male lovers. Was it a ‘guy’ thing, or just a John ‘n Paul thing? Paul had no idea, because he had never had another male lover. He thought this ‘let’s fuck and worry about the deep stuff later’ thing was far healthier than two lovers lying on the opposite edges of their bed, pouting and feeling resentful of each other. There was always time for anger and tears later, but why spoil a chance to fuck? You only get so many thousands of chances to fuck in one lifetime. From Paul’s perspective, no matter the number of chances in a lifetime, it was far too few.

Paul pounded the mattress with his flat hand. He was starving. “Let’s make breakfast,” he announced.

John chortled. “You mean you can move so soon after that?”

“I will count to three, and then we’ll both sit up. Okay?”

John laughed but nodded ‘yes.’

“One - two - three!” Paul counted. But neither of them sat up. They both started giggling helplessly. “I’m too fucking old,”  
Paul complained. 

“Yeah, our giddyap has giddy-upped and gone,” John responded philosophically.

A few moments later, both men made slow movements to find the edges of the gigantic bed. Paul was grumbling, “Fucking bed...”

John said, “It is a ‘fucking bed.’ We should honor it as such.”

Paul had been surprised John had heard him. His attempts to suggest a normal rectangular bed of manageable size had yet to persuade John, so he had taken to mumbling about it under his breath. 

They stumbled out of the bedroom and into the kitchen area. John stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed it. “I can’t wait to get my hands on this,” he announced to Paul. “I don’t need the kitchen to be large, but it needs to be designed better.”

Paul looked up and smiled. He didn’t care about such things. He had been perfectly happy living in that little Scottish shack, with hardly a kitchen at all, and only an outhouse for a bathroom. He was not a person who needed his surroundings to be luxurious. He liked it when they were, but didn’t miss it when they weren’t. John, on the other hand, had definite ideas about his living environments, and he liked to change the environment to fit his needs and desires. Paul said, “You want to help by chopping the vegies then?”

John snorted and snapped back into action. He began chopping the vegetables expertly, just like a chef on TV. Paul watched this with an alert expression on his face, his own hands stilling in the process. John noticed and slowed down. He looked up to see Paul’s eyes. “What?” He asked.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” Paul said simply.

 

******

 

One day, Paul wanted to mount an expedition down the trail to the waterfall and pond. John was not overly enthusiastic. “It’s a very unpleasant walk down, and even worse coming back up,” he complained.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Paul asked rhetorically. “Come on, let’s go.”

John groaned. He was happy lying on his chaise lounge underneath he umbrella, and didn’t savor the exercise. But eventually he was persuaded to get to his feet. He followed reluctantly after Paul, grumbling under his breath. Paul smiled to himself, leading the way, and started energetically down the path. The path was seriously overgrown, and there were a lot of prickly plants that were attacking their legs. John stopped about a third of the way down. “I can’t do this. This is not worth it.”

Paul stopped too. He was about 15 feet ahead of John. He could see that John was serious. He walked back to where John was standing and said, “I understand. I’ll see if I can find someone to come and cut back this overgrowth so we can make it down the path better.”

John wasn’t sure that this would be enough, but he was grateful for the reprieve. He felt bad at the sight of Paul’s disappointment, so he said, “Let’s go down to the cove, instead.”

Paul brightened up with this idea, and eventually they spilled out on to the sand in the little cove with the turquoise water. There was a small wooden locker built in to the side of one retaining wall, which had beach chairs and towels in it, and John raided it to set these objects up in the sand. The shack was in an early stage of rot, and everything inside it seemed faded and past its prime. John made another mental note to himself about what he needed to do to fix that. 

They sat in their beach chairs down where the sand was wet, and enjoyed the breaking waves as they rushed up to meet their ankles. As the afternoon began to lapse into evening, and the sunset began, Paul suddenly jumped up and ran back to the house. About 15 minutes later he came back with two colorful rum drinks. “Cheers!” He said.

“Cheers!” John answered happily, clinking his glass with Paul’s. And they both then stared at the ocean and the horizon. “I wish we never had to go back,” John said, “although that’s stupid because I really do want to be there when Mary has her baby.”

“I know what you mean,” Paul responded. “It is so simple here. There aren’t a lot of competing obligations, and you don’t feel the true weight of your responsibilities. But if we stayed here too long, we’d eventually start to feel guilty and worried.”

John thought about that. He supposed that was true. He didn’t feel as though he had to respond. Instead he said, “Let’s sit down and work together tomorrow. You play me your songs, and I’ll play you mine.”

“Sounds good,” Paul said. Then they both lapsed into a prolonged silence, enjoying their drinks and watching as sunset faded into night. Suddenly, Paul leaned over with great affection and offered his lips to John, who kissed him sweetly on the lips. They smiled at each other. More silence. And then John said,

“This getting old thing. It has its perks!” 

 

*****

 

  
John had a list. He had been working on it as he lounged beside the pool. There were now about 35 entries on it. Paul came out of the house, having just abandoned his keyboard. He had decided he wanted to go down to the ocean and have a swim. He saw John, his head down, assiduously writing away in a little journal. Paul sidled up to him and looked down.

“A to-do list?” Paul asked, stupefied. Paul was the one prone to to-do lists, not John.

“These are my plans for the property,” John says. And the first one is to name it. We need to give it our own name.”

“What’s Spanish for ‘Nobody Knows?’ Paul asked flippantly. John looked up at Paul and smiled. 

“That isn’t half bad,” John said, chuckling. “But I was thinking something more romantic.” 

Paul looked to the horizon, hands on hips. He then looked back down to John’s list. “There are a whole lot of bullet points there,” he commented.

“The way I see it,” John said enthusiastically, patting the chair adjacent to him excitedly to encourage Paul to sit down, “I don’t want to change the floor plan of the house at all. And I love the tiled floors. But I want to modernize the kitchen area and the bathroom, and replace the sliders with these glass walls that are more like an accordion - you can open them completely and then close them. It brings the outside inside.”

Paul had sat down at John’s directions, and was glad to hear that no overhaul-type renovations were in this place’s future. He liked it very much the way it was.

“I think we can update the pool and the Jacuzzi, too, while we’re at it,” John continued, as he ticked items off his to-do list, "and of course I want someone to redesign the pathway down to the waterfall pond. I want it to be an easier descent and a much easier ascent.” 

Paul liked the rough-hewn nature of the paths around the house, and worried that trying to neutralize nature would cost a lot of money in landscapers. Still, he was open to smoothing out the pathway, perhaps adding some stone steps to make it easier to walk, and keeping the plant-growth from overwhelming the path. He didn’t see any reason to say any of this to John at this early stage. Later - when they were at the actual plan stage - then Paul would make his few contributions. 

John was still listing off his proposed changes, but most of them were smaller and subtler. Paul listened attentively to John’s list, smiling periodically to let John know he was appreciative, and eventually the list ended. John looked up to him and said doubtfully, “How do I accomplish this? I mean, who can help me design and rebuild?” 

Paul said, “I’m sure there are designers, landscapers and contractors in San Jose. Maybe we should spend a few days there before we head for New York so you can meet some likely candidates.”

John smiled happily. Paul always knew the right thing to do, and how to accomplish a thing. He knew that Paul would make sure that he was able to realize his plans for this property.

Later that evening, after Paul had finished his body surfing, and John had lost interest in his to-do list, the two men got out their guitars and recorders, and sat on patio chairs taking turns playing their unfinished songs to each other. Paul’s efforts were mainly musical, whereas John’s were mainly lyrics-driven. Figured. They didn’t really notice this anomaly, and spoke softly to each other intermittently, while they played chords, and exchanged facial expressions that far surpassed words as a means of creative communication. John was surprised that Paul’s efforts did not seem to deal with Linda’s death. Still, there were a lot of chord progressions without lyrics yet, and perhaps there were words that were stuck in Paul’s head that were meant to go with those chord progressions and which dealt with the loss of his Linda. John decided not to look under that rock. Paul was too fragile in that area of his heart and mind.

After John had felt sated with the music fix, he got up and wandered into the kitchen area to make some dinner. He decided upon some rice and sautéed vegetables: nothing too dramatic or unusual. In fact, it was what they ate almost every night. They had fruits and cereal for breakfast with yoghurt, and they usually had a sandwich or light omelet for lunch, and for dinner they usually made some kind of stir-fry. John had learned by now that there weren’t that many uncomplicated options for vegetarians. One really had to plan ahead and make sure one had all the necessary ingredients to make up for the protein that a simple piece of meat would supply without much fuss or bother. Or seafood. Paul unfortunately believed that since fish had mothers, they probably had pain receptors as well, and so he wouldn’t eat seafood. John thought sadly about all the wonderful fresh seafood available in the fish market in the nearby oceanfront town, but then shrugged. It is what it is, he reminded himself.

Paul kept noodling on his guitar while John cooked, and the monkeys began to call to each other across the canopy. The various varieties of owls and the potoos and the paraques were also communicating high up in the trees. It was nighttime hunting hour. Paul heard these sounds and stopped his fingers. He looked out into the darkness and listened. 

John said, “Paul, dinner’s ready.”

Paul turned and saw John’s silhouette in the aperture of the sliding glass door. For a moment his heart skipped a beat. Would he ever stop wanting this man? Would he ever stop feeling a thrill each time this man said his name? 

 

*****

 

The six weeks had passed so quickly, that John was not really prepared to pack up. They were leaving the shelter of the little house three days early to head across the country to the middle of Costa Rica where the country’s capital, San Jose, was located. They were going to research the top designers and contractors in the country, and meet with the top three candidates. Because John had this ahead of him, he was able to finish the packing with less depression than he’d had the last time he had to leave this small paradise. During their stay, he and Paul had motored down to the local village on the Vespa and had hunted down a realtor, who had introduced them to a local landscaper, who had come and cleared back the overgrowth to John’s satisfaction, the realtor also agreed to act as a property manager while they were gone, to make sure everything was maintained. Paul had also connected up with the housekeeper who had worked for the prior owner, and worked out a schedule for her to come very week to take care of the bird feeders and the cobwebs, and to make sure the house felt lived in. While Paul had made the financial arrangements with the real estate agent, John had sauntered through the small village square, where booths with local wares displayed sat lonely in the warm sun. John had purchased an item at every booth - not because he coveted them, but out of a sense of responsibility for this village: this village that was now their village, in a very real sense.

So now the packing was done, and the transport arrived to take them to the airstrip high on the plateau above them. They intended to fly in a small plane to San Jose, and then to take a private jet from San Jose to New York after their three days were up. 

John looked down on the city as the plane circled the private airstrip in San Jose. It was a fairly large city, surrounded by mountains and looking bright and carefree in the afternoon sun. The weather was temperate, and a lovely warm breeze was flowing across the tarmac as they made their way to the waiting limousine. From there they were whisked to the Hotel Grano de Oro, San Jose. The architecture in the town center was Spanish-European influenced, and there was a grandness to it that appealed to John’s eye. The suite they had booked was beautiful in a Spanish Colonial way, with high heavily carved wooden headboards, and hand-smoothed plaster walls. The woven rugs covered wide oak floorboards. The windows were large, and provided a great view of the city square. John was pleased with the accommodations. They had booked a two-bedroom suite, each with an en suite, as they always did. Plausible deniability. John sighed at the waste, but had no desire to open that can of worms again.

Paul came in behind him, leading the valet with the luggage, and took care of the generous tip. When the door closed behind the valet, Paul walked up to John, who was gazing out one of the windows, and wrapped his arms around John’s waist. He kissed John on his neck, and then rested his head on John’s shoulder. John grabbed the arms that were wrapped around his waist, and laid his head down on top of Paul’s. They stood there quietly for several moments before John murmured,

“It’s a brave new world, isn’t it?”


	122. Chapter 122

March 12, 1999

 

For days, John had expected drama over choosing their living arrangements when they got to New York after their 3-day stay in San Jose, Costa Rica. He had worried that Paul was going to be ‘funny’ about staying at the penthouse apartment as opposed to somewhere more discreet. John hadn’t wanted to bring the subject up, because if Paul was going to be dodgy about it, John might as well wait until the last minute to have the unpleasant exchange. That way the stay in San Jose wouldn’t be over-shadowed by the issue. And then, to complicate matters, they had awakened that morning in San Jose to a bright, sunny day. John had been in a great mood until he noticed that Paul was still in bed with the covers over his head. 

“Are you feeling okay?” John had asked as he sat on the edge of the bed. He had heard a kind of grunt from under the bed linens. “Paul! Are you feeling okay?” John’s mind had raced ahead, thinking they’d have to cancel and reschedule their flight if Paul wasn’t feeling well.

With what seemed like a great deal of effort, Paul turned over on to his back, and pulled the sheet down off his face. John was taken aback at the deeply distressed look on Paul’s face. 

John cried, “My God! Are you ill?” 

Wearily Paul said, “No. It’s just a bad morning for me.”

John waited for several seconds, but it finally occurred to him that Paul wasn’t going to say anything further. “What’s going on?” John asked firmly. His expression brooked no denial.

Paul said, “Today is my anniversary.” 

“Your what?” John asked, confused.

“With Linda. It would have been 30 years of marriage today.” 

Oh, John thought, his spirits dropping to his stomach. He had completely forgotten it - or, it was more accurate to say he had never memorized it to begin with. John searched his mind for something to say, but everything he thought of seemed wrong. ‘Thirty years! Shit!’ were the main words that kept running through his brain. Somehow he had never added the years up before. “Paul, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he finally managed to say.

Paul sighed heavily. “No reason for you to know,” he said fatalistically. “It isn’t your anniversary.” He tried a weak smile. 

“Do you want to postpone our flight to New York?” John asked, desperately reaching for a remedy or a cure.

“I’m going to be miserable wherever I am, so we might as well stick with our plans,” Paul said. “I knew the date when I booked the flight.” He didn’t add that John’s desire to meet with designers and contractors had forced Paul to schedule the flight to New York three days later than he had originally planned. He had hoped to be in New York surrounded by Linda’s family and his kids on this date. Well, he thought, they’ll all be there tonight when we arrive. He forced himself to sit up and said, “I’ll get moving now.”

John had watched Paul’s sad face. Paul was so good at hiding his feelings that when he could not do so, John knew that the pain was deep. This made John feel jealous. He didn’t want to feel jealous. It was a stupid thing to feel under the circumstances: how could he seriously be jealous of a dead woman? It had just been so idyllic between them for the six weeks in Costa Rica, and it hadn’t seemed as though Linda had intruded into Paul’s thoughts at all. Therefore, Paul’s sudden drop in mood was taking John by surprise. He gave himself a mental shake, and stood up. “I’ll finish the packing. All you need to do is get dressed.”

 

*****

 

Now the plane was almost ready to land in New York and John still hadn’t been able to bring up the subject of where they would stay. Paul had spent the whole trip in a funk, wrapped up in a blanket and leaning against one of the airplane’s windows. He was a million miles away from John. But John couldn’t put it off any longer. Soon, they’d have to give the limo driver some kind of instruction. John decided to approach it as if it were a no brainer. His heart beating more quickly than he would have liked, John moved down the aisle and plopped unceremoniously into the seat next to Paul. This jostled Paul out of his fugue state, and he turned to look at John with an amused expression, as if to say, ‘well, hello!’ 

John said, “It’ll be nice to climb into our own bed, won’t it?”

“We’re going to the Eastmans for dinner, don’t you remember? The kids will be there.”

John hadn’t remembered. He quickly adjusted his speech. “Of course, yes, but I meant after dinner when we go home.”

Paul hadn’t thought that far ahead, but he nodded in an absent-minded way. 

John persisted. “But I want to go home first, take a shower, change clothes. I don’t want to show up on their doorstep in all my travel filth.”

Paul looked amused. “Filth? We just went from a 5 star hotel, to an air-conditioned limo, to this top class private plane. We haven’t exactly been slumming it.”

John laughed and said, “You know what I mean.”

Paul chuckled and nodded, and then turned to stare out the window again. 

John regrouped. “I think I’ll have to call ahead from the limo to warn the concierge,” he said, as if he were just talking out loud to himself. Out of the corner of his eye he tried to catch Paul’s reaction, and saw only that Paul apparently hadn’t heard him. Vaguely dissatisfied with the results of his labor, John sighed softly and then stared straight ahead and waited for the plane to land. 

When the plane did land, they climbed into the limo. Paul hadn’t appeared to even wonder where they were going. He was still distracted by his sadness. So John called the concierge from the limo to announce their arrival in about 35 to 40 minutes. He then settled back in the car, and the journey passed in silence. His heart was beating fast, though, anticipating their pulling up in front of the elegant building where John’s apartment was located and having Paul suddenly realize it and flip out. But in the event, Paul did not seem to notice where they were. He very meekly followed John through the lobby, into the elevator, and then into the apartment. John kept waiting for Paul to say something, but was quite surprised when Paul just headed for the master bathroom. 

You mean I’ve been suffering in silence for days now, and this was no big deal? John asked himself. I’m a complete dolt. Curious now, he followed Paul into the master suite carrying one of Paul’s suitcases, laid it on the bed, opened it, and began to sort its contents. He was also waiting for Paul to emerge from the bathroom. When he did, he expected Paul to comment on his unpacking. But Paul just sat down on the end of the bed and said,

“I’m so blue.”

John looked at him briefly as he threw an item of Paul’s clothing into a pile of clothes to be washed. “Is there anything I can do?” John asked him, wisely choosing to continue his unpacking. 

“No, not really,” Paul replied.

“Well,” John said decisively, “let’s get ready and go over to the Eastmans’. The family will cheer you up, I’m sure. I can finish this unpacking later.” He was privately amazed that Paul had not objected to staying in the apartment. It was clear Paul knew where he was, and he hadn’t even remarked on it. Wonders never cease!

 

*****

 

The Eastmans’ apartment was filled to the gills with Eastmans and McCartneys. Mary had not made the trip from London in her advanced stage of pregnancy, but Stella, Heather and James were there, hanging with their Eastman cousins. When John and Paul arrived, John and Jody Eastman greeted them warmly, and soon there were shouts of greeting, and hugs all around as the younger folks flooded into the room. Less than an hour later, they were all seated for dinner. John noticed how Paul had perked up once he arrived at the Eastmans’, and how - surrounded by his children - his mood seemed to improve. Again, John felt jealous. It was an unreasoning, infuriating, embarrassing jealousy. I am never going to be enough for him, he gloomed to himself. He is always going to hold on to Linda’s memory, and probably even idealize it, and he is always going to put his family first. On one level, John knew these thoughts were not noble ones, but the insecure part of John (the part that always expected his friends and lovers to let him down) could not help itself. His mood began to sour as Paul’s improved.

Later, as the older adults were seated in the formal living room (the young people had taken over the larger sitting room), John sat morosely on one end of the sofa, as Paul sat on the other side of the sofa and chatted with the Eastmans. Now it appeared to John that even Paul’s in-laws were able to make him feel better, when John could not. It was a ‘bah, humbug’ kind of mood, and only Jody noticed that John looked detached. She got up and sat in a chair next to him. 

“Your skin looks nice and golden. Were you staying at a beach?” She asked.

John realized at that moment that Paul had not told them where they had gone. At least he had kept their secret hideaway private. John cheered up a tiny bit at the thought. “I have to stay out of the sun as much as possible, but you can’t help getting a little color when you’re staying in a sunny place for several weeks.”

“How long were you gone?” She asked politely.

“Almost seven weeks,” John replied. He was enjoying keeping the locale of his vacation a secret. 

Jody was quietly surprised. Paul didn’t usually like to go away for very long. She knew Linda had had to persuade him to go away for a month on a few occasions. She wondered about this, but then decided it must have been something Paul needed after the last three horrifically stressful years. 

“So the Hall of Fame is on Monday, right?” Jody asked.

“Aren’t you coming?” John asked, surprised. “I’m sure we will have room at our table.”

Jody said, “John and I thought we’d send Lee and his wife instead. He is already training to take over his father’s business.” 

John laughed. “Good luck getting your husband loose from Paul’s clutches. Paul trusts absolutely every word that comes out of John’s mouth.” 

“Oh, John knows. He told me he could retire from his practice, but he could never retire from being Paul’s senior financial and business advisor, even if Lee is doing the day to day work.” 

“Did I hear my name in vain?” John Eastman called from across the room, where he and Paul had been deep in a discussion about...finance and business.

“Jody was just telling me about how you’re trying to sleaze out of being our manager,” John announced loudly. 

Jody cried “Oh!” and smacked John’s arm in mock outrage. 

Paul shouted, “What? Over my dead body!” A lightness had entered the room, as the whiskey sours had done their magic. 

An hour later John said, as the clock ticked past midnight, “Pud, get up, it’s time to go. I’m exhausted from the travel.” 

Paul looked around and asked, “Where are the kids staying?” 

Jody said, “They arrived last night and bunked with their cousins. We had people on sofas and in sleeping bags on the floor.”

Paul said, “Well, I can take them off your hands if you want,” Paul offered. “John, we have enough room in our place, don’t we?”

John heard Paul’s words: ‘our place,’ and his face lit up with joy. He had not thought that this transition could be so easy! “Of course we do; the girls can share one guest room, and James can have the other one to himself.” 

Paul got up. “I’ll go see if they want to join us.” 

 

*****

 

Although the McCartney “kids” enjoyed their cousins’ company, two considerations weighed heavily in favor of staying with their father and John instead. One - they would have beds, and wouldn’t have to sleep on sofas or floors, and two - they were dying of curiosity to see for themselves their father’s and John’s mysterious digs in New York. They’d never seen John’s New York flat, and were frankly excited about doing so. 

They were full of smartass remarks about the luxury in the downstairs lobby and also the lobby on the penthouse floor, which was John’s. Once in the apartment Stella especially went around noting all the grace notes and speaking in a fruity Royal accent as she pointed them out to her siblings. John chuckled to himself and headed for the linen closets to gather up towels and extra blankets for his guests. As he did this, Paul adjured his kids to sit down in the breathtaking living room, with the floor to ceiling glass walls and sliding doors and the lights of the City laid out before them like so many jewels resting on a black velvet cloth. The lighting was subtle, and the beautiful soft earth and sea tones of the decor managed to be both elegant and welcoming. 

Stella sobered up a little and said to her father in a soft voice, “John’s really good at this decorating thing, I have to give him his props.” She looked around at the objets and paintings. “Are these from your collection?” She asked her father.

“The paintings mostly are, but a lot of these things we have purchased and are in our joint collection.” Paul was tired, and hadn’t really thought about what he said before he said it.

Stella’s curiosity was aroused. “You and John have a collection separate from your personal collection?” 

This startled Paul out of his reverie and he said, “Well, ‘collection’ is a kind of grand word. Naturally, in the past 25 or so years we’ve picked up things on our travels. But some of these things are John’s, from the ‘60s - the few things that neither Cynthia nor Yoko got in the divorces. For instance - that jade jar? That was John’s gift when we went to Japan in ’66. I have something similar in my collection, received at the same time, but I suppose it is in storage.” 

Stella was thoughtful in the aftermath of this data dump. She hadn’t given much thought to the world her father had built with John, separate from her mother and their family. John and her dad had travelled all over the world, and had been given so many gifts and awards, and no doubt had purchased items on many of those trips. She’d never thought about it. She rarely saw her father’s awards, except when he first brought them home after he received them. Her dad always sent them off to his office at MPL/McLen, or into storage. There were no Gold Records or award statuettes at Cavendish, and there never had been. She noticed there was none arrayed around this New York apartment, either. 

James, meanwhile, had been wandering around the apartment checking out the paintings, drawings (some of them were John’s, and some of them were Paul’s), and objets d’art - especially the sculptures. His mind was intrigued by this ultra sophisticated New York - literati -style living space. It was so utterly different from Cavendish. It was interesting to him that his father apparently was happy to live in either environment, and handed over such decisions to his life mates. James had been distressed about the work that John had done in Cavendish (the sitting room, the guest suite cum master suite, and the dining room had all been remodeled before John and Paul had gone off to Costa Rica). He now was revising his thinking. It suddenly occurred to him that the laissez-faire way they had lived all these years was based on his mother’s preferences and comfort level, and so why shouldn’t John be permitted to exercise the same level of individuality in how he chose to live?

 

*****

 

The next day was Saturday, and Paul had gotten up early and gone down to the building’s gym to work out, after which he was going to join John Eastman at his office to get some work done. The kids were still sleeping in as John relaxed at the kitchen table with the newspaper, some coffee, and a handheld phone. He dialed an old, familiar number. 

Several blocks away the phone rang, and Jason answered the phone. John said, “Hello Jason, guess who?”

“John!!! My God!!! It’s been so long I almost didn’t recognize your voice!”

“Ouch. You make me feel bad. But we’ve been through some rough stuff since we last saw you.”

“I know, I know. No offense meant. How awful that whole thing was. I think Gerry and I last saw you at the Memorial Service in New York last June. How is Paul?”

John paused. He didn’t want to talk about Paul on the phone when the kids or Paul himself could wander in at any moment. He said vaguely, “We’re all hanging in there. I was calling, though, in the hope that you wouldn’t mind me dropping by this afternoon? Paul will be working, and the kids are going to hang out here. They’re inviting their cousins, so I’ll be surrounded by them, and I’d much prefer to see you and Gerry.”

“Of course! By all means! How about you come for lunch? I’ll make something special!” Jason was very excited, and John smiled at the sound of his voice. It made him feel warm and welcome. He agreed to get there around noon (Jason factored in at least a 30-minute lateness which he had figured out was how John’s inner clock worked) and they hung up. 

 

*****

 

Gerry and Jason’s Apartment  
The Dakota

 

“This Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame thing will be a bit off the beaten path for us,” Jason told John as they sat around the dining room table, as he looked in a bemused fashion at the VIP tickets John had just handed him. 

Gerry chuckled. “Will anyone be offended if I wear ear plugs?”

John laughed heartily. He loved these two men. They always told him the truth, and did so in the nicest way possible. John said to Gerry, “Tell everyone they’re hearing aides, and I think you’ll be fine.”

“So, John, you have to tell me how Paul is doing. I could tell you were sidestepping the question on the phone,” Jason tutted.

“Sorry Jay, but Paul could have walked in any minute, and three of his kids were staying there. I didn’t want to be overheard talking about him.”

Gerry said, “Good for you. Jason, honestly.”

“Oh, pish,” Jason snorted, smacking Gerry’s forearm gently. “So...John???”

John laughed again. He seemed always to be laughing when Jason was around. But he knew he had some serious things to say. He needed Jason and Gerry’s input on so many things. 

“Paul is doing about as well as you would expect, which means not that well. It’s getting a little bit better now, but for months he would suddenly burst into tears several times a day, and even in front of his friends. You know Paul - he doesn’t like to show his emotions - but he was breaking down in front of God and everybody.”

“Oh dear,” Jason said. 

“We just got back from a 7-week vacation in the Caribbean, and that was extremely relaxing. He seemed to be able to put Linda out of his mind while we were there. Or else he was doing a great acting job. But as soon as we headed back to civilization, he started breaking down again. Turns out yesterday - the day we left to fly here - would have been his 30th wedding anniversary.”

Gerry groaned, and rubbed his forehead as if he were in pain. Jason just shook his head and looked distressed. 

John primed himself to divulge his fears. It was the price he had to pay to get their honest advice. “I found myself getting really jealous about it,” he said softly, looking ashamed.

“Jealous of what?” Jason asked.

“Of Linda, I guess. Of the power she still holds over him. I don’t think I will ever be that important to him.”

“Oh, John, you shouldn’t think that even for a minute!” Jason declared. “Linda is the one who died, so obviously she is the one he is mourning. Do you really believe if things were reversed - if you had died - that he wouldn’t be at least equally devastated?”

“Personally,” Gerry chimed in, “I think he would be far more devastated to lose you, John.”

John was surprised by Gerry’s contribution. “Why do you say that?” He asked.

“Well, Linda treated him wonderfully during their entire acquaintance. She never cheated on him, or dragged him through the tabloids, or hit him in the face, or trashed him to the critics, or...”

“Okay, okay, I get the point...” John grumbled. “I can always count on you to be honest.” He made a face, and Jason laughed.

Gerry wasn’t finished. “But from you he took all that stuff and more, and he still wants to be with you. That indicates to me a very high degree of loyalty and love. Frankly, I don’t think he can live without you.”

John said, “I hope you’re right, because I sure as hell cannot live without him.” 

Jason said, “It is natural to feel helpless when you think you’re competing with a ghost. But I guess what Gerry and I are saying is that this is not a competition. It never was.”

John sighed and decided to unload it all. “I just don’t know what I can ask of him. I was afraid to ask him if he would stay at my apartment when we got to New York. I was literally afraid. In the end, he came along to the apartment as if he had expected to stay there all along, and apparently he did. But that’s sort of what I’m stuck with - Cavendish, for example. I’ve remodeled a few of the rooms, but I have to go slowly and carefully, and I fear there may be some rooms he’ll never let me change - like the real master bedroom and the kitchen. Those rooms are so closely associated with Linda.”

“Why don’t you move into your beautiful home?” Jason asked.

“Because Paul will not leave Cavendish. He bought that house in '65, moved in in '66, and has no desire to ever live in a different London house.” John added, “I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t feel as though I was walking on eggshells when it comes to wanting to update the house. I wouldn’t have gotten even this far if Mary and Stella hadn’t been on my side and helped me out-maneuver their father.”

Jason chuckled and Gerry smiled at the word ‘out-maneuver.’ “Those are two really lovely young women,” Jason pointed out. 

“Indeed they are,” Gerry agreed.

“So they went to bat for you?” Jason asked.

John laughed. “Yeah, it was masterful. I just stood back, listened, and learned. He had no idea he was being manipulated, whereas he sees me coming a mile away.”

“I understand that men are like that with their daughters,” Gerry said softly. “Certainly my father was like that with my sister.”

“And then there’s this separation of his finances and our finances. It was one thing when Linda was alive, and he had different assets in both their names. But it feels weird to me that he has this whole portfolio of assets that are now in his own name, and then everything I own I basically share equally with him.”

Gerry thought this was serious information. “Have you talked to Paul about this?”

“How am I supposed to even broach the subject? ‘oh - now that Linda has kicked the bucket, how ‘bout sharing all that loot with me?’”

Gerry laughed. “No, I wouldn’t put it that way....”

“It isn’t the money - it really isn’t. It is just that - even with Linda gone - he has this other life separate from me. I can’t help feeling as though he is keeping it that way so that if he finds some new woman, he’ll have assets that I can’t touch.”

“Another woman!” Jason nearly shouted. “John - are you just making this shit up as you go along? Listen to yourself! You said that he is still breaking down over losing Linda. Do you really think he has given any thought at all to another woman?”

John said, “I don’t think he is thinking about it consciously, but Paul has lots of layers. He is holding stuff back, and when he holds stuff back he always has a reason, even if it is hidden in his subconscious.”

“I suggest that you not worry about such things until you have some evidence to support it,” Gerry said in his dry, lawyerly voice. “But I don’t think it would be inappropriate to ask him whether he had plans to restructure the finances as a result of Linda’s death. But don’t do this yet. No doubt the estate is still in probate, and he will not have the power to do anything with those assets until the probate court approves it. You might ask him instead when the estate will be fully probated. That will give you an idea of the timing.”

John had forgotten when he raised the subject that Gerry had been an extremely successful probate, wills and estates lawyer for decades. John hadn’t thought about Linda’s will, and that it would have to be probated, and that this might take several months if not years to complete. This information did have the effect of calming him down a little. He had been out there borrowing trouble again. 

“Well, it is just a very weird time for me right now. I feel neither in one place or the other. Except when we were in the Caribbean. He bought us a house there as a surprise because we love it there.”

“Well, John, if that doesn’t put paid to your ‘other woman’ scenario, I don’t know what will. So tell me about this house!” Jason’s eyes were alight with excitement and interest.

John shook his head. “I can’t. It’s a secret place, just for me and Paul. All I can say is that it is in the Caribbean, and I love it. I’m working with a designer right now to make some updates and style changes - but nothing very major.”

“Oh - you’re killing me!” Jason muttered darkly.

“By all means, John - if you want to keep it secret, don’t tell Jason here,” Gerry chuckled.

“Very nice, Gerry,” Jason remarked with fraudulent severity. He then turned back to John. “Well, I don’t think you should worry so much, John. I know it is easy for me to say, since you have to live it. But it’s as if Paul is coming out of tunnel or a deep crevasse into the sunlight again, and he is still stumbling about and blinking to get used to the light. He is a bit disoriented. It may take months or even a few years, for him to get used to his new reality. But he wants to live with you in New York, in the Caribbean, and in London. It sounds pretty clear to me that he wants to be with you.”

 

*****

 

In the financial district, Paul was hunkered down in John Eastman’s office, each with a tumbler of whiskey. They had spent several hours going through financial reports, making decisions, and discussing future plans. As they relaxed, Paul decided to bring up the subject that he had been noodling over for some time. He stared into his tumbler and moved the liquid around inside of it as he marshaled his words. He wasn’t sure how John Eastman would take it. Linda had been his sister, after all.

“When is the will fully probated?” He asked.

John looked up in surprise. He hadn’t expected Paul to raise the issue of Linda’s will. “Next year more or less,” he said. “It generally takes two years to probate an uncontested will in New York.” He kept his voice neutral and disinterested. He was actually glad Paul was able to raise the subject with him. It was so hard to know when and what to say to a grieving widower. 

Paul was quiet again. “I need you to give some consideration to how we should structure my finances once the probate has closed.”

John said, slowly, “Of course. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be much point in keeping my assets and income separate from John’s any longer, so long as my family and his are fully protected by trusts.”

John Eastman was afraid Paul was going to suggest this - a merger of his estate with John Lennon’s. Eastman didn’t think it was wise, given the often-fragile nature of their relationship. Eastman was a cautious man by nature, and he believed that Paul should wait a few years to see how things settled after Linda’s death. A death in a family relationship often sets off after quakes that no one predicted and causing damage no one was prepared for. He said none of this. Instead, he said,

“You’re interested in merging the estates?” 

Paul said, “I’d like to see some projections on how that would work, and what it would mean to John and me tax-wise and otherwise. You know - I’d like to see the cause and effect and consider what I should do next.”

John nodded and said, “It will take a few months to get the projections together.”

“Naturally,” Paul said with an understanding smile. “It’s a tough subject to raise. It means I have to accept that I’m moving forward in my life without Linda.”

Linda’s brother teared-up a little. “Linda would want that, Paul. She often told me during her illness that she wanted you to live a full life after she was gone.”

Paul heard these words, and a moment later the tears began to fall. His hand flew up to cover his eyes as he sobbed.


	123. Chapter 123

March 15, 1999

 

John had finished dressing already, and decided he needed a quick sip of brandy to settle his nerves. He made his way from the master bedroom to the living room, shaking his head with amusement as he passed James’s bedroom. The door was open, and the place looked like a bomb had hit it. He made his way to the liquor cabinet, and found the door open, and everything all jumbled inside, and a bunch of empty bottles. He smiled again. After pouring himself a finger of brandy he made his way to the kitchen, and saw the sink and counters full of dirty glasses and dishes. The McCartney ‘kids’ had had their cousins and friends over again the night before. Out of curiosity he opened the fridge. Yup. It looked as though a plague of locusts had been through it. At this rate the place would be trashed within a week. But still John smiled. He loved to see his apartment full of McCartneys, full of laughter, and full of life. He could get used to this. 

“John!” Paul was shouting for him all the way from the master suite. John smiled again. Poor man was utterly helpless. He went back to the bedroom to find a very frustrated Paul about to strangle himself with his bowtie. 

“Ok, ok, calm down...” John said, chuckling. “I’ve got you covered.” John figured Linda must have done the bowties. He stood behind Paul to knot the tie. 

“Back in the ‘60s, I used to do your ties, and straighten your collars,” Paul said after he had calmed down. “I don’t know what happened to my tie-knotting abilities.”

John smiled fondly at the memory of Paul always fussing with his ties and collars in the early days. Little did Paul know John had pretended to be hopeless at ties, and even loosened his ties and collars sometimes, just so that Paul would be forced to fix them. The thought made him laugh.

“What?” Paul asked suspiciously. 

John said, “Nothing. The house is a total mess because of these darn kids,” he joked. Having finished the tie, he patted Paul on both shoulders. 

Paul said, “Oh yeah, at their age, we were much more dignified.”

 

*****

 

The Waldorf Astoria  
New York

 

The press and the paparazzi were outside the grand hotel taking pictures of the arriving celebrities as they entered the ballroom. They all knew where the money was tonight: the photos of the arrival of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Would they come together, not accompanied by dates, and thereby feed in to their editors’ hopes and dreams for tabloid headlines, or would they arrive separately, and surrounded by separate friends and family? It really didn’t matter to them what the truth was about the Lennon/McCartney relationship; it all reduced to dollars and cents. 

Meanwhile, the celebrities, producers, record company executives, and nominees were arriving, and the ballroom began to fill up with a quixotically dressed mix of men and women in feathers, leathers, headdresses, and micro-mini-skirts. The ballroom floor looked exotic in golds and blacks. The decor was very rock ‘n roll: tacky and over the top. 

George Martin found his place at his own table. Tonight he was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame too. He was with his wife Judy, and his adult children and their spouses, and a few close friends. It was an exciting night for him.

The evening’s stage performance had been a complicated undertaking for the producer of the show. Among other artists being admitted (including Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel), Lennon and McCartney were each being inducted as solo artists for their ‘70s work, and then George Martin was being inducted also. He had struggled with how to do it - who would introduce each of them? It would be a little too much of a good thing if Lennon introduced McCartney, and McCartney introduced Lennon, and Lennon & McCartney introduced Martin. Ultimately it was decided that other artists, who had been influenced by the inductees’ work should introduce them. Consequently, Elton John was asked to introduce Lennon, and Neil Young was asked to introduce McCartney. John and Paul were fine with those choices, and the producer had finally been able to heave a great sigh of relief and move on to other issues.

 

Outside the hotel, a buzz went through the press and the crowd there assembled. Someone heard that someone heard someone say that the fourth car in the queue waiting to pull up to the red carpet had at least John Lennon in it. Someone had said that someone had said that someone had seen Lennon looking out the window. The photographers jumped to their feet and began jostling each other for the best vantage points. Sure enough, when the fourth car pulled up, John Lennon stepped out of the car. With him were his two sons and Julian’s girlfriend, but no Paul McCartney. A literal groan could be heard from the press area. Their freelance fees had just dropped significantly in amount. The crowd, however, went wild to see John Lennon in the flesh.

Julian and his girlfriend had arrived for the event on Sunday, and because John’s apartment had already reached it’s capacity, it was decided they should take over a floor of suites in a New York hotel (although not the Waldorf Astoria, where there would be too many prying eyes). Not only John and Paul and Paul’s kids were there, but so was Sean, and the night of Julian’s arrival had been quite raucous, as they all had dinner together and stayed up late talking and exchanging memories of when they had all vacationed together as if they had been one family. Since there were 8 people in their entourage, they decided to split into 2 cars. It was also thought (by John and Paul) that arriving separately would turn down the speculation meter at least a few degrees. So tonight, as he hit the red carpet, John saw the rabidity of the press and was relieved he and Paul had split their arrivals. He could tell that it would have been too much of a scene if they had arrived together. 

Behind him by three cars was Paul, with Heather, Stella and James. Stella giggled quietly to herself over her little secret. She hugged her beautifully tailored black suit jacket tightly. When it fell open, one could see some letters in black on a white t-shirt, but what the letters spelled out could not be seen. She had shown it to her siblings, and they had both thought it was brave of Stella to put the family’s true feelings out there for the whole world to see. Paul, on the other hand, distracted by what he was going to say in his speech, had not noticed Stella’s top at all, and was blissfully ignorant of what was to come. When their car pulled up to the red carpet, Paul got out first, and then helped his daughters and son out. Stella - her jacket buttoned up - was on Paul’s arm, and smiled and waved. She told a reporter, “I’ve got the best date tonight.” 

John and his group had found their table and were delighted to see that Lee Eastman and his wife Vanessa, and Jason and Gerry were already seated there. As John’s sons sat down, a steady line of other guests and nominees started coming up to shake John’s hand or get his autograph. He was quite charming and welcoming this night. He had finally learned to turn on the Beatle charm at such events, as Paul had always done - instinctively - since day one of their fame. John had concluded that Paul was right; remaining pleasant and sober was the best way to endure a night being lauded by people in front of cameras. No embarrassing photos or juicy quotes or nasty stories in the next day’s press. Finally able to take his seat, John noticed that a lot of greeting and backslapping was going on behind him, and he looked over his shoulder to see the McCartney Clan was arriving. They never went anywhere unless in a phalanx, as if they were clearing the aisles on either side for their father, to protect him from his celebrity. They had stopped briefly at George Martin’s table and were all in the process of hugging and kissing each other. John smiled. That family was an experience; they were so one-for-all and all-for-one that it was a beautiful thing to see.

Paul & co. finally made it to the table and his eyes briefly met John’s. He smiled, but in a questioning way, at what he saw there. John had a wickedly naughty grin on his face, and his eyes were twinkling. Something’s up his sleeve, Paul thought. I hope it’s not too embarrassing. Paul had long since - decades ago - gotten used to John’s misbehavior in public. He had learned not to let it bother him, and to remain pleasant--faced throughout the aftermath so as not to express any outward shock or disapproval of John’s antics in public. Later, in private, he might have a choice word or two for John, but he would never let it show in public. Better suck it up, Paul said to himself with a smirk. He’s in one of his wild and woolly moods, and anything might happen. Little did he know.

Soon the McCartneys had sorted themselves out at the table. They didn’t realize it, but the camera up in the rafters had zoomed in on their table, and was photographing them as they unfolded their napkins and chatted with each other. About that moment, the lights went down and the show began. Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage to perform a rousing rendition of 10th Avenue Freeze Out and the show began.

George Martin was inducted before the music acts, and he made a very gracious and modest speech. He had shaken his head in amusement at the loud noises coming from the McLen table. Stella was whistling, and they were all cheering loudly. In fact, just before he began to speak and the room had become quiet, the unmistakable voice of John Lennon in heavy scouse mode was heard to shout, “Well go ahead then, Mr. Martin. We’re waiting!” “Mr. Martin” had shown a deadpan expression to the audience and the camera, and had said, somewhat apologetically, “A blast from my past,” to prolonged laughter.

The first musical inductee was John Lennon. Although Jann Wenner had not been able to induct John in an earlier year, he had been determined to induct John as a soloist before Paul McCartney. And he had put Bruce Springsteen before Paul as well. He was a man who could hold a grudge forever, however ill founded. Paul didn’t notice the slight, and wouldn’t have wanted it another way. In his mind, John did deserve to go first. He had always been John’s most ardent fan and admirer, and saw nothing untoward in the order of the presentations. Of course, if John had known that they would insert another artist between him and Paul, he wouldn’t have agreed to take the stage. As he prepared to take the stage, however, he had no idea of the order of presentation. He hadn’t bothered to look at his Program.

First, Elton John came on to make the introduction. He started out with a witty showstopper: “It wasn’t until I tried to write one song with John Lennon that I came to realize that Paul McCartney was a saint!” The camera panned to John Lennon’s faux indignant face, and then to Paul, his hand on his forehead and laughing sheepishly. The audience exploded in laughter. “We barely finished the song - Whatever Gets You Through the Night - and by that time I was taking the song lyrics literally.” Again the ballroom echoed with laughter and hooting. Now John’s face was lit up with delight, his smile beaming. He was enjoying this very much. “Not long after, I first met Paul McCartney at a British music award show. He was with his lovely wife Linda. I was introduced to him, and all I could say was, ‘You’re a saint!’” 

The camera showed Paul watching Elton and nodding his head as if to say, yes, I remember. 

“Then Paul said to me, ‘well of course Linda and I think I’m a saint, but I’m wondering why you do.’” The audience reacted with hilarity. “So I told him: ‘I wrote one song with John Lennon, and we nearly came to blows. We hardly speak to each other now. And you wrote over 200 songs with him! You’re a saint!’ And do you know, Paul said to me, ‘Well, that’s the difference between one song and 200. You’re almost not speaking to him, and I’m totally not talking to him.’”

Elton paused until the laughter had died down. “I was incredibly honored but petrified to work with John Lennon. The man is a lion in this room full of rock stars. A great songwriter, a charismatic presence in any room, and the wickedest wit I’ve ever encountered. Nowadays whenever I meet John at awards shows like these, I like to sit next to him because he says the naughtiest things. He is also a warm and generous friend. 

“But I speak to you tonight of John Lennon’s influence on my own career. I was never a lyricist of any note, but when I search for a lyricist I am always looking for a Lennon-type: a writer who uses words in an unusual way, and who is not seeking to make conventional rhymes...” Elton’s introduction went on for a few more minutes, and then a video was shown briefly discussing Lennon’s career. Then Elton was back again, this time holding a black statuette, saying, “It gives me enormous pleasure to introduce John Lennon.” 

The crowd erupted in a standing ovation. John made his way up from his seat directly on to the stage, and the place went crazy. A quick scan by the camera on the McLen table showed Julian and his girlfriend, Sean, and Paul McCartney standing and cheering. John greeted Elton and then turned to the audience, but the audience didn’t seem inclined to stop applauding. He finally said in a mock irritated tone of voice, “Oh, take a load off. It’s only me.” This, of course, only made everyone laugh louder and clap harder. But they finally petered out, and John was left standing there with one hand on the award that was sitting on the podium, and the other holding the base of the microphone stand. 

He cleared his throat and began to speak in a hearty British midlander working class accent. “First, I want to thank me wife...err, partner...” A large gasp was heard from the audience and then a roar of laughter, as the camera again panned on Paul, whose forehead was again resting in the palm of his hand. He looked up through his fingers at John on the stage and shook his head back and forth in amusement, obviously chuckling a little. Next to him, Stella was squeezing his arm and laughing.

John then said, reverting to his own voice, “Well, I had to get that nonsense out of the way, didn’t I? So now we can focus on why we’re really here.” Now the audience applauded steadily in support of John’s point: John and Paul were musicians first, celebrities a distant second. This was a room full of musicians, record producers and music executives, and all of them held this same opinion close to their hearts. 

Meanwhile, Paul was thinking to himself, I knew he was up to something!

John continued. “Seriously, now, I do have to thank my creative partner and best friend, Paul McCartney, before I say anything else. For a million reasons, one of them being I doubt I would have made it alive through my life if it were not for him. As a kid, I wouldn’t wear my glasses and I’d walk straight out into traffic. I can’t remember how many times he grabbed me by my shirt collar and yanked me back from the maws of death. It is true, but it is also a metaphor. In the mid-sixties, in the middle of the Beatles’ biggest success, I fell into a deep depression. I could hardly function. So Paul functioned for me. Starting in about ’66, he literally dragged me through the various recording sessions like a soldier dragging his wounded buddy across a live battlefield. And in the early ‘70s, when my marriage with Yoko was in jeopardy, and I was doing massive amounts of drugs and making a drunken fool of myself in Los Angeles, Paul appeared out of the blue to talk me into going back to New York and reconciling with Yoko. Had I stayed there much longer, I am certain I would have overdosed and died. The truth is, he would do anything for me and I would do anything for him. This music we made in the Beatles, and the music we made apart from each other during the ‘70s, is all music that we made together, because we are such a part of each other’s songwriting process that we hear each other in our heads even when we’re writing alone...”

John went on to talk about his musical influences, naming Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard among a few others. He ended his acceptance speech with a shout-out to his sons - “They were unlucky enough to draw me as their father, but I was lucky enough to draw them as my sons.” Paul had teared up when John said this. He turned to Julian beside him and smiled warmly at him. He saw that Julian was both surprised and touched. 

When John returned to the family table, Paul met his gaze across the table and allowed his pride in John to show in his eyes. John felt a little shy about it, strangely, but he accepted his sons’ whispered ‘thanks’ as the next musical act kicked into gear.

It was a half hour later before Neil Young came out on to the stage to induct Paul. He looked like the renegade that he truly was - but an honest one. He had often behaved badly in his life, but he had always owned it, too. He spoke of his being influenced by the Beatles as a high school kid, and then he spoke of being influenced by Paul when he started again after the Beatles broke up. He said he loved Maybe I’m Amazed, and how the whole first solo album was unadorned, with no echo or studio tricks. “He went the complete opposite of what he did with the Beatles. He just stepped out of the shadow of the Beatles, and there was Paul.” 

After a brief video about Paul’s late ‘60s and ‘70s career, Paul was called to the stage. He found himself tearing up. He was not tearing up over the award, but rather because Linda was not there to see it. This would be his first real public appearance since her death, and he found that his legs and hands were shaking. Could he keep it together through this speech? The thought of breaking down in front of all these industry people and a television audience terrified him. Somehow he would have to keep it together. He decided to start by playing off John’s joke...a little.

“I’d like to start by thanking my wife...” he waited a pregnant second, “...Linda.” The audience’s laugher was gentle and so were their claps. Paul’s decision to start that way, they thought, had been both clever and appropriate. “I’m sorry she’s not here. She wanted this for me very much.” He stopped for a moment as the familiar tears started blocking his throat. He wiped the traitorous tear or two from his eyes. With an effort of will, he talked about his “baby”, and only barely managed not to break down sobbing. At one strained point, Stella suddenly appeared out of the wings and snuck up until she was behind her father. She then stepped forward showing her white shirt with the lettering, About Fucking Time! Paul had wrapped his arm around her but when the audience started reacting and clapping he did a double take and read her shirt name for the first time. He brightened up. “She doesn’t give a shit!” He announced. “These young people, they’re not afraid of anything.” A camera panned on John Lennon who was laughing delightedly and clapping. 

With Stella there to steady him, Paul was able to finish his speech. “The other person I obviously have to thank - this will sound like a mutual admiration society, which it is I guess - and it is of course my mate John.” The audience clapped, with Stella, still next to her father, joining in enthusiastically. “I may have literally saved his life from assorted buses, lorries, pills, and alcohol, but he saved me from a lifetime of teaching English to disinterested teenagers.” This drew more laughter and applause. “As a teenager, I had the will, I had the desire, I had the focus and drive, and I loved music more than anything, but I also had a fear of disappointing my family’s expectations of me, especially my father’s. But John showed me that if you follow your heart, you could still make your family proud. And for that I will be eternally grateful.”

 

*****

 

The show ended, and an impromptu performance was held down at the front, with just the invited guests. It was just for fun. John and Paul both participated a little bit, doing ragged versions of I Saw Her Standing There and From Me to You. It was 1 a.m. before they piled in their limos with their kids and were driven back to their hotel. The top floor of the hotel had four luxury suites and all of the suites had interconnecting doors so one giant suite could be made out of it, and that night the families partied amongst themselves, with champagne and a giant fruit and cheese platter to take the edge off. Jason and Gerry had been persuaded to come along too, although Gerry kept pointing out that it was way past his bedtime.

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack when you made that joke about Paul,” Julian told his father. “I thought, oh my God - not here! Not now!” Everyone laughed and chided John for a while. 

Paul said, “I was pissed off about being called ‘the wife’.” 

John guffawed heavily at that one. “In other words, babe, you don’t mind me announcing our status, so long as you’re the bloke? Is that it?”

Paul said with exaggerated patience, “No, John, I said if you were going to do that without my advance approval, I’d rather be ‘the husband.’”

John was still chuckling. “So noted,” he responded dangerously, causing Paul to give him a suspicious look.

The kids (other than Heather, who had slipped away to her bed an hour earlier) all had their curiosity aroused by this exchange. James and Sean were curious but didn’t want to know (kind of like people slowing down to stare at a car accident), and the others were just plain curious. But none of them exposed their curiosity to their fathers. They sensed that this was not their business.

Jason said, “It was a nice atmosphere in the room - it had the feel of a professional trade meeting. And I was so excited to meet George Martin.”

“Yeah, the audience in private industry events has a different feel than a concert audience,” Paul agreed.

“I kind of expected more craziness, but it was very businesslike,” Jason continued. 

“Except for the way everyone dressed,” Gerry pointed out, causing everyone to laugh. “I thought I was in a costume party at times.”

Soon Jason and Gerry had left, and the rest all made their ways to their various rooms. John and Paul wearily undressed before collapsing in their king-size bed. After a few moments of making smartass remarks to each other, a pleasant silence descended upon them. They were each lying on their backs in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Then Paul’s soft voice, deep and low, broke the silence. “Thanks for the beautiful thing you said about me. I didn’t know you thought I had saved your life.”

“Your mere existence saved my life, Paul. That first time I saw you when we were kids - never had I seen anyone so beautiful, so talented, so charming...That was the moment I knew - you were my future coming to meet me.”

 

*****

 

Cavendish  
April 3, 1999

 

The day started normally. Paul got up first, and headed to the local gym. John awoke about a half hour later, and lazed about downstairs making coffee, reading the paper, and eating cereal. The phone rang jarringly, disturbing John’s peaceful morning. Grumbling to himself, he answered the phone.

On the other end of the line, Alistair Donald was breathing heavily and struggling mightily to make sense. John finally got the drift: Mary was at the hospital; her water had broken. Mary had already made it clear to both her father and John that she didn’t want them to come to the hospital. It would create too much of a hubbub when she just wanted a private moment with her baby and husband. But she had promised them that Alistair would call them when she was admitted, and that as soon as she got home they could come to visit her. She didn’t plan to be in the hospital beyond one night, and if she gave birth easily and early enough, she had wanted to leave the hospital the same day. 

Alistair stammered out that the baby had not been born yet, and he would call again after the baby arrived. John suddenly didn’t feel as though he could sit still. He wanted to jump up and go straight to the hospital. He didn’t care about Mary’s preference - damn it! This is my first grandchild! This thought made John stop in his tracks. My first grandchild? He asked himself wryly. This was Paul’s grandchild, not his. But somehow, given his close relationship with Mary, he felt as though he were in loco grand parentis. His insecurity visited him then. He wondered if Mary would treat him like a grandparent, or if he would again be relegated to the role of family-friend-like-an-uncle. With such thoughts looming, John waited impatiently for Paul to get back from the gym and for the phone to ring. He wanted it to happen in that order, so that Paul would be the one to answer the phone and hear the news first. 

Paul finally got back at about 11 a.m. John pounced on him as soon as he walked in the door. “Where have you been? You’re usually home by 10:00!” 

Paul stood in the door, mouth open, and wondered if he should go out and come back in. Maybe then John would be normal. Instead he said, “I decided to do an extra-long workout today. I felt good.” 

John said, “Never mind, get in here, I have news.”

Paul closed the door behind him and removed his coat, hanging it absent-mindedly over the stairwell bannister. Seeing this out of the corner of his eye and without stopping his words, John grabbed the coat and took it to the hall closet, where he hung it up. As he did so he said, “Alistair called. They’re at the hospital. The baby isn’t here yet - he’ll call again. I was worried he would call before you got back.”

That explains his hysteria when I walked in, Paul told himself. He said, “This is exciting! I’ll go shower and change and then we can try to amuse ourselves until we get the call.”

John said, “What if he calls when you’re in the shower?”

“It will take a few hours. This is her first child. It is harder the first time.” Paul spoke like an expert, and in a way, he was. 

John was not convinced. “Well hurry up then,” he snarled. Paul jogged up the stairs, and John resumed his pacing and handwringing. A boy or a girl? He wondered. He secretly hoped for a girl. John liked little girls. They were less afraid of him than little boys, and they seemed to understand his teasing better. Again he wondered if Mary would allow him to act like a grandfather. He thought it would be fun to have the kid over and take care of it with Paul. When they’d raised Sean together, they did a pretty good job he thought. 

An hour later, Paul had managed to persuade John to sit down and relax. He had put on some Motown music to strike a jaunty mood, and engaged John in conversation. “So what do you think it will be? A boy or a girl?” Paul asked him.

“I hope it’s a girl,” John said honestly.

Paul said, “Alistair told me that in his family they mostly have boy babies. I think it will be a boy.”

“Well, in your family you mostly had girls!” John announced indignantly.

Paul said, “It’s the male who determines the sex of the child, John. And my brother has 3 of each. I had 2 of one and 1 of the other. I don’t think you can get much out of that except maybe we shoot male and female sperm in equal amounts.” Paul was chuckling as he said this, and John smiled at the image of ‘shooting sperm.’ Just then the phone rang.

John had to stop himself from racing Paul to the phone. He forced himself to stay seated and watched Paul closely as he answered the phone. This is what he heard:

“Is Mary alright...And the baby... The statistics please... What’s the plan then...That’s fantastic! What time do you think...Should we bring something...Ok, we’ll wait for your call.” He hung up and grinned at John. “I win,” he said lightly.

“Huh?” John asked.

“It’s a boy! Seven pounds and five ounces, 20” long. And both Mary and the baby are doing great.” Paul was brimming with pride and excitement. His eyes were dancing with joy.   
John stopped for a second to appreciate this. What a blessing that this baby should be born just exactly two weeks ahead of the anniversary of Linda’s death. Paul looked more alive in this moment than he had in years.

John said, “When can we visit them?”

“Mary did so well, and it is still so early, that she is going home in a few hours. I’ve booked a baby nurse to take care of Mary for the next few weeks, until she knows the lay of the land.”

John hadn’t known Paul had thought of that. “That was good of you,” he said.

“Well, I knew Mary would never think of it herself. I had hoped she’d stay in the hospital a few days, but since she wanted to come straight home I insisted upon the nurse. So, anyway, once they get home they’ll call us, and then we can go over and visit.”

The phone rang again and Paul answered. It was Stella. She was at Mary’s, putting up ‘welcome home’ signs, and making a comfortable rest station on the sitting room sofa for her sister. She put a sheet over the sofa, and brought blankets and pillows down. She arranged the telephone near to the sofa so it would be within Mary’s reach, and she had brought a pile of magazines for Mary to look through. She had also brought beverages and takeout vegetarian food to lay out for what would be a number of visitors over the next few days. “Dad - when are you coming over?” Stella asked, all business.

“We promised to stay away until we were specifically invited. We tend to bring the paparazzi with us wherever we go.”

Stella said, “Well, that chef you hired for the next month hasn’t arrived yet. Do you have her phone number?” 

Paul found the number in his phone and read it off to Stella, and then they hung up. He looked at John and said, “She’s scary when she’s all business.”

John snickered to himself and then said out loud, with exaggerated innocence, “I don’t know anyone like that...”

 

*****

 

They had snuck out of the mews, using a decoy car they kept in the garage at John’s house. They were not seen leaving that exit by the lurking paps, and then Paul drove them straight to Mary’s house in Lauderville Mansions South, Maida Vale. Coincidentally, Mary and Alistair had purchased a house (with Paul’s help) only three blocks from the townhouse Paul had once owned with John. They entered the mews, and noticed gratefully that Alistair had saved a parking spot for them so that they could leave again through the private mews. 

John had thought ahead, and when they’d been in New York after the Hall of Fame event, he had discreetly visited (with Jason) the swankiest baby boutique in Manhattan. He had visited Mary and Alistair’s nursery, and knew what they were missing along with their color scheme. There he had purchased an exquisite (and exquisitely expensive) handmade quilt, made by Amish women from Pennsylvania, in whites, creams, and yellows with golden thread. They had used satin, silk, and 100% soft cotton squares, and had inserted soft padding inside the squares to make it extra-special soft. The reverse side of the quilt was off-white, with beautifully embroidered tiny daisies, and larger angels and lambs, in gold thread. He and Jason had been like simpering grandmothers, oohing and ahhing over the quilt, and had watched religiously as the elderly lady who ran the shop rolled it and wrapped it in glorious golden paper. John had brought the present home to London, and he had pulled it out of its hiding place to take with them to Mary’s house.

Paul had looked at it and admired the paper. Little knots of what appeared to be white paper daisies dotted the gold paper. Daisies were Mary’s favorites. He looked up at John and smiled. How incredibly thoughtful, Paul thought, just like Lin ... He stopped himself. Yes, Linda had been thoughtful like this, too. But clearly - on his own and left to his own devices - so was John. Paul suddenly realized that he shouldn’t compare the two loves of his life. They were completely unique individuals, each incredibly special in their own ways.

Now they were banging on the back door of the Donalds’ home, and Stella answered. She was in the kitchen putting food trays together. “He’s adorable!” she announced, and then went back to work. 

John and Paul could hear the baby before they saw him. He was crying huskily, the way new babies do, as they entered the sitting room. Mary looked gorgeous, her black hair pulled up in an impromptu bun, and her huge, glorious hazel-green eyes were alight with joy. Alistair was flushed and looked both proud and terrified as he ineffectually tried to quiet the baby. All of his attempts to placate the child only made him cry louder. 

Mary saw her father and lit up. “Oh good! You’re here! Neither of us have any clue how to calm him down!”

Paul approached Alistair with a “may I?” expression, and Alistair gratefully handed the baby over to Paul, who quickly moved him from a cradled position to one where the baby was upright, looking over Paul’s shoulder. Paul began to move rhythmically from foot to foot, and hummed a melody softly under his breath and he patted the baby’s back. Almost immediately, the baby stopped crying.

John laughed. “It’s so unfair,” he declared to the room. “Babies, animals and old people - not to mention girls - they all love their Paul.” He then came forward with his large golden bundle. “This is from your dad and me,” he said formally.

Mary flushed. “Oh - you have both done so much already! The nurse! The chef! The crib! The trust fund! You really don’t need to do more!”

“Well, I beg to differ,” John said. “Open it.”

Mary oohed and ahhed over the wrapping paper. “Look Alistair! Tiny daisies!” Stella came in to watch. Mary very carefully detached the tape from the paper, and managed not to tear the paper at all. Then the white tissue around the gift was carefully removed. Mary could see it was a blanket, but when she opened it up and saw the gorgeous quilt in the nursery colors (soft pale yellow, cream and white) she cried with joy. “It’s exquisite!” She declared.

Stella cried, “Oh, I want that! It’s gorgeous!”

John felt relieved and proud. He said sheepishly, “It was handmade by some Amish women in Pennsylvania. I thought that was a good back story.”

Mary reached up to give him a hug, as John bent over to accept it. She kissed him on his cheek and whispered in his ear, “You have no idea how much you mean to me!” She patted the seat beside her, “Sit here with me.” 

John blushed as he sat down. 

Mary then said to her father, “Daddy, let John hold the baby.” 

Obediently, Paul delivered the baby to John’s arms. John immediately reached for one of the baby’s tiny hands, holding it between two of his fingers and staring at it as if the little hand was miraculous. It was while he was staring that Mary leaned over and said to her newborn,

“Arthur Alistair Donald, meet one of your three grandfathers - John Winston Lennon.”


	124. Chapter 124

April 10, 1999  
London

 

For almost a year, Linda’s old friend and fellow animal rights crusader Chrissie Hynde had been working on a memorial concert for Linda to be performed at the Albert Hall. It was scheduled for April 10, 1999, and was an immediate sellout. It would be shown live on the BBC. Paul hadn’t really intended to perform that night, although he knew he would have to make some kind of appearance to dedicate the concert, but Chrissie had urged him to try. Consequently, the few days before the concert they had been rehearsing. John was of course going to be there to back him up, and they had settled on two songs: Lonesome Town (they had just finished recording it for Run Devil Run), and their own All My Loving. There were many other artists, including John and Paul’s friend Elvis Costello, the Pretenders, Marianne Faithful, George Michael (who hadn’t performed in over two years), Tom Jones, Sinead O’Connor, Neil Finn, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Johnny Marr of the Smiths. Chrissie would also be playing, and the program would be hosted by Eddie Izzard - a comedian who had always left Linda helpless with laughter. John planned to sing a number on his own - In My Life - in honor of Linda, and he had told Paul he expected him to back him up vocally. 

John had been only on the edges of this concert’s planning, propelled as it was by one of Linda’s best female friends. But between the family's cartoon film and her singing album the year before, the Working Classical release of Paul’s, and the upcoming classical music album for Linda (A Garland for Linda) and whatever else Paul had in mind to expiate his grief, John had begun to wonder if the homages would ever end. Just this spring Stella had released a line of haute couture white t-shirts with images of horses on them as homage to her mother. Mary was dedicating herself to the curating of her mother’s photographs, and was setting up exhibitions in cities all over the world. James was busy in Art College, no doubt creating sculptures in his mother’s memory, and Heather - John smiled (he couldn’t help himself) was probably throwing pots as homage.

When these thoughts would assail him, John sometimes wondered why he wasn’t doing something himself. What he could do was write songs, and so in private moments over the last several weeks he had been working on a song to describe the loss of her friendship. He had turned to Fiona, as well. He needed some place to discuss his own feelings of loss, and the less than honorable thoughts he would sometimes have of feeling left out by those he had thought of as family - Paul and the kids. Of all the kids, Mary tried the hardest to remain close to him, although now with a husband and a baby and her mother’s photographs to focus on, she had far less time to spend with him. While this was only natural, it was something that John missed very much. He explained this all to Fiona, who helped him get the hurtful feelings out so he could start to address them in a practical way.

So tonight was the night, and the McCartney and Lennon kids were all going to attend. Mary would bring Arthur in a bassinette, and have the nurse sit with him in a soundproof booth. Mary believed that he needed to be at this concert in honor of his grandmother, who he would never meet. The nice thing about rock concerts is you can wear whatever you want to wear. Paul was dressed in an oversized navy blue suit and a baseball t-shirt on which Stella had silk-screened the image of a sun over an ocean at sunset, along with his trusty old black and white converses. John shook his head as if to say, I can’t take you anywhere, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to tell Paul what to wear at his dead wife’s memorial concert. This was the kind of comfortable thing that Paul wore when he was with Linda, after all. In solidarity with Paul, he wore a black suit (a lot more form-fitting and trendy) and one of Stella’s silk-screened t-shirts, which had a horse with a flowing mane on it. The white converses he wore, though, were brand new and freshly white. 

There was a VIP area up at the top of the Albert Hall that had been cordoned off, where the McCartney and Lennon kids and their friends, lovers and associates were to be found. They were all looking forward to the evening’s performances, and were not to be disappointed.

While the strident song, Meat is Murder, started the concert out, the rest of the performances that night were not so in-your-face. When Elvis Costello came out he spoke a few lovely words about Linda and how warm and welcoming she was and then performed the wrenching That Day is Done, a song Costello had written with Paul when he had worked for a few sessions with both John and Paul years earlier. The way he sang the song was gut wrenching, and watching backstage in a dressing room, Paul sat in silence, his face flowing with tears. John sat next to him and softly stroked his back, not caring who would see or what they would say about it. If that weren’t difficult enough to listen to, Elvis than sang Warm and Beautiful, the achingly beautiful melody Paul had written for Linda back in 1972. Sinead O’Connor did a breathtaking version of I Believe in You, the haunting song written by Bob Dylan. The lyrics fit perfectly as a description of how it was for Linda when she first had the temerity to fall in love with a Beatle, to sing in his new band, and to loyally defend him against all comers. As Sinead sang, Paul found he could not listen to it in a room full of people, so he quickly went into a private room and watched it there, sobbing throughout. John, unsure of what to do and not wanting to make a spectacle in front of the people there assembled, stayed with them and tried not to show his open concern for Paul. 

Next, Neil Finn was doing a moving version of his song, She Goes On, which seemed as though it had been written especially for Paul and Linda. John had taken the opportunity to slip away from the big room, and join Paul in his private spot. Paul was in tears and John sat next to him. “This is killing me,” Paul said brokenly.

John said, “Tears are always good when they come from music.”

Paul looked at John for a moment and managed a smile. “Sounds like a good line for a song.”

“Songwriters have no souls,” John joked. “Do you think you can go on? I can tell Chrissie it’s no go.” 

Paul wiped the tears off his face and said, “No, I owe it to everyone -including Linda - to do this. But promise me - if I get stuck, jump in and sing for me, okay?”

“Of course,” John promised, giving him a hug. “These songs are getting to me, too, you know. Declan and I were out there balling through Sinead’s song.”

Paul leaned his shoulder against John’s and said, “I’m so glad I have you. Not sure what I would do if I had to go through this alone.”

John snorted. “Like you’re ever gonna get to be alone. You know that Presley song - ‘Stuck On You’? That’s your fate mate. I’m stuck on you.” John leered like a drunken Elvis and made Paul laugh. 

“Lucky me,” Paul chirped doubtfully. 

“Do you think you can join the others, now?” John coaxed. “George Michael is about to sing, and his song is upbeat.”

Paul followed John obediently back to the main room, where he put on a determined Beatle Paul face, and tried not to listen to the song lyrics. Soon, the stage manager leaned in and said, “John Lennon - you’re up!” 

“Come on, Paul, you’re gonna do the harmonies. You promised,” John insisted, and they left for the wings to the excited applause of the room’s occupants. Eddie Izzard felt the concert hall suddenly start buzzing, and he could only find a quick few seconds’ quiet enough to yell, “Here he is - John Lennon!” The room went wild, and John strolled out to the microphone carrying his guitar. Behind him the musicians were organizing themselves. 

When the sound abated somewhat, John said, “I’m gonna need a little help on the harmonies with this one, so I dragged a random person off the street to help me.” He turned dramatically to the wings and said loudly, “Eddie - push him out here!” With that, shaking his head, Paul came out and the place went crazy. John said sotto voce to Paul, but straight into the mike so everyone could hear, “Now, remember, I’m singing lead on this one. You’re always trying to steal the spotlight.” 

Everyone laughed and Paul said sheepishly, “I’ll try, John. That’s all I can promise.”

John turned to the audience and said, “I wrote this song as a poem to Paul for his 23rd birthday. It was a heartfelt poem of friendship. He took one look at it and said, ‘this will make a great song!’ I wanted to throttle him.” 

Paul said, “He never lets me forget that.” 

“Anyway, tonight I want to dedicate this song to my dearly loved friend, my should-have-been-sister, Linda. She helped me get through my cancer, and I wanted to help her get through hers. It was not to be.”

The familiar chords that were the intro into In My Life began, and John began to sing the words. As he sang, he tried to breath new life into them, hearing them as if they were for Linda instead of for Paul. Halfway through, a few tears escaped, but his voice did not fail him. Paul, meanwhile, closed his eyes when John was singing, and only opened them when it was time to sing the harmony parts, so he could watch John carefully to make sure their blend was perfect. The performance - the tableau they presented - was deeply moving. When they finished, John pulled Paul into a hug. He figured everyone watching and everyone in the audience and everyone back stage wanted to give Paul a hug by now, so he might as well do it for them. He whispered in Paul’s ear, “I love you so much” as he did so. Paul fought back tears and allowed the hug to linger longer and grow tighter and did not worry what people thought.

It was Paul’s turn. He stepped up to the mike, and suddenly Chrissie Hynde came flying from the wings to give him a hug. Paul said, “Chrissie asked me if I would sing something tonight, but I’m not sure I can.” Everyone clapped and shouted for him to do it. “So I guess here goes.” The Pretenders remained on the stage as the back up band, and Elvis Costello came out of the wings. He was going to sing back up for Paul, along with John. John gestured for Elvis to join him at his mike, so he did. This was a crazy moment for Elvis, who idolized both of them. 

Paul said, “This is a song that Linda and I both loved when we were kids, she in New York, and me in Liverpool. It’s a song by Ricky Nelson, and here it is.” Somehow, with the spotlight on his face, and the musicians at the ready, and John at Elvis at his side, Paul felt that he absolutely could get through the song.

As soon as Lonesome Town was over, Paul launched into All My Loving, with John and Costello singing backup for him. The song was so joyful and bouncy, that soon everyone was on his or her feet dancing along and singing, arms waving in the air. The rest of the performers came out to sing a rousing final chorus, and the BBC show was over. After the television cameras wheeled back, the performers decided to launch into Let It Be, to close out the live concert itself. 

John knew that an empty feeling would come over Paul as well as his children once the show was over, so he had quietly invited the performers and their guests over to Cavendish to celebrate into the wee hours. Most of them came, including Elvis Costello and his wife Diana Krall, Chrissie Hynde and her husband and kids, the Pretender musicians and their significant others, even George Michael came for a short while, and then there was Eddie Izzard of course. And Eddie had the place laughing to tears throughout much of the night. All of the kids were there - Mary had taken Arthur up to the master bedroom, and had breastfed him there and then left him there with the nurse sitting by so she could go down and party with the rest. Stella was there with her newest boyfriend, who seemed bewildered by the massive family and their numerous famous friends. He hardly said a word all night, taking it all in. 

Elvis and Diana, of course, knew about John and Paul’s “arrangement,” but many of their guests did not - at least not for sure. Stella stepped into the breach and acted as a kind of hostess with the mostess, so that restless minds did not reach private conclusions. No one seemed to suspect anything at all, especially in light of Paul’s obvious grief over Linda’s death. There was a woman there, a friend of one of the musicians, who had her eye on Paul. She saw him standing in the beautiful sitting and dining rooms and she saw all the priceless original paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art. She also got up close to him and saw him with her actual eyes - right there in front of her. And he was gorgeous. There was something fey and otherworldly about him - as if he were an enchanted creature from another planet that made more beautiful people than this one - but he seemed at the same time very approachable. So she approached. 

“Hello, I’m Imogen,” she said as she offered her hand. Her voice and her eyes were sultry. 

Paul didn’t notice the sultry. He said with Liverpudlian bonhomie, “Hello, Imogen. To whom do you belong?” His eyes danced with warmth. 

Imogen was transfixed for a moment. Who am I with? She ran the question through her brain again as if she didn’t know the words. Oh! He was expecting an answer! “I’m a friend of one of the Pretender’s wives,” she managed.

Paul was amused by this answer. One of the Pretenders? They had names, didn’t they? Oh, well, people often had brain farts when they first met him. Sometimes they couldn’t talk at all. “Well, nice to meet you Imogen, friend of one of the Pretender’s wives.” He offered his hand playfully, which she shook. She wasn’t a bad looking woman. Her beautifully coiffed blond hair was piled in an up do, but it managed to look very informal, with tendrils of hair leaking out and kissing her neck and chin. She had more makeup on than necessary for Paul's taste, but it was expertly done. And - (Paul was good at looking without being seen to be looking) - she had an enviable figure, especially her “chest”. Now he caught a flirty look in her eye. Oh. She’s flirting with me. He instinctively started to neutralize his expressions and body language. Twenty-nine years of marriage had taught him how to put up the no trespass sign. Linda will be really mad if... And then Paul stopped that thought. He had actually been thinking of Linda in the present tense, as if she were in the next room. He didn’t have to cut off flirting anymore, at least not for Linda’s sake, Paul realized. But this night and this particular celebration were not the right time or place to flirt. Consequently, he stepped back once, and allowed a kind of distance to fall between them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stella struggling with a champagne bottle. 

“Oh! I’ve got to give my baby girl a hand,” he said apologetically, and quickly moved over to Stella’s side and took over the champagne bottle. 

This little scene had not gone unnoticed by John, who rarely let Paul completely out of his sight in a room full of people, especially women. He had frankly expected this kind of thing to happen sooner and more often. Paul was - in the eyes of the female world - a widower now: a billionaire widower, who was beautiful, famous, talented, charming, smart, and loveable. Sexiness exuded from him, but not in a Stanley Kowalski way. No, Paul’s sexuality was more sensual. And his lovemaking was that way, too. Not that this little piece of tinsel was ever going to learn about that, John swore under his breath. 

Imogen was disappointed but she wasn’t giving up. A few minutes later she sidled over to Stella and began to praise her lavishly about her clothes. Stella had Paul’s canniness about extravagant praise. Neither one of them trusted it. But Stella was polite. There wasn’t much that they had in common, so the conversation quickly shut down, and both women went their separate ways. Imogen had to figure out some way to be able to get in touch with him before the party was over. Chrissie Hynde! She thought. She’d get closer to Chrissie Hynde, and maybe that would be her ‘way in’. For that night, though, she had batted a big fat goose egg.

Finally, everyone had left, even Mary and Stella. Heather had gone to bed much earlier (she was not a party person), and James and Sean decided to visit a nightclub for an hour or so before turning in. Julian and his girlfriend were up in the attic suite. John and Paul were getting ready for bed.

“You got hit on tonight,” John said, keeping his voice and expression light and amused.

Paul looked up confused for a moment until he remembered the woman who was a friend of one of the Pretender’s wives. He chuckled. “I did!” He admitted.

“It looks like you turned her down,” John said, still trying to sound jokey, although he was serious about Paul’s answer.

“It was a pretty tacky place to be flirting - in Linda’s home after her memorial concert,” Paul said.

John winced when he heard the words “Linda’s home” but let that pass. Instead he said, “There will come a time and a place where it isn’t ‘inappropriate’ for a woman to flirt with you. What are you going to do then?” 

Paul, who had just flopped down on the bed, suddenly realized the conversation had turned serious on him. John was prying to find out if he had any interest in dating women again. At that moment, Paul could not imagine any woman other than Linda. And he really didn’t think John would be willing to share him again. On top of that, Paul had found ‘sharing’ exhausting. He doubted seriously he ever wanted to do that again. He said, grinning at John in a suggestive manner, “I’ve got my hands full just with you.”

John’s smile looked relieved, but also uncertain. Paul realized that John was very insecure about this issue. He patted the bed beside him. “Come here, John. Let’s hold each other, shall we?” 

John was happy to oblige. 

 

*****

 

Cavendish  
Mid-May 1999

 

John was excited, and bustling around the house. Paul was at the studio, working on some songs for the old time rock ‘n roll memorabilia album John and Paul were doing, Run Devil Run. They had written a few new original songs, but most of the songs were covers of old favorites from the ‘50s. Paul was expected back home in the late afternoon, after which they would be headed over to Mary and Alistair’s home to babysit Arthur for the evening. It would be Mary and Alistair’s first night out at a restaurant since Arthur’s birth. John was excited to spend an evening taking care of a baby with Paul. He didn’t know why this was so exciting, but he suspected it had to do with hopeless fantasies he’d once had of being able to marry and have babies with Paul. He’d known having babies with Paul was an impossibility but when he’d lain on his patio chaises at Kenwood back in the late ‘60s watching Paul playing with young Julian, sometimes his fantasies (drug-fueled, no doubt) took on a life of their own. Well, now, in 1999, there was a baby, and it was going to be entrusted to them for about four hours, and John was excited about it. He had been irked by Paul’s blasé attitude. Of course, Paul had raised four of his own children plus, in a way, two of John’s, and Paul was far more laid back and confident about the babysitting thing than John. It held no mysteries for Paul.

John was also anxious because he was worried that Paul might get delayed at work, in which case he would have to go over to the Donalds’ home by himself, and then he would be left alone with the wee baby. John wasn’t sure he had the ability to do it. He had bragged about being a ‘house husband’ and raising Sean by himself to the interviewers he had spoken to in 1980, but the truth was Sean always had a Japanese nanny, who had literally slept on the floor next to Sean’s bed until he was one year old, and then slept in the room next to him for the years after that. Whenever Sean had become fussy, or needed to be fed, the nanny had stepped in and taken the baby away. Neither John nor Yoko had that much of a nurturing streak in them at that point, addicted as they were to heroin and all. John began to fear that he wouldn’t know what to do with Arthur, his honorary grandson. Arthur. What a grown up name for such a tiny mite!

Of course Paul got home on time, and was bemused a little by John’s amped up behavior. John was urging him to hurry so they could leave. “We’re right on time,” Paul mumbled as he hurried upstairs to change - he figured that there was no point in arguing over such a stupid thing. It was kind of cute, when he thought about it some more: John being so eager to spend time with the baby. 

For Paul, the birth of his first grandchild had been a bittersweet experience. Sweet because of Mary’s happiness, the beautiful baby, and John’s enthusiasm about it; bitter because Linda was not there to share in it. Linda would have been an awesome grandmother, and how cruel was fate that she never got the chance? He did not want these feelings to spoil the event for Mary and the rest of his family, so he did what he always did at such times - he buried them. He might have been able to discuss these things with John, but he sensed how hurt John could be when he spoke of how much he missed Linda. Paul didn’t want to hurt John in that way. So here it was again: he was the ‘strong, silent one’, with no one with whom he could share his pain. For this reason, more and more, Paul had considered going to a therapist to work through his loss. An objective third person with specialized training would be able to hear his fears, his emptiness, and even his anger over being left to live the rest of his life without Linda. John Eastman had gotten a few names for him, and the list was burning a hole in Paul’s wallet. The only remaining question Paul had was this: could he actually speak his fear, emptiness and anger out loud? He had rarely done so, and never voluntarily. The few times he’d blurted out his feelings it had been in times of extremis, when he’d been about to burst, and he had always regretted the results. Linda had been the only one who could regularly coax him into revealing his feelings in a way that felt safe to him. But now she was gone, and that outlet for his emotions was lost to him forever. 

“Paul!” John was shouting at him up the stairwell. Paul had slowed his motions while he had been thinking these heavy thoughts, but John’s anxious voice forced him to shut down the thoughts, finish dressing, and get downstairs before John exploded.

 

*****

 

Mary looked lovely in a navy and white ensemble, and she obviously had already lost most of the baby weight. Alistair looked eager to get out of the house and away from the baby for a few hours. John had stood awkwardly as Mary gave her father a list of instructions while the baby, cradled in his mum's arms, held his arms out to Paul. He wanted Paul to hold him. John smiled softly at the thought of Paul and babies. Paul took the baby expertly and began to ‘speak’ to him with cooing sounds. Now that he was six weeks old, Arthur looked less like a newborn, and more like a little person. He had a fuzz of dark hair on his head, and he’d obviously inherited Paul and Mary’s eyes. The eyes were huge and they were the familiar muddy brownish-green color. John moved over towards Paul, and started making faces at the baby, who was peaking over Paul’s shoulder.

Paul was saying, “You two better get out of here before you lose your reservations,” and urged Mary to stop fussing over the baby. “We’ve got it covered, don’t worry - scat!”  
But when the door finally closed behind them, Paul turned around with the baby and said to John with an impish grin, “How foolish of them to leave the two of us in charge of a baby.” 

John laughed and said, “Parental malpractice for sure.”

Paul moved towards John, who had sat down on the sofa, and thrust the baby towards him. “It’s your turn. I have to use the loo.”

“You’re not leaving me alone with this baby, are you?” John asked, a little panicked.

Paul said, “I’m sure, in the few minutes I’m gone, that even you will not be able to do anything irreversible.”

Humph was the sound that came out of John’s throat. But then, when Paul was gone, he looked into Arthur’s face. He saw a baby Paul there. His heart melted. He communed quietly but effectively with the baby through facial expressions, and Arthur seemed to want to copy them, but kept falling short. His little face would contort in odd ways, and John was fairly confident that his own face was not doing that! 

“So, are you both still alive and in one piece?” Paul asked jauntily as he returned to the room.

“Shurrup,” John muttered, but in good spirits. 

Paul sat down next to John, and put his arm along the sofa behind John’s back. He leaned over to look into the baby’s face. "He’s a cutie,” Paul remarked.

“Of course he is,” John responded, “because he looks just like you.”

Paul laughed. “You think?”

“God, yes. Look at these fingers - they are miniatures of yours! And those eyes - and the shape of his mouth. Yeah - he’s your doppelganger.”

“Well, one sad thing’s for sure - his ears are like mine. See how they stick out? They’re shaped like mine.”

“Your ears do not stick out,” John declared loyally.

“They do, you know. I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about it.”

“They aren’t flat against your head, if that’s what you mean, but they’re not exactly handlebars, you know,” John said indignantly. He would defend Paul’s perfect beauty to anyone at anytime - even against Paul himself! 

Paul laughed at the handlebar image, and then said thoughtfully, “I suspect we’re always harder on our own looks than anyone else is.”

John knew this to be true because it still utterly shocked him when he heard himself described as “handsome.” He thought his nose was too huge, and his lips were too thin by comparison, and he had always struggled with his weight...

Changing the subject, John asked softly (while still staring at the baby), “How are you doing, Paul? You seem very distant emotionally these days.” Something about the warmth of the baby and the peacefulness he exuded had made John feel safe enough to ask the question.

Paul’s eyes did not leave his grandson’s face as he thought about John’s question. He could lie and say he was just distracted by all that was going on, he could tell a half truth by admitting he was still mourning Linda but it was getting better day by day, or he could tell the full truth and say he was hurting like hell inside as he tried to come to terms with Linda’s death. There was a fourth choice...

“It’s a struggle, I won’t lie,” Paul said finally. “I’m thinking of going to a therapist to help me get through this Linda thing.” 

“Really?” John finally looked up from the baby to see Paul’s face. His voice was hopeful and encouraging. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Relieved to have finally said something about it to John, Paul added, “I’ve got some names. I just have to make the calls, and for whatever reason I’ve been putting it off.”

John said carefully, knowing that he was walking on eggshells, “It’s a bit scary, making a decision to deal with your issues in front of another person. But my visits to Fiona are down to once a week now, and neither of us gets fussed if I miss one for any reason, because I am so much better. Haven’t you noticed?”

Paul said, “Yes. Since Linda got sick you’ve been so great.”

John laughed. “You want to say I’m almost unrecognizable, don’t you? But the thing is - therapy can help you get through the little mental tricks you play on yourself that keep you down. But you have to find the right therapist for you. Who are the names on your list?”

Paul pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and showed John. “I don’t know any of them. Some New York therapists recommended them. Eastman got them for me.”

“Do you want me to ask Fiona about them? Maybe she knows things that will help you to decide which one to pick,” John offered.

Paul remembered how his last session with Fiona had ended so abruptly. He had run away from therapy at the exact moment it was beginning to really hurt him. He had been a coward. And he feared that he would do the same thing if he undertook therapy again. Still, if he limited the therapy to just his grief and sense of loss over Linda, and didn’t open up other parts of his life to the therapist, maybe then he could hack it. He finally answered John’s question. “If it isn’t too much trouble for her, I would appreciate it.”

 

*****

 

When Mary and Alistair got back, they walked into their sitting room to see John, Paul and the baby all sound asleep on the sofa. Paul was stretched out, with the baby asleep on his stomach, and John was curled up on the other end of the sofa, with Paul’s feet in his lap. Mary giggled. She whispered to Alistair, “They’re so cute and peaceful. I hate to wake them up.” Instead, she immediately grabbed her camera.

Alistair, who had a less romantic turn of mind, said, “If John sleeps in that position much longer, he is going to wake up very sore.” He moved over to the sofa and shook John’s knee and said, “John, we’re home,” directly into John’s face. John’s eyes flew open and it took him a moment to orient himself. He straightened himself out with some difficulty, as his limbs had gone stiff. He saw Paul and Arthur asleep and smiled. Mary was in the background quietly taking pictures of the scene. He smiled again. How she reminded him of Linda at times. John shook Paul’s foot and gradually Paul’s eyes opened. 

Paul found himself being stared at by John, Mary and Alistair. He felt a little compromised. Alistair reached down and carefully extracted the baby, and Paul struggled to sit up.

“It looks like you had a quiet night,” Mary said approvingly. No one looked stressed or harried. That was a good sign. 

“Oh, we had a crying jag about two hours ago, but we took turns walking him up and down the room until he settled,” Paul reported honestly. 

“Thanks for doing this,” Mary said to them as she took the baby from Alistair. 

“It was our pleasure,” John assured her. “We’ll do it anytime you want.”

“We’ll be off now,” Paul said, as he pulled himself to a standing position and then offered his hand to John to help pull him up as well. Soon they were in the car headed back to Cavendish. 

John said, “I think I’m in love with that baby already. He has a kind of presence, doesn’t he?”

Paul thought about it and said, “He’s a solid little dude.”

 

*****

 

Paul sat in his car in the parking garage for a good 10 minutes. He had gotten there a little early and was now debating with himself whether he should just drive away and give up the whole idea of therapy. But the pain inside him was too strong. He wanted to be able to wake up in the morning with a smile on his face again. He wanted to be able to have an entire conversation with his friends without fighting back tears. Most of all he wanted the darkness that haunted him when he was alone to go away. He could bury himself in music to try to disguise the darkness, like when the sun comes out briefly from behind the clouds, but eventually the clouds took over again. He sighed and told himself he should go in, take the measure of the therapist, and if he didn’t like it he could always never go back. With this compromise in his head, Paul was able to get out of his car, and move towards the elevator banks. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He didn’t want to be recognized going into a therapist’s office. Thankfully he made it all the way to the waiting room without seeing anyone. He wondered if he was supposed to knock, but then he saw a little sign over a red button that said, ‘press when you arrive.’ He remembered that now from Fiona’s office, and he pressed the button before he could talk himself out of it. He meant to sit down and look relaxed, but instead he paced awhile in the waiting room, thinking he still had time to escape.

Then the door opened and Dr. (of psychology) Marc Stevens gestured him in, shaking Paul’s hand as he did so. Paul felt awkward on the inside, but outwardly he was Beatle Paul. Paul had learned to always be easy to meet and laid back when greeting new people. His goal was to put them at ease, and by doing so he was able to relax as well. 

From Paul’s perspective, though, this time it was much harder to accomplish because the person he was meeting was going to try to get him to give up his secrets!

 

*****


	125. Chapter 125

A London Therapist’s Office  
Mid-May 1999

 

Paul was ushered into the therapist’s office, where he saw a trendy swivel chair, a very comfortable-looking sofa, and soft curtains providing privacy from the next-door building’s windows. There were a few low-lit lamps, and the ubiquitous tissue box placed strategically next to where he would be seated on the sofa. I won’t be using that, he said aggressively to himself.

Once settled (the therapist in the swivel chair, and Paul on the sofa) the small talk petered out and Stevens said, “Your message said that you are seeking to come to terms with the loss of your wife.”

“Yes,” Paul said succinctly.

“I understand you were married for almost 30 years, and that you had four children together. Her death had to be a tremendous loss for you.”

“It was.”

The therapist noticed right away that he had a non-talker on his hands. This was not unusual for a first time visit, though, so he knew that his main task today would be to help his patient break the ice. Marc Stevens was a man in his early fifties, and he had been a practicing therapist for over twenty years. He had a sterling reputation. He preferred to work with psychiatrists who were experts on medication for the emotionally distressed. He didn’t like the tendency to just hand over pills without doing the hard work first to determine if medication was even necessary. And then, if a decision was made to medicate, it was Stevens’s preference that a psychiatrist start with smaller dosages of milder drugs and then, if necessary, work up from there. So another task for the day was to assess how much misery the patient was in, and if he could function without meds while they went through therapy.

Nothing in Paul’s affect told Stevens that Paul was suffering. It was also invisible to him how ambivalent Paul was about the therapy itself. Paul sat there looking pleasant and engaged, and as if he had no problems with the world. At first blush then, it didn’t seem that he would need anti-anxiety medication. But first impressions can be deceiving.

“Have you ever had therapy before?” Stevens asked.

“No - well - yes,” Paul stuttered.

Stevens smiled and his expression said, ‘which one’?

Paul realized he couldn’t answer this question with a yes or no answer. He would have to explain. “I went to joint therapy with...well, joint therapy for a number of sessions, and then I had a few sessions on my own, but I stopped.”

Stevens had of course noticed the “with” but decided to let that go for the moment. No doubt the joint therapy had been with the wife, and it was much too early to touch on what might have been problems in the marriage. “How long ago was this?”

Paul had to think about that. It was before Linda got sick... “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Maybe four, five years ago?”

“And why did you stop going?”

Paul paused over that question. “I didn’t think I needed it anymore.” 

“Was there a problem bothering you at that time that led you to therapy?”

Man, this is hard, Paul thought to himself. Why does he need to know all this stuff? He’d only come to talk about Linda. He decided to close this line of questioning off. “No, it was just something that I tried. I decided I really didn’t need it.” Paul paused as he saw the slightly skeptical expression on the therapist’s face before it quickly vanished. He added, “I’ve come here only because of my grief. It has been just a little over a year since Linda died, and the grief is exhausting.” This was a mouthful for Paul, but he wanted to direct the therapist away from his life generally, and to the one part of his life where he needed help. He had suffered terribly over the weeks surrounding the anniversary of Linda’s death. He had not been able to get out of bed on the day itself. He had wanted to be alone, and he had wept. A few weeks had passed since then, and he had only just begun to function properly again in the last few days. 

Stevens noted the brush off and the redirection. He made a quick note on his pad. He could understand why this patient was so determined to maintain his privacy and to limit the exposure of details about his private life. He was one of the most famous people on the planet, no doubt recognized wherever he went, and many of his life's secrets had already been published and read by millions of people. What little shreds of privacy he had left he would naturally want to protect. He assumed it was going to take a while for Paul McCartney to be comfortable enough to relax in his company. Since his patient wanted to talk about his wife’s death, Stevens decided to let him go there.

“When you say ‘grief’, what specifically do you attach to that? What feelings or thoughts comprise this word ‘grief’ for you?”

Paul remembered this sort of question from the times he had spent with Fiona. He normally would have balked at having to describe his feelings and thoughts in detail, but this was a topic Paul yearned to talk about with someone who wouldn’t be hurt by hearing it. “Mainly, it is anxiety mixed with a feeling that the earth will never be beneath my feet again,” he said haltingly. He looked up. The therapist was calmly watching him with a slightly encouraging expression on his face. Damn. I’m expected to keep talking. “I find it hard to settle - you know, just be still. Thoughts come into my mind, and all the peace goes away.”

“What thoughts?” Stevens interjected.

“I’ve tried everything,” Paul said defensively, avoiding the question. “I went away for almost two months to the Caribbean, and while I was there I was almost able to recapture my sense of self. There were moments there when I did. I guess that’s what it is - I don’t feel like myself.”

Stevens realized that Paul did not want to describe his ‘thoughts’, so he focused on this idea of ‘self’. “When we lose someone who is integral to our life, we feel disoriented.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, having been adroitly prompted. “It’s like nothing seems normal any more. I mean - I’m eating breakfast at the table. It’s the same breakfast and the same table, but it doesn’t feel the same. Nothing seems right.”

“Most of us have routines that we establish in our lives that make us feel comfortable and self-assured, and when we receive severe life blows that routine is interrupted and sometimes even inalterably changed. It makes one feel as though there aren’t any rules or sure things anymore.”

Paul nodded in agreement; he found himself fully absorbed in what the therapist had to say. After a few moments of silence he found himself saying, “And emptiness.”

Stevens’s expression reflected his desire to hear more about this ‘emptiness’, but he said nothing. He just waited patiently for Paul to explain.

Seeing that it was up to him again, Paul said, “I feel empty inside a lot. Every once in a while I feel part of things again - my daughter just had a baby, and when I’m with my children and now my grandson I feel part of them.”

Stevens said, “You lived 30 years with another person. It is natural for you to feel strange now that you are alone.” 

Paul felt guilty. He wasn’t alone. That was just the point! He had John with him almost 24/7. It felt horribly disloyal to feel ‘empty’ when John was there for him. It scared him, these thoughts, because he’d always wondered if John alone would be enough for him. He wanted John to be enough, but he was afraid that this ‘emptiness’ meant that he needed more than what John gave him. This was something he could not bring himself to explain out loud. He said nothing, and he said nothing for long enough that Stevens felt that he had to prompt his patient again.

“You mentioned your children. Are any of them living at home?” 

“Well, I have a number of homes,” Paul said with a sheepish grin and a chuckle. “I have a country house in Sussex, and my oldest and youngest children live there. One is a potter, and the other is going to Art College.” 

“Do you spend time there?”

“Not in months. It was a place that Linda loved. She preferred it to London...” Paul’s voice petered out as he felt his eyes beginning to fill. He didn’t want to cry in the therapist’s office. That was such a cliché. He was also trying to remember the last time he had gone to Sussex. It had to have been when they celebrated the kids’ birthdays and Mary’s wedding the previous September. Six months. “We used to live mainly there, and only came up to London on occasion. Now I mainly live in London.”

“Did you choose to live in London because Sussex was too difficult for you after your wife's death?” Stevens asked.

Paul wasn’t sure. Actually, he had stayed almost exclusively in London for John's sake. John much preferred the city, and now that Linda was gone there was no reason to make him rusticate any more. But, Paul thought, maybe I went along with the idea so easily because I couldn’t bear to be in the home that Linda most thought of as hers. He said, “I hadn’t thought of that, but perhaps that’s true. And we did spend more time in London during Linda’s illness, so she could be near her doctors...” Again Paul had to stop speaking in order to control his throat, which was closing up, and the stinging feeling in his eyes.

Stevens wasn’t quite sure how to reach Paul. It was clear when he spoke of Linda his eyes looked like tired, injured souls. But otherwise he seemed calm, rational, and in charge of his emotions. “Have you tried to set a routine for yourself in the London house?”

Paul again found himself stymied. It seemed every direction he turned he kept running up against John: the 800- pound invisible gorilla sitting (unbeknownst to the therapist) in the middle of the room. “I have a routine, more or less,” he responded.

He’s keeping something back. It’s something very important. But it is far too soon for him to share it. Stevens was making quick notations on his pad. It was getting on for time, so Stevens decided he had to end the session with practical advice that would help Paul get through the next few days with a little less anxiety. He pulled a workbook off the table next to him, and handed it to Paul. “This workbook can help you redirect your thoughts when you are anxious. Whenever you feel anxious, turn to the next lesson. Bring the workbook with you when you come next, and we’ll go over it together.”

Paul took the workbook and briefly leafed through it. He liked the idea. It was something constructive he could do by himself. It made him feel curious and a little hopeful. 

“I think you should see me at least twice a week at the beginning. Three times would be ideal.” 

Paul hadn’t thought about how often he would go. He had been so obsessed with what would happen in the first visit that he hadn’t given any thought to the future visits. He nodded acceptance. “Let’s try two times,” he said, "and maybe after a few visits I’ll agree with you about three.”

“Fair enough. Now. How are you sleeping? Do you sleep through the night?”

Paul sighed. “Sometimes, but rarely. I usually wake up at least once if not twice per night. And it usually takes me a few hours to fall asleep.”

“About how many hours per night are you getting?”

Paul did the math in his head and was embarrassed to tell the number. “About three or four,” he said ruefully.

Stevens scribbled something on a piece of paper. “I am writing this note to your doctor. I am suggesting that he prescribe some minor sleeping medication for you. You need to get more sleep than four hours a night.” 

Paul had never believed in sleeping pills; or, at least not since all of his drug experimentation in the late ‘60s. But if he was going to do this therapy thing, he might as well follow the advice to see if it helped. He took the note, folded it, and put it in his day calendar.

Stevens asked, “Do you have dreams that you remember?”

“They wake me up. Crazy dreams, like ships being tossed in the ocean, and the floor disappearing. I will wake up with a start.” 

“You should start writing your dreams down. Keep a pad and pencil next to your bed, and as soon as you wake up write down everything you remember, and bring the notes to your next session. What you write down will not make sense in the light of day. Don’t worry about that; dreams are like that. We can start trying to figure out what they mean if you write truly what happened, and don’t try to fill in gaps once you’re awake.”

Again, this was a task he could perform, and this pleased Paul. This therapy wasn’t going to be aimless talking and prodding, like with Fiona. This was going to be task-oriented work that did not frighten him. He gave the therapist a grateful smile. “This hasn’t been as bad as I feared it would be,” he acknowledged.

Nice man, Stevens thought: an enigma, but a nice one.

 

*****

 

“How’d it go?” John asked Paul when he got back to Cavendish.

“It wasn’t bad at all. He gave me this workbook.” Paul handed the book to John.

“What’s it for?” John asked, opening it up and glancing through it.

“It is like homework, to deal with my anxiety.”

John looked up sharply. Paul had never admitted to having anxiety as a regular thing. From time to time he said he felt anxious, but John had no idea that it was a full-blown issue. He tried not to let his hurt feelings surface. Why couldn’t Paul confide in him about these things? Weren’t they each other’s life mates? Instead he said, “That sounds interesting. And you found the therapist to be okay?”

“Yeah. This guy seems more focused on practical steps than just free form talking. I think his style works better for me.”

John was thinking, better than the therapist I dragged him to, but he didn’t want to ruin Paul’s present confident mood by sharing his own insecurities with him. He decided right there and then that he would have to discuss this with Fiona, like he’d done with all his other problematic feelings since Linda’s death. John did not note the irony of his withholding his feelings from Paul while at the same time resenting that Paul was doing the same to him.

 

*****

 

The next day John went with Paul to the studio; they would be recording a song today for Run Devil Run. When they were in the studio playing this old time rock ‘n roll music they were like carefree kids again. All the pain and confusion seemed to lift as they sang into microphones with their eyes meeting in the love of the process of making music. They had chosen a variety of great musicians, some from noteworthy bands, to be their session musicians, including Paul’s old friend David Gilmour, from Pink Floyd. Playing with these people was a refreshing change from their usual band, and the quality of the musicianship was inspiring and uplifting.

The album was almost fully recorded - within a week or two it would be done. And then it would go into production mode. Paul had promised that once this album was finished, and the classical pieces he was working on were finished (John knew both classical pieces were dedicated to Linda, although Paul never emphasized the point) that he would sit down with John and start to write a new album of original McLen songs. John was looking forward to the day. He had already stashed away a number of songs, and had gotten them as far as he could alone. He knew that Paul could do his magic on the arrangements. On one level John understood Paul’s reluctance to work with him on a creative level while still digesting Linda’s death. He figured Paul needed to finish the classical pieces in order to exhaust the homages for Linda. Another part of him was terribly sad that Paul didn’t see their creative partnership as a port in the storm - a place to run to for comfort when life around him was raging. 

The classical piece Paul was working on was for a project called ‘A Garland for Linda’, and the piece was called ‘Nova’: a new star in the firmament. Paul was putting the final flourishes on his piece. His piece and the contributions of the other classical artists would be recorded between August and October with John Frazer producing. 

Paul was grateful to have that on the way to being done, and he hoped to be able to clear the decks to start working with John in June or July. He finally felt able to do that, although he didn’t know how he was going to steer away from writing a whole bunch of sad songs about losing Linda. He wanted to approach her death in these songs in a more positive, less literal way. He wasn’t entirely sure he was up to it, so he figured the writing of this new album would take a great deal of time. 

The song they were recording that day was ‘Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,’ the old Chuck Berry song. Paul had chosen this song; John’s song by Berry was ‘Promised Land.’ John loved the way Chuck Berry sang it, but he really loved how Elvis Presley sang it. Those were four big shoes to fill, but John had enough of an ego to believe he could do it. For this album, they had decided to each sing a different song from their favorite songwriters/performers, and choosing the material had been fun. Thus, Paul had recorded Carl Perkins’s ‘Movie Magg’, and John had chosen a rousing version of ‘Lend Me Your Comb’ with Paul singing the high harmony, just as they’d done back in the clubs in Hamburg and Liverpool. In the end it would be a double album, with four original rockers (two sung by Paul, and two by John), and 26 other songs, with John and Paul choosing and singing 13 each. They had decided to choose more obscure songs from the period, believing they were great songs rarely played on the radio that people should hear again.

As they left the studio that day, John felt very close to Paul emotionally, even though there were no intimate words or glances between them. This feeling of closeness gave him hope that one day the grey clouds would be replaced by blue skies. Just like what happened in all those old song lyrics.

 

*****

 

A Week Later  
Fiona’s Office

 

“It’s weird. How can I be jealous of a fucking therapist?” John demanded of Fiona. 

Fiona chuckled. “In the years I’ve known you, you have been jealous of anyone and anything that had some kind of closeness with or influence over Paul. I totally understand why you’re jealous. You have no control over what happens in those sessions.”

John glared at Fiona. “I liked you better when you pretended to be neutral about stuff.”

Fiona guffawed. “If I remember correctly, being neutral with you got us nowhere. I had to invent a whole different way to practice therapy just for you.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’s a compliment,” John grumbled. But his eyes were twinkling. “But he’s had three sessions now, and he never tells me what happens at them.”

“John, therapy is supposed to be confidential.” 

“Well, I don’t tell Paul everything that I discuss in therapy, but I do tell him some of what happens. He has this stupid workbook, and he’s always writing in a little notebook - I have no idea what he’s writing! He doesn’t share anything.”

“You mentioned at our last session that he was going to therapy because of his grief over losing Linda,” Fiona stated.

“Yeah, so...”

“So,” Fiona said with a gently prodding voice, “maybe he isn’t comfortable talking to you about his grief for Linda because he fears it might hurt your feelings.”

John was stumped by this, but not for long. “I know he’s grieving - this is no secret to me, believe me. It’s bloody obvious. I don’t know why he would find it hard to admit this to me, and talk about it.”

Fiona took a mental step back. John had told her in numerous sessions how jealous he was of Paul’s feelings for the lost Linda. Didn’t John hear the words that came out of his own mouth? Those feelings of jealousy would be clear to Paul, who knew John so well. And clearly he wouldn’t want to express that specific pain to John if he thought it would hurt him. She couldn’t see why this wasn’t “obvious” to John. But she couldn’t hit him over the head with it. Instead she said, “You’ve always said that Paul is empathetic, and hates to embarrass others or hurt their feelings. You’ve even said that he does this to a fault. Well, could it be that Paul is being over-careful about hurting your feelings?”

John thought this through. “Of course it could be. Of course that is what he is doing. But it pisses me off no end. All I’ve ever wanted is for him to let his guard down with me. It’s happened for moments over the years, when I felt I was looking straight into his soul. But it is frustrating after all these years to be left out.”

“Left out of...?”

“Out of his inner thoughts and feelings. It’s weird - I can often tell what he is thinking, because I’ve memorized all his expressions and his body language. If he weren’t such a fucking onion - if he’d just been open with me from the start - I wouldn’t be able to read his thoughts and feelings. It’s kind of like when you’re blind, your other senses take over, right? Well, Paul’s inner world is blocked off from me, so I’ve learned to read the outward signals. It’s really bizarre. But the problem with reading thoughts and feelings is, you don’t get any detail. You know he’s sad - but why is he sad? You know he’s mad, and perhaps you can guess what about - but why did it make him mad? Just all these fucking questions all the fucking time.” 

“Maybe that is something that you find attractive. Do you think so?” Fiona asked delicately.

John asked, “What did you mean by that?”

“Well, maybe you find Paul’s complexity, and his layers like an onion, to be attractive. Maybe that is why you have never tired of him.”

John thought about this. “And your point is?”

“My point - if you insist upon calling it a ‘point’ - is that maybe his mysterious nature is what attracts you to him. If he suddenly became transparent, perhaps he wouldn’t be as attractive.”

John stared at Fiona for a long time. He hoped like hell this wasn’t true. But what if it was true? What if what kept him so devoted and attracted to Paul was his elusiveness? Was he stupid to try to break down the barriers that might be the reason why he was so intensely attracted to Paul? He finally said, “I hope that I have matured enough to want to have a true 50/50 relationship with Paul; one that doesn’t require either one of us to pretend to be someone we’re not. I want to move away from the notion that I should be eternally chasing him, and he should be eternally evading me.”

Fiona heard this and was very impressed with John. She smiled at him. She said, “This is one of the most mature things you’ve ever said to me. I hope it is true. I want to believe that if Paul opened himself up to you entirely that you wouldn’t lose interest in him. Do you really believe you are capable of being mature enough not to need a mystery to chase? Can you be happy with a known quality that remained comfortably the same over years?”

John hadn’t looked at it that way. He had seen Paul as a goal: like mountain climbers saw the high mountains in the Himalayas. He hadn’t given much thought to what he might feel once he had accomplished the summit, and climbed back successfully to base camp. Would he want to go on to the next summit? Or would he be satisfied with what he had accomplished? The expression he showed Fiona displayed his ambivalence clearly. She said,

“You are better off taking it one step at a time. Don’t rush. Understand what you really want, before you force a conclusion. I think Paul is cautious because he knows you so well. In addition to not wanting to hurt your feelings over his grief over Linda, he is fearful that if he gives you all - finally - you will decide it is not enough. We have had this discussion many times over the years.”

John harrumphed under his breath, but he was amused. “I had this trouble in school, too, you know. I can’t retain what I learn.”

 

******

 

Meanwhile, Across Town  
Another Therapy Session

 

Marc Stevens had managed to keep his patience in check. His new client was extremely self-contained and withholding of personal detail. While it was clear that the man suffered terribly over the loss of his wife, and his emotions were real and affecting, he was either not able or not willing to discuss how the emotions felt to him. He tended to resist all efforts to explain himself. The therapist felt a bit like he was trying to gain purchase on a lid to pry it open. It was bloody difficult without a can opener, and he couldn’t think of any metaphorical can openers he could use on this patient except words. 

“Tell me about your daily routine,” Marc began. “Start from when you wake up until to you go to bed.” Marc was surprised by the look of ‘caught in the act’ on his patient’s face. But he withheld his natural curiosity about that look, only making a note of it on his pad.

“Why is this necessary?” Paul asked, a little suspiciously.

“It helps me to know when and at what times you most feel your grief, how it effects your daily activities, and what might be the triggers for it.” Marc kept a bland expression on his face, from long practice.

Paul was satisfied with this explanation, although he knew providing this information was going to be extremely tricky. He would have to figure out how to fold his interactions with John into his answer. He decided he would have to invent a ‘friend’ who had been staying at his house. Best he could do in the circumstances.

“What time to you get up?” Marc asked when Paul had remained silent.

“Around 8 am, sometimes earlier, rarely later,” Paul said truthfully.

“And then what do you do?” Marc was used to this kind of obstinance. He was willing to wait Paul out, and even prompt him moment my moment through the day if need be.

“I get a quick bite of something, and about four mornings a week I go to the gym.”

“When you wake up in the morning, when is the first time you think about losing your wife?”

Paul thought about this for a while. “Lately, I often have her sort of floating in weird ways in my dreams, as we’ve discussed, so when I wake up sometimes those weird feelings are still there in my mind, leftover from the dreams.” Paul was struggling to think how it was when he woke up. “I usually don’t think too much about losing her while I’m busy and working out. I actually feel pretty strong in the morning when I’m bustling around.” 

“Good,” Marc said. “So, on the days when you go to the gym, what time do you get back?”

“Between 10 and 11 am, depending how long I work out.” 

“And on the days you don’t go to the gym, what do you do in the mornings instead?”

“I have a lie in once in a while - usually Sunday. And I have a big breakfast, read the paper. Then I like to do a little yoga sometimes.”

Marc was thinking to himself that the man had pretty blameless habits. “So it’s around 11 a.m. now. What happens next on your average day?”

Paul felt he had to make a few explanations. “You know, until a few years ago I didn’t have too many ‘average days’, because of my job. But once Linda got sick - that was three and a half years ago - I have lived a pretty ‘normal’ life, you know, like non-performers do. I haven’t toured in over 4 years. So I guess I do have ‘average’ days now.” Paul thought about that for a while. It was kind of surprising to him. Then he continued. It was time to introduce the ‘friend’ since it couldn’t be avoided any longer. “So around 11 am I go up to my music room and work for about an hour or so until it is time for lunch. I have a friend who is staying and we generally have lunch together.”

“A friend?” Marc asked curiously. 

“Yes,” Paul said simply, providing no detail. 

Seeing a brick wall, Stevens asked... “So during this period, say 11 am until 1 pm, do you think about losing your wife?”

Paul thought about this. “Sometimes when I’m in my music room, I am thinking about her, but since I am composing music about her, it isn’t a negative feeling. It is a way to express how I feel about her in this non-verbal way.”

“When you’re lunching with your friend, do you talk about the loss of your wife?”

Paul stared at the therapist for a few moments, his eyes blinking. Then he said, “Rarely.”

“Is your friend not someone you can talk to about your loss?” Marc asked quietly.

Paul was quick to defend his ‘friend.’ “Oh, listen, since Linda got sick he’s been a godsend. He was a close friend of Linda’s too, and he made the whole process far less horrible. And since then he has been there for me the whole time. I used to talk about nothing else other than losing her. But now, a year later, I have kind of run out of things to say. I’m just left with these disorienting, lost feelings sometimes, and I’d rather not talk about it.”

“He’s a good friend, then?”

“Yes, certainly. He’s good company, and it is good to have someone around who loved Linda, too.” Paul was trying hard to protect his relationship with John from this therapy. 

“So, now it’s 1 p.m. or so. What do you do next?”

Paul said, “I might go in to the office to do business and paperwork. There is an enormous amount of it associated with my work. I go there twice a week in the afternoons, and spend a full four hours just plowing through it all.”

“What about the other days?”

“On the other weekdays, I am either working in my home all afternoon, or at the recording studio working all afternoon.”

“Are you alone all that time?”

“Not in the studio, no. Lots of folks are there, from my collaborators to the studio staff. But in my home studio I’ve been alone. Although, this summer, once I’ve finished my two classical pieces, my songwriting partner and I are going to start working together again.”

The songwriting partner: John Lennon. Marc had heard the rumors about his patient and John Lennon. But given the man’s obvious pain and suffering and grief over the loss of his wife, he had a hard time believing it. But he supposed he had to know how Lennon fit into his patient’s life. “Do you spend much time with your songwriting partner apart from your work together?”


	126. Chapter 126

A London Therapist’s Office  
(Continued)

 

“Do you spend much time with your songwriting partner apart from your work together?” Marc Stevens had known he would eventually have to ask this question, but until this moment it hadn’t come up. 

Paul was still as he faced this inevitable question. He considered various ways of discussing it. He still didn’t know if he was going to stick with this therapy, and he also didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea of sharing his private thoughts with anyone. It wasn’t yet the right time to disclose anything too tricky or personal. It might never be the right time. But he had to address the fact that John was an important part of his life, and would remain so, or navigating this therapy was going to get increasingly difficult. 

“John and I have been close friends for over forty years,” Paul said evenly. “We’ve been in, we’ve been out, we’ve been up, we’ve been down, we’ve hated each other, and we’ve loved each other. And he is the ‘friend’ I was referencing earlier. He was good enough to stay with us throughout Linda’s illness, and he’s stayed with me since she died. His house is just across the mews, so it was convenient. I wouldn’t have made it through, I don’t think, without him. So yes, we spend a lot of time together aside from working together.” Paul’s face said it clearly: do you have a problem with that?

Marc was pleased that Paul had been so open and thorough in his response. He decided to move on. “So now we are at 5 p.m. on your average day. What do you do next?”

“Well, dinner, sometimes with friends over, lots of time with one or more of my kids. Sometimes I just read, or watch the telly. Sometimes we go to a pub after dinner. It isn’t a very exciting life. Oh, but there are events I have to go to sometimes, industry events or art shows, stuff like that.”

“Is evening a time when you miss your wife?”

Paul nodded. “I miss her at odd times all day long, less when I’m active and involved in something, more so when I’m not. Often, when there are friends over for dinner, I will look at the end of the table and think how Linda used to be there. Linda used to make the meals, and invite the friends. She was the heart of our home. And I often feel her lack when I’m surrounded by people, strangely enough.” 

“It isn’t strange at all,” Marc said. “Many people say the same thing.”

Paul was relieved to hear this. “It’s a lonely thing - to be surrounded by people and everyone is laughing and talking, and so are you, but really you’re in your head watching it all and missing her.”

“And when do you go to bed?” Marc asked.

“Between 10 and midnight, I guess average time is 11,” Paul said. 

“Is night time a difficult time for you?”

“It is the hardest. I find it hard to fall sleep, and then I have the disruptive dreams to top it off. Sometimes I lay awake for two hours trying to sleep.” Paul’s face mirrored his sadness as he spoke.

“Are the sleeping meds helping at all?” Marc asked.

“Yes, they are, actually. Now it usually takes me only 30 or 40 minutes to fall asleep. That’s an improvement. And I don’t wake up so many times during the night.” Paul was glad to report this good news. It seemed to him that he had been unloading unrelenting sad news for an hour now.

“Do you think having more sleep is helping you cope better during the day?” Marc asked. 

Paul thought about it. “Yes,” he said, surprising himself. “I am less depressed during the day. I have a bit more energy.”

“This is good news.” Marc looked at the clock. It was time. “I really appreciate your hard work today,” he said kindly. He reminded Paul to continue to use his workbook as necessary for anxiety, and to write down his dreams as soon as he awakened. Nodding compliantly, Paul managed to escape from the office. He always felt so relieved and free when the door closed behind him.

 

*****

A Few Months Later  
August 1999

 

The new album was slowly taking shape. Slowly was the operative word. John was amazed that Paul was as laid back as he was in developing the songs. He wasn’t used to this. What’s more, it was beginning to piss him off. He didn’t think how ironic this was, seeing as how he had spent much of the last 40 years or so complaining about Paul’s workaholic nature, and the fast pace at which he preferred to work. Now that Paul was dragging along just like him, John found it irritating. We can’t both be couch potatoes! He raged to himself one morning. Paul wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain! 

So as another August morning was inching towards noon, and Paul had not bestirred himself from the sitting room sofa where he was intently reading the fucking newspaper, John cornered and confronted him.

“Why aren’t you in your music room?” He asked petulantly.

It took a few seconds for Paul to realize he was being spoken to. He pulled the paper down a few inches until he could see John’s face from over the paper. “What?” He asked.

“Why are you still down here diddling around? Why aren’t you working?”

Paul could see that John was very cross. What he couldn’t figure out was why. “I don’t understand,” he said sincerely, his face the very picture of perplexity.

“Why. Aren’t. You. Working?” John demanded, his voice wrapped in exasperation. 

“Because I’m reading the paper,” Paul said. Honestly, wasn’t that obvious? He thought to himself.

“You’ve only contributed three songs to the album so far, Paul,” John snarled. He always emphasized Paul’s name in an exaggerated way when he was irritated with him. 

It finally dawned on Paul that John was pissed at him, and it had to do with their songwriting project. This was new: John had never nagged Paul about not working enough. Any previous nagging had to do with him working too much. Paul said, “You know as well as I do that you can’t rush these things. I need to be inspired first.” 

“You’ve never had any problem sitting at a piano or a guitar and playing chords randomly until you were inspired. Why aren’t you doing it this time?” John’s eyes were burning with resentment. He believed that Paul’s heart wasn’t in the project, and that Paul was only doing it to humor him. John didn’t like to be humored, and he was tired of taking a back seat to Paul’s numerous homages to Linda. 

Paul folded up the newspaper and put it to one side. He sat up a bit on the sofa. He said, “What have I done, then? I’ve obviously done something to piss you off.”

John said, “Why are you doing this project, anyway, if you don’t want to?” His tone was bitter.

Paul was taken by surprise. “Of course I want to. Why would I do it at all if I didn’t want to?” 

“Maybe you think you have to do it to satisfy me. If that’s the case - I don’t need your pity.” John’s angry face was melting into a sad face.

Paul saw this. He said, “John, of course I want to work with you. I’m not deliberately avoiding the work. I am having trouble tapping in to the music. It’s a little scary, I must say, because this hasn’t happened to me very often.” 

John’s expression softened a little, although there was a slight glint of suspicion still lingering in his eyes. “You’re blocked?” He asked bluntly.

Paul thought about that for a moment and said, “Not entirely blocked, no. But I don’t want to write a whole bunch of songs about me mourning Linda’s death. That’s all that seems to come to mind right now, so whenever it starts, I shut it down. I’d rather be writing more hopeful music.” 

Linda again, John thought selfishly. It was getting to be a major drag. “Isn’t that therapist of yours helping you?” John hadn’t meant to say the words ‘that therapist’ with a heavy sprinkling of sarcasm; it just came out that way.

Paul sighed inwardly, because he knew an outward sigh would only make John more upset. John hated it when anyone showed impatience in response to something he had said. “I go there. It is helping. I’m sleeping better, aren’t I? But it isn’t like a magic button that you push and - hey presto! Everything’s fine again. You ought to know this better than I do since you’ve been in therapy longer,” he pointed out reasonably.

John hated it when Paul used that ‘reasonable’ voice with him at times like these. It made him feel like a child. And suddenly - after a few months’ of sessions - he was a fucking expert? “You don’t talk to me about it, ever, so how am I to know what is going on with you? At least if you wrote what is really going on in your head in your songs, I’d have a fucking clue.” 

Paul tried to ignore the sulky tone in John’s voice. Instead, he said, “I’m hoping you will have a little more patience with me, while I work through this. I know this hasn’t been a bed of roses for you, either. It’s just that it is hard for me to leave Linda in the past. I owe her so much, and I put a lot of weight on her back.”

“You mean me, don’t you?” John snapped. “I’m the weight you put on her back. I told Fiona in our last session that I believe you are punishing me because you’re guilty over making her share you with me. I think that’s what is going on here.” John’s jaw stuck out pugnaciously. 

It was an ‘I dare you’ gesture, but Paul wasn’t inclined to respond in kind. He was taken aback by the accusation, though. Of course he had never intended to ‘punish’ John by pining for Linda. He knew that by continuing to mourn her he was hurting John, but he hadn’t associated it with his own guilt over the love-splitting decision. All three of them had agreed to it after all, and at any time any one of them could have put a stop to it. But they had all chosen to stick with it despite the problems they’d had to accept as a consequence. Paul knew he had to choose his words carefully. John was so deeply insecure. He may have substantially improved his sense of stability in the last four years or so, but down deep he was still that little boy who was repeatedly rejected by each of his parents. 

Paul allowed his eyes to soften and his voice to lower. When he spoke in that low, soft tone it always had the effect of becalming a distraught John. “I know it hurts you that I can’t move ahead as quickly as you’d like. I could fake it, but you know me too well. You’d see right through me, and then you’d be even more hurt. I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you at all! I am doing everything I can to move forward - I’m even going to therapy. You know how I have always hated therapy! And it’s because I don’t want to write a bunch of heartbreak songs about Linda, which would only hurt you more, that I’m taking my time with my songwriting.”

There was a not-uncomfortable silence after Paul stopped speaking. John was deeply considering what Paul had said. He was searching Paul’s eyes and facial and body expressions for any clues to help him interpret what Paul had just said. Finally, he sat back and said, “I want to believe you when you say you’re not holding our relationship against me. But you might talk about that with your therapist. If you really want to move forward, you really ought to examine your motives at their deepest roots.” 

Paul felt guilty then. He knew how much he was holding back in therapy. He was holding back his life with John, and what John really meant to him. He was holding back the fact that he and Linda and John had lived in an operating although occasionally dysfunctional triad for the 25 years before Linda died. Paul had withheld this information thinking that he was protecting his relationship with John from the intrusiveness of therapy, and also because he believed that his grief for Linda was a thing separate from his relationship with John that he alone had to deal with so as to be able to move forward to the new norm. Now John was calling him out on this strategy. He was suggesting that Paul was kidding himself about the interrelationship between Linda’s death and his continuing life with John. Paul could be very stubborn, and once he had decided on a course of action it was very difficult, if not impossible, to move him off that track. But this morning he asked himself: what if John is right? What if he could never put Linda’s death behind him so long as he still felt deep guilt over his betrayal of his wedding vows? He had promised Linda his fidelity, and then he had taken the promise back. And he had taken the promise back because of his love for... no ... his need for John. 

Paul’s expressive face reflected a lot of strange emotions and John watched them as if it were a moving roadmap. He was satisfied with what he saw. He had put the bee in Paul’s bonnet, and now Paul would have to deal with it. Already it looked as though he was attempting, internally, to rationalize it all. John didn’t believe that there was anything to be gained by continuing to air his grievances. “So,” John said instead, in a businesslike manner, “why don’t you at least edit my songs when you’re not writing yourself? And give me the three you’ve done, and I can edit them. We’ll get further along faster that way.”

Paul’s smile reflected his relief. “Do you want to work now, then?”

 

*****

 

The summer sky was a bit grey due to cloud cover, and there was an oppressive humidity outside. Paul was staring out the window in Dr. Stevens’s office, and thinking how badly he wanted rain to come down and break the humidity. And he felt a little like that about his therapy, too. He turned back to meet Stevens’s questioning look. “Yes, I am feeling a bit down today,” he admitted in answer to the therapist’s question. 

“Have you felt that way since you woke up, or did something trigger it?” Marc asked.

“I’ve been down for a few days. I’m not inspired to work, and although I’m in the bed for the proper amount of hours, I’m not restfully sleeping. Everything’s all tangled up again.”

Marc wondered if his patient had already grown accustomed to the mild sedatives he’d been prescribed, and now needed an increased dose. But he also knew there was probably a triggering event, and he hoped to be able to assist his patient in figuring out what it was. “When did you first start feeling this way?”

Paul knew exactly when it started. It started after John had poked and prodded him about his feelings of guilt towards Linda. Ever since then he couldn’t get it out of his mind - how badly he had betrayed her. No wonder he couldn’t move on! But to discuss this with his therapist meant telling the therapist all. And Paul was finding it extremely difficult to even begin to explain ‘all’ to this man. He knew that long-term three-way relationships were extremely rare, and definitely out of the norm. What if the therapist thought it was morally wrong and psychologically damaging? Could he be trusted not to scorn him if he knew the truth? Paul just couldn’t gather up enough trust to test this man’s attitudes on the subject. 

The long silence was a telling one to Marc. Marc knew as the silence continued that Paul knew exactly why he was ‘down.’ But he was not willing to share it yet. Marc decided a little direct action was required. “You need to tell me what it is that you are holding back.”

Paul said, a little defensively, “Why do you think that I’m holding anything back?”

“It’s plain on your face and in your body language. I have known almost from the first day that you have been holding something important back. I have no idea what it is, but if I don’t have at least some kind of idea, my ability to help you through this will be greatly handicapped.”

Paul squirmed. He was uncomfortable with the fact that this man had seen through him so easily. He shifted his position on the sofa and said, “There are things I don’t like to talk about.” 

Marc’s face softened. “We all have things we don’t like to talk about. But that’s my function. I am a neutral party, and my patients share those private things with me so I can help them parse it out.” 

Paul was still silent. His eyes were focused on Marc’s eyes, but a brick wall seemed to be put up behind Paul’s eyes.   
Marc added, “Let me take a guess. It has something to do with your marriage to Linda. There was some kind of problem between the two of you, and you feel guilty and ashamed. In fact, you even tried joint therapy to resolve it.”

Paul was shocked at how close the man had come to guessing what the problem was. Of course, he had no way of knowing that the joint therapy was with John and not with Linda. Still - there had been a problem in the marriage, and he did feel guilty about it. That part the therapist had gotten right. But still Paul did not speak.

“Am I in the ballpark?” Marc asked gently as a prompt.

Paul finally sighed and said, “All marriages have problems. They’re all a work in progress.”

“This is very true. But when a much loved spouse dies, it isn’t unusual for the one left behind to amplify the memories of the things they did wrong in the marriage, and begin to feel a heavy burden of guilt over it. If that is what you’re suffering now, believe me when I say you are not at all alone.”

The therapist had given Paul a way out. He had shown him a path by which he could discuss his feelings of guilt without implicating John. Maybe he should take that out and run with it. “I do feel guilty about many things I did,” he said slowly.

“So let’s bring them out in the light, one by one, and look at them. They will most likely be far less painful once you have exposed them to the light.” Marc leaned forward slightly in an encouraging gesture.

Paul figured he could start at the beginning, when the issues weren’t as John-related. He said, “When we first got married, I brought her into my band. She said she wanted to join, but I don’t think she knew what she was getting herself into. The critics were horrible to her, and she was pregnant with babies, and taking care of babies, but she went along with it all. We lived in a bus! I was very selfish. I should have seen how hard it was for her, and let her off the hook.”

“If she didn’t want to do it, could she not say so?” Marc asked in a neutral tone of voice.

“Later on, I asked her that question. She said she feared that if I went off on tour without her, I would cheat on her. She said women were always coming on to me, even when she was standing there right in front of them, and she wanted to keep our family together.” 

“Well, is it true? Would you have cheated on her?” Marc asked.

“No!” Paul declared with confidence. “I might have been tempted, I’m only human, but I was tempted many times when Linda wasn’t there, and I didn’t cheat. I made a promise to her, and I never...” Paul stopped as he realized what he was going to say, and as he changed his words he also dropped his voice to a lower register as he continued, “...and I never cheated on her with another woman. Not ever.” At least that was true.

“It seems like her insecurity caused her to stay in your band even though she might have preferred not to. It was her insecurity, and it was not based on you or what you would have done. So this was a choice she made after bargaining with herself. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what you did or may have done, does it?” Marc sketched out the point patiently, watching Paul’s face throughout.

“No, I guess not,” Paul admitted.

“So, let’s put that guilt-trigger down for now, and move on to the next one. Is there a next one?”

“I went through a bad depression when the Beatles broke up,” he said in a soft voice. “I drank too much. We were living in Scotland in this kind of half-finished cottage, and she was doing all the work, caring for the children and the house. I would lie in bed, and I’d start drinking at 3 p.m. I drank far too much. It was all on her. I should have been stronger, and I should have seen what I was doing to her sooner.”

“You say ‘sooner’. I assume that means that you did eventually see what you were ‘doing to her.’ Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“So how long was it that you went through this depressed period, drank too much - how many months before you realized what you were doing?”

Paul thought. It was most of ’70, and a little part of 1971. “A little over a year,” Paul answered.

“But then you crawled out of your depression and moved forward?” Marc asked. “Did you have therapy to help?”

“Yes, I moved forward, but no, I didn’t have therapy.”

Marc said, “That’s an extremely hard thing to do - pull yourself out of a serious depression. Losing your job - when it was such a wonderful job - and worrying about the future - those are fair reasons to be depressed, don’t you think?”

“I guess so.” 

“Do you think Linda understood that? Do you think she accepted that in marriage you take the good with the bad?”

“Yes, definitely, she did.” 

“So, a brief depression - a year in the span of a lifetime is not a long time at all - based on a very real trauma, from which you extricated yourself without help...”

“Linda helped me,” Paul interjected.

“Without professional help... I think this is entirely blameless. I don’t see why you should hold this against yourself. Linda didn’t hold it against you, did she?”

“No. She never begrudged me that,” Paul said.

“So. Let’s put that guilt-trigger down for a while too. What else? Is there more?”

Paul had run out of ‘guilt-triggers’ that did not involve John. Maybe he should claim that these were the only burdens he carried, and then get the hell out of there. He didn’t realize how skittish he looked until the therapist said,

“Paul, this is a safe place. I have patients who have committed what many would say were unforgiveable crimes. I doubt very much that what you are holding back is that bad. And I know there’s more, because you mentioned that you’d had joint therapy...” 

Paul said flatly, “I didn’t have joint therapy with Linda.”

“Oh? You never had marriage counseling?”

“No. Linda was so mature. She was so steady. She rarely allowed things to get to the point where there was serious trouble between us. We worked out our problems just between us.”

“What about you? Did you allow things to get to the point where there was serious trouble between you and your wife?” Marc tried to hide the fact that he was holding his breath for the answer.

Paul was stymied. He didn’t know where to go from here. Feeling trapped, he impetuously said, “Yes.” 

Marc waited a few beats to see if Paul would volunteer more. When he didn’t he said, “Can you tell me what it was?”

Paul looked desperately at the clock. He still had 15 minutes left. Hardly enough time to tell the whole story, but perhaps just enough time to suggest the broad-brush strokes... He expelled a stale breath and blurted out, “I brought another person into our marriage.”

Whatever Stevens had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t that! With strong effort he was able to push his confusion aside, and asked, “You just told me you had never cheated on your wife, though...”

“I said I’d never cheated on her with a woman.” Paul let the words sit there in the dusk of the room. The clock’s ticking suddenly seemed extremely loud, and for a few very tense moments, no one spoke.

 

*****

 

Paul was not in a good mood when he got home. He was taciturn and irritable and they were only halfway through dinner when John finally had enough.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He demanded.

“I’ve had a bad day,” Paul responded with irritation. 

“All you did was work in the music room and then go to therapy,” John said with a lack of sympathy. “What could be so bad?”

Paul didn’t want to talk about it. “I’ve had a bad day, and I’m in a bad mood. Okay? Can you drop it now?” 

John was dumbfounded. Paul could be bitchy at times - or, perhaps the better word was tetchy. But he rarely stormed around the house with a scowl on his face, and made loud announcements about having a bad day. John pretended to be busy with his mashed potatoes. He was actually moving them around on his plate and trying to figure out what was up. He had a thought.

“Was your therapy hard?” He asked.

Paul slammed his fork down on his plate, and the next sound John heard was the screech of Paul’s chair as he pushed it backwards. He stood up and said, “I’m not hungry.” He then left the room and decamped to his music room.

Well, John thought. That happened! So it was the therapy. He had hit the nail right on the head. John’s curiosity was about to swallow him alive. He knew it was a bad idea to beard Paul in his den, but he couldn’t imagine letting the subject drop. He had to know what had happened. He quickly cleared the dirty dishes, dumping them unceremoniously in the sink, and then scurried up the two sets of stairs to the attic room where their art studio cum music room was located. Fortunately, the door was un-lockable. There was something wrong with the lock apparatus ever since he (John) had slammed it very hard a few months earlier while having a temper tantrum. Because the door was un-lockable, John was able to shove it open (the bottom of the door stuck a bit on the slightly warped floorboard beneath) and barge in.

Paul was at the piano, and at John’s abrupt appearance his two hands slammed down on the keys to play a loud, clamorous crescendo. But before Paul could open his mouth to complain, John jumped in and stole his thunder. 

“How dare you storm out on me like that?” He shouted, his arms akimbo and hands on the small of his back. “I was just concerned about you!”

On the defensive now, Paul said plaintively, “I asked you to leave me alone. I just need to be alone.” 

“I’m not leaving you alone until you give me some explanation for all this drama,” John declared, his voice lower and his tone less histrionic.

Paul sighed heavily, and allowed his forehead to hit the music rest on the piano. 

John moved over until he was sitting on the piano bench with Paul. His voice was much softer. “What happened in your therapy session? Is it really bad, or is it just something you have to digest?”

Paul didn’t see why those two things were mutually exclusive. It was really bad, and he was going to have to digest it. He said, “I don’t think I’m going back there.” 

John’s heart fell. He was afraid it would lead to this. “Paul, you can’t run away from therapy every time it gets hard.”

Paul picked his head up but his eyes were still on the piano keys. “I didn’t want my therapy to turn into this whole, ‘let’s examine your whole fucking life’ thing. I just wanted help getting over Linda’s death.”

John digested this information and then said softly, “He’s pushing you to talk about things you don’t want to talk about. That’s what therapists do. It’s their job, you know? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

Paul was upset that he had been so weak, so John’s comment only made him feel worse. 

“Paul?” John asked, his eyes filled with sympathy and concern.

It was a very long few seconds before Paul finally said, “He traps me. He tricks me into answering. I don’t want to go there anymore.” 

“What did he trap you into saying?” John asked.

“I almost told him the truth about us. I stopped just in time.” 

John was relieved. He had thought it was something serious. “So?” He said.

“I don’t want to talk about us; that’s not the problem. I can’t get him to focus on Linda.” Paul looked almost like a pouting child in that moment, and John had to stop himself from smiling. 

“You can talk about us, though,” John said gently. “You’re allowed. In fact, I’d encourage you to do it. How are you ever going to straighten out the whole Linda confusion if you don’t deal with me, too?” 

The look Paul gave John was lugubrious. He didn’t respond to John’s comment. He only said, “The whole thing felt humiliating to me, and I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

John put his arm around Paul, and laid his head on Paul’s shoulder. “Ok, mate,” he said agreeably. “But let’s go down to the sitting room and have a nice evening.”

 

*****

 

Marc Stevens had gone home that evening to his wife and children. He had passed an uneventful dinner with them, and ended up quietly ensconced in his easy chair with the London Times crossword puzzle that he had been struggling with since Sunday morning. But he wasn’t thinking about the crossword puzzle. He was thinking of Paul McCartney. He’d never had a patient stop a session 10 minutes early and announce that he had to leave. He’d never had one walk out without an explanation. He had revealed what was obviously an extremely painful secret, and it was without a doubt the reason why the man was drowning in guilt. Paul hadn’t said anything after his last comment about not cheating on his wife with a woman. It hadn’t taken much hard thinking to draw the obvious conclusion: he had brought a man into his marriage. And there was no question in Marc Stevens’s mind that the man was John Lennon. 

It was distressing how often the tabloids had the correct end of the stick.


	127. Chapter 127

Late August 1999  
London

 

John was packing up items necessary for their planned annual trip to the Hamptons on Long Island, NY. Mary and Alistair were bringing Arthur, and James had agreed to come too. Both Sean and Stella were going to spend a few days with them, later in the summer, and the whole of the Eastman family would be there too.

John was glad to have something to do because he had just pushed Paul out the door. After the disastrous therapy session of a week earlier, Paul had been unwilling to go back. He had missed a session. However, in the meantime, John had used every one of the tricks in his magic bag and had finally persuaded Paul to return. Still, John was fearful that Paul would not actually go. Maybe he would just drive around a bit, and come back? This was so frustrating to John, because whether Paul knew it or not, the therapy was going to help him move on with his life after Linda. John hoped that Paul would actually go in to the therapist’s office. He forced his mind back to his packing duties with great effort.

Paul, meanwhile, had given considerable thought to the idea of just going to a bookstore or hanging out in a coffee shop for the requisite hour, but he knew his basic honesty would force him to tell John the truth. Well, he amended, (using some of that basic honesty), it would be some of his basic honesty plus a whole lot of John’s determined nagging that would make him tell the truth. Also, truthfully, it would be incredibly rude to the therapist to not show up without advance warning. And really, Dr. Stevens deserved to be told in person that the therapy wasn’t working for him, and that he wanted to stop.

It was in this frame of mind that Paul pushed the button in the therapist’s waiting room.

Stevens was relieved to see him. Of course it was not at all unusual for a patient to miss a session after a particularly difficult one. The difference with Paul was he hadn’t come up with a bogus excuse. He hadn’t claimed to be sick, or to have a family or work emergency. He had said flat out in his voice message, “I’m not coming tomorrow. I’ll let you know about next time.” He wondered if Paul was going to tell him he was quitting today - maybe that was the reason he showed up at all. If so, Marc was going to do whatever he could to dissuade him from quitting. Maybe he’d pushed his patient too far, but it was hard to tell with Paul because Paul mostly had this bland, I’m-fine kind of expression on his face.

“Paul - glad to see you here,” Marc said softly as Paul came in and took his usual seat on the sofa. Unlike most patients, who curled up in one corner or the other, Paul always sat smack in the middle of the sofa, and kept his body in a constant state of alert. It reminded Marc of nothing so much as a bird on a railing, ready to alight at the first sign of trouble.

Paul made a semi-polite grunt in response to the therapist’s comment. He didn’t want to soften. He wanted to set some ground rules, and if the therapist wasn’t willing to follow them, then he was going to politely withdraw from the therapy.

Marc asked, “We hit a real sore spot in our last session. Do you want to talk about that? Or would you rather skirt around it and go on to something else?” Giving the patient the option, Stevens had found in his experience, often caused the patient to come back eventually to the sore spot by himself. It was the equivalent of the old saying, ‘if you love someone, set him free. If he comes back, he’s yours.’

Paul felt the tension immediately leaving him. This wasn’t going to be an unpleasant interaction. The therapist had just given him permission to skip over his solecism of the last session, and pretend as though it hadn’t happened. “I came here to help me move through my grief over Linda’s death,” Paul reminded.

Marc nodded and said, “Yes, we were talking about the guilt-triggers. We talked about your bringing Linda into the band and dragging her and your kids all over the world, and we also talked about your depression after you left the Beatles. Do we need to go back and delve deeper into those memories?”

Paul sat glumly for a few moments. It was so phony. He never felt guilty about either of those two things any more - he and Linda had worked those out between themselves years before. And he had been there for Linda, too, when she had gone through bad times. That was what marriage was about. No, truthfully, the only guilt he really carried with him today was how he had brought John into their marriage. Talking about the phony issues for the sole purpose of saving face with his therapist seemed like an empty and depressing prospect.

Marc was surprised by the look of quiet desperation that passed over Paul’s face. It was one of the rare times when the man had let his guard down and showed his true feelings. “Paul?” Marc asked softly.

This question seemed to jar Paul out of his thoughts. “I don’t think we need to talk about those things anymore,” Paul said. “I have a few regrets about them, but in the long run Linda and I forgave each other for our various lapses.” Paul felt his resistance melting. He wanted so much to move forward and to once and for all lift the weight from his shoulders.

“So we’re left with the John Lennon guilt-trigger,” Marc said in his most neutral, least inquisitive tone of voice.

Paul’s eyes jumped up to Marc’s, and Marc could see the alarm and surprise there. But a moment later, the expression melted away. Paul chuckled a little. “I see you put two and two together...”

Marc smiled. “I’d have to be a monk living in a cave not to put two and two together, Paul.”

Paul chuckled a little deeper and a little longer. When he spoke he seemed to be in complete control of his emotions, even though his tone was very subdued. “I’ve spent the last almost 20 years trying to keep this part of my life separate from that part of my life. And I always have to ask myself, who knows about this part of my life, and who doesn’t, and then I have to remember what I can say about this part of my life to what person, and what I can’t say. It’s too complicated. I just default to not saying anything at all about it to anyone.”

“I’m guessing that it is hard to be famous and a human being,” Marc opined.

Paul nodded in agreement. “You said a true thing there. I have to actively work at being normal. Ordinary. People laugh at me when I say that, but it is really hard work. You have to get used to people staring and pointing at you while you’re visiting the dentist and the dry cleaners. You have to pretend not to be bothered while the spaghetti is dripping down your chin in front of god and everyone. I have become the world’s expert in pretending not to notice. I just have to focus on what I’m trying to do, and pretend that people aren’t watching me. All the while there is my superego tugging on my conscious mind and sneering, ‘Paul, my boy, this is all a game. You’ll never be ordinary to anyone else, even if you think you are.’ It is a very strange existence I live, once I have left the privacy of my home.”

“At home you can be yourself.” Marc placed this remark into the conversation as if he were inserting a bookmark at a certain page in a book.

“Yes. And largely because of Linda I really do have an ordinary family and an ordinary home. She is the one who kept us all grounded.” Paul lapsed into a sad, reflective silence.

Marc waited. After a few moments he asked, “Does your home still feel grounded?”

“Yes,” Paul said absent-mindedly.

“And yet she is not there.”

Paul looked up and met his therapist’s eyes. “Her spirit is still there.”

“You are unlikely to ever lose that about her,” Marc opined. “But most human beings seem to need a flesh and blood person to hold on to. In the absence of a lost loved one, many people will eventually find a new human being to love. This can create dissonance - guilt over finding a new love. I’ve often found this to be the case in my practice.”

Paul had listened intently. His eyes looked broody, and his body had seemed to fold into itself. He said, “But most people don’t have two loved ones, and make those two loved ones share.”

Marc felt as though he were literally walking on eggshells. “It isn’t common, but it isn’t unheard of either. It isn’t at all unnatural to love two people at the same time.”

“Maybe it is ‘unnatural’ if one of them is the same sex as you,” Paul said, joining in the hypothetical spirit of this discussion of the habits of human beings in general, as opposed to one individual specifically.

Marc saw in Paul’s body language that they were on solid ground now. He said, “That has been disproved many times by science. People’s mores come from half-formed religious beliefs and prejudices passed down by their cultures. But science shows us that there is homosexuality in most forms of nature. It isn’t the norm, but it is a minority version of sexuality in nature.”

Paul felt far more comfortable discussing the subject when it had nothing to do with him. “There are homosexual animals?” He asked, intrigued.

“Well, you see, science doesn’t characterize the entity having sex. It categorizes the behavior instead. And there is natural recurring homosexual behavior in animals and even insects. Whether those animals and insects only engage in homosexual activity is debatable. Most of them probably also engage in heterosexual activity too. No judgments are attached to such things by animals, so it isn’t necessary to label them one thing or the other.”

“Bisexual, then, like...” Paul had almost said “me.”

Marc smiled. “I prefer the plain word ‘sexual’ myself. All of the varieties are the same thing: sex. But Homo sapiens is the species that developed rules and mores about sex, and then attached value judgments to it all.”

Paul sat back, comfortable now, interested in the discussion: give him an old-fashioned intellectual discussion over a touchy-feely emotion-fest any day. “When I was younger, I believed it was wrong.”

“And now?”

Paul’s eyebrow lifted and his eyes sparkled with self-irony. He thought about making a joke about his sexuality being a ‘moot point’ at this stage, but decided to continue the more intellectual tone of the discussion. “I guess I can’t see how it can ever be wrong to love someone - at least not when that someone is also a competent adult and loves you back. I think my youthful behavior, before I got married to Linda - having meaningless sex with countless women and maintaining several relationships at once - was far worse behavior, because there was no real love involved, and I hurt some of those women. If I believed in God, I’d be afraid I would be going to hell over that.”

Marc took a deep breath and decided to step a little closer to his patient’s own life, since he had been the one to open the door to it. “It sounds as though - at least at the end of her life - Linda was attached to John. You mentioned how he had moved in with the two of you, and helped the both of you through it.”

Paul could see the therapist nearing his open door, but it wasn’t stressing him out yet. “They were very close during her illness. I think his being there made the whole experience a lot easier for her.”

“I’m guessing that his presence in your relationship wasn’t always something that Linda appreciated?” Marc’s heart was literally thumping as he asked this. He hoped he hadn’t gone too far.

Paul had frozen up suddenly. The therapist was right at the door now. Paul could gesture him in, or he could politely make an excuse and close the door. His choice was preordained, and it was made almost without conscious thought. “No, it wasn’t always something Linda appreciated.”

“And that is the guilt-trigger you are suffering from now, isn’t it?” Marc asked, in one masterful arc bringing the storyline back to the point from which they had earlier departed.

“Yes, I think so,” Paul admitted. He was surprised at how easy it was to say the words, and relieved that the weight on his shoulders seemed to have been momentarily lifted.

“Do you want to talk about this in more detail, or is this something you are not ready to delve into yet?” Marc said this with a generous heart. He had already helped Paul to accomplish what he’d hoped he would accomplish during this session.

And then Paul took him entirely by surprise.

“I was in this position,” Paul said slowly, carefully. “I was happy in my marriage. I loved my wife and children, and I had a very successful career. I had to take a lot of shit from critics, who preferred John to me, but the public seemed to like my work, and I was satisfied. I believed the ‘John Thing’, as Linda used to call it, was well in my past, although I did miss him. I used to liken it to having an arm amputated or something. You found a way to go on without it, but somewhere deep inside you, there is this lingering ache where you feel the loss of the arm forever. I had decided that is how it would be for me forever, although I hoped with time the sense of loss would grow smaller and smaller.” Paul stopped to take a sip of water, and to consider whether he really wanted to continue. He didn’t look up to make eye contact with Marc, because if he did he would stop talking. He needed to feel as though he were talking aloud in a room by himself; otherwise, he would feel self-conscious and shut down.

“Anyway, that’s where I was when John came back into my life. I didn’t ask him to come back. I had tried to be his friend over the 10 or so years we had been estranged, but he rejected all my efforts, and he did so publicly and painfully. I had gotten to this place where I had decided there was no point in trying to be friends again. John had moved on and was still angry and bitter about me, so that was that. And then he just popped up in my life again. He came to me. I never thought in a million years that he would do that.” Paul stopped for a second, and actually looked up to connect with Marc. “You have to know John - the way he used to be. He didn’t apologize. And he didn’t go to people; people had to go to him.” Paul saw the gleam of interest in Marc’s eye and loyally jumped in quickly to defend John. “It wasn’t fame that did that to him; he was like that from the beginning. And he isn’t like that anymore, either.” Paul thought for a moment and added the postscript, “At least not with me.”

Seeing that Paul needed assurance of some kind, Marc nodded in an almost imperceptible way, and this had the effect of opening Paul’s floodgates again.

“I didn’t know what he wanted from me, because if he went so far as to come to me, I felt there must be some ulterior motive.” Paul was deep in his memories now. “I didn’t trust him.” He took another sip of water. “He asked me to meet him somewhere private, because there were things we had to discuss. I was very confused, and said he could come to my home, but no, he wanted to see me alone somewhere more neutral. He...he...well, he made it clear to me that what he wanted to talk about was us. Not about music or business, but us. He didn’t say so in so many words, but he made it clear.”

Paul leaned back in his seat and took a breath. He sat there with his mouth partly open digesting the sudden burst of light that had just hit him. Here is where the guilt started. Right here. Up until the moment John had kissed him in the bathroom at George Martin’s house in December 1980 and he had agreed to meet John alone - up until then he had been blameless and guilt-free. “I shouldn’t have gone,” he finally uttered in such a soft voice that Marc had to strain to hear it.

Because there was a long silence after this, Marc asked, “Why not?”

It was a soft, eerie question, seemingly dropped from the heavens into Paul’s mind.

 

*****

 

“How’d it go?” John had been almost afraid to ask, but as usual his poor impulse control got the better of him. He was holding his breath. He had been sitting nervously in the sitting room awaiting Paul’s return. He had a whole circus full of competing fears: (1) Paul hadn’t gone at all, and was going to come back to admit it to him and they’d have a terrible fight. (2) Paul hadn’t gone at all, and he would lie about it, and John would figure it out immediately (Paul was a pathetic liar), and they’d have a terrible fight. (3) Paul went, but fired his therapist and wouldn’t be going back again, and they would have a terrible fight. (4) Paul went, didn’t fire his therapist, but had gone completely back in his shell and the therapist had allowed him to, and everything would be back at status quo, meaning Paul would still be laden with guilt, and he - John - would be laden with this half-alive relationship indefinitely. Only one scenario was hopeful - that (5) Paul had gone, had not quit, picked up where he’d left off last time, and faced his fears and moved forward in his therapy. This possibility seemed so very remote (given Paul’s personality) that John could not convince himself that this was a likely result.

Now Paul was standing before him, rolling up his shirtsleeves, and preparing to plop down in his easy chair.

“Well?” John prompted, since he hadn’t gotten an answer to his question.

Paul completed his plop, and stretched out his legs on the hassock in front of him. He placed his arms expansively on the chair’s arms and said, “It went okay.”

John stared at Paul as if he could see straight through his skin and into his inner being. He decided a cross-examination was in order, since Paul didn’t appear to be in the mood to provide much direct testimony.

“Did you really go?” John asked suspiciously.

Paul chuckled. “Yes, John, I didn’t play hooky. Although I did give it serious consideration.” He laughed playfully.

John didn’t think Paul was that good of an actor or liar. “You seem awfully cheerful,” he remarked, still suspicious.

“I’m just so relieved to have it behind me for the day,” Paul said more seriously. “I feel enervated is all.”

He really did go! John realized. He couldn’t believe it! His face reflected his surprised delight, and this made Paul chuckle.

“Don’t get too excited, John,” Paul drawled. “It’s already brought up a number of painful memories.”

“Those are the ones you have to bring up, Paul. Or they poison you. No one knows this better than me.”

 

*****

A Few Days Later  
Therapist’s Office

 

“We concluded the last session when you stated that ‘you shouldn’t have gone there.’ I asked you why, and you indicated that you were tired. Since the session was just about over, we ended it a moment or two early.” Marc liked to sum up the previous session’s conclusion before he started a new one. Even as he recited these facts, he worried that Paul - now refortified after a few days away from the therapy - was unwilling to go back to the vulnerable place he had found himself in at the end of the last session.

But Paul continued to be a surprise. His response was immediate and composed. “You asked me why, I remember. But it was hard to come up with an answer, and I was tired. But I’ve thought about it since. That night when I went to see John privately - my wife knew it was a boundary I was crossing that I might not be able to retreat from. She told me so. I dismissed what she said, but underneath it all I knew she was right. Going to see John that night changed the course of my life, and it also changed the course of Linda’s life. If I’d stayed home, it would never have happened.”

“What is the ‘it’ that wouldn’t have happened?” Marc asked in a businesslike voice. He found that keeping his eyes on his pad and scribbling notes quietly was the least intrusive way to draw the truth out of this man. Paul visibly winced when he was asked the question; Marc could see the frown in his peripheral vision. One of Marc’s working hypotheses was that his patient was homophobic to an extent, notwithstanding the choices he had made with respect to John Lennon. Marc had seen more than one homophobic homosexual and bisexual in his years of practice, just as he had seen a few self-hating Jews, and woman-hating womanizers. The perversity of human nature never ceased to amaze him.

“I wouldn’t have taken the steps that ended up bringing John into my marriage if I had said ‘no’ that night.” Paul was avoiding the question by answering a different one. He did that a lot, and was quite good at it. Most of the time, like with journalists, it worked. But it didn’t work with Marc.

“Let’s talk about the ‘steps’ you say you took. Let’s be specific.”

Paul squirmed. This was awkward. He didn’t like to talk about sex with other people. It was so ... unseemly. “We met at this hotel I knew, and he wanted to, er, move past our feelings of anger and bitterness.”

“How did he propose to do this?” Marc asked.

There was relentlessness to this disclosure stuff, Paul was realizing. Once you opened your big fat mouth there was no telling what would come out of it. And apparently no stopping it either. “Well, he wanted to renew our previous relationship.”

“What was your previous relationship?”

Paul scowled at Marc, but he didn’t clam up. He was a little irritated, though. “When we were in our twenties, we...well, in addition to being friends, and band mates, and songwriting partners, we... experimented.”

Marc was tired of the hide-and-seek. “You mean that the two of you experimented sexually?” He tried to put these words in his most academic and bored tone of voice in order to rob them of their intrusiveness.

Paul was actually relieved that he didn’t have to say it. “Yes,” he said. His relief was so palpable in the sibilant ‘s’ that Marc had to force himself not to smile. In response, Marc saw - for his first time - the adorable but potent, slightly embarrassed but slightly mischievous expression on Paul’s face. It was a revelation. Lord, he thought distractedly to himself. If I were gay...

“How long had you and John ‘experimented’ in this way while you were in your twenties?” Marc asked.

Paul put his head back to think: late 1961 to mid 1968. “About seven years,” Paul answered.

Seven years was quite an experiment, Marc thought to himself. But he didn’t need to hold Paul accountable for this; he had figured out by putting tiny pieces of the puzzle together that: the two of them - during their Beatle years - had shared what had to have been an intense, highly charged, and long-lasting non-monogamous love affair that had ended badly. They had been bitter with and angry at each other for over 10 years as a result. Paul had repeatedly tried to turn the relationship into one of friendship and creative partnership (devoid of sex) during the 10 years they'd been estranged and had been rebuffed each time by John, who had obviously not wanted to be ‘just’ Paul’s friend. And then one day John had found the nerve, had bearded Paul in his den, and successfully lured him back into the ‘experimental’ relationship despite Paul’s happy marriage, creating tension in the marriage, and, finally, culminating in Paul’s present feelings of guilt. Marc saw it all now. And the beauty of it was that Paul still had the illusion of privacy. It was a win-win situation.

But just because Marc now knew the basic facts, it didn’t mean the work had even begun in earnest. It was only when Paul took these facts out and was able to look at them objectively that he would find relief from his haunting feelings of guilt. Still, with a roadmap in his hands now, Marc knew how to start the journey.

“You made this choice,” Marc said, returning back to the birth moment of the guilt, “and you went to see John privately at this hotel, despite your wife’s concerns. When you left that night, did you intend to renew your sexual relationship with John?”

“No!” Paul answered. It was the kind of guilty ‘no’ that escapes when a person feels threatened by the truth. But Paul quickly regrouped. “I told myself I was just going to hear John out. I still couldn’t believe he would still...” Paul felt awkward again but persevered, “... would still want me in that way. He could be ... well, he was manipulative in those days. Part of me thought he was still up to something else, and maybe he was using these...” Paul gulped. He actually felt a sweat break out on his forehead. “...These feelings we used to have for each other - maybe he was using them to get something else out of me, to do with the business or his career or something.”

“But your actual intent when you left that night was not to go out and cheat on your wife?” Marc asked.

“No-o-o-o...” Paul’s response was not very convincing.

“Perhaps you can tell me why you wanted to meet him that night, despite your concerns about his motives.”

This was a safer question. “I wanted to work with him again. My hope at the time was that we could put all the unpleasantness behind us, and work together again. There was this little niggling hope, a tiny sliver of hope, that this was what he wanted, but he was going about it in his usual manipulative way. He wouldn’t want to ask me to be his partner again if there was a chance of me saying no, so he might approach me from another direction first. That’s the way he often thought back in those days.”

“When you left that night, then, your hope was to restart your songwriting partnership, and not to cheat on your wife?” Marc asked pointedly.

“Yessss,” Paul said, watching Marc closely because he wasn’t sure where this was leading.

“So, at least at that particular moment you had nothing to feel guilty about, right?”

So that’s where he was going. But a pang of guilt tugged on Paul’s conscience. He might as well come clean. The man already knew the worst, didn’t he? “Well, it wasn’t that simple. Part of me - an even smaller part of me - thought John might actually want to start it up again between us, and then there was another part of me that was afraid if I said ‘no’ that he would trash me again in the press, and the whole nightmare would start over again. I really didn’t feel I had a choice but to go, but there was this little part of me that hoped if I went things would get sorted out and we could be friends again.”

“Friends but not lovers?” Marc asked.

Paul heard the word ‘lovers’ and displayed another distinctive twinge on his face. But he endeavored not to react as if this embarrassed him, although it truthfully did. “I hoped we’d be friends and partners again; I didn’t consciously want anything else.”

“But subconsciously?”

Fuck you, Paul thought angrily. Marc saw the irritation float past Paul’s eyebrows, and tried not to be amused by it. “I guess that maybe somewhere inside me I might have wanted him back again in that way.”

“And that’s the genesis of your guilt, don’t you think? Because of what it meant to Linda?” Marc asked. He was glad those thick weeds had been traversed without overt drama. No telling what kind of drama was going on in his patient’s head, though. The man was clearly and deeply uncomfortable with his sexuality - at least with respect to the part of it that was attracted to a man.

Paul nodded in agreement. That was the moment - the no-turning-back moment, when he had chosen John over Linda. And no matter how much he sugarcoated it and covered himself with confusion and mixed motives when talking to his therapist, the truth was that his mind had been fully aware of the idea that John might be waiting in that hotel room, pulsating with sexual desire, wanting him, and this idea had thrilled him. It had been a major reason why he had disregarded Linda’s pleas not to go. Never mind just the guilt over Linda, Paul thought, but he had looked forward to the possibility of having sex with a man that night - almost like a stranded traveler in the desert looks forward to a real oasis. That truth sent a whole other set of guilt tremors through Paul’s brain.

Paul looked up at Marc, and a world of hopelessness shone there in his eyes. Seeing this, and wanting to help, Marc asked quietly, “What are you thinking now?”

“I’m thinking what a fucking liar I am,” Paul responded succinctly. 

 

*****

 

Mid-September, 1999  
The Hamptons

 

John had managed to control his curiosity over Paul’s last therapy session before they had left for the Hamptons. Paul had told his therapist he wanted six weeks off from therapy, and would return when he got back to London in mid October. But Paul had not told John about his session, and John had not pried - despite a strong desire to do so. Still, John couldn’t help but notice that Paul seemed calmer and more centered than he had since their time alone together in Costa Rica. Of course, the kids were there - Paul’s, John’s and the Eastman kids, not to mention the baby Arthur - and Paul always seemed to be far more grounded when surrounded by his family. 

For his part, Paul had been able to successfully compartmentalize his therapy from the rest of his life, so he had not given it a moment’s thought since he’d stepped on to the private plane that had whisked him off, along with John and his family, to New York. It wasn’t as if he didn’t miss Linda while prowling through the East Hamptons house they had shared. It was just that he didn’t think about her as often as he did the previous year when he had been there without her. And the times he did miss her, the pain was milder, and some of the memories that had popped up unbidden in his mind were truly lovely ones that made him smile. Not being a naturally introspective person (only hard life events had forced him to look inward at times), he didn’t realize that these further-and-fewer-between twangs of painful memory, supplemented by a few happy memories that made him smile, amounted to a huge step forward in his recovery. He didn’t know it yet, but - after fifteen months of being mostly in darkness - he was spending more than half his time in the sun now.

They were near the end of their stay when they attended one of the many casual dinner parties the Eastman relatives had thrown (John and Paul and company had thrown a few, too). There were generally two or three very casual drop-in get-togethers per week amongst family members during this month-long family vacation, and one of those parties per week tended to be a wider party, where the hostess (one of Linda’s sisters or her sister in law) had also invited a few neighbors and friends. Tonight’s soiree was at Linda’s sister Louise Weed’s beach house, and scattered amongst the family members was a lovely recently divorced friend of Louise’s, named Grace. Grace had never been invited to one of the Eastman family events before, because although she and her husband had been near neighbors to Louise’s in upstate New York, they had not heretofore been very close. Grace’s recent divorce had been her husband’s decision, and since her only daughter from that marriage was off on a post-graduation tour of Europe, Louise had felt sorry for Grace and invited her to come visit in the Hamptons for a long weekend. This was that weekend.

Grace was very petite and slender, had straight posture, and perfectly coiffed and frosted blondish hair. She had deep blue eyes, the color of the ocean around the Greek Isles, and had a studiously acquired golden tan. She wore a tasteful and form-fitting pale lavender linen sheath, and a chunky gold chain bracelet that seemed to overwhelm her tiny wrist. She still wore her engagement ring with its sparkling 2-karat diamond, but now on her right hand, (although her wedding band had been removed). She stood tentatively on the outskirts of the crowd and nursed a tiny plastic flute of raspberry champagne cocktail, feeling shy and forgotten amongst the throng of close relatives and friends.

It was, of course, Paul who noticed her discomfort, and who rushed in to relieve it. He had always policed every party he had ever attended, looking for people who felt left out, and trying to make them fit in. It was with this innocent intent that he approached Grace.

Of course, Grace knew that Louise’s sister had been Linda McCartney. And of course she knew that Paul McCartney had vacationed with the family in Long Island. But she hadn’t thought she would meet the man in person this weekend. She thought that probably when Linda died, his connection to the Eastman family might have been more attenuated. So when suddenly he was there in front of her in all of his breathtaking glory, she was sincerely surprised.

“You!” She gasped.

Paul laughed easily. He was used to strange behavior like this when he introduced himself to someone who obviously recognized him. “I can leave if you want,” he teased, his whole essence warm and welcoming.

“Oh! No! I mean, no, please don’t. It’s just that it isn’t everyday that suddenly Paul McCartney appears before me.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Paul said jokingly, “because if it were an everyday occurrence for you, I must have been sleepwalking.”

Grace giggled, feeling at ease immediately. What an adorable man. His whole face twinkled. How’d he do that? “I’m Grace,” she said softly, putting out her hand.

And Paul agreed with her at once: she was Grace. Grace incarnate.

 

*****


	128. Chapter 128

The Hamptons,  
Late-September, 1999

 

John was in a black mood. He could barely contain his rage. There he was, surrounded by a number of people who knew about his relationship with Paul, while Paul had been openly flirting with that woman. John had tried to pretend it didn’t bother him, at least when people were giving him what he interpreted to be quick looks of concern. But it was bubbling up inside of him, and it was about to reach the danger point. 

Mary, who knew him well, and who had been grateful that evening to be able to pass her baby (the weight of a bowling ball at that point) over to a variety of eager arms, saw that John was upset and periodically glaring off in the direction of her father. Mary looked in the direction of her father and saw him being charming to a strange woman. At the moment she looked, Paul had grabbed the arm of one of her uncles passing by, and dragged him into the conversation so that now it was a three-way. Mary looked back at John and saw in a flash that John was putting two and two together and was getting a very angry five. She politely excused herself from the conversation she was having while nursing her one glass of wine of the evening (she didn’t want to make her son drunk on her breast milk) and sauntered (if a saunter can be quick and deft) over to John. She came up on his backside, and she quickly put her arms around his waist and squeezed. 

John jumped. What tha? Then he heard Mary’s giggle. She let go and came ‘round to his side, and John turned to meet her eyes. 

Mary saw the pain in John’s eyes and it really affected her. She let her eyes smile sympathetically into his eyes and whispered “It’s not what you think” into his ear.

John asked just as quietly, “What’s not what I think?” 

For an answer, Mary turned in the direction of her father until John had done the same, and then she turned back to John until his eyes came back to her. She whispered, “He’s being polite. She was a stray. Daddy is like a sheepdog, and he brings the strays back to the herd at parties. Mum always joked about it with us. It’s his M.O. Nothing to worry about.” 

John had to smile at Mary’s words. The sight of Paul the sheepdog, barking at the heels of little lost lambs and protectively guiding them back to safety, seemed just about right. He felt himself relaxing. 

Mary slipped her arm around John’s waist, and turned in the direction of her aunt Jodie. She said smoothly, “This month has really gone fast. We have to leave for London in a few days.” 

John allowed the small talk to fall over and around him. Inside, his emotions were a jumble. He felt so fucking insecure that he was seeing threats to his relationship with Paul everywhere. There didn’t have to be any rhyme or reason to his fears. They were just there all the time now. Like how he used to feel in the ‘60s when Paul was free to cavort with stables of beautiful young women, and he had to watch it all and pretend that it didn’t hurt him terribly. He hadn’t expected this consequence of Linda’s death: yet again Paul was a very desirable single man in the eyes of the world, and the last time that was true, John had gotten very badly hurt.

 

*****

 

Later that night as he prepared for bed, Paul seemed a little bit too chipper from John’s point of view. He was actually whistling while he undressed and brushed his teeth. He wandered around doing his nightly chores stark naked with not the least bit of self-consciousness. John was already lying in bed, naked, propped up on his elbow and watching the display with one part approval and one part suspicion. 

“You’re awfully cheerful tonight Pud,” John said with his patented sardonic voice. Still, there was a naughty twinkle in John’s eye as he spoke. (John might be suspicious, but he also couldn’t help but be intoxicated by all that beauty being flaunted in front of him.) 

Paul looked up in mid-whistle and smiled. “I’m actually feeling good tonight. I’m not depressed!” He declared this as if it were a major accomplishment. And in truth, it was.

“That blond woman you were flirting with isn’t the reason, is she?” John couldn’t help but throw it out there, although he tried to do it in a tone of voice that sounded amused, not pissed.

Paul looked a little confused, and then he realized whom John was referring to: Grace. Paul gave John a wise-guy look and said, “I wasn’t flirting. I was being kind. She looked lonely off by herself.”

“You were flirting. You flirt with everyone.” John was enjoying this conversation now. He could see that Paul was looking forward to some after-bickering sex tonight, just as he was. He decided to prolong the anticipation.

Meanwhile, Paul was saying, “You call it flirting, I call it being polite. It’s harmless, though, isn’t it? No one got hurt.” Paul said this but there was a little bit of a question mark in his eyes. He was watching John’s face to make sure John wasn’t hurt.

John fell on to his back, and moved his legs around lasciviously. He maintained a faux-innocent expression as he did so, wanting Paul to be aroused by it but at the same time not wanting Paul to think that he had done the maneuver purposely to arouse him. Man, love was complicated, John thought with a slight bit of irritation.

Paul saw the movements and knew immediately that John was taunting him. Well, he could play along. Two could play at this game. Paul stretched luxuriously, his arms over his head, and his stomach muscles tightening. His arms looked buff and hairy, and if he sucked his stomach in enough, it looked pretty good. It didn’t hurt that his private member had become alert.

John groaned and then laughed. “Okay, big boy. Get your ass over here. I can’t take it anymore!” 

Paul practically leapt onto the bed, making John bounce a little on the mattress. His roving hand found it’s way to John’s lower abdomen, where it lightly played with the hairs fringing John’s pelvic region. “You need to stop being jealous,” Paul whispered in a low, sexy voice into John’s ear. He did so as he nuzzled John’s neck. “I’m behaving myself.”

John didn’t have an answer. His head was thrown back, exposing his neck, which Paul had decided to kiss repeatedly. John felt the intense heat rising from his feet, up through each of his legs to his inner thighs, until the two strands of energy joined together in one strong pulse in his groin. It was as if his penis went to a degree of erectness he’d never felt before. Maybe Paul was a tiger by the tail - but at least he was a tiger. 

Paul’s whispers and kisses were making him insane, so he couldn’t wait any longer. He grabbed Paul’s cock and enjoyed the “Ummph!” sound Paul was forced to emit. 

I guess the foreplay is over, Paul said logically to himself. Time to get busy. But he was a stubborn Irishman, and didn’t like to be rushed. He’d rather slow down - in the right way - than be rushed. With this thought, he lifted John’s legs up slowly, and then allowed his chest to dip down until it almost met John’s. He kissed him softly first, and then deeply. John was doing that moaning thing at the back of his throat that was such a come on to Paul. John loved the feathery kisses that Paul enjoyed bestowing on his chest and throat.

John’s hand wrapped around Paul’s cock, and he began to pump softly, causing Paul to abandon the kisses and fall over on to his side. John turned so he was facing Paul, all without disrupting the rhythm of his pumping. Paul reached out and grabbed John’s, too, and there, side-by-side, they pleasured each other to a jubilant joint climax. 

 

*****

 

Grace had been utterly charmed by Paul McCartney. Of course, most people were. She had never been much of a popular music fan, although she had done her share of pretend squealing at the British pop stars that her older sister was always going on about. She had been just a wee bit too young for full scale Beatlemania, and she had been just a wee bit too old for the David Bowie phenomenon. Such were the vagaries of inter-generational timing. She had been born into money, so nouveau riche celebrities’ wealth did not impress her. What had impressed her about Paul was the effortless charm that had seemed to sparkle even in the air around him. He brought with him a conspiratorial sense of mischief and warmth - the mischief cute and harmless, the warmth palpable and inclusive. The other thing about Paul’s charm: it was clearly not the manufactured kind that evaporated when it was no longer needed. It seemed to be a permanent aspect of Paul’s interactions with other people. In short, his charm was an integral part of him, and not brought out only for show like a party piece. After spending 20 years of her life with a man who was, she had to admit, charmless, Paul’s charm had been intoxicating to her, like heady champagne. She wasn’t used to it, and it had gone straight to her head. 

The morning after the party, Grace tried to squeeze information out of Louise at the breakfast table, while also trying not to be seen doing it. She interspersed her chatter with the occasional innocent question or comment, hoping to generate the answers she wanted. 

“I met your brother-in-law for the first time last night,” Grace commented to Louise after the others had left the table. They were sitting there sharing morning coffee and gossiping about Louise’s family members and friends. 

“Which one?” Louise asked innocently.

“Why the one of course - Paul.” Grace smiled self-deprecatingly, to show she was aware that she was being a little girlish about it all.

“You never met Paul before?” Louise asked. She was surprised. Paul had been an integral part of her family for 30 years, and a generous and loving one at that. So many times he’d footed the bill for the whole family to visit some exotic locale. So many times he had thoughtfully sent each of her children a hefty check or a thoughtful gift on their birthdays. So many times he had been there to quietly hold the family together when they were going through difficult times, like when Lee, her father, had died. He had stood by her brother John through thick and thin. In fact, she no longer thought of Paul as a famous person or even a fantastically wealthy person. He was just a treasured part of her family. 

Grace said, “This is the first time I’ve met your family.” She said this gently, but it did prove to prod Louise’s memory.

“Oh, yeah, of course. It’s just that he’s just ‘Paul’ to me, you know? He’s truly like a brother to me. I forget what he is to everyone else.” 

“Well, he was so sweet. I was standing off by myself and he came to my rescue, very gallantly.” Grace said this with obviously feigned overwrought drama, making Louise smile.

Louise said, “He’s always been like that. I think sometimes that he must have felt like an outsider himself at one point, because he hates to see someone left out or feeling uncomfortable.”

This did not exactly scratch where Grace itched. She didn’t like to hear that Paul’s interaction with her was not special and unique. The idea that he might simply have been fulfilling a social imperative did not fill her heart with cheer. She subsided with the Paul talk for a few minutes, while she licked her figurative wounds.

A few minutes later when the subject of Linda’s absence was brought up by Louise, Grace said, “Paul seemed to be in good spirits, though. How is he doing with his loss?”

Louise said, “He was really devastated last year, that’s for sure. I’d never seen him like that. He was crying all the time, and it was heartbreaking. But he seems to have sown himself together again - at least to the point where he is not breaking down in front of people any more.” 

“How long were they married?”

Louise said, “They had lived together for almost 31 years, and had been married for 29 years. And they had the best relationship I ever witnessed between a man and a wife, despite all the craziness that surrounded them.”

“He seems like such a contradiction in terms - I mean, a rock star but a solid husband.” Grace was fishing.

Louise nodded her agreement. “He has never bought into that ‘rock star’ image thing. Linda used to say that he was always ineffably himself. She said the other three Beatles were frequently kind of harsh to him because he was enthusiastic, and hard working, and sentimental, suspicious of mind altering drugs, and loved all kinds of music besides just rock music. Apparently, they felt that he wasn’t ‘cool’ enough at times. But Linda always said that in fact Paul was the ‘coolest’ one of all, because he did not cave in to what his friends’ demands suggested he should be.” 

“I saw that John Lennon was there last night,” Grace commented. Hadn’t she heard some stupid tabloid gossip about Lennon and Paul? She vaguely remembered something of that sort, but now having met Paul in the flesh she dismissed the gossip out of hand. Whatever it was.

Louise’s eyes jerked up and met Grace’s for a split second. It was a wary and uncomfortable look. Grace noticed it and wondered what it meant, but then it quickly disappeared. “John has become a part of our family, too, in a way,” Louise said carefully. “He was Linda’s friend as well as Paul’s, and he was incredibly good to her and supportive of Paul while she was ill. All the kids in the family adore him; he’s more like a teenager than an adult.” Louise smiled with genuine affection.

“Strange that he hasn’t remarried,” Grace said. She hadn’t meant anything ulterior by it. She had just thought it was odd that the man who was known as such a womanizer in his youth, and who had clung so much to his wife during his second marriage, should remain so resolutely unattached given all the time that had passed since his divorce.

Louise shifted a little in her seat. She said, “I don’t think that John is the marrying kind. He told me once that he had two marriages, each of them lasted about 10 years, and they both failed because he lost interest. I think he has decided that marriage is not for him.” Louise wasn’t entirely comfortable with the subterfuge she was engaging in, but she also felt that her words, as such, were true. She truly did believe that Lennon wasn’t much of a ‘marriage’ fan, at least when it came to women. And anyway, Louise didn’t know Grace all that well; she hadn’t even discussed this issue with her closest friends. Family secrets remained family secrets only so long as the family kept them secret from everyone but family. 

Grace dismissed John Lennon from her mind. It had been only a passing interest. Her mind returned to a pair of melting hazel eyes, and an impish but sexy grin. Inwardly, she sighed like a 13 year-old girl. “So,” Grace asked, leaning forward as though her interest in the desired information was purely of gossip-value only, “has Paul started seeing other women yet?”

Louise’s reflexive reaction was one of distaste. She didn’t like to think of Paul with any woman other than her sister. She knew this was selfish and unreasonable, but it was honestly how she felt. She assumed she’d get over it with time, but she dreaded the idea of some other woman pulling him away from their family, which would probably be inevitable. And then there was the whole Lennon thing ... none of her siblings really understood the depth and the breadth of that relationship. They hadn’t wanted to pry, Linda had been fairly cryptic about it, and Paul had always been such a private person. They none of them knew if the relationship was open (in that perhaps John had relationships with other people) or whether it was not. So Louise wasn’t at all clear about what would happen between Paul and John in the future. None of this was Grace’s business, though, so she decided to try to cut off this line of questioning. 

“No,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t think he has started dating again. I think it is going to take him much longer before he approaches that particular abyss.” 

Grace thought it odd that Louise should refer to Paul’s dating again as an ‘abyss.’ But she also felt she had gone as far as she could go with respect to picking Louise’s brain about Paul.

 

*****

 

“Oh boy, yet another family gathering,” grumbled John, although in truth his complaint was not serious. He was in an incredibly good mood today, his mind still lingering amongst the sweaty sheets of last night’s lovemaking. 

“Our last one for the summer, and then we leave for New York tomorrow,” Paul responded absent-mindedly. Paul was referring to the fact that, while his kids were flying back to London, he had agreed with John to head for their New York apartment and spend a few weeks there, where they could celebrate John’s upcoming birthday. Paul knew instinctively that John needed to decompress from all this enforced family togetherness, and was happy to oblige him. 

It was a Saturday morning. They were in their bedroom, primping themselves in preparation for a brunch to be hosted at John and Jodie’s place. The whole family would be there again, along with a few close friends, to say their end-of-summer goodbyes to each other the day before they all returned to their primary residences.

“It will be good to see Jay and Ger again,” John said, thinking ahead to New York.

Paul smiled. Jay and Ger? It made them sound like cartoon characters. “Have you made any plans with them?” He asked idly.

“We’re going to the theatre, and Jason’s found a really great new French restaurant,” John said excitedly.

Paul heard the ‘we’re’ and assumed that meant he was going too. John had started ‘managing’ Paul’s social engagements in much the same way that Linda had done. Early in their marriage, Linda had arrived at the firm conviction that Paul had to be blasted out of his music room in order to be made to go to a social event, but once he got there he was usually the life of the party. John seemed lately to be following the same path: the Fait Accomplis Method of Husband Handling. 

Paul stopped in mid-thought. Did he just refer to himself as ‘husband’ in connection with John? He was startled by this. Since Linda’s death he had missed the many little wifely things she had done for him - the fussing over his meals, his comfort, his health, and the unspooling of his little snits and snarls. But now, when he came to think of it, John was doing those things for him, too. Had John only just started doing it since Linda’s death? Or had he been doing it all along? Paul wondered if his own blind prejudice in favor of Linda acting as his ‘wife’ had blinded him to John’s similar efforts? He made a note to himself to bring this up in therapy sometime. Not yet, of course, he told himself firmly. He had a long way to go before he could nonchalantly talk with his therapist about his day-to-day life with John. 

Wait. Paul stopped himself again. Did he just imply to himself that he intended in the future to talk with his therapist about his life with John? Good lord! What was wrong with him today? 

 

*****

 

Most of the guests had already arrived at the Eastman home when Paul, John, Mary, Alistair (and baby Arthur), James, Stella, and Sean arrived together. They’d all come together in a three-car motorcade for this last summer visit, and between the eight of them they certainly added bulk to the already burgeoning crowd. 

John and Paul looked stylish and hip despite the fact that each was fast approaching his 60th birthday. In fact, John’s 60th was less than two weeks away. John wore his ever-present form-fitting blue jeans but had left the New-York-Cool black pullover at home. Instead, he had put on a cerulean blue pullover, and wore his snappy white Converses. Paul, however, looked like a bright candy-shop window. John had laid out some form-fitting blue jeans and a pale blue and white gingham shirt that tapered nicely at the waist, and contrasting with Paul’s suntan, the shirt just popped. John had himself folded up Paul’s shirtsleeves to a fashionable ¾ length while Paul had stood there watching him with a perplexed but amused expression on his face, and then John had insisted that Paul not tuck the shirt ends in to his jeans, and to leave the neck unbuttoned enough that his white undershirt showed through. Paul had insisted on wearing his comfortable boat shoes, though. This did not distress John nearly as much as it could have done, because at the beginning of the summer he had thrown away the old ones with the worn out seams and cracked soles when Paul wasn’t looking, and had replaced them with an identical (but new) pair. When Paul had first realized this, he had been a little put out that his favorite comfy shoes had been deep-sixed, but he had been mollified somewhat by the fact that the new ones were identical in color and style to the old ones, and were quite comfortable despite being new. 

In any case, objectively speaking, Paul looked gorgeous. And John was not the only one who thought so. Grace, who had positioned herself so she would be able to see all the new arrivals funneling through the sliding glass door on to the deck, saw Paul immediately. In that pale blue shirt and tan he seemed to sparkle again, this time in the bright mid-morning sunlight. A pair of dark glasses sat insouciantly on his tousled head. Her heart jumped. In her fantasies she had thought she would stroll up to him and suavely begin to razz him a bit, maybe once in a while coquettishly shaking her hair back in that sophisticated way that femmes fatale did in the movies. But now that he was there, she was frozen to the spot. She couldn’t imagine approaching him at all, much less carrying off being suave and coquettish in his company. 

As the morning progressed, Grace found herself frustrated not only by her own fear of approaching Paul, but by the fact that John Lennon seemed to be always at his side. Grace could only just barely imagine herself sidling up to Paul, perhaps catching his eye, and allowing Paul’s natural charm and kindliness to spill over on to her; but she could not imagine anything like that being possible or pleasant with the acerbic Lennon and his withering, knowing eyes watching her the whole time. 

This, by the way, was no accident. John had seen Grace waiting like a spider on the outer edges of its web as soon as he had stepped out on to the deck. He had sized the situation up in fewer than 2 seconds. He knew she was coveting Paul, and he also knew that she was going to be sorely disappointed. John Lennon would see to that. So he had deliberately stayed by Paul’s side, and they had moved from small group to small group in tandem until Paul turned to him and asked,

“Are you okay? You seem to be awfully clingy today.” 

John was irritated at the word ‘clingy.’ After all, Linda had remained glued to his side wherever they went, and had even grabbed on to his arm the whole time as if for her life’s sake, and Paul had never asked her what was wrong and told her that she was ‘clingy.’ John snapped, “Excuse me for just wanting to be near you.”

Paul laughed. It was that maddening laugh Paul perpetrated when he had seen through one of John’s purported bad moods. “You’re practically on top of me, though,” Paul teased. “Give me a little space. People will talk.” Paul’s eyes were dancing with merriment as he said this, and it entirely took the sting out of the comment. 

“Oh shut up,” John said, surreptitiously smacking Paul on his butt. 

Worried, Paul looked behind him and was grateful to see that no one was there. As he turned back he spied poor Grace, out there on the edges of the group again. His soft heart felt for her. “Look, John, there’s Grace. She looks lonely.”

John hadn’t known the woman’s name, but he knew automatically whom Paul meant. Lonely my ass, he snarled to himself. She was standing there giving Paul her sad ‘help me’ eyes, and Sir Save-a-Hoe was already saddling up his fucking white horse. John said sourly, “By now you’d think she would have made some friends inside the family; she’s been around all weekend.”

Paul was already moving in her direction and paid no attention to what John had said. Sighing, John followed at a very close remove. 

“Grace!” Paul cried as he neared her. He opened up his arms for a hug. 

He fuckin’ hugs every fuckin’ thing... John groused to himself.

“Have you met John?” Paul asked politely, after he had disconnected himself from Grace’s arms. (He had thought to himself as he had hugged her, her hair smells so nice. So... feminine!) 

Grace turned her great deep blue eyes on John, and noticed what could only be described as a suspicious hostility glaring at her in return. Her smile faltered a bit, and the hand she had put out in greeting was only slightly squeezed. She transferred her liquid gaze to Paul. “No, I haven’t. It’s my pleasure.” She aimed this remark at John, but John knew that she knew that he disliked her, and that she knew that John knew she knew, and although Grace didn’t know why John disliked her, she had definitely got the point that he did. Grace had long before gotten the impression from general Beatles lore that John was one of those tricky personalities that could take instant dislikes to people, and here she was experiencing it in real life!

Paul didn’t seem to notice John’s stony silence as he asked Grace, “So when are you leaving for home?” 

“Tomorrow sometime,” Grace said. She allowed her eyelashes to flutter just a little bit, but immediately felt self-conscious about it. She wanted to keep her options open for tomorrow and not tie herself down to any specific time of departure. Maybe he’d ask her out to brunch tomorrow? Or possibly for a walk on the beach? Maybe he’d ask her out tonight if she played her cards right. Her heart skipped another beat. “I’ve had a great time this weekend.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’ve made too many friends in this crowd, though,” John interjected. In the context of her conversation with Paul, John’s interjection sounded very much like that terrible grinding sound when an engine is jammed. Grace looked at John in confusion.

Paul may not have noticed John’s cool silence, but he certainly noted this rude remark. He turned towards John and shot him a warning glare. To cover the awkwardness, Paul quickly appended, “It’s hard to know where to start with this crowd. I remember the first time I spent some time with this family - they’re all so tight, I felt quite awkward.”

Grace smiled gratefully at Paul. He was so sweet and so thoughtful. But she doubted that Paul ever for a moment felt out of place or awkward with this family, or with anyone else for that matter.

John internally smacked himself in the back of his head. That comment had backfired! He had only been trying to point out to Paul that this was a set up! It had failed miserably, because now Paul and Grace looked even friendlier with each other, united in their polite disapproval of his gauche remark. 

“You look like you need a fresh drink,” Paul said gallantly to Grace. “I’ll get you another one.” Grace smiled her thanks. John looked down at his own near empty glass with the melting ice and felt a prick of jealousy that Paul didn’t offer to refresh his drink too. With a bit of irritation, John aimed at a nearby trashcan and tossed the plastic glass at it. It missed. John shrugged, and Grace tried not to notice.

After Paul went off on his errand, Grace had thought that John would drift away too; but no, he stayed planted right where he was, and just stared at her. She finally met his eyes and asked as charmingly as possible, “Have I offended you in some way?”

Her question was so direct and without drama that John’s anger was checked a bit. It was clear the woman had no idea about the nature of his relationship with Paul. To her, Paul was a very attractive and wealthy widower, and so it must seem as though he were ‘available’ from her point of view. John’s expression softened somewhat, but nevertheless he still felt that brutal honesty was on order.

“I’ve been watching women try to ensnare him for 42 years now,” John said. He had schooled himself to look bored and to sound matter-of-fact. “I guess I tend to suspect women when they are obviously coming on to him. I worry about their true motives.” He stopped. He could see that Grace was both surprised and insulted by what he had said. He couldn’t let this bother him because he had an important job to do. “He’s very vulnerable right now,” John added by way of explanation. “He’s my oldest and best friend. It’s my job to look after him.”

Grace had indeed been insulted by the first part of John’s explanation, but was somewhat comforted by the latter. She said, “I’m not really coming on to him.”

John gave her a very skeptical look.

She laughed to hide her embarrassment. “I want to come on to him, that’s true. But I’m too out of practice and shy. I just got divorced after 20 years. My husband left me for his 24 year old secretary. I’m a sad cliché now.” She made a face that indicated that she knew she was a clumsy flirt. “I meant to come on to him, but I froze. He is so beautiful. I just stand there like an idiot with my mouth open. The stupidest words come out.”

Despite himself, John burst out laughing. The woman was a mensch. Who knew? Ahhhh, Paul. His Paul. Paul, thy name is Heartthrob. He said gruffly, “You did okay. You didn’t sound nearly as stupid as most of them do.” 

Grace giggled. Lennon was scary, but he was also very funny, in a raunchy, unforgiving sort of way. 

But John quickly added, “It seems you’re vulnerable right now, too. Don’t read too much in to Paul’s friendliness. He really is a shameless flirt, although he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. He thinks it’s harmless, but I’ve noticed over the years that many women have taken his flirting to heart, and no doubt they later suffered for it.” 

Grace scrutinized John’s face. Was he really concerned about her feelings? She doubted that seriously. It sounded more like a warning-off; clearly, John didn’t think Paul was ready to have a relationship with another woman so soon after Linda’s death, and so he was telling her to back off.

Paul returned. He had not only brought Grace a fresh drink, but also one for John. Feeling ashamed of his earlier jealousy, John said, ‘Ta’ softly, and Paul gave him a warm smile. Grace thought to herself how close their friendship must be - 42 years did John say? Think of all the things they had seen, done, and endured together! It was hard to fathom. It had to be that John was trying to protect Paul from her, as if she were some kind of gold-digging con artist. She knew that she was neither of those two things. The trust fund her parents had left her, and her half of the marital property of course, would leave her in very comfortable straits the rest of her life. She also knew that she wasn’t sophisticated enough to be a ‘player’ who conned men. She was just a very recently divorced and thus naïve middle-aged woman, who had looked up from the dark place she had been in and seen a beckoning ray of light. Maybe, if she could get close to Paul, his friend John would eventually see that she meant him no harm. 

John said, “Paul, it looks like John and Jodie are gesturing to us.” He wanted to get Paul away from this woman, and so had invented this overture. While John had arrived thinking the woman was the usual run of star struck fan that wanted Paul for his fame and money, now he had realized she was a very sweet woman with a touching amount of honesty and humility. She was very dangerous indeed. Paul might even really fall for her if he was allowed to spend much unsupervised time in her company. So he was dragging Paul away from her. John’s ultimate goal was thwarted, however, by the ever-thoughtful Paul, who said,

“Grace, come with us. Have you met John and Jodie?” He picked up her hand and put it in the crook of his arm, and led her towards John and Jodie. John followed behind swearing to himself, and opening and closing his fists to try to vent the angry energy coursing through him. Blast Paul and his fuckin’ chivalry and the fuckin’ white horse it rode in on!

John started to drink a little too much. All he wanted to do was to get Paul away from this danger, and have the man all to himself again. He didn’t like the feeling of impending doom that hung over him every time Paul had protectively leaned down to listen to something Grace was saying. John had even looked appraisingly at his wine glass a few times, thinking how satisfying it would be to throw the wine in Grace’s face. Or Paul’s face. Or anyone’s face.

If he hadn’t been drinking so much, he might have noticed when Grace whispered softly in Paul’s ear, “It’s such a lovely day. Would you like to walk with me on the beach a little?”

 

*****


	129. Chapter 129

East Hamptons Farewell Party  
Late September 1999  
(Continued)

 

Paul had heard Grace’s question, and an alarm bell had gone off in his head. His eyes had skittishly searched for John, and he had been relieved to see that John was too busy glowering into his cups to have overheard. Grace was lovely. She was obviously sweet and cultured. She smelled really good. But she wasn’t Linda, and - more to the point - she wasn’t John. Maybe John was right about his flirting - maybe it did cause harm. All of this went through Paul’s head in a split second. Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain why he did it, although he vaguely attributed it to what he had learned about himself in therapy: that he told himself a lot of first class lies. He didn’t want to do that anymore. 

Grace noted the flickering in Paul’s eyes. Awkward. He was trying to find an excuse to say ‘no’ to her. She felt her face flooding with blood, and knew that it would be bright red by now. But Paul deftly took her arm, and spun her around and walked slowly away from the crowd with her. When they were in a private space, he said to her quietly and earnestly,

“John wouldn’t like it if we took a walk on the beach, unless he was there too.”

Grace was confused. What did John have to do with it? It did not compute. 

Paul could see that Grace didn’t get his point. He would have to be a little more obvious. “I’m not really free to take romantic walks on beaches with beautiful women like you. For me, it’s kind of like being married.” 

Grace stood there in confusion as the words sunk in. Paul could see that her forehead was creased with wrinkles as she thought. Then - suddenly - the wrinkles cleared and she said, “Ohhh...” 

Paul chuckled. “’Ohhh’, indeed!”

Grace fumbled with words but finally was able to say, “I’m sorry! I didn’t know.”

“Why should you have known? We go to great lengths to keep it secret.” Paul looked warm and jolly. He was obviously trying to erase the awkwardness from the scene.

“But...but...Linda...” Grace couldn’t help herself. She’d thought that Paul’s marriage to Linda had been great - at least that is what Louise had said. She was Linda’s sister - wouldn’t she know the truth? 

Paul smiled in sympathy with Grace’s confusion. “I loved Linda very much, and she was my wife and the mother of my children. But Linda was also John’s friend, and the three of us chose to live together years ago. Now it’s just John and me.”

Grace was thinking that maybe Linda and John had also had a relationship. A genuine three-way! This was too unorthodox for her. She stood there helplessly, not knowing what to say. 

Paul relieved her of the necessity. “It’s weird, I know. I don’t expect you to understand. I do hope you will respect my privacy, though.”

“Of course I will,” Grace said truthfully. She then looked around at all the Eastmans on the deck. “Do they know?” She asked. 

Paul realized she was talking about the Eastmans. “More or less,” Paul chuckled.

“And they’re okay with it?”

Paul gave that some thought. “I don’t know if they’re okay with it, but they are used to it, and they never make John or me feel awkward about it.” 

Grace nodded. She thought back to her conversation with Louise at the breakfast table a few days earlier and was reminded of the feeling she’d had that Louise was holding something back. Now she knew what it was. It didn’t make her feel better to learn that she had been barking so very loudly up the completely wrong tree, but at least Paul wasn’t rejecting her. He was just rejecting the idea of betraying John, which she had to admit was very noble. Especially considering what her own husband had recently done to her. It also made clear John’s instant hostility to her. She blushed a bit to think of the things she had said about Paul to him. Under the circumstances it was amazing that he hadn’t slapped her face!

 

*****

Still standing across the deck from them, John had noticed with a start that he had lost track of Paul. One moment Paul had been there with the dread pirate Grace standing next to him, and the very next they were gone - Poof! He was much in his cups (too many mimosas) and became flooded with anxiety. He looked around desperately to see if he could see them. His heart was beating extraordinarily fast. Finally he did see them, off in one corner of the huge deck. The rage built up in him. He knew he was about to make a scene - there was no stopping now! Just as he thought this, he saw Paul laugh. What the fuck? He started moving purposely through the crowd, using his elbows, and giving abrupt nods to anyone who tried to engage him along the way, making a beeline for the corner of the deck where he’d last seen Paul. But when he got there, Paul and Grace were gone. Frustrated and very afraid now, John looked around desperately again. Had they slipped off to find a private place to fuck? He again began to feverishly scan the crowd, and suddenly a voice, approaching from the side, asked,

“John? Are you okay?” It was Paul. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Paul added, his face covered with concern. 

When John turned to face him, Paul saw such a look of grateful relief that he was filled with remorse. Yes, he enjoyed the company of women. He enjoyed their voices, their looks, their smell... But in that moment he realized how much pain his flirting had caused Grace and now John. He felt ashamed, even though he had never meant anyone harm. 

John blurted out, “Where’s Grace?”

Paul said, “Don’t know. Over there somewhere.” He waved in the direction of the other side of the deck. 

“I saw you and her over here - together - just moments ago...” John said, slowly regaining his footing, and starting to feel his anger again. His pronunciation of the word ‘together’ had a whole world of meaning in it, which Paul interpreted accurately.

Paul scrunched up his nose and said a little shame-facedly, “She wanted to walk on the beach with me. I had to explain to her privately why I could not.”

John was completely still for several seconds. “And so?” He finally asked.

“And so I told her how it is between you and me, and now hopefully she is off flirting with somebody else.” Paul’s eyes were soft and warm and they insisted upon John’s eyes staying with them as he spoke. 

John sighed rather heavily, his heart still clanging away a bit. “I thought I’d lost you in the crowd...”

Paul knew that John meant more than just losing sight of him on the deck. Paul knew that John had feared that he had lost him forever. That was the first place John went when he thought he was being abandoned. He couldn’t help himself. Paul said, “You’re never going to ‘lose’ me, John, although someday you might kick me to the curb. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - you are stuck with me, mate.” 

John smiled, although the smile was a little sickly. He hadn’t quite recovered from the debilitating panic he had just gone through. He was very unsettled inside, because Paul had behaved just as he should, and had shown his loyalty. Paul had told him all along that he wasn’t ‘flirting’ - at least not flirting in order to accomplish a seduction. And still John could not believe him. After everything they’d been through, he still could not believe that, by putting himself in Paul’s hands, he was in a safe place. It was a jarring moment as he realized that he still had a lot of work to do in his own therapy. Lately, he had been so wrapped up in wondering about Paul’s therapy, that he had lost sight of his own. 

Paul could see that John was unsettled. “Why don’t we say good bye to everyone, and go back to our place and spend a few hours alone?” Paul asked softly. John nodded, feeling warmth about the words ‘our place’, but he waited for Paul to make the first move. Consequently, Paul took John by the arm (just as he had done earlier for Grace), and led him over to where John and Jodie were sitting. They said their goodbyes, and then Paul led John off the deck and over to the car. He even opened the car door for John, which made John smile a little in spite of his shaken mood. 

Paul’s courtliness was not missed by Mary and Stella, who had been sitting in the same group as John and Jodie. Mary turned to Stella and smiled. “They’re so cute, aren’t they?”

Stella nodded. “Adorbs,” she opined.

 

*****

 

New York City  
October 4, 1999

 

The release party for Run Devil Run had taken place in New York, and it had been a great success. Everyone who was anyone in the music business had shown up, and now the party was winding down. Paul was off to one side playing a piano, accompanied by Pete Townshend on a kazoo, while Gerry stood by and chuckled at the old-fashioned music they were dredging up from their memories. John was seated at their dinner table several feet away, having a quiet talk with Jason. The table was one of about thirty, and only a few people remained at some of these, speaking in slightly drunken and very understated voices to each other about industry gossip. The empty tables showed the effects of the evening’s bacchanalia; all of them were scattered with crumbs, abandoned serviettes, discarded program cards, and stray glasses half full with flat champagne. 

“It was an eye-opening moment,” John was confessing to Jason. The combination of euphoria over the album’s and party’s successes and the relief that the room was now dark and quiet had brought forth John’s most private thoughts. He had just described to Jason how Paul had been conversing with a woman at a party and how he, John, had had a near break down as a result.

“Paul was wrong to flirt in front of you,” Jason stated loyally. “We both know he means nothing by it - he can hardly help himself - but he must know by now how it worries you.”

John said, “The thing is, he told me he was only being polite. I couldn’t believe him. I totally freaked out. There he was, surrounded by his in-laws, and I was actually convinced he’d snuck off somewhere with this woman. I couldn’t find him - it was only seconds - and I was literally in a total panic. It wasn’t normal.”

Jason kept to himself the observation that almost nothing about John Lennon was what you could call ‘normal.’ Instead, he said, “Did he sneak off somewhere?” Jason was preparing to be scandalized.

“No. She asked him to, and he told her no, and he also told her why - that he was with me.” John’s expression was so clearly of the ‘knock-me-over-with-a-feather’ variety that Jason’s heart grabbed a little at the sight of it.

Jason said, “Well, good for him. It doesn’t surprise me - he’s loyal to you. But he really must learn not to lead these poor women on. It wasn’t only hurtful to you, but also to her, no doubt.”

John hadn’t given Grace a second thought until that moment, but now that Jason had brought it up, he felt a pang of pity for the woman: she had just gotten dumped by her husband for a newer model. Then, her first time out with her toe in the water and this happened! She might never flirt again. 

John said honestly, “He doesn’t really know the full effect he has on people. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.”

“He should know by now, and learn to contain it,” Jason said staunchly.

John said, “I don’t know. He can’t help being who he is. He just is charming. He is fucking charm personified! I wouldn’t want him to change that about him - would you?”

The rallying of John’s loyalty pleasantly surprised Jason, and he smiled. “No, I suppose not.” He thought about it a little longer and then added with a twinkle in his eye, “I certainly love it when he flirts with me.”

John laughed out loud. It was a contagious and naughty laugh that carried across to Paul at the piano who, without turning his head or even stopping his piano playing, shouted, “What are you up to over there, John Lennon?”

“I’m telling ‘em all the truth about you!” John shouted back.

“Not again!” Paul responded loudly, and then created a pronounced echoing piano crash (like the sound at the end of Day in the Life) as a complement.

Everyone laughed.

John shook his head with loving amusement, and then met Jason’s eyes. “See what I mean? Why would I want to change that about him? It’s me who has to change. I need to double down in my therapy and learn how to really trust him. Even if I can’t really trust anyone else, I should trust him.” 

 

*****

 

October 9, 1999  
New York City

 

The morning felt warm and oozy-cozy, just like all ‘mornings after’ felt to John. His eyes slowly opened, and he half expected Paul to have run off to do one of his endless constructive activities - exercising, working, picking up ‘round the place... But Paul was right there beside him, reading a book.

“You’re here!” John said happily. “You haven’t run off.”

Paul put the book down with relief and confessed, “You’re awake! Thank god! I was thinking you’d never wake up. I’m so bored I’ve stooped to reading your book about American politics.”

John grinned as he turned on his side and propped his head up by his elbow. “Have you got to Abbie Hoffman yet? I knew him. He was a hypocritical prick.” 

Paul said, “So often people in politics are.” 

“Are you waiting here for any special reason?” John asked, changing the subject, as his foot moved over to encounter Paul’s leg. 

Paul said with great dignity, “It’s your birthday, John, in case you forgot.”

“So, have you put a bow around it for me?” John asked naughtily as his hand searched under the covers to find out. His eyebrows were dancing up and down on his forehead.

Paul laughed. “I wish I’d thought of that.” He allowed John to pull him down from his half seated position until he was flat on his back. John then moved to cover Paul’s body with his own. Paul, having realized that John was in the dom kind of mood, allowed his face to soften, and his eyelashes to flutter a bit. It was time to be had, rather than like the night before, when it played out the other way ‘round. 

John was always thrilled when Paul went submissive on him. It truthfully was one of the greatest pleasures on earth from John’s point of view. Consequently, he had a very special 60th birthday morning, and this set him up in the right mood for the rest of the day. 

 

***** 

 

Later that Day

 

“Paul, hurry the fuck up!” John was shouting from the master bedroom and down the hall towards the magnificent sitting room. Paul was relaxed there on a sofa playing with his new Blackberry and thinking it was the cat’s meow. He was playing with the various buttons and commands, and fascinated by all of the things it could do. He had bought one for John, too, as a birthday present, and had even included a special private phone line where only they would know the number. That way when John called him, Paul would always know it was John, and he would answer it promptly. Or, that was the idea, anyway, which filled John with much hope and joy. Whether the independent and absent-minded Paul would live up to that promise - that was a whole other issue entirely.

“Coming!” Paul shouted back, but in a distracted voice. He made no move to get up. He was entranced by the technology. He wasn’t the first, and he wouldn’t be the last. 

John’s interest in the Blackberry had been limited to the private phone line, and the interactive email - both of which were connected to Paul and only to Paul in his mind. Anything else the phone could do was of little to no interest to John. Having recognized from the tone of Paul’s voice that Paul hadn’t really intended to get up and move, John headed down the hallway to the sitting room, straightening his collar as he did so. 

“Aha! I knew you were bullshitting me!” He declared victoriously as Paul jumped in shock at the unexpected sound of John’s voice right over his head. 

Paul looked up sheepishly into John’s accusing face. “I can’t take my eyes off it,” he confessed charmingly. “It’s really amazing. You can put in all your phone numbers and addresses and meeting dates, and there’s a place to enter reminders to yourself, and you can send email, and receive phone calls, get the weather and traffic...”

John hated gadgets. Paul had always loved gadgets, and had wasted many, many hours in trying to make them work. How many times had John sat there in Cavendish - back in the ‘60s - his eyes rolling back with boredom, while Paul tried to make one of his fucking gadgets work? Sometimes Paul reminded John of the two hopeless mad scientists from Help!

“Yeah, yeah,” John grumbled sarcastically, “it does everything but babysit children, I get it.”

“Oh, it does that as well, I’m sure! There are some great games on it, and...”

“Paul!” John shouted. “Fuck that phone! Get your ass up and go get dressed! We’re meeting Jason and Gerry for dinner in 45 minutes!” 

Paul jumped up obediently. John was using his ‘I mean business’ outdoor voice, and Paul didn’t want to mess with that! He scurried to the master bedroom to find his clothes laid out for him on the bed. Linda never did that. This was John’s shtick. He sighed. “I wonder what kind of misery he has in store for me tonight?” He mumbled to himself as he checked out the dark blue suit. It looked nicely cut. That meant it was probably not very comfortable. John was constantly trying to put Paul in form-fitting suits like the ones he used to wear in the ‘60s, because it made John’s cock twitch. At the age of 23 Paul had been willing to be uncomfortable in his trousers for the sake of fashion and girls, but at the age of 58, not so much. He groaned. He eyed the waistband lugubriously. He was going to feel constricted all night long, and he was just going to have to - literally and figuratively - suck it up! He patted his stomach which, thanks to his frequent workouts and careful eating, wasn’t too bad, and said to it while gazing critically at it in the mirror, “sorry mate, but you’re going to have to sit up straight tonight.”

John was watching from the doorway, and quietly chuckled. He said, “You’re not getting dressed, Paul.”

Paul jumped guiltily again. “Where did this suit come from?” He asked John.

“I ordered it for you from the tailor. It’s new.”

“It looks pretty tight,” Paul said dubiously.

“It should fit perfectly. Stop procrastinating and get dressed.” John turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen. The phone was ringing again, probably yet another friend or family member calling to wish him a happy birthday. John preferred to sit at the kitchen table while he fielded these calls, and there had already been quite a few. All of Paul’s children had called him and had told him lovely things, like how they loved him. Even James and Heather had stumbled out words about how they loved him. It had lit him up from within. Sean had of course called, and planned to meet them all at dinner that night - alone, without his much older Japanese girlfriend. That whole thing made John nervous. It felt too icky, like Sean was repeating with this woman what John once had done with Yoko. John couldn’t figure out what that was all about. Cynthia and then Mike McCartney had also called him, much to his surprise, and each had given him a very sincere birthday greeting, and then there had been Ringo and Barbara of course, and George Martin. John and Jodie Eastman had sent him a gigantic gift basket, filled with chocolates and food delicacies and other delightful stuff. John hadn’t yet heard from George Harrison or his son, Julian, so he assumed one of them would be on the other line as he picked up the phone.

Back in the bedroom, Paul was pulling on the slacks, and was glad to realize that he didn’t have to suck in his gut too much to zip them up. John had set out a perfectly white shirt, which Paul liked very much. But there was no tie. Paul wondered if he was supposed to pick one out for himself to wear, but then realized philosophically that no doubt John had wanted him to wear the shirt open-necked, without a tie. Well, that wasn’t Paul’s sartorial style, but it was John’s birthday after all. John had put out a pair of dress shoes for him. Paul eyed them as if they were strange creatures from another planet. Were they made out of leather? He picked one up. It was not made of leather, but of some synthetic product. He happily put them on. Good old John. 

“Hello?” John asked as he answered the phone. 

“Dad! I’m calling to wish you a happy birthday,” Julian said.

John was filled with relief. He had been afraid that Julian had forgotten. John felt so guilty over his treatment of Julian when he was young that he never believed that Julian owed him such courtesies as a call on his birthday, although he always hoped for it. So he was pathetically grateful that Julian had remembered to call, and his eyes filled with tears. 

“I’m so glad to hear your voice,” John said, hoping that his voice wouldn’t crack and give him away. “Where are you?”

The two spoke for a good 15 minutes, and as he hung up, Paul swished into the room, posing like a drag queen, showing off his new suit from several key aspects. John laughed in response. 

“You look gorgeous, Pud,” he said, still laughing. “But guess what? Julian called me! He remembered!”

Paul could see the remainders of tears in John’s eyes, and he smiled while he gave John a high five. Little did John know that while Paul had been playing with his Blackberry on the sitting room sofa he had emailed Julian and told him in no uncertain terms he needed to call his father on his 60th birthday. He had also typed in the words, ‘Bitterness kills the soul.’ John didn’t need to know any of that. Just seeing John’s face lit up from within made Paul happy, and a happy John is all he wanted in the long run. 

“George still hasn’t called me though,” John pointed out.

Paul said, his eyes alive with mischief, “You mean you expected him to? I never do. He is no doubt waiting in his throne room, expecting you to call him so he can give you his respects.”

John laughed.

Paul said, “Should I give him a call?” 

John shrugged and said, “Why not?”

So Paul whipped out the precious Blackberry from his suit pocket and showed it to John for a brief second, and then said, “You will note I only have to push this little button, and voila!” Paul pushed the speaker button and another button and then held the phone out so that John could hear the ringing sound on the other end too.

“Hello?” A voice asked, slightly irritated.

“George, is that you?” Paul asked. He was obviously proud of himself. 

“No, Paul, this is Ritchie again. Third time today! Do you have another new gadget?”

Paul’s voice lowered and said, “Oops, sorry mate,” and he quickly disconnected.

Meanwhile, John had collapsed in a fit of giggles, with his head helplessly in his arms, flat on the table.

“I’ll try again,” Paul said cheerfully, completely undeterred. This time he pushed a button and found Olivia on the other end. “Does George desire to wish John a happy birthday?” He asked her officiously. 

John could hear Olivia chuckling on the other end. “You know him so well, Paul,” she said. A moment later both Paul and John heard Olivia’s voice calling, “George! It’s time to say happy birthday to John!”

 

*****

 

The French dinner had been superlative and John had enjoyed Sean’s company. Sean had disappeared before the rest of them had left for the play, Fosse, which had been delightful. Now John and Paul were in Jason and Gerry’s apartment. Gerry and Paul were in the sitting room discussing futures and stock prices and investment vehicles, but John and Jason were seated at the kitchen table, leaning into each other over the candles Jason had set out, exchanging personal information in low, conspiratorial voices. 

“I can’t believe we’re both almost 70,” Jason was telling John (referring to Gerry and himself). “It seems just yesterday we were each scampering around on Fire Island that summer when we first met.”

John’s whole aspect perked up. “Tell me how you met! I never asked before. I guess I always thought that the two of you had always been together.”

Jason smiled. “We were both nerds, and neither of us was going to set the world on fire with our looks. But back in the ‘60s when we were approaching our thirties, the New York gays we each hung out with used to take over Fire Island in the summer. There were a number of places to stay there, and all the wealthiest men had beach homes there. It was a real meat market.”

“Doesn’t sound terribly romantic,” John said, disappointed.

“No, the cruising life was never romantic. Gay men have this reputation for being soft and romantic, but we’re mostly not. We’re men, after all, and when we were young, we were just as full of testosterone as any straight man. That’s how AIDS came to be prevalent - a lot of bath houses, a lot of indiscriminate sex. We all thought we’d live forever.”

John nodded. “Yeah. The four of us - my mates - we all thought we were going to live forever, too. Life has a way of kicking the stuffing out of you.”

Jason nodded and then said, “So there I was with my little group of friends from the New York Times - we were all in our early careers as reporters and assistant editors - and we were really a sad looking bunch. We all had too many intellectual - and not enough outdoor - interests, so we were all pasty white and a little flabby. And Gerry was with a group of young lawyers, just beginning to feel their oats as senior associates in various law firms. They were all pasty white too, because they were all sitting in their tiny inside offices 7 days a week for hours on end. So, my group was staying in a rented house on the beach next door to Gerry’s little group in their rented house. And because both groups were all overly intellectual, and all of us pasty white and not buff, we ended up socializing together.”

“When did you first notice Gerry specifically?” John asked, charmed by and interested in Jason’s story. 

“We were each only there for a week’s vacation, and I think I met Gerry on my third day there. He was sitting off to the side with a sardonic glint in his eye as he watched a group of tanned and buff Adonises playing volleyball on the beach and posturing for all the observers, most of whom were salivating. I saw that Gerry wasn’t salivating, and I also noted his dry expression and knew instantly what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same. So I toddled over to where he was, laid out my towel, and sat down next to him. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ was the first thing I said specifically to him.”

John laughed. “It was like that when I met Paul. We were the only two aliens in Liverpool, and we recognized each other straight off.”

“Anyway, we were friends first. We enjoyed sitting on the outside of circles, making clever but mean remarks about the idiots prancing around us. We exchanged business cards, but then everyone exchanged business cards in those days. I really didn’t think I would see him again after the week was over, and we all returned to our various lives.”

“So who made the first move?” John asked, his eyes alive with curiosity.

“Gerry did. He called and asked did I want to go to lunch? And we lunched together most days for weeks before I asked him why we never went to dinner, or out on dates. And he said that they kept him so busy at the law firm that he didn’t get home most nights until past eleven. So I suggested he move in with me, so we could at least see each other when he got home. As you see, it wasn’t the most whirlwind of romances, but we kind of found each other, and somehow instinctively knew that we were meant to be together.”

John smiled. “I’m so glad you found each other, and that you then found me. Without the two of you I would never have found the courage to change my life. Sometimes it comes over me like a dark cloud - that I could still be in that suffocating apartment in that suffocating marriage. It is incredibly depressing when I think of it.”

“So don’t think of it!” Jason joked, holding his glass of gin and tonic up in a kind of silly salute. 

John clicked glasses with him and said, “Well, mainly I wanted you to know how much I appreciate you and Gerry. So many times you were there for me when I thought I was fragmenting.” 

Jason said, “You seem very happy with Paul tonight. Those little flirtation dramas aside, are things going well between you two?”

“He is so much better than he was just a few months ago. His therapy is really helping him. I can hardly believe that he has stuck with it, but then it is so Paul that he has become so dedicated to his therapy. Whenever Paul tries a thing, he has to become at least a proficient at it. He throws his whole self into the thing until he has mastered it. Then sometimes he loses interest in it and moves on.” John chuckled. 

“I know you were worried about how Linda’s death would affect your relationship with Paul. How is that going?” 

John ran a distracted hand through his hair and said, “It has been touch and go. As difficult as it was to maintain a balance in our little triangle, once Linda died we were like two sides of a triangle without a hypotenuse. We were on pretty shaky ground. It was mainly Paul being so grief stricken. He couldn’t articulate his pain. It was an endless series of artistic and musical homages to Linda, and I began to feel like his booby prize.”

Jason’s eyes were filled with sympathy as John spoke. He then said, “I imagine Paul must have felt guilt over the whole thing.” 

John smiled at Jason. As usual, he had gone straight to the heart of the matter. “Yes. I have come to believe that what he has felt, other than missing her company of course, has been guilt that he dragged me into her picture perfect home life and marriage, and forced her to change her expectations of the future.” 

“Does he hold it against you?” Jason asked bluntly.

John was silent for a few moments. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope not.” 

No one understood better than John the Pandora’s Box quality of therapy. Who knew what would escape when Paul’s “box” was opened?


	130. Chapter 130

A Therapist’s Office  
London  
Late October 1999

 

“It’s been quite a while since we last met,” Marc told Paul. His voice was only a little reproachful. He hadn’t approved of Paul’s approach to therapy. A six-week ‘break’ after only a few months’ of work could easily destroy the progress they had made. But Marc could see Paul perched on the sofa like a bird on a wire, and knew that if he pushed Paul’s guilt button too hard he’d be up and out of there in a split second. So only a little reproach was allowed into his voice.

Paul gave him that endearing ‘Oops I’ve been naughty’ smile again that scrunched up his face so adorably. Marc had come to believe that Paul must have been using that face on parents, school teachers, authority figures, and lovers his whole life in order to get out of trouble. It was an exceedingly effective way to disarm one’s angry opponent. Marc, involuntarily, smiled back. But he also said, “Normally, taking long breaks from therapy is very counter-productive. We may end up going over old territory again.”

Paul didn’t see why this was so. He had neatly compartmentalized his therapy, keeping it separate and inviolate from his other compartments, and thus he didn’t see what the difficulty was. “Why?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“Picture the tortoise,” Marc said in a professorial voice.

Paul chuckled. “Okay, I’ve pictured one.” He thought Marc was joking around.

Marc said, “It might take a zookeeper several weeks to get a tortoise to pull his head out of his shell. But eventually the tortoise will do so - once he feels safe. But if the zookeeper goes away and leaves the tortoise alone for any prolonged period of time...”

“The tortoise’s head goes back in its shell. I get it,” Paul said. “But I don’t think you’ll find that to be true about me. While I am quite capable of putting my head in the sand, once it is truly out, I will not want to put it back in. That’s not me.”

Marc was staring at Paul as if he hadn’t ever really seen him before. He certainly looked confident and sure of himself. Could he really have skipped six weeks of sessions and then shown up ready to pick up exactly where he left off? That seemed very unlikely to Marc, who had never seen that happen before in a long career. But there was only one way to find out for sure.

“Ok, then,” Marc said in a businesslike tone. “Let’s get back to work. I have notes from our last session, and let me summarize. You had just informed me that you were a - let me get the words right - a ‘fucking liar.’” Marc looked up from his notes comically and Paul chuckled.

“Yeah. I remember that,” Paul said. 

“You have a way of saying these amazing things at the very end of a session, and then clamming up completely so I have to wait for the next session to ask any questions about it. Do you do that on purpose?”

Paul laughed. “I’m a born performer. You always have to leave them wanting more.”

Marc laughed. “So, when you said ‘I am a fucking liar’, what made you think that?” Marc was waiting to see if Paul truly could insert himself right back into the vulnerable state he had been in at the end of the last session.

Paul’s demeanor changed, so that now he was looking more introverted and serious. He said, “It had just occurred to me clearly - I think for the first time - that I had been lying to myself about something for literally decades.”

“And what was that something?” 

“Back in the ‘60s, when we were young, I told myself that I was ‘with’ John only because he wanted it so badly. I was accommodating him I guess you would say. I believed that it wasn’t something I needed or wanted on my own.”

“’It’ being the sex that you and John would share?” Marc had realized by now that he had to say the word ‘sex’ - Paul simply could not do it in front of him, but was always grateful when Marc supplied the word for him.

Paul nodded and said, “I could still be a straight guy that way - I had this friend who wanted something from me, and it would have been ungenerous of me to say no. So, in this way I could maintain the illusion that I was completely straight.”

Marc was thoroughly amazed that Paul had indeed come primed and ready to work. Every hour he spent with Paul he found out something remarkable and surprising about him.

“I put limitations on it, though,” Paul added, looking down at his hands.

“Limitations?” Marc repeated softly.

“There were certain things I wouldn’t do, you know, because if I did them it would be impossible for me to maintain my ‘straightness’, if that makes any sense. Well. I know it doesn’t really make any sense, but at the time it made a kind of sense to me.”

“I understand,” Marc said quietly, as a nudge to keep him talking.

“I never thought of how that might have felt to John. I couldn’t let myself see him the way I saw my girlfriends, for example. I knew when I slept with other women that they might be hurt by it, so I hid it from them. But it didn’t occur to me that John might be hurt if I went to bed with a woman, so I never hid it from him. I guess I told myself that John felt the same way about it that I did - that this ‘thing’ we had between us was one thing, but sex with women was the ultimate thing.”

“And now you think that maybe John didn’t share your feelings on the matter?”

“He’s so jealous,” Paul said, switching inadvertently to the present tense. “I mean, I see it now. If I talk to a woman, he is eaten up with jealousy. I’m wondering if he felt that way before - back in the ‘sixties. He sometimes got really pissy with me when I’d spent too much time with my girlfriends. I just never thought that he was jealous; I thought he was bored and wanted my company and the girls got in the way. I honestly believed that he loved women as much as I did, and it certainly appeared that way from an objective point of view.”

Marc began to wonder if Paul’s deep guilt was not about Linda at all. Maybe it was about John. “These ‘limitations’ you were talking about. What were they?” Marc asked.

Paul looked uncomfortable. His expression said it all - do I have to? 

“I only ask because here is another guilt-trigger. We need to understand it better.” Marc looked back at his notes as if he hadn’t just asked an extraordinary thing of his patient.

Paul considered Marc’s point, and decided there was merit to it. “Well, for one thing, no kissing,” Paul said. He blushed a little, but Marc was looking at his notes and not at him, so that helped a little.

“And another thing?” Marc asked without looking up.

“Well, you know, the anal thing...” Paul coughed as he said it. He blushed a little more.

“Yes?” Marc asked as he scribbled something on his pad. He looked distracted, as if he weren’t really listening closely.

“I never would let him do that to me.” Paul took a deep breath once it was out. He found that it hadn’t been as embarrassing as he had thought it would be.

Marc digested that. “At the time, did John object to these limitations?”

“Not in so many words,” Paul said, choosing his own words carefully.

“But he expressed his displeasure in some other way?” Marc prompted.

“Sometimes he tried to kiss me, and I would move my face or push him away. Maybe I’d make a face, too, you know. I didn’t mean it as a down. I was just embarrassed. He would get angry. We would have a bit of a blow up. He or I would stalk off. This happened only a few times, but enough times for me to realize that this was something John wanted from me that I wasn’t willing to give him.”

“Did you feel guilty about that?” Marc asked simply.

Paul paused for a moment to consider the question. “Yes.” 

“Were you conscious of the guilt back then?”

“Conscious of it?” Paul asked, confused.

“At the time these things happened, did you feel guilt then, or are you reading guilt into it looking back.”

“Oh, I see,” Paul said. “A little of both, I guess. I mean, he also tried to, well,” Paul squirmed in his seat, and Marc immediately cast his eyes back to his notes and assumed a bored air again. “He more than once - usually he was very drunk or high on drugs - tried to, for lack of a better word, mount me. I shoved him off, and got out of the bed. You know, I would be so angry with him, but then I would see the expression on his face and I would feel terrible. But you know, if I showed him empathy in those moments, he would have thought that maybe I was willing to go through with it. John had poor impulse control at the best of times. When he was drunk or on drugs - forget it! I had to harden my heart and not talk about it with him. I hoped he would grow out of it.” 

“You thought this was something John could grow out of?” Marc’s voice was hushed, and Marc hoped it didn’t reflect his own distress for John’s feelings.

Paul looked stricken. “I did, yes. I thought it was something I had grown out of as well. I reached twenty-six, I told myself it was time to be a man, to get married, and to raise children. That was what seemed natural to me at the time.” 

“Had you grown out of it?”

“Nooooo.” The admission was a hard one for Paul to make out loud, although it was no longer a truth that he kept from himself. “Not really.”

“No?”

“I was kidding myself. I was actually clinging to Linda because I couldn’t cling to John.” 

“Why couldn’t you cling to John any longer?”

“Because it wasn’t natural - two men. Where were we going to go with it? I mean, we could never live like that openly. It would have destroyed our careers, and humiliated our friends and family. It had only recently stopped being illegal in England. And I truly loved women and I really desperately wanted a family. I needed a family to ground me while the world was crazy. John could never give me that. I was the grounding agent in our relationship back then.”

Marc nodded his head in an almost hypnotic manner, and Paul fell back in to his story. 

“Linda helped me through that. She helped me make that break between my identity as part of ‘John’nPaul’, and my identity as just me: her husband and father of her children. But I missed John the whole time. I couldn’t tell her, but I did miss him.”

The shorthand ‘John’nPaul’ description had amused Marc, but his face had not reflected this amusement. Instead he said, “You and John accomplished a lot together as partners and friends, and losing that was painful.” 

“That’s what I told myself - that I was missing his friendship, our partnership, our band. But that wasn’t what was keeping me up in the middle of the night, tossing and turning.”

“You were missing John physically.”

“Yes. His presence, his voice, his smell, his touch... I found it difficult to put that behind me.” Paul’s voice had petered out to almost a whisper.

“But you did put it behind you?” Marc asked, mimicking Paul’s whisper-tone.

“I thought I did. I didn’t consciously think about John in that way for years. And of course John helped me get there, because he was being so bloody horrible to me at the time, on both a personal and public level. He was attacking me personally, attacking my wife and kids, even my father, who was very ill, and attacking my work. It was non-stop attack. This made it a bit easier for me to tell myself I didn’t miss him anymore.”

“Why do you suppose John attacked you so ferociously, and for so long?” Marc asked.

Paul’s answer was immediate. “He was angry at me for ending it. He felt betrayed by that.” 

“For ten years?”

Paul laughed. “John can hold a grudge. Trust me on this.” 

Marc smiled. “He must have really loved and needed you to be that angry about your ending it, don’t you think?”

Paul wasn’t sure he agreed with that. “I sometimes think he just picked me to put all this burden on.”

“Picked you?” Marc was intrigued. He’d never had a patient say this to him.

“I came into his life when he was searching for something - stability, a shared, I dunno, a shared dream, I guess - something to soothe him while distracting him from the sense of rejection he walked around with all the time.”

“And you think he chose you for that role?” Marc was now doubly intrigued.

“Sometimes I’ve thought that was what I really was to him - a living, breathing security blanket.”

“You speak in the past tense. Do you no longer feel that way?” Marc asked.

Paul thought about it for a while. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I believe he truly cares for me, but there is this desperate edge to it - like if I put a foot wrong and do or say the wrong thing, his whole life will explode and it will be my fault.”

“That’s quite a burden to carry on a day to day basis.” Marc was thinking Lennon might be bipolar, and he also might suffer from the double-bind syndrome. “You say he ‘cares’ for you - does this mean that you doubt his love and need?”

“I can’t quite trust it,” Paul admitted. “He’s treated me horribly at times, and even betrayed me.” He felt tears pricking his eyes. He gave himself a quick mental shake and said in a more objective tone of voice, seeking to defend John from his own words: “He can’t help it. He had a difficult childhood. His parents kept leaving him. He didn’t understand it, and because of it he always thinks people will abandon him, so he does them one better and abandons them first.”

“And then you did abandon him.” Marc said, knowing he was putting an arrow straight into the man’s heart. He suspected the bull’s eye was located right in that spot. 

Paul threw his head back in an effort to keep back the tears. “He was fucking impossible! You have no idea what it was like!” His tone was pained and defensive.

“You’re right, I don’t, so why don’t you tell me?” Marc asked gently. 

“He got trapped in LSD. It altered his mind. He was not the same after that. He was a huge burden on me - I had to keep him working, to keep him interested, to drag him out of that suburban house where he would hide, and him kicking and screaming the whole way. I used to call his house ‘the Mopetorium.’” Paul chuckled a little at the memory. “I had troubles, too, you know, not that John ever noticed. I missed him - you know, the John I had always known. John had always been mean to me at times - mostly when other people were around, just to put me in what he thought was my place - but suddenly he was really mean to me, and most of the time. I missed the old John, who could also be loving and kind. And I was trying to hold the band and the money and the business all together. Everyone else was off getting high. My girlfriend at the time - she took a job with a touring actor’s group, and she was gone from home for weeks and even months at a time. I felt alone carrying this huge burden, and John was still making all these demands on me without seeing that I had some needs too. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“That sounds fair,” Marc pointed out.

“I’m only human,” Paul said in his own defense.

Marc smiled. “Indeed, we all are, aren’t we?” Marc waited for Paul’s answering nod and then asked, “How did Yoko Ono fit in to all of this?”

Paul heaved a huge sigh as if he were hefting that same old ‘huge burden’ again. “John was always getting wild crushes on weird people. He’d follow after them enthusiastically for a while, and come back to tell me how much more interesting they were than me, and why wasn’t I more like that? He would change his whole personality for them; adopt their opinions and beliefs wholesale and jeer at the ones he and I used to have together. But then one day he’d be through with them, and he’d come to my place without warning and he’d say, ‘that person was a complete phony.’ And suddenly I was the star on top of his tree again. I got yanked off and jammed back on that treetop of his so many times, you have no idea - I don’t know why I put up with it.”

“Even now? Do you know why now?”

Paul chuckled and nodded his head in the affirmative. “I loved the daft boy, that’s why.” 

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, across town in South Kensington, John was lounging around a table in a favorite Italian restaurant sharing a very long lunch with his old friend Kevin, the English professor, who he hadn’t seen in a very long time. They were catching up. Kevin had started out by asking how everything was going now that Linda was dead. John hadn’t wanted to jump right in at the deep end, but gradually he opened up a bit.

“Most of last year was a nightmare, really,” John said honestly. “Paul was a complete broken wreck. He was just barely holding it together.”

“Humph. I guess he really loved that woman,” Kevin said with a degree of surprise. He had never quite believed in the Paul and Linda story. He couldn’t see what a man like Paul would see in a woman like Linda. And he also couldn’t see how a man could truly love a man and a woman at the same time and in the same way. He’d always harbored a belief that Linda was really just a ‘beard’ for Paul, who Kevin imagined to be a deep closet case. 

John looked up and caught a whiff of Kevin’s thoughts in his intuitive way. “Of course he loved her!” He snapped angrily. “Why would you even say something like that?” 

Kevin put his hands up in the air to show he didn’t want to fight about it. “I guess I never gave Paul and Linda much thought. I didn’t know them.”

John calmed down a little bit. “If you had known them, then you would also know how much they loved each other.” John felt odd defending Paul and Linda’s love like this to someone, but his sense of loyalty insisted upon it. His voice was still a little gruff.

“Fair enough,” Kevin said with a breezy smile. “So how is it going now?”

John leaned back in his chair again and fingered his wine glass. “Paul is starting to get his legs under him again. He’s trying hard to move on.” John didn’t want to tell Kevin about Paul’s therapy. He knew Kevin didn’t like Paul (although John was convinced this was only because he didn’t know Paul), and so he wanted to protect Paul’s privacy from him. 

“What effect has all this had on you, though?” Kevin’s only interest was in John’s welfare. John was his friend, after all, and Paul was just the pretty face that poor John was enslaved by. 

“I miss Linda, too, you know. She and I became very close friends during her illness. And you know, she had been there for me when I had cancer. She took good care of me then.”

Kevin was surprised by this, and interested too. He had never really given much thought to what kind of life the three of them - John, Paul and Linda - had shared together. “So, what about Paul and you, though?” He prodded.

“We’re trying to adjust to the change. We’re figuring it out. Oh, and we’re writing an album!” John’s face lit up at this last bit of news.

Kevin was disappointed. He supposed this album had kept John from writing something real, like poetry, a novel, or his memoirs. “Have you written any poetry lately? Have you been working on your memoir?” Kevin could be a bit like John’s tutor when it came to such subjects.

“I’m always writing poems and I’m always writing song lyrics. But I haven’t been working on the memoir. I can’t tell the true story, so I don’t feel like writing a fake one.”

This was exactly what most irritated Kevin about Paul: the hypocrisy. Mr. Family Man, and poor John unable to even own his life’s story because god forbid the Great One’s image came crashing down. “He’s asking a hell of a lot of you - to bury your true self from the world; to keep you from the free expression of your feelings and your life.” Kevin’s anger vibrated in his voice.

John looked at Kevin mildly. He sometimes wondered if Kevin was threatened by the transcendence of Paul’s beauty, charm, intelligence and talent. Over the decades, so many men had been threatened by Paul’s many gifts to the point where they held on to wildly inaccurate attitudes about who Paul was - in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary - in order to make him look smaller in their own eyes, and thus feel bigger themselves. He sighed heavily. “You know, Kevin,” he drawled, “I don’t know if I can remain your friend if you keep saying such terrible things about Paul.”

Kevin’s face expressed real shock. “I’m just being honest about what I perceive. You never used to be one of those people who couldn’t hear the cold hard truth.”

John (who had never been able to hear the cold hard truth if it differed with his own view) said, “Your perception is off. I don’t know what you base your opinions on, but they’re wrong. Just tell me what you think, and I will show you how you’re wrong.”

Kevin was up for the challenge. “Everyone knows he is a skin flint, and I’ll bet he has complete control over your money and assets now. Did you ever think of that? What if he decided to drop you - what would happen with your money? Do you even know?”

“What I ‘know’, Kevin, is that when I wanted out of my marriage to Yoko, I gave her almost everything - the properties and the money and the investments. I only got my songs and art and joint custody of Sean. And I got Yoko’s silence.”

“You wouldn’t have needed Yoko’s silence if Paul had been willing to live openly and honestly with you,” Kevin griped.

“And what about Linda and his children? Would you admire him if he just dumped them all and didn’t worry about what happened to them?”

That point silenced Kevin. He had never had a regulation wife or children; those things had always seemed very bourgeois to him. But come to think of it, if Paul had left his wife and kids and announced publicly, “I’m with John!” he no doubt would have thought that Paul was a selfish jackass, as would have the rest of the world. 

“Anyway, as I was saying,” John continued, “I had no cash at all after the divorce. Paul paid for everything - all my expenses. And he and John Eastman started building up my portfolios, and I’m doing very well now, thank you. My assets are in my name, and his assets are in his name. I have trusts for my family, and he has trusts for his family. We have a charitable trust together. He’s always trying to get me more involved in the finances, but I don’t want to be. He sent me to my own lawyer when we were drafting our partnership agreement. Paul is a Boy Scout by nature. He is absolutely fastidious about what’s his and what’s mine.”

Kevin said, “Okay, but you only have his word for all this, don’t you?”

“All I need is his word for it! His word has always been good enough for me!” John’s eyes were snapping with irritation. 

“I thought he cheated you and the others at the end of the Beatles. And he sued you all.”

“Because the three of us were acting like bullies, side-lining him and making stupid decisions that put his money and livelihood at risk. His wife had just had a baby. He felt he had to fight for what little he had left. And, if he hadn’t done that, the rest of us would have been broke too, because Allen Klein turned out to be not only unscrupulous, but also incompetent.”

Kevin laid that beef aside. “He strikes me - and lots of other people - as being very vain, very self-centered, and very pleased with himself. And he appears extremely shallow at the same time.”

John groaned. He didn’t know where to start. “Paul knows he is cute, of course he does. But he isn’t vain. I mean, when he chipped his tooth during the Beatles, he walked around with the chip for months. Brian Epstein was begging me to talk him into fixing it. I tried, but he said he couldn’t be bothered: too many other things to do with his limited time, doncha know. And he’d walk out of the house without brushing his hair, or shaving, and sometimes the clothes he wears! I have to lay his fucking clothes out for him so he doesn’t either matchy-match or mismatch. He wears his shoes until they’re worn out. I have to sneak into the closet and throw them away.”

In spite of himself, Kevin had to laugh at that.

“And of course Paul is self-centered. So am I. We’re fucking artists, okay? Have you ever met an artist who wasn’t self-centered? ‘Cuz I never have.” John took a huge sip from the glass of water in front of him and then picked up steam again. “But he isn’t self-centered to a fault. He always is aware of how the people around him are feeling; he gives a damn about other people’s feelings, and he is an intensely loyal person. I don’t know why I have to keep telling you these things! I’m sure I’ve told you this stuff before. It is maddening.”

Kevin laughed. “I guess some people are just never meant to ‘get’ each other. I doubt that Paul would approve of me, for instance.”

That took John aback. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I’m sure I’m too intellectual and too much of a radical to be of interest to him.”

John laughed. “You’re so full of shit. Do you know who one of Paul’s closest friends was, before he died? Allen Ginsburg! You’re not going to tell me you’re more intellectual and radical than Allen, are you?” 

Kevin was surprised by this information. “What could they possibly have in common?” He asked.

John despaired of Kevin. He was beginning to realize he didn’t like the man. He was a snob, and the worst kind of snob. Why hadn’t he noticed this before? John said, “Allen told me that Paul was the ‘truest creative’ he had ever met in his life.”

Kevin sat quietly for a few moments. It had suddenly gotten through his thick head (he had no empathy and little subtlety) that he had gone too far in his criticisms of John’s lover. No one wanted to hear people attacking their lovers. This had been a mistake. He knew he had to back off, or he would lose John’s friendship, which was important to him if only for the symbolic status of it. He said, “I stand corrected, then. Perhaps I have it all wrong.”

John wasn’t buying Kevin’s sudden conversion. But he figured he wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore, because he had clearly grown out of this friendship. He was tired of being patronized and having all his choices judged by this man, from what he worked on to whom he slept with.

Not long after, the luncheon broke up.

 

*****

 

“So, what you’re saying is that Yoko was just another in a long line of ‘weird people’ that he’d become enamored of and you didn’t see that as a reason why your relationship with him ended?” Marc persevered. 

“I’m not going to say she wasn’t an unpleasant surprise,” Paul admitted. “I mean, she wanted to come between me and John, and she did. I didn’t want her for a songwriting partner, and John was in his ‘she can do no wrong’ phase and trying to foist her on me. She told him my work sucked, and I had screwed up all the business, and he decided she was right. Still, I’d been down that road before. I figured I could wait him out if I wanted to. She would disappoint him at some stage, and he would be back, explaining to me how she’d turned out to be a ‘phony’, which is the worst thing you can be in John’s eyes.” Paul chuckled. 

“But this infatuation turned out to be real?” Marc asked.

“Oh, they were all real,” Paul said. “At the time he was in their thrall these love affairs - or crushes, I guess you’d say - were very real to John. But he would lose interest quickly when the surprising things stopped happening. John was a ‘surprise’ junky. He always wanted to hear some new theory, some new ‘answer to the universe’, some new way to outrage ‘the man.’ These people would fill his longing for that, but eventually they’d run out of magic tricks, and John would get bored with their old ones. I will say that Yoko had more staying power than the rest of them. She lasted about four years before he lost interest in her. But he probably would have lost interest in her a lot sooner if I hadn’t taken the opportunity to get married, have a family, and tell him we couldn’t be lovers anymore.” Paul said this smoothly, without any embarrassment. He had gotten caught up in the storytelling.

“You took the ‘opportunity’ - is that how you looked at it?”

“Yes - because I was too tired - I couldn’t carry him on my back anymore. It was weird, because I looked around and I suddenly had four women in my life - Jane, who was off touring, and I had this woman living with me who I was trying to get rid of, and I had another woman I’d had a long term relationship with, and then I had just met Linda. Jane and I were not going to marry - I guess I knew that in the bottom of my heart. She wanted to when I didn’t, and I wanted to when she didn’t. We were both too young and too into our careers: neither one of us wanted to make a sacrifice for the other. So Jane and I were done. It was really between Linda and this other girl.”

Marc’s head was spinning. So many women! So little time! How’d he ever manage all that? No wonder he had been exhausted! “So, if I understand you correctly,” Marc said, trying not to show any shock, “you were actively looking for a wife at that point, and you were choosing amongst different women?”

“I guess that’s right,” Paul said, seeing nothing wrong with the concept.

“You didn’t fall in love and want to get married; you wanted to get married, so you fell in love? Is that how it was?” Really, Marc’s mind was reeling a bit.

“I loved them all. Well, I loved Jane, and I loved this other girl I’d been dating for years - her name was Maggie. And I felt like I really could get to love Linda, too. I just didn’t know which one to marry.”

Marc had known womanizers before who dated several women at once. But he had never met one who fell in love with all of them! He began to develop a very strong sense of sympathy for poor John Lennon. 

“And while you were deciding amongst these women, was John your lover too?” Marc had forgotten to walk carefully over the word ‘lover’; he was so wrapped up in Paul’s fantastical life.

“For part of that time, yes. I ended it with John on the same day Jane ended it with me - it was in July, I think, of 1968. John didn’t take it so well.”

Marc said, “Jane ended your relationship with you?”

“She’d taken a lover from amongst the cast in her troop, but she was still upset that I’d had that other woman - her name was Francie - in our house. I thought that was rather hypocritical of her, myself.”

“Uh-huh,” Marc said, dazed. Jane, Linda, Maggie, Francie, John... He cleared his throat. “You said John took it badly?”

“I thought he was in the same place I was - you know, ready to move on and be a grown up. He was madly in love with Yoko - he kept saying it to anyone who would listen. They were sitting in fucking bags in the fucking park.” Paul laughed at the memory of it. “You don’t know how hard it was for me to hear some of the things they got up to without laughing right in their faces. They planted acorns for peace, you know.” Paul’s eyes met Marc’s and they twinkled. “When peace didn’t happen, and the acorns didn’t germinate, I suggested to them that maybe they had planted them too close together and they crowded each other out.” Paul waited a moment. “Neither of them got my point. They were on heroin at the time, and so were thick as two boards.” 

Marc laughed, but it was a laugh reflecting how incredulous it all was. Heroin too? What a colorful life! And this was just one month of it! He tried to pull his eyeballs back into their sockets, so he sat back and took a breath. He had to remember he was a therapist, not a bloke talking to a world-class raconteur. “I’m a little confused. You ended it with John while he was with Yoko, and he got upset, but went on to tell the world that Yoko was his everything.” 

Paul shrugged. “Yep. That’s how it happened.” 

“But you thought that if you had foresworn marriage, he would have come back to you eventually.”

“I had no doubt on that score. What I underestimated was how much John would object to me being married. I thought he would be ready for it since he’d found Yoko, and that we would continue to be friends and partners. But after about a year, as I waited out his anger, it finally became clear to me that for John it was all or nothing at all. He didn’t want my friendship or to be my partner if I wouldn’t be his lover. He started to use the business against me out of spite. That was the part I hadn’t expected. And I hadn’t expected it to hurt like hell, either.”

Marc noticed that the session had ended. He was so frustrated. He could have gone on with Paul for another hour. But rules were rules. Again, the ‘born performer’ had left him wanting more...

 

*****


	131. Chapter 131

London  
A Therapist’s Office  
A Month Later  
Late November 1999

 

“It’s very weird,” John said to Fiona. “Paul is acting different.”

“How ‘different’?”

“He’s doing little things that he never did before.” John’s face was a study in confusion and suspicion.

“Such as?”

“He checks in with me when he is at the office, or away from home. And he sort of moves in to take heavy objects from me, or awkward shaped objects.”

“This bothers you?” Fiona asked. It seemed fairly sweet from her point of view.

“I’m not a woman,” John said to Fiona. “I can lift stuff myself.”

“Why do you suppose he is doing this?” Fiona asked.

“I think it is his therapy. He’s got it into his head that he has to treat me like a wife.” 

“Are you annoyed by this?” Fiona was a bit surprised; she had listened to John complaining about Paul’s lack of thoughtfulness, and here Paul was being thoughtful and now he was annoyed?

“I just don’t trust it, I guess. We went to a party the other day, and every time he went to talk to a woman he said to me, ‘I’m just going to have a chat.’ You know - in case I took it wrong.”

“Well, I’d say that you are quite likely to take his talking to women wrong. It sounds like he was reassuring you that he wasn’t trying to pick anyone up.” Fiona could not figure out why John was being so contrary. 

“Yeah, I guess, but it’s just weird. He doesn’t tell me what happens in his therapy, or why he is suddenly changing his behavior. It’s hard to explain. He has started doing with me what he once did with Linda. Like calling me up when he’s leaving the office, and asking me if I need anything at the store. He never did that before, but I used to get quite upset that he always did that for Linda and not for me.”

Fiona chuckled. “Listen to yourself, John. You’re saying you don’t like that he is doing this, but you were mad before when he didn’t do it? What’s really going on with you?”

“It’s not that I don’t like him doing it; I just feel like there is another shoe that hasn’t dropped. What’s his motivation? I don’t want to become Paul-and-Linda-Deux. I want us to be Paul and John. I guess I feel he is slotting me into the spot that Linda vacated when she died, but I don’t want her old spot. I want my own spot.”

“I see,” Fiona said. And she did see. Of course John would not like to be the Linda-substitute. He wanted to be the John-original. In her practice, Fiona had dealt with widows and widowers who tried to turn their second spouses into a version of their dead spouses. They wanted to adopt all the same familiar routines instead of creating new ones that worked for both of them. “Have you spoken to Paul about this?” She asked.

John was frustrated. “You make that sound so easy - ‘speak to Paul.’ You try to speak to Paul! He is evasive and slippery and non-confrontational, and intensely private. I feel as though I have moved a mountain if I get Paul to just acknowledge an obvious emotion that is showing on his fucking face!” 

Fiona quelled the urge to giggle and said, “I have tried to talk to Paul, if you recall, and I agree with you that he doesn’t like conflict, and will avoid it at all costs. So maybe you and I can role play how you might try to raise this subject with Paul?”

John looked thoughtful. “So how would that work?”

“How about I be you, and you be Paul. Give me the world’s best imitation of Paul as I try to engage with you, but be realistic. Don’t overdo it, okay?”

John nodded, although he was dubious about this idea.

Fiona (John) leaned forward and engaged John’s (Paul’s) eyes. “I’ve noticed that our interactions are a little different these days. Have you noticed it?”

John said abruptly (thinking he was channeling Paul), “No. What are you on about?”

Fiona stopped right there. “John. That is something you would say. Paul wouldn’t be that rude.”

John nodded his head in agreement. “You’re right. Let me try again. He’d say, ‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand.’”

Fiona moved on. “You are treating me very much like you used to treat Linda. Did you realize that?”

John broke out of character and said to Fiona, “You expect me to say that to him? He’s still brokenhearted! I don’t want to make him feel bad.” 

“Okay, how about, ‘I notice how thoughtful you’ve been lately, and I think it is very kind of you. But it feels a little strange to me. Can we talk about it?’”

As he listened to Fiona, John cocked his head to the side (like Paul often did). He then said, really channeling Paul this time, “Strange? How so?”

In her role of John, Fiona said, “Well, you help me with large packages, and you touch base with me when you’re away from home. You never did those things before, only in the last month or so.” 

John’s face seemed to morph into a suspicious Paul face. He said, “Is there a problem with that? I thought you wanted me to do that stuff.” 

“I don’t not want you to do it; I just want to discuss a routine for our interactions that suits us both equally.” 

John was stumped. He admitted, “I have no idea what Paul would say to that. What comes to my mind is that he would be thinking, ‘John must have got that comment from his therapist, because he never would have thought of it himself.’”

Fiona laughed. “Well, you’re a better John than I can ever be. Do you want to switch roles?” 

John thought about it. “I think I got your point. There’s a way to ask him that won’t put him on the defensive.”

“That’s right. Try to find a way to do that.” Fiona smiled with warmth. She was very proud of John. 

However, as is well known worldwide, pride cometh before a fall.

 

*****

 

Cavendish  
Later That Night

 

“So Paul,” John said, handing him a tumbler of whiskey and then sitting down next to him on the sitting room sofa.

“Yeah?” Paul didn’t look up from his newspaper. 

John was irritated by Paul’s habit of not stopping what he was doing when John wanted him to listen. Impulsively, he grabbed the newspaper and threw it on to the floor. “I want to talk.”

Paul’s hands were still up in the air in the act of holding up the missing newspaper. His eyebrows had flown up his forehead, and his eyes expressed shock. “What?” He hissed.

“I want to talk.” John repeated. “Drink your whiskey and hear me out.”

Paul picked up the whiskey glass from where he had set it down only seconds before, and took an obedient sip. His eyebrows were two question marks aimed at John.

“You’ve been treating me different lately,” John said bluntly.

“I have?” Paul asked.

“Fuck yeah.”

“How so?”

“I’m not a woman you know,” John said aggressively.

Paul’s eyes lit up with humor. “Oh, well, that explains everything...” he crooned. “It all makes sense now.”

“I’m serious, Paul, you’re treating me like the little woman. I’m a bloke, like you’re a bloke.” John hadn’t seen the humor in Paul’s little joke.

“John, what have I done? Can you be specific?” Paul had dropped the attempts at humor, and spoke seriously.

“Well, like when you take heavy objects from me.”

“I do that?” Paul asked, surprised.

“Yeah - that floor lamp I bought. I started to carry it in, and you took it away from me and brought it inside.” 

Paul tried to remember the incident. He remembered the floor lamp but not what had passed between them. “This upset you?” He asked, confused.

“It’s just that it is the sort of thing a man does for a woman, because a man is stronger than a woman, generally. Like I used to do for Yoko or Cyn, and you used to do for...”

“Linda.” Paul said. 

John jumped in, “...Or Jane, or any one of the other thousands of women you’ve known over the years.”

“So you don’t want me to help you with heavy objects anymore,” Paul said. He still wasn’t quite getting the point.

“If I want your help I’ll be sure to ask. Some objects may require both of us to carry them.” John had tried to make his tone sound more patient, although his frustration level was beginning to climb. Paul’s literal mindedness seldom had annoyed him as much.

“Is that it? Or is there more?” Paul asked, still having no idea what was bothering John. 

“It’s been this past month or so. You tiptoe around me...”

A light went on in Paul’s head. He said quietly, “I’ve just recently realized how insensitive I have been to you and your needs over the years. I’m trying to make it up.” 

John was silenced. He stared at Paul with his whole heart in his eyes. He finally was able to speak. “I thought you were trying to put me in Linda’s spot - you know, turn me into Linda. I loved Linda, but I don’t want to be her. I want my own spot.”

Paul reached out his hand and grabbed John’s hand as it rested in John’s lap. He said, smiling softly, “You’ll always have your own spot in my heart, John. I can’t imagine another soul who could ever replace you.” Paul stopped so he could regain control of his voice. “I’m just trying to treat you better. But I will do my best not to take over heavy objects from you. Is there anything else I’m doing that you don’t like?”

John, whose eyes were collecting tears, and who wasn’t ashamed to show them, said, “You know, I’ve reconsidered. Please do anything for me that your heart moves you to do. I will be most grateful for it.”

 

*****

 

Two Days Later  
A Therapist’s Office

 

“I had a strange interaction with John the other day.”

“Oh?” Marc asked. He was surprised. This was the first time Paul had brought a real time domestic event to his therapy. Paul had grown comfortable discussing certain parts of his past relationships with John and Linda, but he hadn’t ever consciously brought up matters from John’s and his life together.

“He was upset because he thought I was treating him like Linda. Like I was trying to turn him into another Linda.” 

Marc took this in. He asked a question Paul wasn’t expecting. “What was your reaction to this?”

Paul had expected to be asked for details about the behavior he had exhibited that had caused John to be upset. He hadn’t been expecting to have to explain his own feelings about John’s reactions to it. “I told him that I only wanted to treat him with more sensitivity than I used to.”

“And John said?” Marc led.

“He said the most beautiful thing. He told me to do anything for him that my heart moves me to do. Isn’t that an amazing thing to say?” Paul’s face reflected an innocent honesty that touched Marc.

“It is indeed,” Marc said. “What sorts of things were you doing?”

Paul looked a little embarrassed. “I wasn’t aware of some of the things I was doing - like taking over heavy objects, and calling him to see if he wanted me to pick stuff up at the store. You know, it’s true I did that for Linda, and maybe I thought that John would appreciate it too. Maybe it’s the only way I know how to be a hus...” Paul stopped in mid-word, awkwardly ending the sentence. Marc didn’t call him on it. He ignored it, and instead asked:

“And John didn’t appreciate it?”

“Well, when I explained why I did it he appreciated it, but he told me...” Paul felt like crying all of a sudden. He closed his throat and his hand went to his eyes as if to protect them from tears. He regained a semblance of control. “He told me that he didn’t want Linda’s spot. He wanted his own spot.”

Marc was still as he digested this information. He still had very little real insight into the John/Paul relationship. Thus far it had proven to be the most complex all-consuming relationship he himself had ever dealt with. He had read about couples suffering from folie á deux in medical journals, but he had never experienced anything like that kind of shared psychosis in his real practice. Consequently, this Lennon / McCartney ménage - although definitely on the sane side of ‘normal’ - was the most complex relationship he had stumbled across in his years of practice. He wanted desperately to start at the beginning of the relationship - from the moment they met - and follow it chronologically until the present day, but he knew that therapy didn’t work that way. Therapy progressed in stops and starts. It hopped backwards and forwards as the patient re-experienced his past memories in an order that made internal (if not external) sense, and when the patient found it possible to speak of them. Marc would have to be satisfied with the way in which Paul had jumped around in time periods. He would have to keep his head in the game. He made copious notes to assist him later in trying to put the pieces together. In this particular moment, however, Marc had to facilitate further elucidation.

“You seem to be touched by that comment. Do you think that maybe you were trying to fit John into the same compartment Linda had been in?” Marc kept his face studiously interested, without a trace of judgment on it.

Paul said, “Until that moment I hadn’t realized what I was doing.” He looked down at his hands in a very Paul-like gesture, and he struggled mightily over whether to reveal to Marc his true fears on the subject. It was bothering him very much, and maybe Marc could help him make it stop hurting. “I don’t know how to be a husband to a man,” he whispered. “I only know how to be a husband to a woman.”

 

*****

 

“I started to cry,” John was telling Fiona. “He was so vulnerable in that moment. To tell me he was trying to make it up to me for past insensitivities...” John made a whoosh with his hand, and blinked back tears. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Fiona felt warmly happy inside for John. It appeared as though Paul was finally letting down his guard a little. It was just what John needed so badly. “His therapy seems to be helping him,” she said neutrally.

“He seems a little shy around me now sometimes, since then. It’s weird. He is careful about what he says and how he says it. I wish I’d never mentioned how weird his behavior had been to him. I should have just let him work through it. I think he isn’t sure how to act, now.”

“I actually think ignoring it would not have been the best choice. You and Paul need to talk to each other more - not about music, and friends, and whatever else you talk about - but to each other about what you want and need.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” John confessed.

Fiona said, “We talked about this several times already. The sword hanging over your head: are you and Paul going to have a monogamous relationship, or are you going to have an open one? That is the topic of discussion you really need to share. It seems to me that you are both avoiding it.”

John nodded philosophically. “I’m afraid to raise the subject.” 

“Tell me about that,” Fiona said, sitting back in her chair.

John pouted for a while. He didn’t like to talk about this - his greatest fear: abandonment. As often as he had done so with Fiona over the years he had never really taken a stick out and poked at the fear’s dark center - it wasn’t just that he feared losing Paul. On a much more subtle level he feared having to share Paul. It had been a nightmare in the ‘60s. John believed that part of the reason he had jumped head first into mind altering drugs was to dull the pain inside of him because he could not have Paul to himself. He had been a man who wanted to share his whole life with another man at a time when that was not a lifestyle that was in any way acceptable to his peers. Despite claiming to be all ‘free love,’ and as much as they sneered at ‘squares,’ the majority of men of the swinging ‘sixties were male chauvinist pigs of a much higher order even than their fathers, who they disdained. In fact, the glam rock phase that followed in the early ‘seventies seemed to John to be an extreme reaction to the patronizing misogyny of the ‘sixties.

John had been born just a little too late to partake of the David Bowie/ Freddie Mercury / Elton John lifestyle. What had always been so ironic to him was the fact that people like Bowie, Mercury and Elton had always told him that the freedom the Beatles brought into music, culture and sex had been their main inspiration for deciding to be themselves despite the kickback. How ironic that the man who had inspired others to be free had himself to bury his own freedom. It had been a huge acidic lump in the pit of his stomach, which he attempted to ignore through the numbing mysteries of drugs and alcohol. 

It had been Linda’s death, and Paul’s recent coming out of his hole, that had triggered this deep pain. He had somehow, over the years, found a way to re-bury his jealousy of Linda. Every once in a while it would pop up, and there would be a scene, but by the time of her illness John felt so damn sorry for her that he couldn’t find it in his heart to begrudge her a single one of Paul’s loving hugs or kisses. Still - it had left John feeling ‘less than.’ The illusion of security John had built up when Linda was alive was possible due to the constant activity that went on all around them, what with all the kids, and dogs, and traveling to and fro. In the echoing silence after Linda’s death, John was no longer able to ignore the fact that throughout his whole life he’d had to choose between a half-love from the one he really wanted, or a suffocating whole-love from someone with whom he had to settle.

Fiona had been watching John’s sad face as the seconds ticked by. She knew John well enough to know that he had to come to this disclosure in his own time. He seemed to have come to the end of a train of thought. She said softly, “What frightens you about discussing this subject with Paul?”

John dragged a deep sigh out of the bottom of his diaphragm and said, “I’m afraid of the answer.”

 

*****

 

Later That Night

 

Paul had actually made dinner this night, since John was late at his therapist’s office. John had actually been with his therapist for two whole hours, and had called halfway through to say he would be coming home late. Consequently, Paul decided to make some mashed potatoes, a salad, some asparagus and a tofu steak from Linda’s cookbook. He’d even absent-mindedly put on one of Linda’s aprons. He didn’t hear when the front door closed, and so when John cried,

“Well look at you!” from the kitchen doorway, Paul jumped a bit.

“You’re back!” Paul said cheerfully. He wiped his wet hands on the apron, his eyes quickly checking out John’s face to see if there was something wrong there, and seeing the remains of a recent turmoil, he swung around to the open bottle of red wine, and poured John a glass. Handing it to him he asked, “Are you okay, mate?” 

John looked drained. He leaned against the kitchen counter, and sipped at his glass of wine. He said, “It was emotionally exhausting.”

Paul nodded, knowing exactly how that felt. He gave John a sympathetic smile and turned back to the cutting board, and started expertly to chop an onion. He didn’t ask John any questions, because when he came home from therapy feeling beat up emotionally, he didn’t want to answer any of John’s prying questions.

But John, of course, felt hurt that Paul didn’t ask any questions. He always asked Paul questions when he had a hard day at therapy after all! He wanted Paul to ask questions so that he could find a way to spit out The Question. The one Fiona had persuaded him to ask after a double session. It had taken that long for John to get to the point of agreement. Now he felt the courage slipping out of him, as he watched Paul’s quick, deft moves with the knife. Paul was better than him at knife skills, John thought idly. 

Soon they were seated at the kitchen table. Paul had brought everything to John, quietly catering to his needs. They were in what Paul thought was a peaceful lull as they started to eat. After a few bites, John said softly, “It’s good. Thanks.”

Paul smiled and said, “Of course.” He laughed and winked at John. “Aren’t we the polite ones?”

John chuckled too. “I’m sorry I’m so tired. I can’t remember a session that drained me so much.”

“I guess that’s why they are usually for one hour, not two hours,” Paul pointed out. 

John nodded, acknowledging the truth in that. “It was something important, and she didn’t have a client after me, and we neither of us thought we should stop.” 

Paul nodded and then let the quiet fold around them again, and for a few moments all that could be heard were the clicks of flatware hitting china. 

John couldn’t take it any more. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?” He asked abruptly, glaring at Paul over his plate.

Paul was surprised by the sudden attack. “It’s your therapy, which means it’s your business.” He was surprised by the vehemence of John’s voice.

“I know that is how you see it,” John said harshly. “But I don’t see it that way. I see it as something I go through in order to bring work back home for you and I to work on so we can fix our shit.”

Fix our shit? Paul didn’t know what about their shit needed fixing. Whatever ‘their shit’ was, that is. He said, “John, you keep getting mad at me out of nowhere. One minute everything is peaceful, and then all of a sudden you’re mad at me! I always feel as though I’ve just walked in on a scene that is half finished, and I missed something important.” Paul’s face expressed his put-upon irritation, and it calmed John down a bit. The poor wee boy - he was so hopelessly clueless.

“I just want us to talk directly to each other about things, instead of us just talking about each other to our therapists. Don’t you ever want to do that too?” John asked plaintively.

Paul, seeing that John had reeled back his anger, relaxed a little. He was suspicious of where this was headed (oh please god don’t let it be one of those talks where he would be expected to emotionally bleed all over the place), but he knew he was well and truly caught, and would have to participate in John’s scenario, whatever that might be. He hoped they could avoid a complete train wreck. He had wanted to surprise John with a shared bath, and a snuggle under the covers afterwards. He didn’t want to go to bed with sore feelings between them. Fatalistically he drew up his courage. “What do you want to talk about John?” He forced himself to lean in toward John, and to show open interest in his face. In truth, he wanted to bolt out of the room to the music room, and even put headphones on once he got there!

There it was - the opportunity. Now all John had to do was reach out and grab it. The words hovered on his lips for several seconds as he debated with himself whether he could really take it if the answer was bad. But he finally forced the words out: 

“Do you plan to be faithful to me from now on?”

 

*****

 

The Next Day  
Marc’s Office

 

“When I was a boy, right after my mother died, I said something wrong. I said, ‘how are we going to get on without her money?’ Everyone was horrified, and I have never forgiven myself.” Paul was staring into the fireplace in Marc’s cozy office. It was a chilly late November day, and it was already almost completely dark outside although it was only 4 p.m. Paul felt very chilled. He had wrapped himself up in the fleece blanket Marc had handed him. Sensing Paul’s shocked sadness, Marc had even brought him a hot cup of tea, which Paul now held in two hands. 

“Why do you suppose you said those words?” Marc asked softly, very worried about his patient, and having no idea what was wrong. 

Paul was numb. “I was worried about how we were going to get on without her money,” he said robotically. “She made more money than me dad, and we had the row house for free because she was the midwife.”

Marc said, “Could there have been another reason why you said that right after you learned of her death?”

Paul was slow to digest Marc’s words. But when he did, his eyes rose up to meet Marc’s and they looked like two burned out coals. Paul had no words.

Marc said gently, “Sometimes people say one thing to keep themselves from thinking another.” 

Paul just blinked in dull confusion.

“Perhaps you spoke about how it would be hard to manage without her money, because what you were really thinking was how hard it would be to live without her.”

Paul listened, but was not convinced. “Why wouldn’t I just say, ‘How are we going to live without her?’ if that is what I felt?”

“Perhaps because it made you feel too vulnerable - too naked - in front of other people,” Marc suggested ever so gently.

Paul sat quietly with that suggestion, and took an absent-minded sip of tea. Marc noticed that Paul’s hands were shaking, and again he felt a strum of anxiety for his patient. Something bad at happened. He decided to round out his point:

“Today you started by telling me something you said about your mother when she died. What were you thinking about when you decided to tell me that story?”

Paul was staring into his teacup. “I said something wrong last night.” 

Marc had to strain to hear the words, and Paul had lost all of his growing confidence. He was staring into his teacup as if he were staring into a hole that went all the way into the middle of the earth. Marc could have heard a pin drop. He said ever so softly, “What did you say?”

“John asked me a question I wasn’t expecting.” Again, Paul answered a different question than the one he was asked. Marc knew by now that there was more than one way to skin this cat.

“What was the question?” He asked.

Paul stalled for several moments, and finally said, “He asked me if I ‘planned to be faithful from now on’ - just like that!” A little of Paul’s indignation at being asked that question was reflected in his face.

Marc felt a cloud of discomfort hovering over him. He had to ask the question though, to get to the bottom of what appeared to be an emotional disaster. “And how did you answer him?”

Paul closed his eyes and winced. He didn’t like to remember what had happened next. He wanted to do it all over, but it was impossible. There were a lot of things he could have said, should have said, so why had he said such a bald, stupid thing? He felt tears in the back of his eyes as he confessed,

“I said, ‘you want me to give up women? Forever?’”

 

*****

 

The Night Before

 

John sat stock still in his seat at the kitchen table. His fork was halfway up to his mouth for a moment before he let it drop with a clang on to his plate. “Really?” He shouted. “Is that all you can say?” 

The words had been out of Paul’s mouth before he had realized what he was saying. He wanted to take them back, but it was too late now. And he could tell by John’s disbelieving, betrayed and angry face that there would be no charming himself out of this mess. Strangely, the first thing Paul felt was disappointment that he wasn’t going to get to snuggle with John that night. And maybe never again.

“Have you nothing more to say?” John demanded angrily. “You just cut my fucking heart out, and you have nothing else to say?”

Paul’s throat had closed up on him. This was horrible - what was happening now was horrible. He couldn’t think of an answer that would placate John, and then suddenly it occurred to him that John should not have pounced on him like that! He hadn’t been ready for it! He finally managed to say, resentfully, “You just sprang that on me out of nowhere. And you said, ‘faithful’ - like I haven’t been faithful to you! You agreed to the thing with Linda. But I was never unfaithful to you! You were the one who was unfaithful to me. And I forgave you!” Paul was building up steam now - he had begun to see himself as a full-on victim. 

“This isn’t about the past, Paul,” John said with a nasty tone. “This is about the future. And you just told me you aren’t going to give up women - women you’ve never even met - for me. Let’s put that in your fucking pipe, and see if you can smoke it!” (John was rather proud of his fanciful words even as the anger ran through him.)

Paul - absolutely infuriated by John’s smug expression and tone of voice (and also suffering from a guilty conscience over his stupid reaction) - pushed back his chair and got up, throwing his napkin down on to the table. “I can’t talk to you!” He shouted. And then he stalked out of the room, looking for something to slam or break, and decided upon the music room door, since John had already broken it. He made it up all three flights of stairs in record time, and then slammed the door as hard as he could only to be disappointed when it stopped halfway to because it was unable to close properly. “Fucking JOHN!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. The asshole had even made it impossible for him to slam his own fucking door!

 

*****


	132. Chapter 132

The Day After the Fight  
Fiona’s Office

 

John called Fiona that morning in a terrible panic. She found room for him in her schedule for him to come see her immediately. Clearly, the interaction she had persuaded John to initiate had gone terribly wrong. He was huddled on the edge of the sofa now, his face covered in tissues. He had been unable to speak for the first five minutes, sobbing the whole time instead. When he finally stopped, Fiona asked, “What happened?”

“We had a fight,” John answered glumly.

“What was the fight about?” She asked.

“He won’t give up women for me.” John said bluntly, despairingly. 

“He told you that?” Fiona asked, surprised. She had thought that Paul would have been receptive to a monogamous relationship after years of the sharing arrangement. 

“That was the gist of it,” John stated.

Fiona had her suspicions: especially with the ‘gist’ part. “Tell me exactly what you said to him, and then exactly what he said to you.”

John tried to think back. He had told himself, after Paul had stormed out of the kitchen, that he shouldn’t have used the word ‘faithful.’ Apparently that triggered a bad reaction in Paul. And John could sort of see why. He looked at Fiona sulkily. Should he tell her the exact truth? What point would there be in not doing so? John said,

“I could have said it better.” The admission appeared to be a hard one for John to make.

“Yes?” Fiona asked, obviously waiting for John to elucidate.

“I was so fucking nervous, you know? The words came out, ‘are you going to be faithful to me from now on.’ I think those were the words.” Fiona couldn’t help herself; she visibly winced. John saw the wince and said shamefully, “Yeah, I know.”

“And Paul said what in response? Exactly.” Fiona persevered.

John became indignant again as he thought of it. “He looked at me as if I were crazy, and he shouted, ‘You want me to give up women forever?’”

Now Fiona groaned. “Oh my god, the two of you...”

“What?” John asked her angrily.

“I despair of you both.”

“He’s the one who refuses to be faithful to me!” John declared, unhappy to see his therapist half-blaming him.

“John, stop using that word ‘faithful.’ From what I’ve gathered over the years, Paul is a very loyal guy who prides himself in living up to his promises. To imply he wasn’t faithful would be a huge insult to him. And was he ever unfaithful to you?”

“His whole life!” John declared dramatically. “He fucked anything that moved until he married Linda! And then he was faithful to her. He was never faithful to me.”

“But he never promised he would be faithful to anyone, did he, until he married Linda?” Fiona asked quietly. “And then he kept his promise to her until you came back in his life. I’m sure he feels if he was unfaithful to anyone, it was to Linda.”

John had a short grip on his temper. This wasn’t turning out the way he had hoped it would. He had felt he was the truly wronged party. 

Fiona could see that stubborn line around John’s jaw. She decided to move forward. “So how did it end?” She asked wearily.

“He stormed up to the attic room, and he slept there all night! And he’d gone off somewhere before I woke up. I haven’t seen him since!” 

 

*****

 

Another Therapist’s Office  
Later That Same Day

 

“So I slept in the music room,” Paul was saying, “and I haven’t seen John since.”

Marc said, “Not even this morning?”

“I was at the gym, and when I got back, he was gone. I have no idea where he went. I decided to go to my office, because I had no intention of waiting around the house acting like I was worried.”

Marc had to suppress a smile at that teenaged concern. “Were you worried?” He asked with a soft smile in his eyes.

Paul smiled a little sheepishly, “A little,” he admitted.

“Well, I don’t think this is going to be a hard one to resolve,” Marc said. “Clearly, John wanted to talk about your future and wants a monogamous relationship, and you weren’t ready to consider the question. Is that a fair statement?”

Paul nodded. 

“What bothers you about him wanting a monogamous relationship?” Marc asked, reverting to his disinterested mien, studying his pad.

“Forever is a long time.” 

“You have a hard time visualizing the rest of your life spent with John? Or is it contemplating a life without a woman or women in it that most bothers you?” Marc asked. Again, the question was so dry as to strip it of all judgment or emotion.

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” Paul looked frustrated. “He’s asking me to deny part of who I am,” he finally managed to say.

“You mean, the way he has had to deny part of who he is for you all these years?”

 

*****

Fiona’s Office

 

“Obviously, Paul was taken by surprise by your question. We did discuss how you could bring it up in a less stressful way,” Fiona was saying gently, as John wiped his face of more tears. 

John said, “I fucked it up. I didn’t want to sound vulnerable, like I was begging him.”

“It isn’t ‘begging’ to ask him to be your lover and no one else’s. You have every right to ask for that given all that has passed between the two of you.” Fiona had leaned so close to John, that now her forehead was almost touching his, and her knees were almost touching his, and her hands were almost touching his; almost, but not quite.

“He doesn’t want me that way,” John said, weeping again. The words were spit out between sobs. “He never has. I always wanted and needed him more than he wanted or needed me.” 

“John, John, stop,” Fiona crooned. “You know that isn’t true. You know that Paul has great difficulty in expressing his emotions in words. But he has expressed how much he loves you in so many ways. Remember the whole Brad thing?”

John shuddered. 

“And before that - the Nigel thing?” Fiona added.

John said, “Paul told me that! He said I was the one who was unfaithful to him, so basically who was I to call him unfaithful.”

“I told you that word - ‘unfaithful’ - it is a trigger word for him. Don’t use that word. You need to phrase it as a new way of being - an adventure - ‘let’s try to be each other’s one and only, and see how it works.’ Entice him, don’t bully him.”

“It’s too late now. I know he doesn’t want me that way, and how do we put that back in the fucking box?”

“I suspect that Paul is going to be very sorry about what he said. If you can force yourself not to make a full meal out of how it hurt you, I think you will find that he will want to walk back what he said, and maybe he will even tell you what he is really afraid of. Don’t you want to know why he was so fearful about your question?” 

John - for the first time in fifteen hours - felt hopeful. “I want very much for him to tell me what he is afraid of. It’s just that he so rarely does.”

“Maybe this time you can persuade him to open up.”

 

*****

 

Marc’s Office

 

There were sunken dark caverns under Paul’s eyes. He was listless and sad. “I didn’t mean to hurt John. I never wanted to hurt him. But he was always demanding things of me that I wasn’t ready for.”

“Like he did last night?” Marc asked.

“Exactly like that! Why can’t be let things play out, and see how they happen? Why does he need to have a fucking playbook open all the time?”

Marc realized Paul was very upset, because he wasn’t a frequent swear word user, but this evening the air around his patient was positively blue. Marc allowed Paul’s words to echo a bit, and then he said softly (although he was fully aware that Paul already knew what he was going to say), “Because that is how John is made. He needs the boundaries, and the rulebook, and the referees. Life is too chaotic for him without those things. I only know John through your words, but these facts are patently obvious to me.”

Paul nodded his acceptance of this indictment. He said, “I feel terrible about what I said. I keep saying the wrong things.”

Marc turned a page of his pad, and said, “Let’s think of what you could have said instead. Do you want to try that?”

Paul looked hopefully at Marc. “Like what?”

Marc said, “Well, perhaps you could have said you’d be willing to give it a try. You could say that there are no guarantees in life, and, as you mentioned earlier, ‘forever is a long time.’ But if he is willing to be patient, maybe you’ll find that you are comfortable with the kind of life he wants. How about something like that?”

Paul looked at Marc wistfully. “I wish I could take you with me, and have you tell John that stuff. It sounds so obvious and right the way you say it, but I’m sure I’ll fuck it up somehow.”

Marc smiled. “I have complete faith in you, Paul,” he said.

 

*****

Cavendish

 

John had gotten back from Fiona’s office in late morning. The house was silent, and it felt cold and scary to John. He walked through the rooms: the sitting room, dining room, powder room and formal living room - all rooms that he had managed to redecorate thus far. The kitchen was still Linda’s, as was the ‘real’ master suite upstairs. The house was a hodge-podge of Paul, Linda, and John. There wasn’t much cohesiveness in the design. John longed to make it all Paul’s and his, and have it be a reflection of their commitment to each other: but how to get there from here? John had no idea where Paul was, and every time the phone rang he rushed to answer, only to hear someone other than Paul on the other end. Each person who called was a grave disappointment to John, and he wasn’t able to mask his irritation. They each quickly hung up, realizing they had caught John at a bad time. Around and around the rooms John paced, getting more worried with each round.

When it got to be 2 p.m., and the sky was already getting gloomy, he started to feel real anxiety. What if Paul had left for good? John realized that he was making himself crazy again, so he called Mary, who had a way of grounding him when he was starting to float. 

Mary and Stella had been sitting around in Mary’s kitchen playing with Arthur and gossiping. When her phone rang, Mary looked down at the number on her screen and said to Stella, “Cavendish.” She answered the phone.

“Mary? It’s John.”

“Hi, John. What’s up?”

John heard the words ‘what’s up’ and it reminded him so much of Paul he nearly burst into tears. “I’m pretty down,” he admitted.

“What’s wrong?” Mary asked sharply. “Where’s Daddy?”

“I don’t know,” John said, his voice small and scared.

Mary turned to her sister and whispered, “It sounds like the dads had a bad fight.” 

Stella grabbed Mary’s phone out of her hand and said, “John, Mary and I are on our way. We’re bringing Arthur.”

Arthur: their grandson, John thought. Or was he only just Paul’s grandson now? Another reason to break down and cry.

It took them 30 minutes because of the amount of logistics and supplies it took to get a baby out on the road. Mary and Stella didn’t think of how their parents didn’t worry about such things, and just sort of slung them on their hips and took them everywhere without bothering with baby paraphernalia. Once they got to Cavendish, and saw John’s face, they knew it was bad.

“What happened?” Mary asked John sweetly, as she put her arm around his shoulder. Stella was holding a restless Arthur, and shifting from one foot to the other to keep him settled. 

“We had a fight,” John said. 

“A bad one,” Mary finished for him. 

“We figured that much out already, John,” Stella said. “So what was it about?”

John said, “I don’t like to talk about your dad to you this way. I said something badly, and then he said something badly, and now I have no idea where the fuck he is.” 

Mary looked at the clock. “It’s not even 3 p.m., you know. He’s probably at the office. When he and mum had a fight, he always either went to the studio or the office.” 

John looked up, surprised. “He had fights with your mother?”

Stella snorted.

Mary smiled and said, “Not often. But they had some. All people who live together have arguments. It’s not the end of the world.”

“But what if he doesn’t come back?” John asked.

Stella said, “That’s not gonna happen. For one thing, this is his house.” 

John looked up sharply and saw the grin on Stella’s face and then he laughed. “That’s true,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll be moving back across the mews.”

“It can’t have been that bad,” Mary said comfortingly. “And one thing about Daddy - this is absolutely true. He can’t stay mad, and he doesn’t hold grudges. He was always the first one to apologize when he got mad at mum or one of us kids.” 

“It was pretty bad,” John said. “We said some pretty hurtful things to each other.”

Stella was looking at John from across the room, where she bounced from heel to heel with the baby, and finally couldn’t hold it back. “As bad as the things you said about him in the ‘70s?”

John stared at her, stung.

Stella said, “If he forgave that, I don’t see how he can’t forgive whatever this is.”

John couldn’t explain the real problem to the girls, because they were Paul’s daughters. It just felt wrong to share his fears about their father’s level of commitment to him with them. They would naturally be on their father’s side, and this thought made him feel abandoned again. 

Mary said, “Have you had anything to eat today, John?”

John looked around as if his surroundings could answer the question.

“That means no,” Mary interpreted. “I’m gonna make you something to eat.” She went off in the direction of the kitchen, and Stella plopped down on the sofa next to John, and passed Arthur over to him 

“Your turn,” she said simply. 

John took the baby, and bounced him on a knee. The baby looked like a mini-Paul. It was an exquisite kind of pain. 

“You know, John,” Stella said, serious now. “Daddy adores you. Whatever your argument was about, it isn’t going to be bad enough to make him stop loving you.”

John met Stella’s eyes. He said, with much sadness, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

An hour later, after John had finished the food Mary had made for him, and was holding the baby and teasing him with a plastic set of keys, Stella joined Mary in the kitchen, and they quietly washed up the dishes. “There is something really serious going on between them,” Stella told Mary. “John told me that sometimes love isn’t enough.”

Mary looked at Stella and said, “I wonder what that means.”

“I think maybe it’s about that flirting stuff that happened last summer,” Stella guessed. “John was really shaken up by that. Do you think Daddy is considering dating again?”

Mary felt a chill go down her spine. “Oh dear god, no. If it’s true I’ll box Dad’s ears! Poor John!”

While Stella and Mary were talking in the kitchen, the clock had moved forward to 5:30 p.m. John heard the front door being unlocked, and his heart did a tap dance. Thank god! He’s come home! 

A moment later Paul showed up in the sitting room, and he stared uncertainly at John. “Is that Arthur?” He finally asked, his momentary confusion banishing his shyness.

“Mary and Stella are in the kitchen,” John rasped. His throat was dry.

“You called them?” Paul asked.

“I was lonely. I needed company.” John’s voice was flat, but stopped short of being judgmental.

Paul moved in John’s direction, and reached out for Arthur. For a moment, John had thought Paul was going to embrace him. But he handed the baby over to Paul, who cuddled and cooed at him a little, and then, still holding the baby, sat down on the sofa not far from John. As he took a turn bouncing the baby on his knee, Paul said (looking at the floor), “I’m sorry about last night.”

John was holding his breath. “Me too.” He said. His heart was now in his mouth. This was unbearable. 

Into this tense atmosphere sailed Mary and Stella.

“Daddy! You’re home!” Mary chirped lightly. “Just in time. Stella has a dinner date, and Arthur and I have to get home to Alistair. We’ve left a vegetable casserole in the fridge for dinner. It’s about 40 minutes at 120 degrees C.” Paul got up to accept hugs and kisses, John took his share too, and Paul walked the girls to the door. 

On the doorstep, Stella turned to face her father and said, “I don’t know what you said or did to John, but don’t be an ass.”

Paul smiled and said, “Thanks much for the vote of confidence.” He closed the door after Stella had disappeared into the darkness. Reluctantly, he turned around and headed back to the sitting room, where John was seated slouched deep into the sofa, one leg slung over the knee of the other. He looked both exhausted and nervous. Paul felt bad at the sight of John. Why was it so hard to tell that man his true feelings? He supposed it had to do with all the times John had betrayed him: with other teenaged friends, with Stu Sutcliffe, with Brian Epstein, with Yoko Ono, with Allen Klein, and even with George and Ringo; and then there had been Nigel, and Brad...

He sat down next to John and said, “I reacted badly to what you said last night. I wasn’t expecting it, and I thought you were saying I haven’t been faithful to you.”

“I used the wrong word. I shouldn’t have used that word. I was just too afraid to use the word I really meant.”

This surprised Paul. He turned to John. “What word did you really mean?”

John sighed. “I meant to ask you if you were open to a monogamous relationship from now on. But it came out badly.”

Paul’s expression softened. “You don’t have to be tough around me, you know. You can lose the armor. I don’t judge you, you know.”

“I know,” John said softly. “But what you said - about not giving up women. That really hurt like hell.”

Paul leaned back in his seat and said, “It is a scary thought for me, John - the idea of never holding a woman again; never having that kind of sex. I like the feel and the smell of women. But it doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try.”

John had been feeling scared by Paul’s words, but heard the word ‘try’ as a kind of hopeful sign. “Try how?” He asked.

“Can we take it one increment at a time? Can we say we will be monogamous for, say, six months? To see how it works?” Paul was walking on eggshells and he knew it. It had been a few years since he’d had sex with a woman (given Linda’s illness, they had not been intimate for months before her death), and he couldn’t deny the fact that part of him was aching for it.

John was stolidly quiet for a long moment, and then he said shrewdly, “Give me one year to start, and we’ll see what happens after that. You really have to put your heart in it, though.” 

Paul’s breath escaped in one long ‘phew’ sound, and then he laughed. “Done. I think I forgot to breathe there for a moment.”

John pulled Paul closer to him, until his arm was around Paul’s shoulder. “I never was unfaithful to you, Paul,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “I did stupid stuff to get your attention or out of revenge, and I was unfaithful to just about everyone else, but I was never unfaithful to you. My love for you always remained above it all and apart from everyone else.” 

Paul heard this, and of course, he knew this. He had spent a good deal of time trying to explain this phenomenon to Marc less than a week earlier. What troubled him was that he’d never wanted that kind of love - the kind that stood apart and remained untouched. It made him feel like an ideal and desired object, rather than a flesh and blood human being. He wanted to be part of someone’s love, and he wanted to be touched by it. But most of all, he wanted to be able to trust it. 

This was not the time or place to say these things; John and he were still aching from the previous evening’s ‘honest exchange.’ This latest experience only fed into Paul’s deep disinclination to spill out his most raw feelings. He didn’t think it was fair to make other people have to deal with his messy feelings.

 

*****

 

Boxing Day 1999  
Chrissie Hynde’s London Home

 

The party was well attended, and it was a first class vegetarian blast. Many of the lights and shadows of the London music world were there. John and Paul had arrived a few hours into it. They had debated about going at all, since John had been feeling a little under the weather, but he rallied after dinner, and so they showed up at about 9:30 p.m. The guests were delighted to see them.

John wandered over to where Elton John was seated with his boyfriend David Furnish. John liked to make a beeline to where Elton was, because Elton was always so bitchy about the other guests, and it made John laugh. 

“Well, if it isn’t Elton!” John said theatrically, as he gestured to an empty chair. Both Elton and David eagerly indicated that John was most welcome to sit there. “What are you two up to over here?” John asked.

Elton said, “We’re just taking a little rest. The evening’s only just getting started, so we need to pace ourselves.” 

“So who’s here who we don’t like?” John asked naughtily, leaning closer to the two men. He wanted to start the gossip right away.

Elton’s face lit up with delight. He adored John Lennon. He knew that he was out of John’s league when it came to physical appearance, and so he’d never really entertained the fantasy that John could have been his lover. In fact, Elton would have been too intimated, given what he knew of John’s alleged sexual prowess, not to mention - how the fuck do you compete with Paul McCartney? It wasn’t at all fair. Realistically, too, Elton knew he wanted to be the enfant terrible in his own life; in John he saw another such one, and he figured they’d have whacked each other over the head with their respective tiaras in no time if they had tried to be lovers. But John was the most delicious friend. 

“Well,” said Elton, settling in, “that crazy Icelandic girl is here. At least she isn’t dressed like a molting swan...”

David interrupted. “No, she’s dressed like a geisha girl wearing a manhole cover on her head.”

John laughed out loud. This was going to be fun...

 

*****

 

Paul had wandered off in another direction. He was searching for Chrissie to say ‘hello’. She had been such a wonderful friend to Linda. As he made his way through the crowd, he was repeatedly stopped by people, and spent a few moments chatting with each of them, and then continued on his way. Suddenly one of the people in front of him was a rather glitzy blond. He sighed heavily. He could see the cupidity in her eyes and quickly looked around for salvation. Where were your friends when you fucking needed them? 

“Hi, Paul,” the woman said to him. “Remember me?”

Paul did not remember her. Didn’t she know that he met hundreds of people every month? And all of them thought he should remember them! He said politely, “I’m afraid I’m having a senior moment.”

The woman giggled. “You’re not old - don’t be silly. I’m Imogen - a friend of Chrissie’s. We met at your home after the concert for Linda.”

Paul still couldn’t place the woman, although he certainly remembered the party after the concert for Linda. He nodded pleasantly. The nod was neither an acknowledgement that he remembered, nor an admission that he didn’t. He figured what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. 

“I’m so glad to run into you again. I have wanted so much to sit and talk with you. I’m sure you have some fascinating memories.” The woman’s attempt at subtlety was completely undone by the fact she almost had to shout into his ear to be heard over the crowd. 

Paul felt uneasy. He didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t want the woman getting the wrong idea. He had learned the hard way that ‘harmless flirting’ was an oxymoron. He wasn’t going down that road again.

The woman put her hand on his upper arm, and pulled him down closer to her so she could speak directly in his ear. “Come with me. I know a quiet spot.” 

Paul had to put a stop to this. “I’d love to, really, but I’ve only just arrived, and I haven’t said hello to Chrissie yet. Maybe later on...”

“Oh I know where Chrissie is!” Imogen crowed happily. “I’ll take you to her!” 

Paul could hardly object to this, and reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled by the woman (who had a death grip on his arm) through the crowd. 

 

*****

 

“Who’s that man-eater who has her clutches on your man, John?” Elton asked coolly. 

“What?” John asked, alarmed.

Elton indicated a direction with a nod of his head. John turned to look.

“Oh for Chrissakes!” John swore. “I can’t let him out of my sight for one moment, or some fucking woman will just snatch him up!”

Elton and David laughed. David said, “You’d better go rescue him. He looks absolutely miserable.”

“Ta,” John said, pushing back his chair and heading in Paul’s direction.

Elton turned to David and said, “Poor John. He’s spent his entire life chasing after that man; he’s always beating off people - men and women - with sticks. I’ve always said that Paul has far too many blessings and gifts for one human being. He attracts people like flies.”

 

*****

 

Paul was beginning to doubt that Imogen was bringing him to Chrissie. They’d already wandered around the house for over five minutes. Just as he was about to try to escape from her clutches, John popped up in front of them. “John!” Paul cried in relief. 

John laughed at him. He turned to Imogen and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal him away from you. There are some friends of ours who are dying to see him.” He grabbed Paul’s other arm, and yanked him out of Imogen’s grasp. 

“Ow!” Paul mumbled to himself, as he rubbed the arm so recently liberated from Imogen’s claw. He suspected the woman’s fingernails had made marks on his skin below. Meanwhile, John was dragging him off in the opposite direction until they were in a relatively quiet area.

“Who was that bitch?” John asked indignantly.

“Someone who claims to be a friend of Chrissie’s. She was at that party we gave after the concert for Linda.”

John remembered her now. “Oh, her!” There was a world of contempt in the way he said it. “Well, you owe me now, ‘cause I saved you from her.”

“I am extremely grateful, John,” Paul twinkled. “I’m sure I can find a way to make it up to you.” 

John’s face lit up and so did Paul’s. They exchanged very intimate grins. 

“Here you both are!” Chrissie cried. “I was afraid you weren’t coming!”

 

*****


	133. Chapter 133

December 29, 1999  
Cavendish

 

“Arthur has certainly had his share of Christmas presents this year,” Mary told her father with a certain amount of irony. She had agreed to spend the Christmas holidays this year with Alistair’s family, so she was finally celebrating with Paul and John tonight. John had gone crazy and bought several gifts for Arthur. Paul’s head had shaken with amused affection at the sight of the largesse. Apparently, Alistair’s parents had also showered their first grandchild with gifts. “He’s only nine months old. He hasn’t got a clue what all this stuff is,” Mary joked. “But it is very generous of you.”

Paul said, “You should thank John. He has been shopping for weeks.” They both looked across the room at John, who was seated near the Christmas tree with James, and both men were ‘helping’ Arthur play with his toys. Paul and his daughter exchanged another amused grin.

Mary snuggled into the sofa’s corner and faced her dad. “How is it going with you and John?” She asked, a little shyly.

Paul gazed at his daughter and was reminded briefly of Linda. His face reflected his fondness for both Mary and Linda as he responded. “We’re doing pretty well,” he said judiciously.

“I’ve been worried. I know you had that bad difference of opinion...”

It wasn’t like Mary to fish, so Paul felt he owed her an explanation. “John wanted me to make a commitment to him - you know, just him and me and no one else, and I balked. It upset him, but I didn’t mean it that way.”

“How did you mean it?” She asked him, allowing the red wine to swish around in the glass she held.

Paul sighed. “It was all happening so fast. I wasn’t prepared for the discussion.”

Mary wondered if she should tell her father what she thought. It wasn’t her business, really. It wasn’t her relationship. But she loved John very much, and most definitely did not want to see him hurt. She went for it. “Have you sorted it out yet?”

“We’ve agreed to give it a try,” Paul said, “for a year.”

“Really?” Mary asked; she was clearly quite irritated, and even a little shocked. It had surprised her so much she didn't have time to filter her words. “You put a time limit on it?”

Paul was taken aback by Mary’s reaction. He’d thought he had done the mature thing, but here Mary was upset about it! “What’s wrong with that?” He asked defensively.

Mary regained her composure. She said, “I’m amazed John wasn’t insulted by that. He’s been there for all of us for years now. I would have thought he deserved more than a year!”

Paul was a little irritated himself. He didn’t like being judged, especially when he felt there was merit to the other person’s view. It wasn’t one of his better qualities. “I didn’t say it was over in a year, Mary. I said we’d try exclusiveness for a year, and then see how it went.”

“If you’d said that to Mum, I doubt she’d have married you,” Mary pointed out stubbornly.

Paul stared at Mary and it dawned on him she really had strong feelings about this. “What do you think I should have done?” Paul asked.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” she commented. “John’s your soul mate. You need to commit yourself 100% to him, and you shouldn’t put time limits on it. That’s ridiculous.”

Paul felt stung by Mary’s comments. Of course, she couldn’t know that the problem had more to do with sexual drive than emotional need. He had no intention of enlightening her, either. Instead he said, “John and I understand each other, and one way and another, we somehow make it work.”

Mary grunted but Paul could tell she still wasn’t convinced. It surprised him how loyal she was to John. But then, he decided, it shouldn’t surprise him. He’d raised her in a home where John was part of them. Naturally, her loyalty would be to John over any strange woman with whom Paul might want to have a fling.

John, meanwhile, was in a wonderful mood. Just after the New Year he and Paul were headed for their hideaway in Costa Rica, which he had named El Nido, and he was finally going to see the place after the remodeling he’d arranged from afar. Thus far he had only seen images sent to him over the Internet. And Christmas had been great, with all the kids (except Mary and her family) there, and Julian and his girlfriend had also stopped by for a few hours. Most importantly, Paul seemed quite satisfied with their decision on monogamy, albeit with a year’s deadline. John would worry about next year, next year. He'd managed to pressure Paul into putting off marrying Jane all those years by doing it one year at a time. It had worked then, and he had every reason to believe it would work again. For all these reasons, it had been a very nice holiday for John. 

 

*****

 

Later that night, Paul lay in bed staring at the ceiling. John had a reading light on, and was perusing a new book, Crossing: A Memoir, an autobiography of a man who transitioned to a woman. Paul had thumbed through the book earlier in the day and had worried that maybe John was planning to become a woman! Oh dear god, no! This night, Paul glanced at the book in John’s hands and asked,

“Why would a man want to become a woman?”

John, interrupted, took a while to digest Paul’s question. He then immediately thought, ‘what a Paul-like question.’ He smiled and said, “I’m only on the second chapter. It appears to be something inside that drives him.”

“Why are you interested in reading about it?” Paul next asked.

“It isn’t so unlike what I have always lived with - this thing inside me that can only attach emotionally to men. I guess I hope I’ll read something that will help me understand myself better.” John was honest and thoughtful as he answered.

Paul thought about this response and said, half-joking, “So you won’t be turning into a girl anytime soon?”

John laughed. He had to put the book down momentarily because he was laughing so hard. Sometimes Paul could be so literal-minded. He finally was able to say, “I’d make a really ugly woman, Paul. But you on the other hand...”

“Don’t you dare say it!” Paul declared, laughing as he did so.

Silence fell over them again as John went back to his book. But Paul continued to stare at the ceiling. He felt as though he had to say something to John in order to clear his conscience. What Mary had said to him that evening had set him to thinking that maybe his attitude had been completely off.

“John?” Paul asked.

John, this time thinking that Paul must be horny, turned a lecherous eye towards Paul. But he saw instead a very cloudy face with worried eyes. “What’s wrong?” He asked.

“Were you insulted by the fact that I wanted a trial period on the monogamy bit?”

John was so surprised to hear Paul say this that he put his book down and forgot to save his place. “What?”

“I’m thinking now that it was very clumsy of me to put it that way. I should have explained.”

“If you want to explain, I want to hear it,” John said simply.

“I can’t imagine living without you, you know that, right?” Paul asked. He looked quite rattled.

John said, “I’m never sure about anything, but thank you for telling me that.” In truth, the admission had stunned him. In a good way.

Paul turned his eyes back to the ceiling. He couldn’t say these things and actually look at John. He was afraid he would clam up if he did. “It’s taken me a long time to realize that I always needed you as much as you needed me.” There. He’d said it. But then he rushed to add “This is scary for me. Can you turn off the light?”

John quickly turned off the light and lay down on his side facing Paul, but otherwise remained silent. Paul was actually volunteering things without being prodded. It was a bloody miracle. John was even afraid to breathe - he didn’t want to do anything to spoil Paul’s mood.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so cowardly,” Paul finally whispered.

John made a comforting sound, but Paul dismissed it.

“No, I have been a coward,” he insisted stubbornly.

“In what way?” John asked softly.

“It was never easy for me to face the world - I could never say out loud, without embarrassment, ‘I love this man.’ I still don't think I could do it unless my back was against the wall.” Paul was only able to allow these words to flow out of him because of the safety of the dark.

John said, “I'm not that brave about it either.”

“But you're willing to take the chance. I never was.”

John thought about that. “I said I was willing to take the chance, but I think I knew you would say ‘no’, which meant that I wouldn’t actually have to face the world.”

After a brief astounded silence, Paul laughed. “Only you could say a thing like that and somehow make sense.”

“What I’m saying is, you were my ‘brakes’, you know? I could say or suggest any crazy thing, but you would find a way to talk me out of it. I knew this about you, and it gave me the freedom to be crazy. If you hadn’t come back at me and been you, then I would have been afraid to do it on my own.”

Paul digested this little speech. “You know, John,” he finally said, “we need to break out of this little game we play. I think right now I’m the main perpetrator of it.”

“What do you suggest?” John asked, holding his breath.

“I’m suggesting that I just throw caution to the wind and say, ‘let’s be together, you and me, with no one else. Forever. And fuck the world!’”

John laughed. He could hardly believe it. Was Paul on acid? “You might regret this in the morning,” John warned.

“I have far too few regrets in my life, John. Sometimes being cautious is a burden, and maybe I just want to put it down for once.” 

“You know I’ve always wanted to hear you say that. But what made you say it all of a sudden?” John was deeply curious.

Paul chuckled. “Mary read me the riot act. She was horrified by my behavior.”

John snuggled closer to Paul, and put his arm around Paul’s waist. Paul was still staring at the ceiling, but now he felt John’s hand rubbing his side, and his eyes found it hard to stay open. He allowed his muscles to relax. So, he’d thrown caution to the wind, and he had pledged his troth. Now the only thing left to do was to live up to it. He'd taken scary flyers before. He would just buckle up and deal with it.

 

*****

 

The Next Morning  
December 30, 1999

 

The phone was ringing relentlessly. Paul woke up with a start and looked at the clock. It was 7 a.m.: awfully early for someone to be calling, especially since so few people actually had their phone number. Paul’s heart started beating - he had a premonition that someone he loved had died or been hurt.

“Hello?” His voice sounded startled.

“Paul - this is Ritchie. I just had a call from Olivia.”

“George!” Paul cried. “What happened?” He was fearing that the cancer had taken a bad turn.

John woke up at the sound of Paul’s shout. He sat up and was shaking the cobwebs out of his head while Paul spoke on the phone.

“Someone has stabbed him! He’s in hospital!” Ringo cried.

“Stabbed?” Paul repeated loudly.

“Stabbed? Who the fuck has been stabbed?” John shouted at Paul.

Paul put his hand on the speaker end of the phone and said, “It’s Ritchie on the line. George has been stabbed and he is in hospital.”

“Who? Why?” John cried.

Paul gave him a ‘beats me’ expression and turned back to the phone. “Ritchie, calm down. Tell me what happened. This all sounds crazy.”

“Olivia was upset and wanted Barbara there with her - that’s why she called us. But they were both hysterical, so I’m sorry it doesn’t make much sense. She told Barbara something about an intruder in their home.”

“Oh dear god!” Paul shouted. “In their fucking home? Where the hell were their security guards?”

John was beside himself now. “What? What?”

Ringo was saying, “I don’t know much more. We’re in our car, and we’re being driven to the hospital near him in Henley-on-Thames. You and John should come too!”

“Is he okay?” Paul asked desperately.

“I don’t know - he is still alive, or he was when Olivia called. Hurry up!” Ringo hung up abruptly.

John had gotten out of bed and was wandering around in nervous circles. “So what did he say?” He shouted, as soon as Paul hung up.

“He doesn’t know that much, although George was definitely alive when Olivia called them not long ago. They had an intruder in their home, and the guy stabbed George.”

“Jesus Christ!” John yelled, gesturing angrily at the ceiling. John never prayed, but he sure blamed Jesus when things went wrong.

Paul, meanwhile, had climbed out of bed and was stumbling around trying to find some clothes to wear. “Get dressed, John, we’re going to the hospital.”

John stopped pacing and began to dress. “You know, George has always been the one most obsessed about his security. It’s odd that he wasn’t better protected.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Paul agreed, as he pulled on one of his shoes. “Where the hell were his security guards?”

“He has those blokes in that little gatehouse. They were probably sound asleep.” John’s voice was laden with contempt.

“It’s fucking frightening, is what it is,” Paul said, slapping his thighs with his palms and standing up. He was dressed and ready to go. He headed for the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then urged John to hurry up and finish while he punched some numbers into his Blackberry and ordered up a driver and a car. He was far too upset to drive. 

 

*****

 

A Hospital  
Henley-on-Thames  
Late Morning, December 30, 1999

 

Olivia, Dhani and Barbara were huddling together in a private anteroom and Ringo was pacing nervously in the hall when John and Paul arrived, coming up through the staff elevator for privacy reasons.

“Is he okay?” John asked Ringo breathlessly.

“He’s getting some stitches put in his throat,” Ringo said.

“His throat!” John cried.

“The guy was trying to cut his throat,” Ringo said, his expression one of total disbelief. 

“What about Olivia and Dhani?” Paul asked immediately.

“They’re in there,” Ringo said, pointing to the anteroom door.

Paul went in and headed straight for Olivia and Dhani. “How are you?” He asked Olivia. She had a swollen area on her face and was holding her arm as if it were injured. Olivia allowed herself to be swallowed by Paul’s hug. When they let go of each other, Paul then enveloped Dhani in a hug. It was Dhani who answered Paul’s question.

“She’s doing okay. She’s the hero, you know.”

“Really?” Paul asked.

“She smacked the guy in the head with a lamp.”

Paul turned to Olivia with his mouth open. She smiled sheepishly. Paul put his finger very gently on Olivia’s swollen cheek. “Did he do this to you?”

“I think so. It was crazy, and I don’t remember much of what happened.”

Ringo and John joined the others in the small room. John said, “The doctor said only two of us can go in George’s room at a time, but Ritchie and I explained to him that we’re all a package deal, so they’re bending the rules.”

Paul laughed. This was a far cry from the John Lennon who reduced a nurse to tears over a hospital gown some years earlier. John must have been picking up some of Paul’s ‘more flies with honey’ tricks.

George was half-sitting, half-lying in his hospital bed, his neck and part of his head covered in gauzy bandages. There were bruises just beginning to show on his face and around one eye.

“Good God George, what did he do to you?” Ringo cried from one side of the bed, with his wife beside him. Olivia and Dhani were on the other side of the bed, and John and Paul were standing at the foot of the bed, looking fascinated in a shocked kind of way at the seriousness of George’s injuries.

George’s voice was groggy as he responded, although accompanied by a drowsy smile. “You brought the whole crew, I see.”

“We’ve become a limited company,” John chirped from the end of the bed, reprising his line from A Hard Day’s Night.

Over the next 30 minutes, the story of George’s nightmare attack was told in minute detail. A crazed fan had somehow gotten on the property despite all of the security protections, and had broken into Friar Park and had wandered around looking for the Beatle. Noises heard of breaking glass from below had awakened George, who had gotten up and gone downstairs to investigate only to be confronted by a knife-wielding nutcase. In the fray, George’s neck had been cut, but Olivia had knocked the man out by hitting him in the face with a heavy table lamp. As the story was told to a horrified audience, George’s drug high began to wear off and it became clear to his three former band mates that he had been very badly shaken by the attack (as well he should be). Soon, the nurse popped in and said that only two could remain, so they all left except Olivia and Dhani.

They were all allowed to leave through the doctors’ exit, where their cars were waiting. Also waiting, however, was a small group of paparazzi who had managed to find the doctor’s car park and who thought they might get lucky by waiting there instead of in front with the dozens of other enterprising members of the press. Their originality of thinking was rewarded, and they snapped away crazily as three Beatles (and one Beatle wife) left the hospital together. They also had photos of Ringo and Barbara getting into one car, and John and Paul getting into the other. 

 

*****

 

Later That Day

 

The tabloids went crazy with the story of George’s attack, but there was plenty of room for the tabloids to also write about how all four Beatles had been in George’s hospital room. From the press’s point of view, the last time all four had been known to be together had been for Linda McCartney’s London memorial service. Then, for a few lucky tabloids, there was a third story - photos of John and Paul getting into one chauffeur driven car while Ringo and his wife got into another. One of the photographers had his editor in mind and had phoned ahead to his office to have someone waiting outside Cavendish. This had been accomplished, and the car was photographed entering the big gate at Cavendish less than an hour later.

“Very suggestive,” the tabloid editor said approvingly as he saw the photos side by side. “You almost don’t have to say anything to make the point.”

“I thought so too,” the photo editor replied. “Although it is too bad that you can’t see inside the car,” he added, pointing at the Cavendish shot. He was lamenting the blacked out windows that kept the occupants of the backseat well and truly hidden. “It is clearly the same driver, though.”

The editor said, “I think we should just be bold and say something like, ‘John Lennon and Paul McCartney leave George Harrison’s bedside’ under the one photo, and ‘arrive home’ under the other. That way we aren’t actually saying they live together...”

“But we make the point...” finished the assistant editor. He was thinking how sometimes dramatic celebrity news stories (like George’s attack) threw up little gifts like this one, since emergencies caused the celebrities to act less cautiously than they otherwise would. The cold-bloodedness of his thinking did not occur to him at all.

So the evening issue of the tabloid printed the photos as a kind of sidebar to the Harrison attack story. John and Paul’s press agent noticed this, and phoned their manager. Their manager called them.

“Just a head’s up,” Frank said lightly to John, who had answered the phone. “The tabloids are going to be poking around again. You’d best be careful.”

John sighed. “We just got in to a car together, Frank. I mean... really.”

“It’s not a big controversy, don’t worry. But what happens when one of these tabloids prints something like this is that it provokes other tabloids to push the story further. They’re likely to be all over the two of you for a week or two.”

“I’ll let Paul know. But we’re leaving on holiday for a few months next week, so I guess I’ll just come in and out of my own house until then. It’s so fucking inconvenient.” John was thinking out loud, and his thoughts were irritating him. He went to find Paul.

“So, Frank thinks the tabs will be focusing on us for a few weeks again,” he said.

“Must be slow news days,” Paul said, not even looking up from his newspaper.

“It’s the George thing,” John pointed out. “They run out of things to write about him, so they immediately start thinking of related stories.”

Paul nodded in agreement with John’s comment. “They’re a bunch of pack animals. Anyway, we don’t care, do we? We’re going away in a week.”

To the freelance paparazzi, however, the scent of blood was in the water. Each of them imagined what it would be like if he got the photo: the photo that showed without question that the Lennon/McCartney rumors were true. The incentive to take such a photo was calculated in maybe as many as six figures, depending on the type of shot and it’s clarity.

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

Paul left Cavendish the next morning. He knew there were photographers outside because he had seen them from an upstairs window. He had warned John at breakfast, and then had driven himself to his office at number 1 Soho Square. He had applied himself to various projects and meetings for several hours. At one point during the morning his secretary came in and said, “There are some paparazzi outside.”

Paul had looked up from some marketing plans and said, “Yeah, George’s attack has stirred up the tabloids.”

“Do they think someone is going to attack you next?” She asked.

Paul laughed. “Maybe I’ll attack one of them, instead,” he joked. “Don’t let them worry you. I don’t let them worry me.”

Eventually it was time to leave to go to his therapist’s office, and he knew he didn’t want them following him there, so he figured a little switcheroo was in order. He called up a driver to pick him up in the mews, and arranged for an office gofer to later drive his car home. He felt very pleased with himself as the car took off, and there were no followers.

 

*****

 

John had spent the day rearranging things in the kitchen. Linda had been very haphazard in her housekeeping, and her idea of where to put her kitchen appliances and tools were not the same as John’s. In addition, some of her appliances and tools were very outdated, and John preferred the ones he had purchased for his own home. Little by little he had been migrating his own tools and appliances over to Cavendish, and now the place was literally teaming with stuff. If there was one room in the house he ached to remodel it was the kitchen. And that was the most sacred room in the house in the McCartney family’s mind. The most he could get away with would be to box up some of the stuff he didn’t want, and then reorganize everything with the stuff he did want. It was a huge job, because it was a fairly large kitchen, and it was difficult to know where to start. After a half hour’s worth of procrastination, John decided to begin at one side of the kitchen, with the first block of cabinets and drawers, and start there.

About two hours into his task, Mary called just to chat with John. She was taking a break now that Arthur was playing quietly on the floor in front of her. John was always fun to talk to at moments like these.

“What are you up to?” She asked.

“I’m afraid to tell you,” John responded.

“What? Come on, what are you up to?”

“I’m going through the kitchen cabinets to try to reorganize and thin things out.” John held his breath. He knew of all the McCartneys Mary would be the first one to notice that the kitchen had been reorganized, since she was the most enthusiastic cook. He might as well tell her right away, because she’d find out on her own fairly quickly.

“I’m amazed you have the courage to face it,” Mary chuckled. “Mum just threw things in those cabinets. Nothing was ever in the same place twice. Used to drive me crazy.”

This response surprised John. “You don’t mind?” He asked.

“Mind about what?”

“That I’m changing the kitchen ‘round to suit me more?”

Mary was surprised by John’s question, but only for a moment. Of course John would feel that way - the kitchen was ground zero of her mother’s former universe. “John, my mother isn’t in the kitchen; she’s in my heart and soul. I don’t need things to always stay the same in order to honor her. Did you think that is how we all felt?”

John was silent for a very long moment, not knowing what to say.

Noticing John wasn’t going to answer her, Mary added, “Well, if that is what you thought, think again. Stella and I will be happy to help you reorganize - we’ll be your worker bees. James and Heather will not even notice.”

“What about your dad?” John asked, holding his breath.

“He’ll survive. I think he just wants you to be happy.”

“You said you’d be willing to help? Paul’s going to be late this evening.”

“I take it you’d like my help now?” Mary chuckled.

“You did offer.”

“I’ll be over in less than an hour. But I’m bringing Arthur, and he can be a distraction when he wants to be.”

 

*****

 

Across Town  
Marc’s Office  
Early January 2000

 

“The ‘trust thing’ - it’s hard,” Paul admitted. “I’ve kind of thrown my lot in, and I’m worried about it.”

Marc said, “What worries you about your decision?”

“He’s hurt me so many times. And he hasn’t been entirely honest about some of them,” Paul said, his voice low.

“I don’t actually know about the times he hurt you. Maybe you could explain?” Marc was hoping that Paul would open up more, and help him put things into context.

Paul sighed heavily. “I feel strange bringing it up, since it was all so long ago.”

“If it is still affecting you today, then it is important for us to talk about,” Marc pointed out.

Paul thought about himself as a 16 year-old boy. It had been only two years since his mother’s death, and only about 15 months since he had met John. They had become close friends in that period, especially after John’s mother had been killed, and between them they had slowly eliminated the band members who weren’t cutting the mustard. They’d spent hours and hours in each other’s company during the two summers they had known each other. But then John had become infatuated with a fellow student at the Art College. It happened in the snap of a finger. John had suddenly been busy almost every evening. It had become more and more difficult to connect up with John on the weekends. Saturdays had been the day of the week that they had each dedicated to their friendship, but suddenly John almost always had other plans - plans with Stuart, the new star on John’s tree. Paul remembered those dismal afternoons, denied his usual routine of hanging with John, playing guitars, laughing and joking, and just sitting quietly. Those routines had filled the empty space left by the routines he used to have before his mother died. Now he had lost another set of routines that had helped him deal with the free-floating anxiety that often assailed him. The afternoons had dragged. And when he had once been upset and voiced it to John over the telephone after another cancellation of plans, John had said a very hurtful thing: “Stu and I are adults, and you’re still a school kid. We can go to pubs and clubs and our parents don’t control us, like your dad controls you.” Paul had felt as though something had died inside him that day. He had quietly hung up the phone, and had gone back to his room. Back to his earphones and his guitar and his fresh notebooks waiting for his notations. And he had lost himself in music.

Marc waited and watched while Paul sat quietly, deep in thought, for several minutes. He didn’t interrupt. From the look on Paul’s face, the memory was exceedingly bleak. Finally, Paul seemed to rouse himself from deep inside this obviously painful memory. He met Marc’s eyes. He said,

“I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry.”

Marc said, “Another time maybe.”

Paul felt relief course through his body. This whole line of questioning had been lapping ever closer to the deepest cut of all. Paul had felt so humiliated about being dumped so casually after such an intense friendship, and he had humiliated himself further by trying to hang on to John’s friendship when it clearly wasn’t reciprocated any more. John would never know the humiliation he felt; a humiliation based on the knowledge that all of their mutual friends knew that Paul had been cast aside, just as all of John’s other friends had been. Sixteen year-old Paul could no longer think that what he and John had was special. He was just another shiny object that John picked up one day, obsessed over, and then had grown bored by and put down. It was in his room with his music that Paul licked his teenaged wounds. Those teenage years are the ones when humiliation hurts the most.

 

*****


	134. Chapter 134

January 8 - February 26, 2000  
“El Nido”

The Arrival

 

It had been, as usual, an arduous journey by jet to Miami, and then by smaller jet to San Juan, Costa Rica, and then by small aircraft to the plateau on the coast, and then by jeep down the bumpy dirt road into the edges of the jungle, and finally down their hideaway’s rutted path to the private entrance of their driveway. From the outside, the house looked very much the same as it had the year before, although it was now not so much overgrown by plants. But once the newly painted royal blue gate into the walled patio had been breached, it was obvious that the patio had been recently cleaned and rearranged with comfortable outdoor furnishings and potted plants in colorful pots. The adobe walls were painted a soft yellowish-peachish color that brought warmth to the randomly placed colorful Spanish tiles and the stone floor. The front door had also been painted a deep royal blue. Paul smiled at John with warm surprise. 

John was filled with excitement. He was of course happy to see the little patio in person. He had wanted to use it more as a place to read and dine, and thus had more plans for it now that he was here for two months. But mainly he wanted to go inside and see the results of his long-distance planning. He hoped he wouldn’t be upset by the workmanship. Paul, divining John’s excitement, stepped back and let John enter first. John headed immediately for the little kitchen area, which had been completely redone. He was chirping and issuing forth excited utterances from there as he opened and closed things, but Paul’s first reaction was relief: the place had not changed too much. It still held a rustic, forgotten-by-time quality, and it’s status as a Caribbean retreat had not been altered by modern design. Until he felt the relief, Paul had not realized how much he had feared that John had gone overboard and turned the little jewel box into a gleaming modern (and thus unremarkable) apartment. 

Aside from the kitchen, which John was still slavering over, the one obvious change was the ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall doors and windows facing the pool patio in the arched shape of a ship’s prow. The old windows and doors had been replaced with new ones with much wider panes of glass, and the doors were new, modern, and didn’t stick, as Paul found out as he opened and closed them. This was a major improvement that did not change the character of the place. Paul was very impressed with John’s surgical skill in refurbishing only where it was absolutely necessary, and always in the spirit of the little house’s personality. With this, Paul turned to the kitchen, and noticed that John was just standing there, staring at the wall of glass doors. Behind lay the kitchen, and Paul noticed the Spanish tiles, the carpenter-made cupboards painted a soft sea foam color, the farm-style sink, and the gleaming range and refrigerator, both top of the line but appropriately sized given the small square footage. An island sat in front of the kitchen, which was comprised of two walls at right angles to each other, forming two parts of a triangle, the island acting as hypotenuse. 

Paul finally said, “John, you’ve done a fantastic job.”

John said, “It really turned out like I hoped. I’m a bit surprised I could accomplish this from thousands of miles away. But let’s go see the bedroom and bathroom before we give our final marks.”

John led the way, and opened the door into the bedroom. The sliding door on to the Jacuzzi deck had been replaced (as had the Jacuzzi, and even the deck, which had been found to be infected with jungle rot), and the other windows had been replaced, too. A fresh coat of soft ivory paint was on the walls, and the windows and doors were trimmed with a contrasting bright white. The huge mosquito net had been replaced with a new one, and it swathed around the top of the round bed in twirls of white netting. (Paul groaned inwardly because the 8’ round bed was still there; it was the devil to get in and out of.) The artwork and objets were from John’s London house - pieces they had purchased during their tour of South America years before. By far the bathroom was the most changed. Gone were the garish mustard colored tiles that made one feel that he had suddenly found himself inside of a summer squash. Instead, the adobe walls had been whitewashed in a rustic style, the sunken bath/shower had been retiled in ivory tiles, periodically popped with colorful Spanish tiles, and the sink area was similarly tiled. 

“I won’t look like I have jaundice anymore,” Paul observed, as he stared at himself in the bathroom window. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

John laughed. “Yeah, that outrageous yellow tile job was the only part of the place I really didn’t like.”

“Well, I’m gonna get my swim trunks on and go open up the pool,” Paul said, gathering up his energy. “Can you mix us some rum drinks?”

“My pleasure. Can’t wait to get my hands on that kitchen!” John replied, as he disappeared through the bedroom door. “Although,” he said, stopping just outside the threshold, “I don’t know why you need to bother with the swim trunks...” His eyes lit up with lechery, and Paul laughed. 

Still, as John disappeared, Paul reached for his swim trunks, pulling them out of his suitcase. Maybe after a week or so, the city’s restraints will have washed off him, and he would feel free to lark about in the nude. But not yet.

 

*****

 

Settling In

 

They had brought and also sent ahead a lot of luggage and supplies. They had done this deliberately in order to leave everything there so in the future they would not have to bring much of anything when they came. It would all be patiently waiting for them. Thus, a good part of their first full day in their new home was spent unpacking all the boxes that had been sent on ahead (containing John’s favored kitchen and garden supplies, and Paul’s various composing accouterments, as well as stereo equipment, a collection of music and books). Paul had done all of the heavy lifting, opening boxes and moving the empty boxes out of the house and breaking them down. John had done all the organizing and decorating.

Each of them had also brought holiday-style clothes to leave when they went back to England, and John was the one who folded everything neatly and chose where it went. Paul had been discouraged from participating (“because you fold everything wrong”) so sat on the edge of the bed watching John at work. Paul had still not gotten entirely used to a domestic John Lennon. Especially a domestically gifted John Lennon. Paul had to admit that while Linda had always made their homes comfortable and warm, she had never possessed John’s decorative eye or his exquisite taste. She had also not possessed John’s sense of order; he was extremely good at organizing things, and keeping them neat and in their place. Several times over the past several years Paul had experienced moments like these, where he had to pinch himself to believe that this was the same John Lennon as was the boy he’d known decades earlier who had the chaotic and disorganized bedroom and sloppy habits.

The night before, after they had swum in the pool that Paul had opened and cleaned, they had eaten a light meal that John fixed. They sat by the pool with whiskey on the rocks, and chatted companionably about all they had to do the next day. Each of them thought that they’d be having sex that night, but once they climbed into that massive bed, and had made themselves comfortable, they were both too exhausted to do much of anything but to snuggle and kiss. Within moments, they had both fallen asleep in each other’s arms. The magic of El Nido had already taken effect.

 

*****

 

John’s Surprise

 

On the evening of their second full day away, John set up a romantic dinner on the little patio in front of the house. Wrought iron candle holders had been affixed to the adobe walls surrounding the patio at John’s instructions, and he had filled them with blood orange colored candles, which filled the patio with a rosy light. They were also emitting a subtle spicy scent. John had spent months selecting the linens and other items for the house. It had been his guilty little pleasure, and as of yet - apparently - he hadn’t spent too much, because usually when he did his accountant would have a word with Paul, who would make a joke to John about profligacy. Since Paul had made no jokes, John thought that perhaps he had managed the budget properly. It was his own money, after all, although Paul was in daily control of it. 

Because of his careful shopping, the round glass-topped wrought iron table was exquisitely dressed, with a colorfully embroidered cloth John had purchased in South America years before, and the melamine coated turquoise and cobalt blue plates were rich in color. On the table itself John placed a mottled 6” candle in teal, sitting on a wrought iron pillar candleholder. This was surrounded by a wreath of deep magenta bougainvillea, which John had clipped off the riotously growing bushes that flowed over the patio walls. Everything had to be perfect, because John had a surprise, and he was quite nervous about it. He figured it was a huge risk, but knew he couldn’t wait to actually present the idea to Paul any longer. It had been an idea that had occurred to him in concrete form a week earlier, and he had taken immediate steps to make it a reality.

John dressed in a white guayabera shirt with delicate pleats in two columns down the front. He had purchased another one, but in a brilliant medium blue, for Paul to wear. Linen loungewear slacks - John’s in khaki, and Paul’s in white - were there to compliment the shirts. 

Paul had fallen asleep by the pool on the lounge while John had been cooking. John had made crispy-fried wild rice with artichoke hearts, black olives, red onions, and mango in a paella pan. He had also tossed a salad with light vinaigrette and shards of aged Parmesan. He poured out chilled Torrontes, the Argentine white wine that was so perfect a match for eating al fresco, into the intricately carved crystal wine glasses he had chosen, and then, dressed in his finery, went to awaken Paul. He quietly shook Paul’s shoulder, and Paul jumped up as if poked with a prod.

“What?” He cried. 

John chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were so far gone. I’ve laid some clothes out for you on the bed. It’s time to dine.” John's voice was an imitation of a snobbish butler from a BBC period piece.

Paul looked up groggily and noted that John had on a pretty fancy white short-sleeved shirt. He was wearing some loose-fitting linen slacks, and a white Panama fedora hat with a black band above the brim. He was a bit surprised. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Just to the outside patio,” John said cheerfully.

Paul pulled himself to a sitting position on the side of the lounge. He was confused. Why all this fuss? “You’ve laid out clothes?” He finally asked, his voice reflecting his confusion.

“Yes. I’ve just poured the wine, and it is perfectly chilled, so get a move on.”

Paul did get up, and he did move to the bedroom, and he did see the clothes on the bed. He saw the bright blue shirt and the white linen slacks and he scratched his head. What was John up to? Was it a dress up party? Still, not wanting to rock the boat, he went to the bathroom, rinsed off quickly in the shower with cool water, ran a razor over his face (he tended to get an early beard in the evenings), and put on the fancy togs. He looked in the floor length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door. His bare toes peaked out from under the long pants, and he chuckled at his image. Whatever, he thought, as he ran a comb through his black hair, streaked with silver. He found his leather flip-flops and headed back into the main room. 

The front door was open, and Paul could smell the scent of wonderful food wafting through it, so he followed it and found himself in a patio wonderland lit up with orange candles and redolent with night blooming scented flowers. He saw the table so beautifully dressed, and said, “Wow.”

John smiled and said, “Sit!” 

Paul sat.

The salad was perfect, and so was the wine. John was warm and funny as they talked, and Paul felt a wave of affection running through him as the evening progressed. He was especially excited by John’s fedora: very sexy. The vegetable paella was fantastic, and Paul had three enthusiastic helpings. For dessert John had brought out a tropical fruit salad with fresh Devon cream. (John had known he had to use it right away, as it would not stay fresh long in this environment.) This was served with a lovely dessert wine, followed by Columbian coffee.

John and Paul had chatted throughout, both of them flirting with each other in a subtle way. Paul was anticipating what would happen once they moved away from the table and in the direction of the bedroom. He idly wondered if John’s hat would stay on while they fucked. His eyes were sparkling in the light from the candles, and John was mesmerized. As the evening progressed John had begun to lose courage about his surprise. And numerous times during the evening he had watched Paul’s left hand as it brought the wineglass to his mouth, and each time, the two rings - a slim silver band, and a slight silver ring with a miniature turquoise heart in it - would sparkle in the candlelight, causing John’s hopes to shrink.

How he hated to see those rings on Paul’s finger. It was like a scoreboard reading, Linda - 2, John - 0. He wondered how long after Linda’s death Paul would continue to wear them. Of all the reminders of Linda, these rings were the worst from John’s point of view. They actually were in bed with him at night! Even in bed he could not have Paul entirely to himself. John had been brewing internally about the rings for over a year now. The first several months after Linda’s death, he had understood why Paul still wore them. But now, after 20 months, John could not understand why they were still there. After all, just over a week earlier, Paul had pledged himself to John: so why the rings? John tried not to let this ruin his mood, but the rings seemed to mock him when they twinkled in the candlelight. John forced himself to drag his eyes away from the offending objects for the hundredth time, and smiled suggestively into Paul’s eyes. Would he have the courage to do what his heart told him to do? Would be follow through with his well-planned surprise? As the seconds ticked by, John was beginning to lose his nerve.

He had planned to spring the surprise on Paul at the table, while they were eating dessert, or at least over their coffee. But his nerve had left him, and instead he found himself pacing in the living area while Paul cleared the table and rinsed the dishes. Paul had insisted on doing so since John had made the dinner. When Paul finished with the rinsing, he went to the small bar area and poured two whiskeys on the rocks. “Shall we sit by the pool?” he asked John formally. In that moment John noticed how beautiful the blue shirt looked against Paul’s newly rosy skin. The blue of the shirt made the green in Paul’s eyes come alive.

John nodded and headed absent-mindedly towards the pool patio. His hand was in his pocket, fidgeting with its contents. They sat next to each other in comfortable deck chairs, and Paul initiated a click of their two glasses, and a salute “to two perfect months alone together.”

As they sat there in the dark, with the chirps and ka-caws of the jungle warming up around them, and the sound of the ocean crashing on the nearby shore, John summoned up his courage. He cleared his throat and broke the pleasant silence.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said shyly. His own voice seemed to quiver as he spoke.

Paul turned to look at John with a pleasant and expectant expression. “Oh? Wasn’t that bravura supper enough?”

John chuckled nervously. “It’s actually something I designed myself, for both of us to share.” His heart was thumping heavily in his chest.

“What is it?” Paul asked, curious now.

Reluctantly, and with a shaky hand, John withdrew the small polished cherry wood box from his pocket. He placed it on the little glass table that was situated between their two chairs. 

Paul stared at it and looked up at John as if asking for instructions. John urged him forward with a silent forward movement of his head. Putting down his whiskey tumbler, Paul reached over to the little box, and soon had it in both of his hands. His first thought was that it looked like a jewelry box. For some reason, Paul dismissed that idea as being unlikely. Still, he slowly lifted the lid. 

John, watching, was holding his breath. His whole heart was in his throat, it seemed, and was beating madly. For a second John wanted to snatch the box back, before Paul could see what was in it. He began to panic, thinking he had been too pushy to go this far, and then he worried that his designs were too over-the-top for the more conservative Paul. 

When the little box opened, Paul saw two slender silver signet rings. They were identical. Both had the yin/yang symbol on the top, inlaid ebony and ivory. One had the yin on top, and one had the yang on top. Where the sun and the moon would be, tiny inlaid diamond dots shone. “Rings,” he murmured, and then was quiet. Paul stared at the rings for what were probably only 20 heavily quiet seconds, but for John it seemed to stretch on for eternity. Having finally understood what the gift was, Paul gently pulled one of the rings free of its nest inside the box. He looked at John. “Which one is mine?” He asked softly.

John, who could barely breathe much less talk, managed to mumble, “The smaller one. I’ve got big knuckles.” Inwardly, he cursed himself for being so fearful and tentative. 

But Paul didn’t seem to notice. He looked inside the ring, when his eye caught engraving. He saw the word in cursive, “Always.” He pulled the other ring out of the box, and then held them up together, eyeing their sizes. He noted that this second ring had the identical engraving. He then put them down on the table. 

John saw this, and feared a rejection. His hands were white fists, and he stared at the two rings sitting on the table in despair. But when he looked up, Paul was in the act of removing the two bands that signified his marriage to Linda. He pulled them off, and then, with solemn intensity, offered them to John. 

“Will you take care of these for me?” He asked, his face as serious as John had ever seen it. It was as if the balance of Paul’s universe was dependent upon John’s answer.

A little dazed, John took the rings, and stared at them in his hand for a moment, before closing up his fist protectively over them. “I will,” he said softly, meeting Paul’s eyes as he made his vow. 

Then Paul picked up the larger of the two rings and said to John, “Shall I?” Barely believing what was happening, John raised his left hand up, and Paul slipped the ring on to his finger. Still not breathing, he watched while Paul handed him the smaller of the two rings. Understanding at last what was happening, John took the ring, and then slipped it on to Paul’s left hand. The silence that surrounded them was so thick that even the jungle sounds and the crashing ocean did not break through. Instead, their eyes had met and a world of emotion -hope, fear, loss, love - shone in each man’s eyes. Then ever so gently, Paul leaned forward and kissed John softly on the lips and withdrew. He squeezed John’s hand, and kept it in his as he leaned back in his chair, threw his head back, and stared at the stars. Paul was blinking back tears, but John could not see.

John relaxed. He still couldn’t believe what had transpired. Paul had taken off those rings and entrusted them to him! He swore to himself that he would put them on a chain and wear them around his neck for the rest of his life. He had to keep them safe for Paul. He placed the two rings, for the time being, inside the little ring box. Tears were running down his cheeks but he didn’t notice them until they were dropping on his lap. He hastily wiped them away with his free hand. Of all the scenarios he had considered for this ring exchange - of all the fantasies, fears and imaginings - nothing had prepared John for the heartbreaking tenderness of Paul’s actual reaction.

 

*****

 

A Sultry Night

 

The time away was already half gone. The four weeks had flown by in a haze of love and laughter. A sunburn here, a bug bite there, but all in all it had been perfect. It was hard for John not to be worried about such perfection. For him, there had always seemed to be a steep fall awaiting him after every rise. It was evening now, the light dinner meal finished. Paul was in the little kitchen washing up, as had become his habit during this stay. John was stretched out on a lounge by the pool, his legs crossed at the ankles as he stared up at the jungle canopy and beyond that to the stars. Although he was looking at the sky, he was thinking of Paul. 

His mind was filled with images of Paul. Paul had quickly attained a beautiful golden color, and had run around scantily clad in form fitting swim trunks and shorts. He looked at least 20 years younger than his actual age, and his black hair, though sprinkled in places with silver and white, had grown out and Paul barely combed it - it was a wilderness of thick curls that John liked to grab hold of when they were having sex. Paul had been charming, funny and attentive the whole time. If only they could live in this little cocoon forever, and never go back to “society,” John felt in that case certainly they could be happy forever. During the days and evenings they had also often worked on some songs, using guitars, and sitting on the lounges around the pool in the shade, and talking and laughing and teasing each other while they did it. In such times they felt more like best friends, rather than lovers.

To make up for this, the nights had been deeply sensual and intense, just as they always were in this magical place. Paul had been at turns commanding and submissive as a lover, seeming to understand without words what John wanted or needed as they made love. It was so fulfilling to John that sometimes he feared his heart would burst. And then, of course, how many times during the days and nights had he caught a glimpse of his ring on Paul’s finger - whether it be when the sun glinted off it while they were wading in the ocean, or when candles flickered off it as they lay in bed, facing each other while their hands wandered. It filled John with a thrill each time to see it. The thrill was made up partly of a prideful possessiveness, and partly of a humble gratefulness. It all seemed too good to be true. As much as he had clung to Paul over the decades, he’d never really felt worthy of him. Not by a long shot. In truth, John rarely felt worthy of anyone, but especially not Paul. The universe had created this fine one-of-a-kind specimen, and then had given him to John. How could that be? John’s introspection was interrupted when he felt a cool wet finger running down his arm. John shivered in sensual delight.

“You look sleepy,” Paul said in a low voice, as he urged John to move over so they could share the one lounge. John’s back had to lay somewhat on Paul’s chest to make enough room.

“I was just thinking,” John responded. If he was reading the signals right, Paul was in a frisky mood. Yup. Almost as soon as he gave birth to the thought, John felt the hardness pushing up against his thigh. The man was insatiable, which was okay by John, who was pretty insatiable too. You couldn’t tell that they were nearing the age of sixty. This gave John hope that he wouldn’t be completely losing his manhood any time soon. Paul’s arm around him was so strong. It was one of the many things he loved so much about having Paul as his lover. Paul’s arms were long, and strong, and very hairy from the elbow down. Being held by those powerful arms made John feel safe and protected. He had rarely felt that way as a young child, only occasionally as a teenager, and almost never as an adult. Only Paul’s arms could make him feel safe. Paul was a living, breathing security blanket for John. 

“Oh? Thinking?” Paul whispered directly into John’s ear, using a deep, throaty voice. “What are you thinking about?” As he whispered, he was pushing his engorged penis against the back of John’s thigh.

“Well, I was thinking about how many stars there were,” John lied. “But now, not so much.” 

“Ummm?” Paul allowed his hand to start moving slowly down John’s chest. “And now?” 

John chuckled. He was receiving an intense come on, and he was thoroughly enjoying it. “Now I’m thinking of fish and chips,” John declared irreverently.

“Sure you are,” Paul growled. “I think I’d like to do it right here, right now.” His voice was deep and dominating. 

John knew what was coming next, and his heart thrilled at the thought of it. He felt Paul’s hand as it slipped beneath his swim trunks. Once there, Paul’s fingers played with the delicate hair that covered his pelvic bone. He also felt Paul’s mouth as it played with his ear, and Paul’s breath that tickled his upper cheek and his eardrum. John closed his eyes, and allowed the sensations to take over. He could feel the hairs on his arms and legs - they had all stood at attention in anticipation of Paul’s touches. As it was, the movement of air caused by Paul’s persistent thrusts of his thigh against John’s ass made John’s skin tremble. John’s own cock leapt to attention in one fell swoop as Paul finally reached it, and covered it with one strong hand, gently squeezing and letting go, driving John in-fucking-sane. 

At that moment, Paul decided the foreplay was over. He had been watching John across the table tonight, as the candlelight flickered, and there was something so incredibly attractive about John’s intense eyes, the smile that curled up so neatly at it’s very edges, and the melodious up-and-down of John’s animated voice. He had been so enraptured by John’s presence, his energy, and his essence that Paul asked himself how he could have been so reluctant to promise eternity to him. There was a little niggling voice in the back of his head that tugged at his conscious mind. The little voice was trying to warn him about the many times John had stomped on his heart after he had given of himself so freely, but tonight John’s allure was too much for him. It overwhelmed that nagging voice. Later he might wonder if the fact that they were alone together in this enchanted jungle might have given him a false sense of security - after all, John couldn’t betray him for another if there were no others around! But if such thoughts were to occur to Paul, they would not occur while they were in this special place. 

Paul freed himself of his swim trunks by pulling them down with one hand, and then shimmying a bit until he could use a foot to pull them off. All of this was invisible to John, who felt Paul’s erratic movements as he shed his trunks, but was waiting breathlessly for the moment when Paul’s hands would return and drive him insane again. Within a moment, Paul’s hand was back, and making nonsense of John’s swim trunks. John felt butterflies in the pit of his stomach as he felt his clothing whipped away in one brisk motion. On one level it amazed him that he could still be so excited by Paul’s hands. They’d been lovers for nearly 40 years! (Subtract a decade or so in the middle; who’s counting?) How could he still feel insensible at Paul’s touch? 

The evening was sultry. There was some humidity in the air, and it was making them both sweat. Somehow this made the whole experience more sensual. Soon Paul’s fingers were probing John’s anus. They scissored back and forth to widen the passage. John emitted a sound much like a whimper in response. But it was an anticipatory whimper, not one anticipating pain, but anticipating pleasure. Paul heard the whimper and was encouraged. He grabbed the lube he’d brought with him earlier, and applied a thick slick to his cock, and, with his scissoring fingers again, John’s rectum. 

John barely registered this frisson of pressure before Paul’s cock was pressing at his entrance. A sound escaped John’s throat. It was part groan, and part a catch of breath. Fucking sideways required expertise and timing, and both men possessed both. Paul’s thigh had insinuated itself between John’s two thighs, and with pressure applied by that thigh had lifted John’s leg up to make John’s ass more readily available to Paul’s invading member. John held his breath as the pressure intensified, and he bit his lip as Paul pushed his way in. The fullness inside him caused John to groan. In moments like these he wondered why all men didn’t want to be fucked by other men. There was no feeling like it, especially when Paul began to move. Slowly at first, and then a little faster. Then slow again, and fast again. 

“Ah-oh!” John cried as he felt a feathery strike on his prostrate. Oh my fucking god!, he swore to himself. 

Paul knew he had touched the magic spot, and maneuvered around until he touched it again and then again. John seemed to have been lit like a fire cord beneath him. John was writhing and groaning and moving his limbs in an effort to intensify the feeling Paul was delivering with his perfectly timed strokes. (Nothing like having a world-class bassist as a lover.) John’s frenetic activity was stoking Paul’s arousal, and soon he was thrusting with abandon. He could hear himself groaning now, too, and issuing forth inarticulate cries of pleasure. 

If anyone were to see them from a bird’s eye view they would have seen two men joined as one, pumping in perfect rhythm, and crying out in guttural joy. The pace gradually intensified and suddenly first John and then Paul felt the molten sperm rush through them to issue forth as if from the necks of fountains. Even after the cum had been ejaculated, the two men continued to move in ever-slowing rhythmic pulses until, finally, they stilled. By this time, rivers of sweat were flowing between them, over them, and around them, and they both were left panting as their hearts climbed down out from the heavens and back to the earth.

 

*****

 

A Serious Talk

 

It was only a week before they were scheduled to return to their “real lives” in London that John and Paul inadvertently slipped into a deep conversation that each man, in his own way, found emotionally unsettling. They had spent the day down at the hidden waterfall and pond, and after cooling off in the pool upon the completion of their hike back up from the pond, they’d gotten comfortable on the pool patio, eating slices of tropical fruit and drinking sparkling water. John had noted in the last day or two that Paul seemed to be drifting away into his thoughts again, as if he was already preparing himself to go back to London and the rat race it entailed. It seemed Paul could be 100% accessible to him for a finite period of time when they were in this hideaway with absolutely no one else around. But when he was inhabiting his real life, he set up compartments - music, art, work, play, love, family, friends, intimacy - and since John couldn’t reign supreme in all of those compartments, he always felt left out of, or at least pushed to the side in, some of them. As they sat on the patio that night, Paul’s eyes were focused on the horizon, but John could tell that his mind was elsewhere. Probably already looking ahead to the recording sessions they had to set up upon their return, since they had finally accrued enough material to record.

Because of these niggling feelings of mental abandonment, John blurted out, “Where are you?”

Paul didn’t hear him at first. But eventually it sunk in, after echoing around his head for a few seconds. He turned to face John with a look of complete confusion. “What?” He asked.

“Just now - you were off somewhere in your head. Where were you?” John tried to keep his voice from expressing too much emotion. He was trying to make the question sound as though he were merely curious to know the answer.

“Off in my head?” Paul repeated, still a little confused by what John was asking him. 

“You go there a lot, you know, although you haven’t done it since we got here. Just lately, you’ve started doing it again.”

Paul continued to stare at John blankly.

“You’re still there - in your head. I can tell. I just want to know what you’re thinking about when you’re there.”

Paul laughed, but it was a tentative laugh. He wasn’t sure if John was teasing, or if he was serious. He couldn’t tell if this was some kind of trap John had set up for him to walk into. He shook his head to remove the unpleasant thoughts. He would take John’s question at face value. “I was just thinking about all the stuff that needs to get done when we get home.”

“Why?” John asked. He kept the question light and curious.

Now Paul was looking at John strangely. “Why?” He repeated. John just kept staring back at Paul with a curious expression on his face. Paul relaxed and chuckled. “Because somebody has to do it.”

“But why now? We’re not going back for another week.”

Paul now thought he knew what John was up to. What had kept him from figuring it out sooner was the fact that John’s demeanor and tone of voice had seemed so casual at first. “I need time to organize my thoughts. It’s just how I think, I guess. I don’t like the feeling of being unprepared.” 

John thought about Paul’s answer. It was objectively true, he thought. But it didn’t explain what the anxiety was behind the need to always be prepared. Paul had always been like that, with maps and pins and strings and lists, checking off each item in a precise order as he moved through life. He rarely made bad plans. The few times he had made bad plans, it was due primarily to drug usage and therefore not his usual thought process. John cleared his throat. “I guess I don’t see why you can’t worry about it on the plane home. When you go off in your own head like this, I feel as though the sun has gone behind the clouds. I feel left out.” John stopped for a moment to see how Paul was receiving this information. Paul was still and watching him with a confounded expression. John added, “What drives you to make these mental lists when you could be just enjoying yourself?”

Paul felt his drawbridges coming up. Where the drive, the anxiety, the pursuit of perfection came from, Paul didn’t know. He assumed he had been born that way. But he’d never thought this was a fault. Instead of answering John’s question, he asked another. “What drives you to be threatened by my need to be alone with my thoughts? Why can’t you let me have some time to myself?” 

John caught his breath. He hadn’t expected this response. He hadn’t even thought that Paul could possibly have a comeback of equal merit to his own position. Of course, John being John, he felt the cold trickles on his spine. Any declaration of independence by Paul felt like abandonment to him. And when he felt abandonment, the next thing he felt was anger. All of his work with Fiona went right out of the window at moments like these. “Well, if it’s time to yourself you want, that can be arranged!” He got up in a huff, and stomped off into the house. 

A moment later, Paul could hear pots clanging and cupboard doors being slammed in the kitchen. He swore quietly to himself.

 

*****


	135. Chapter 135

“El Nido”  
February 26 - March 4, 2000  
A Serious Talk  
(Continued)

 

Paul listened to the banging pots and the slamming cabinet doors for at least five minutes before he couldn’t stand it any longer. What had they fought about? It was ridiculous! He had been making a mental list, and John resented it. How stupid of a thing was that to fight about? Paul allowed the feelings of outrage and resentment to course through him. He knew that once he had exorcised those feelings his natural mental strength would kick in and he would have more balanced reflections. Sure enough, after another 5 minutes, Paul was piecing it all together. John had decided to ask him about his need to be alone in a way that sounded offhand when in fact it was a very serious sore spot for John. From Paul’s perspective, John’s approach was bait and switch. Paul could be angry about how that played out, or he could ask himself how hard had it been for John to raise the subject at all? Paul didn’t like to think he was the sort of person others had to tiptoe around, but what if that is how it felt to John? A subject so sore that when raised it could ruin the rest of their vacation - John must really have been bothered about it to take that risk.

With his balance thus restored, Paul got up, took a deep breath (as if he were off to skirmish with a dragon), and headed towards the angry kitchen sounds. When he stepped inside the house and saw John in the kitchen, banging around with great purpose and an affronted scowl on his face, Paul first felt amused affection, and then sympathy. He approached the island that separated the kitchen area from the living space, stopping a few feet from it.

“Johnny...” he said, in a conciliatory tone.

John stopped his busy hands, and looked up, glaring at him. “What?”

Paul was a little afraid of that look. A little. But he knew John’s rage was really only skin deep. It was his go-to tactic to protect himself from being hurt. Paul wasn’t sure where to put his hands, so he kind of bunched them up in two nervous fists. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

John heard this, but his scowl didn’t waver. “You meant it though, so why not say it?”

Paul was holding on to his exasperation with all his might. “There’s what I meant, and then there's what I said. I said it wrong.” He felt very exposed standing there in front of John’s blazing disapproval.

“So what did you ‘mean’?” John asked. He was still angry, but now also a little sarcastic.

“I’m the kind of person who needs time alone, if only just in my head. It isn’t like I am specifically excluding you. I guess it’s like a phone that needs to be charged, and when it is charging you shouldn’t use it.” Paul looked a little frustrated by his inability to explain himself more clearly.

John, of course, had always known this about Paul, but it had also always bothered him. He felt his anger loosing its grip somewhat. “I don’t want you to do that when I’m sitting there with you. I want you to be on the same page with me when we’re alone together.” John said this in a not-very-graceful way, his face in a kind of pout as he did so.

Paul sighed and moved closer, until he was right across the kitchen island from John. He said, “I can’t always help doing it. You can just snap me out of it if you want - shake my arm or something. Isn’t that what you usually do?”

John sighed heavily. “I guess I resent having to ‘snap you out of it.’ I guess maybe I want you to want to be with me like I want to be with you.”

“You’re gonna have to meet me halfway on this one, John. I am whom I am, and at some point you are going to have to accept the things about me that you don’t like. I’m never going to be perfect, you know. You shouldn’t expect it of me.”

Paul’s voice was so endearingly beseeching that John softened. The anger and irritation had left his face. He said, sweetly and sincerely, “You’re so very nearly perfect that I guess I expect more of you than I do anyone else. I’ve always said that about you, you know.”

Paul smiled, relieved that the dragon had gone back in his cave. He said, “Hmmm. That ‘perfection’ thing. I’ve been telling you since we met that you’re wrong. I’m not perfect; I’m full of holes like everyone else. Maybe I just do a better job of hiding them.”

John’s expression reflected surrender to Paul’s calming words. “I think I’m getting worried about going back to London. That’s part of it too.”

“What worries you about it?” Paul asked gently.

“I don’t want to leave here. But I know if we stayed here always it wouldn’t be special. But then again I hate leaving it behind and going back to all the stresses.”

Paul said, “I know what you mean. It’s so exciting when you arrive, and it seems like you have forever ahead of you. But next thing you know, it’s over. Vacations are almost painful because they always end.”

John chuckled. “I want to come here more often. Let’s come back in six months or so.”

Paul considered that. His practical mind was already thumbing through what other commitments the two of them had in six months. But then he stopped himself. Instead he said, “I’m sure we can find a block of time sometime in the next 6 to 8 months to come back here.”

Somehow this made John feel much better. He said, somewhat sheepishly, “I’ve been making dinner.”

“Yes, I heard,” Paul said, making a funny face.

John laughed. “So, why don’t you set the table, asshole. It’ll be ready in about 10 minutes.” 

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

The makeup sex had been great the night before, and John was in a much better mood as he lay under the umbrella out by the pool. Paul was doing his daily morning laps. That man has enough energy to power a small country, John thought. Sometimes John grew exhausted just watching him. Far from feeling bruised about the previous evening’s painful discussion, John felt invigorated. There were so many things he wanted to talk to Paul about - things that he never could manage to bring up because it never seemed to be ‘the right time.’ John realized that this place and time was perfect for these probing questions. So he waited patiently while Paul finished his 30 minutes of laps.

Paul felt refreshed, too. He had managed to face down his own fear of exposure sufficiently to communicate effectively with John on a difficult subject, and then they’d had that amazing sex afterwards. And this morning, John was all mellow and cuddly, like a fluffy cat. Paul smiled warmly and playfully at John as he strode across the pool patio to get his towel, which he used to wipe himself off. He was nude, and John was lifting his eyebrows up and down in appreciation. Paul wrapped the towel around his waist, and sat down in the chair next to John’s.

“I’ve been enjoying the view,” John said apropos of nothing.

Paul looked up and saw the green canopy, and the blue sky, and the ocean on the horizon. “Yes, it’s stunning,” he agreed.

“I wasn’t talking about that view,” John said naughtily. He was delighted when Paul actually blushed a little. He reached over and grabbed Paul’s hand and squeezed it. Paul chuckled and squeezed John’s hand in return. John waited a few more moments, until Paul was settled in his chair with his head back, eyes closed, sun worshipping. Then John said, “You know, I’ve wanted to ask a tricky question. Do you trust me? I know you’ve had issues with that in the past, and wonder where you are with it.”

Paul heard the words and thought, Damn! Can’t I just have a quiet moment with him without talking about painful shit? Outwardly, however, this turmoil did not show. He tried to think of something to say - some bromide - that would reassure John and close the subject. He really, really didn’t want to have that discussion now. If ever. He turned his head - which was leaning back against the chair rest - and smiled at John. He said, “That’s a pretty heavy subject for so early in the morning.”

John said, “I actually think it’s better to talk about such things in the morning. We’re not tired, we’re in a good mood...”

“We won’t be for long if you keep raising these issues.” The words were out before Paul could stop them. He actually surprised himself as he heard the words coming out of his mouth.

John wasn’t going to back away, however. He’d learned the night before that he could raise touchy issues, and he could get Paul to speak openly with him, so he had no desire to back off now. “Oh, I think we can manage to have a civilized discussion, don’t you?”

Paul was surprised that John had checkmated him. He thought his ominous comment would have scared John away from the discussion. But John looked very much in control and at peace with the situation, which was a new one on Paul. He said, reluctantly, (because he couldn’t think of a way out of it), “I trust you, of course I do.”

“Do you really?” John asked. John's voice sounded clinical rather than emotional. Paul could tell that John didn’t believe his glib answer. “Be honest, Paul. It goes deeper than that, doesn’t it?” John added, probing.

“Intellectually, I know I can trust you,” Paul clarified.

“But emotionally?” John prompted.

“Emotionally - well, I struggle with that a bit,” Paul admitted.

“That’s what I want to talk about!” John said excitedly. “If you’re having those feelings, I think you should tell me about them. Maybe I can help you make sense of them.”

Inwardly, Paul groaned. This was the last thing he wanted to do right now. But he knew that he could not get out of this conversation without incurring John’s rage. Maybe that is where he should start, if John really wanted to know the truth. “I never know if I can really tell you my true feelings,” he said honestly. “I never know if you just want to hear what you want to hear, and if I say something else you might fly into a rage. I don’t want to make you angry or unhappy.”

John considered this disclosure. In truth, he knew that he was reactive and fearful of hearing anything less than what he wanted to hear. He figured he’d have to control this fear in order to have this conversation with Paul, because apparently Paul had things to tell him that he, John, would not like to hear. He said, “Fair enough. I do that, I know. But I’ll try not to if you tell me now.”

Paul was not trustful of this offer. John might manage to contain his hurt and anger for now, but it would definitely come out later - when Paul least expected it no doubt! And then he’d be sorry he opened his big mouth. And it didn’t help that Paul didn’t say things well when he was upset or talking about his darker emotions. But John was staring at him - willing him to talk. Paul tried to revert to the person who showed up for his therapy sessions with Marc. He turned his face back to the horizon, laid his head back against the chair rest, closed his eyes, and began to speak.

“I’ve been working on this with my therapist. I haven’t gotten very far yet.”

John was intrigued. Paul never spoke about his therapy. “How far have you gotten?” He asked, deeply curious.

Paul sighed. He felt like he was in a minefield, and anywhere he stepped might cause an explosion. “Well, we’ve talked about it generally, but not in too much depth.”

“Is it me you don’t trust? Or is it just a general fear of the future and what might happen with us? Is there something I’m doing to make it worse?” John couldn’t stop the questions.

Paul thought about lying to John, and taking the easier ‘out’ John had just presented him with. But for whatever reason, he didn’t. “I admit that I’m not the most trusting person. I really have to know people a long time before I can trust them, and then I still hold myself back.” Paul paused, desperately searching for the right words that wouldn’t come. He’d just have to say it in his own clumsy way. He turned to John again. “But, well, I do worry about whether I can trust you. I mean, I know a lot of the stuff was in the past, and I ought to let it go, but it’s hard.”

John heard the soft words. They had been projected out into the air between the two men. He didn’t feel fear. Miraculously, he felt strong. He felt empowered. Paul was telling him the truth, and it wasn’t as horrible as he had feared. “The ‘stuff.’ Let’s talk about the ‘stuff’ then. If it is festering inside you, take it out, and we’ll clear it up if we can.” John’s voice was gentle - cajoling.

Paul was shaking his head ‘no’. He really didn’t want to talk about those open sores. He had only just recently been able to peer into aspects of the past and look at them full on, without whitewashing and justifying and rationalizing what he saw. Now that he could see the naked pain he had been in as a teenager it was embarrassing to him that he had felt so vulnerable and dejected. He never liked to see himself as the rejected one; in his conscious memories he always portrayed himself as the strong, silent type, patiently enduring the slings and arrows of John’s outrageous whims. This newer insight of himself as a weak, lonely, and rejected boy had shaken him to his roots.

John saw the reactive head shaking, and knew that this was not going to be easy. Paul was not going to want to talk about such painful memories. He never liked to do that. He liked to swathe his memories in gauze and golden glitter - so much easier to tolerate that way. But if Paul never confronted the real memories, how could the two of them ever get past the damage those memories caused? “Paul, don’t clam up on me. You know how I hate that. It’s just me - John. You can tell me. We both want the same thing - we want to be happy together for what’s left of our lives.”

Paul said, “You already know the things that hurt me, John. I’m surprised you have to ask.”

John looked ashamed. “Nigel, and that Brad thing. I know. I really hurt you with those, didn’t I?”

Paul nodded, but not with as much conviction as John would have expected. Paul said, “If I’m going to let myself love somebody, I want to believe that they want to be with me. Life’s too short to spend even one minute in the company of someone who’d rather be with someone else.”

“That’s kind of a bloodless way to look at it, don’t you think?” John responded. “You don’t get jealous, or angry. You don’t remonstrate with me. You always act as though you don't care that I was off having sex with someone else.”

“We both did that, John,” Paul said defensively. “Back in the '60s. We were always sleeping with other people. Women.” Paul had corrected himself with that comment.

John said, “But you wanted to, or needed to, and I would have been much happier just to be with you.”

“You’re the one who was always going off with other people, John. Maybe I slept with a lot of women, but I didn’t share my work and my life with them. For me it was good company and fun sex for a few hours. For you, it was like you would change your whole life to accommodate these people who seemed to pop up out of nowhere. And then you’d reject the life that you and I had shared just days before.” Paul’s tone had become resentful. Once he had started his download, he couldn't seem to stop it.

John’s mouth was a perfect ‘oh’ as he heard this prickly download. “What are you talking about?” He asked. He was truly mystified (even though he probably shouldn’t have been).

Paul couldn’t talk about Stu, and he couldn’t talk about Brian. Those were too humiliating. It was easier to talk about one of the later betrayals. “Yoko.” It was a one-word answer.

John couldn’t help himself - he sneered. “Oh for chrissakes Paul, Yoko? I thought for sure we’d been all through that a thousand times. I wanted you, you wanted a woman; I decided that Yoko might as well be the one for me since I couldn’t have you, you got married and had hundreds of babies, and off we went. Anyway, you keep saying you weren’t jealous of me sleeping with women. Was that a lie?”

Paul said, “You misunderstand me.”

“That’s easy enough, given how maddeningly cryptic you are,” John snapped.

“You think I was jealous about sex. I was not jealous about sex. I was jealous about your friendship, and our creative partnership.” The words came out in a flood. Paul didn’t realize he had just admitted to ‘jealousy.’ He didn’t like to think of himself as a jealous man.

John sat back. He had a flash of insight. To John, having Paul physically - in his life, and as his lover - was the most important thing. But to Paul, their friendship and their conjoined muses were more important. John saw in that moment that all those years of trying to make Paul jealous with sex was wasted effort. Nothing would touch Paul if it didn’t involve their intimate friendship. He felt compassion for Paul in that moment. He lowered his voice to a gentler tone. “When you told me you were going to get married and live a straight life, what did you expect me to do? I had to fill the space you abdicated with someone who was willing to be everything to me, because that is what I need. I need a person to be everything to me.”

Paul's face was turned towards John as he spoke. He realized in that moment that he couldn’t make his point properly if he didn’t explain the earlier betrayals - when John had gone searching for newer, more interesting people and cut him out. Well, Paul admitted, he and John weren’t lovers when the Stu thing happened. But he had been John’s best and closest friend and creative partner, and suddenly he was rejected in favor of Stu. Paul had suspected that John had gone to Stu for sex, and, receiving it, had made Stu his ‘everything.’ This theory was supported by the fact that he and John didn’t become lovers until after the Stu thing ended for good, and then John had repeated his possessive friendship with Paul as if he were just continuing the one he had just lost with Stu. Paul decided that maybe he shouldn’t be the only one on the hot seat:

“Is that what Stu was to you? Your ‘everything’?” The angry question cut through the morning peacefulness like a flashing knife.

John was taken aback. “Stu? What the fuck has he got to do with Yoko?”

“Everything! It’s just another example of how you find it so easy to blot me out of your life when you grow bored with me.” Paul’s voice was resentful, and charged with a strong underlying emotion that worried John.

“What are you suggesting?” John's tone was almost a growl.

“That you and Stu were lovers,” Paul said flatly. He stared at John, daring him to deny it.

“I’ve told you we weren’t,” John said. The ground seemed to have fallen away from under him.

“I think you’re lying to me. I’ve always thought you lied about that to me.”

John was dumbfounded. He had no idea that Paul felt so strongly about this. Should he tell him the truth? It might be hurtful, but not as hurtful as what Paul already thought. He took a deep breath and jumped in with both feet. “Okay, since you want to know the truth, I’ll tell you the truth. I did want to have an affair with Stu. I was attracted to him sexually. You were too young, too innocent about such things. You would never have agreed to have sex with me, and your father would have killed me if he found out, which he probably would have because you were so slavishly devoted to him. But Stu was older, more of a bohemian. I thought while we were living in that apartment together we would become lovers, you know, and have this kind of arty salon. But Stu wasn’t interested in sex with me, and I didn’t have the courage to raise the issue directly. My subtle attempts fell flat. So it was this unspoken desire thing that I struggled with.” There. He’d said it.

Paul didn’t know why, but now he felt worse. Now he knew for sure that he was John’s second choice, after Stu. John didn’t even think about having sex with him until Stu was lost to him for good. He gulped. And I was the one - the ‘easy’ one - that gave in to John’s advances. Seen in this light, he felt much smaller and less worthy than he had just moments before. Paul had known nothing good would come of raking up the past. That is why he hadn’t wanted to do it! Now here he was - he was in possession of the ‘truth’ whether he wanted it or not. And the truth was far more painful than he’d imagined. He felt all his drawbridges going up, as he raced to protect himself again behind the high walls of his fortress. He said, with as much sangfroid as he could muster (although the bitterness came through all the same), “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you with Stu; I wonder what would have happened to the band if it had.”

“Oh for... Paul! Don’t be stupid. I don’t regret that it never happened with Stu. I don’t give it a moment's thought. I was struggling with my sexual identity at the time, and he was so liberated and gifted and beautiful...”

Great, Paul thought, this is just lovely. “John. Please stop. You made your point. And you also made my point. You became Stu’s best friend because you wanted him for your lover. And my mere friendship didn’t matter to you anymore once you had Stu’s. Do you have any idea how many times you’ve done that to me?”

“That isn’t fair. You’re the one who always said that our sexual relationship should be open. I was just following the rules you had set up.”

“I set up the rules?” Paul was practically stuttering now.

“You made it clear to me that you weren’t giving up women, so - yes - it was your rule.” John’s chin had risen stubbornly as he said this. “And you had all sorts of rules about it that I didn’t like, but I lived with ‘em.”

Paul sat back in his chair and clammed up. It was true that he had rimmed their sexual relationship ‘round with rules. He had done it to protect himself, yes, but there was no doubt that John had been hurt by it. He had felt very guilty about that for years. He said in a low voice, “I see your point. That was wrong of me.”

John’s anger, which had flared, died down again. He hadn’t wanted this to devolve into Paul feeling bad again. He had wanted to try to communicate to Paul that he could be trusted. He was doing a fuck all job of it. He changed tack. “Pud, I didn’t want this to become a tit for tat thing. I just wanted to talk with you about why you don’t trust me, and maybe we could make it better, not worse.”

Paul felt beaten up and exhausted now. The cheerful morning had clouded over, figuratively if not literally. He was willing to do or say almost anything to put an end to this agony. “I told you the most important thing right at the start - intellectually, I know I can trust you. I have doubts, but I am able to talk myself out of them. I’m here with you, aren’t I? I’m wearing your ring. I’m hoping for the best. What else do you want from me?”

When put like that, John wasn’t sure what he wanted. But he knew this much - whatever it was that he wanted, he wasn’t going to get it today. “I can see that we’ve beaten this dead horse too long. Let’s just put it aside for now. But I hope you will think about what I said. I don’t want you to even have doubts about me. I don’t want you in a place where you have to talk yourself into trusting me. I want it to be natural, freely given, and instinctive. Will you think about that? Will you work on that with your therapist?”

Finally, a way out of this labyrinth! Paul said, “Yes, I will. Of course I will.”

And John had to satisfy himself with that. But he did know a few things now that he didn’t know before: Paul had been extremely jealous and hurt by his friendship with Stu, so much so that he had carried that hurt with him all these decades. And somehow the ‘Stu Thing’ was the main trigger for all of Paul’s feelings of rejection and distrust. John sincerely had not understood before how deep that injury went. He had to think of a way to soothe that sore spot if he ever were to gain Paul’s full, open trust.

 

*****

 

Departure

 

John had let sleeping dogs lie for the rest of the final week. Paul seemed relieved not to have to deal with such stressful conversations, and did his best to act as though they had never happened. This wasn’t exactly what John had hoped for, but at least now he had hold of the end of a thread, and he could start unraveling from there. He was sure that Fiona would have some good ideas. He also wondered if Paul would live up to his word and talk about this issue in his therapy. In truth, John often wished he could be a fly on the wall during one of Paul’s therapy sessions to see and hear what was going on.

Paul was lumping the luggage out of the house and into the boot of the jeep. The jeep’s engine was running, and was causing Paul anxiety. He didn’t like transitions. He wanted to move as quickly as possible from one thing to the other, so he couldn’t regret the old, and he could move on immediately to the new.

 

*****

 

Cavendish

 

It was late evening when John and Paul walked through the front door at Cavendish. John was actually relieved to get home, despite his mournfulness about leaving at the beginning of their travels. Paul, as usual, was bustling about, moving their de minimis luggage upstairs, and talking to himself as he did so. John had to smile. His own little busy bee. Paul had been very thoughtful on the trip back. He had talked to John without being distracted, and only put on his earphones when John had drifted off to sleep. John could tell that Paul was trying very hard to be ‘present’, and he appreciated it. But he also felt a little guilty about what he’d put Paul through to get to this point.

During their argument the week before, Paul had said something interesting that - at the time - John had glossed over. But later the words came back to John, and they had been playing in his head off and on for days:

“I never know if I can really tell you my true feelings. I never know if you just want to hear what you want to hear, and if I say something else you might fly into a rage...”

Those words stuck because John knew they were painfully accurate. How many times had he begged Paul to tell him what he was feeling, and then had a breakdown when he actually heard it? Truthfully, more times than John could possibly remember. Paul, however, seemed to remember every single time it happened. In a way, John realized, he had put Paul in a double bind: he was damned if he didn’t tell John his feelings, and he was damned if he did. From Paul’s point of view, John thought, it was safer to not say anything, based on the old world adage, ‘Least said, soonest mended.’ In quiet moments, when thinking to himself and there was nothing immediately at stake, John could see that this was a very unhealthy cycle. Not for the first time in a long time did he wish they could have therapy together. But the time they had tried had ended in disaster. He doubted Paul would ever give that a go again. He would have to talk with Fiona about that. He thought of Fiona as his safety valve. When all the tension built up in him, she would turn the faucet and it would all come pouring out. Two whole months without his safety valve was a very long time. No wonder he was frazzled!

Paul, meanwhile, was having similar (although mirror opposite) reflections. I shouldn’t have closed up like that when John broached those subjects. Marc is always on me about that. I only end up talking about it anyway, so why make it so difficult? He found himself, surprisingly, looking forward to seeing his therapist again. This not only surprised him, but it alarmed him a little. He didn’t like to think of himself as someone who relied on therapy. Still, the urge to unload all of the thoughts that had filled his head after his confrontations with John was very strong. What could he have done differently to avoid snapping at John? Maybe Marc would have some ideas...

 

*****

 

The Next Evening  
Cavendish

 

The family - or that part of it living in London - came to dinner the day after John and Paul returned from Costa Rica. Thus it was Stella and her husband Alistair with baby Arthur, and Mary with her boyfriend, a real estate investor named Charles, who made up the party.

Stella had been dating Charles (called ‘Chas’) for some time, but the magic was beginning to fade from the relationship. He had not been happy when he was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement when they had begun to date in earnest. But Stella was incredibly protective of her father, and made it clear from day one that in her family no one told tales out of school. It wasn’t that Chas wanted to gossip about Stella’s father; it was just that he found it insulting to have to sign an agreement saying he wouldn’t. After that, their relationship had begun to degrade, what with Chas’s simmering resentment and moping, and Stella’s impatience with the childishness of it all. Anyway, when they went out together, such as on this night, they made every effort to look as though things were fine, and even Mary didn’t see the cracks that had begun to form in her sister’s relationship.

Mary had issues of her own with Alistair. He hadn’t been working. He called himself a producer and director, but as of yet his accomplishments were few. Her father kept throwing him little jobs, but he didn’t seem to excel at any of them. He was a good father to their son, however, and a loving husband. She told herself repeatedly that she had been spoiled growing up in a household where her father was active in the family, active at his work, and who still maintained a healthy and sexy relationship with his wife (not to mention John, too.) To top it off he was funny, adorable and good-looking. Her father was so multi-talented and great at juggling and compartmentalizing that somehow every guy she had met since she had started dating always somehow let her down in some strategic way. Knowing this, Mary pushed the feelings about Alistair’s lack of real ambition to the back of her mind. She had a small family now, and hoped to have more children. Consequently, she too was showing a happy face to her family. Stella didn’t notice anything wrong either, despite the closeness between the sisters.

Most of the evening Mary and Stella took turns trying to talk their father and John into telling them where they had gone for two months. Their differing styles were thrown into bas-relief by their attempts.

“You both have such wonderful tans,” Mary said sweetly to John as she was helping him prepare the meal. “Did you go to the Mediterranean or the Caribbean?”

“Caribbean,” John said absent-mindedly. “Hey, can you get the ghee out of the fridge for me?”

“We used to holiday in the Caribbean,” Mary continued, after she brought the ghee over to John’s workspace. “I think I’ve been to the Bahamas, Jamaica and Bermuda. Did you go to one of those?”

“No,” John answered pleasantly. “Can you dish out that casserole into the serving dish please?”

Eventually Mary gave up.

But Stella was giving it a go in the sitting room. “So Dad - where did you and John steal off to?” She asked bluntly.

“We didn’t actually ‘steal off,’ Stella. It was planned for weeks.” Paul knew where Stella was going with this, and he was going to try to head her off at the pass.

“You’re so literal, Daddy. Mum always said so,” Stella remarked.

“John says so too,” Paul said, looking completely unbothered by this critique as he studied the remote control in order to find some football on TV.

Stella sighed heavily. “What’s the big secret? Why can’t you tell us where you went?” Stella was grumbling now.

Paul laughed, and reached over to pinch Stella’s nose. “You’re such a nosy bunny,” he said cheerfully. 

 

*****


	136. Chapter 136

A Therapist’s Office  
March 2000  
London

*****

“It’s been a long time,” Paul told Marc. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Did you have a good time away?” Marc asked, providing a possible topic. “You have quite an attractive tan.”

Paul smiled as he remembered his “time away.” Marc saw the smile and was inwardly glad for his patient. Obviously, he’d had a very good time.

“It was really special,” Paul finally said, meeting Marc’s eyes with a little uncertainty, his fingers unconsciously playing with his new ring.

“I’m quite envious of you,” Marc chuckled. “Getting away for two whole months would be impossible for me.”

Paul said, “It’s sort of impossible for me, too, because I enjoy working, but once I get there I find the craziness just shedding off me.”

“You look very relaxed, and that is important. So. Did you give our last sessions any thought while you were away? Or was that part of the ‘craziness’ you shed?” Marc’s eyes were dancing with gentle mischief.

“I wasn’t going to,” Paul said honestly, “because I felt as though I needed a break from it all. But near the end - the subject of my lack of trust came up.”

“Oh? How?”

“John brought it up.” Paul suddenly felt reluctant to go on, but he forced himself to proceed. “It was near the end of our stay. He asked me if I trusted him.”

Marc was intrigued by John’s gambit. “And what did you say?”

“I told him that in my mind I knew I could trust him. I mean, we’ve been through everything together and back again. But part of that ‘everything’ was pretty hurtful. He guessed right away that I was avoiding telling him the whole truth.” Paul leaned back in the sofa, finally getting comfortable in Marc’s presence again. “So I admitted to him that I struggle with trusting him on an irrational level.”

“You called it ‘irrational’?” Marc asked, surprised.

Paul thought about that and tried to remember. “No, I think I called it an ‘emotional’ level. But to me they often are the same thing.”

Marc made a note of this comment. It didn’t surprise him that Paul equated ‘irrational’ with emotions; it just surprised him because Paul had said it out loud. “What makes the lack of trust in John ‘irrational’ to you, Paul?” Marc asked.

“The stuff he did to hurt me - I mean, it was years ago. He’s actually been very steady and loyal to me for several years now - certainly since we found out that Linda was ill. So that’s almost 5 years now. Intellectually, I know at some point I have to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess I just can’t get over that expectation that he’ll go off sideways on me again.”

“You’ve never really shared with me what ‘stuff’ he has done to hurt you. It is difficult for me to help you sort through it if I don’t know what it is.” Marc’s face was serious, but gentle.

Paul made a face. He knew this moment would come - the moment he would have to expose the deep humiliation he had felt each time John had betrayed his friendship over the years. He’d already put his toe in the water when he brought the Stu thing up with John, but the water had been ice cold. He looked at Marc with a shrewd, assessing expression. Is now that moment? He wondered. It was a twenty-second break, but Paul made a huge step forward in that short time period. “I told John about the first time he betrayed me; it didn’t come out the way I intended it to.” Paul’s tone, expression and body language were the epitome of the term “desultory.”

“When was the first time he ‘betrayed’ you?” Marc asked, studying his pad intently.

“It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud,” Paul admitted sheepishly. “You know, when it is in my head, and I’m remembering it, it’s like I’m 16 again, and it feels really really bad. But when it comes out my mouth - well, later, when I think about what I said, I realized how childish it sounded.”

“Sixteen year-olds are technically still children,” Marc pointed out logically. “Your brain at 16 is not fully formed, and you are far more sensitive about issues such as being accepted or rejected. It isn’t surprising if you still hold those memories so close if you were hurt then.”

Paul had been listening very closely to Marc’s words. His chin was down, and he was staring up at Marc surreptitiously through his long eyelashes. “My mother had just died when I met John.” Paul said this seemingly out of nowhere - an unexpected and out of context switch of topic. It had been a strange zigzag, but a telling one for Marc.

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“I was 14 ½.”

“That is a very difficult age for a boy to lose his mother,” Marc opined. “And you met John shortly after that?”

“About eight months later.” Paul’s eyes were staring at his hands, which were in tight, white fists.

“Were you the kind of friends that felt as though you’d known each other forever when you met? Or was there a warming up, getting-to-know period?” Marc was, of course, curious, but he also needed to put the meeting-John comment in context with the being-hurt-by-John comment.

“Both,” Paul decided, after thinking about it for a moment. “Part of us knew each other instantly. But that other part of us, it was like we were each a mystery to the other.”

“Tell me more about this,” Marc urged quietly.

“Well, the music thing. That was instant rapport between us. But it was also competitive. I was asking myself if John was better at it than me, and he was asking himself whether I was better at it than him. We were very competitive about that. So, for a while there, we each kind of see-sawed back and forth on whether we even liked each other.”

“What other examples do you have?”

“At first, the first few months, maybe even the first year, our friendship was all about the music. We were in this band together, and we were teaching each other how to write songs, and how to play chords. We spent much of our free time together with our guitars.”

“Did you do anything else together?” Marc asked.

Again, Paul had to think for a while. “Not really. Not often. Sometimes we hung out in John’s little group of friends - John always had a bunch of guys he was leading about by the nose.” Paul chuckled at his own imagery.

“Were you one of them?” Marc asked.

“No!” Paul reacted strongly. He then softened his response. “John probably thought I was, but I wasn’t.”

“Why weren’t you one of the gang?”

“I’m not a joiner kind of person. I always like to have one or two friends I really like, but I also like my own company, and I enjoy my friends, generally, one at a time.” Paul shrugged as he said this. He wasn’t 100% happy with his answer. He added, “I also don’t like to be told what to do.”

Marc laughed. “Very few people do,” he responded.

Paul said, curiously, “You think so? I have a different opinion. I think most people do like being told what to do, once they have found a person or persons who they admire. At least teenagers are like that: they hang together in groups, and like to exclude others so they can feel important. I wasn’t interested in any of that. But John was.”

“So that was one way in which the two of you were not alike,” Marc said, making a note.

“Yes. I preferred his company when we were alone. He was always kind and warm to me when we were alone.” Paul got a dreamy look on his face.

“And how did that differ from when you were with other people?”

“He was often mean to me when other people were around. He would put me down, and pretend he was joking. But I knew he wasn’t joking, although I pretended like it didn’t bother me. He was still being mean to me in front of others as late as 5 years ago. He doesn’t do that anymore.”

“Why do you suppose he was mean to you when other people were around?”

“I guess,” Paul started, truly unsure about his answer, “I guess he was so competitive with me, that he had to make me look smaller in front of other people, so he could look bigger. It was always important for him to be seen to be the boss, the leader, the genius, the most talented one. With me he was willing to say he was 51% and I was 49% of our success. He could never accept that we were 50/50. And even the 51/49 thing bothered him. He resented that I was so very close to him in ability in his own estimation. He told me once, in the ‘60s, that he had given serious thought to kicking me out of his band after I first joined, because he feared that his friends in the band would like me better, or that others might think I was the stronger performer.”

“Were you aware that he had these feelings at the time?”

Paul sighed and propped his chin in his hand as he stared out the window. He finally said, still looking out the window, “I think I always had this little warning sound in my head - you know, like the sound a truck makes when it is backing up to warn people behind it - only it was very faint. But it was ever-present. I think I’ve spent most of my years with John constantly on my guard.”

“That would be hurtful,” Marc commented.

“But I got used to it. People think I have thick skin. And I guess it’s thick enough. I came to understand John - how insecure he was, and how he had that really messed up childhood. I had a great childhood, and so I felt as though I had to be the mature one.” Paul laughed. “Well, I was the mature one for a teenager. I was still very callow, of course, but compared to John - I was wisdom personified!” Paul managed a grin, and Marc chuckled. “Anyway, the summer after we met, John’s mother was killed in a car accident. He was devastated. I was the only one of his friends who had been through it - who had lost his mother. We became very close as friends, as opposed to band mates, that summer. We spent nearly the whole summer together.”

“That was the summer you were 16?” Marc asked, realizing he was getting close to the ‘betrayal’ in the timeline.

“Yes.” Paul had a flashback to the day of his 16th birthday - a party at his uncle’s house, and an inebriated John Lennon had shown up with bootleg beer and he and John had ended the night singing drunken songs to each other in his dad’s back yard...

“And this was around the time he first ‘betrayed’ you?”

Paul nodded silently. He was picking his words carefully. “He started art college that fall, and a few months in he met two people - his first wife, Cynthia, who was a year older than him, and another student named Stu, who was also a year older than him. They were both art students.”

“How old was John then?”

“He’d just turned 18.”

Marc could see it now. The sixteen year-old grammar school boy juxtaposed against the new college student, excited by the heady first months of being amongst other adults, and out from under the thumb of parental influences. He almost didn’t need Paul to tell him what happened. But it wasn’t for his benefit that Paul had to tell it; it was for Paul’s benefit, who needed to get it out and look at it in the clear light of day and through the eyes of a very successful adult who - in the end - had ‘won’ John Lennon hands down, no matter what the earlier competition. Marc smiled encouragingly at Paul, who accepted the silent prompt reluctantly.

“It was like I no longer existed,” Paul finally said, looking almost like an ashamed sixteen year-old.

“It was almost inevitable, given the circumstances,” Marc pointed out gently.

Paul nodded. “Yes, I know that now. But at the time - well - I have to go back again. After my mother died, I was at a total loose end. You know how it is - you’re going along, and you have a structure to your life. You know what you’ll do in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings, at night. You know what you’ll do on school days and on the weekend and the holidays. You know when the meals will go on the table, and when the linens get washed. It’s a routine, but it is comforting. Or at least - while you’re in it you don’t know it is comforting. It’s just your life. And then one day, seemingly out of nowhere - although looking back I could see there were a number of warnings had I been old enough to interpret them - the rug is pulled out from under you. And all those routines are upended. Now there’s no one home when you get back from school. Now it’s you putting the dinner on, because your father has to work longer hours to make up for the loss of income. Now it’s your aunties coming over and doing the laundry and making the Sunday roast. And now your father, who had always been a light-hearted person, looks as though his chest has been crushed. I heard him crying in his room at night. It frightened me.” Paul stopped for a gulp of air. Where did this all come from?

Marc had been holding his breath. In his mind’s eye, he could see the young boy coming home to an empty house. It made his heart ache a little. But more than that, it was beginning to explain a number of things... “This loss of your comforting routine - this was a dark time for you,” Marc prompted.

“Very dark. Anyway, when months later I met John, and I joined his band, I felt as though I had created a new safe routine. I knew what I was doing in the morning - going off to school. I knew what I was doing in the afternoon - hanging out with John and playing guitars. This would go through to the evening. Then I’d have dinner with my father and brother, do my homework, play my guitar a bit, and then go to bed. Anyway, you see, my life had settled back into a comforting routine, and by the end of that second summer of our friendship, I relied on John’s company and his friendship to see me through the day.” By this time, Paul was twisting his new ring around and around his finger, although he didn’t realize it.

Marc said, “And then John entered college and everything changed again.”

Paul sighed with a kind of relief. “Yes. And I was filled with anxiety all the time. I had too much free time, and nothing to do with it.”

“Did you have anyone to talk to about it?” Marc asked.

“No. I didn’t want to upset my father, and my brother and I never had that kind of relationship.”

“What kind of relationship did you have with your brother?”

“I was the older one, and very bossy. But Mike is a McCartney too, and he didn’t like being told what to do any more than I did. We were and are very fond of each other - we love each other - and we shared a whole lot of fun and heartache together growing up. But we kind of communicated with each other by making fun of each other. Like, I was fat in my early teens, and he called me ‘Fatty’ along with some of the other kids. I wasn’t going to open myself up to ridicule. I mean, what would I say? ‘I’ve been dumped by my best friend?’ Mike would make a full dinner out of that.” Paul actually chuckled as he said this. “When you’re a teenager you take yourself so seriously,” he added.

“So you didn’t share these feelings of anxiety with anyone. How did you cope?” Marc asked.

“I did what I always do. I kept myself busy. I worked hard at school. I worked an afterschool job. I made the dinner for my dad and my brother, I did my homework, and I spent hours alone in my room with my guitar.”

“Did you not see John at all?”

“Not much. After his mother died, John lost interest in the band for several months. He still wanted to meet with me and play guitars and try to write songs, but now it was rare, and only when neither Cynthia nor Stu were available. Or else he’d insist that Cynthia or Stu come too. We did a few gigs that year, and Cynthia came, and I brought my girlfriend, and that was okay. But then John asked Stu to join the band.”

Marc could see that this was not going to end well. “How did you feel about that?”

“Well, John sold the idea to me. Stu had won prize money for a piece of art, and with that money John had talked him into buying a bass guitar. The way John sold it to me was that Stu could play the bass, since neither he nor I nor George Harrison wanted to, and it was all going to be so rosy golden.” Paul snickered. “I honestly didn’t want him in the band, but I figured if Stu was around, John would at least be more interested in the band again, and we’d spend more time together, even if it wasn’t like it was before - just the two of us.”

“You were jealous of John’s friendship with Stu?” Marc asked.

After a few pregnant seconds, Paul said, “Very.”

Marc wanted to ask if these young teenage relationships were sexual, but decided not to push in that direction just yet. Instead he recapped, “So this ‘betrayal’ you felt was John switching his main friendship interest to this Stu person.”

Paul grinned. “’Stu person.’ I like that. The sad thing is, the few times Stu and I were alone together, we realized we had a lot in common. He was as dedicated to art as I was to music. He practiced, and studied, and had a strong artistic vision. I treated music in the same way. But John would not let us be friends, and Stu and I ended up hating each other as a result.”

“He was too threatened by the idea of the two of you being friends, I suppose,” Marc summed up.

“He was so insecure. He’s gotten so much better.” Paul fell into a thoughtful silence. “It was a weird few years - the two years or so that Stu was in the band. Sometimes John was joined at the hip with Stu, and then other times he’d be closer to me - and it went on and on, back and forth. Neither Stu nor I ever knew where we stood. I think John liked to keep us off balance because it made him feel more in control.”

“John must have been a very attractive personality to maintain friendships with two such gifted young men while being so thoughtless and cruel at times to both of them.”

Paul’s face lit up. “John was amazing. He still is, but when I was young - he was a breath of fresh air. He was the best company. Anyway, he was the epitome of ‘cool’. It was like having your own superstar in the band.”

“So this would make it all the more difficult to find yourself left out of his company,” Marc commented softly.

Paul looked up. “You know, he told me something while we were away. He said that when I go off and lose myself in my head it feels to him like the sun going behind the clouds. Do you know that is how it always felt to me when I was on the outs with John? Like the sun was behind the clouds, and nothing would be sunny again.”

*****

Another Day

Another Therapist

“You don’t know how happy I am to see you!” John announced to Fiona, as he gave her a big hug. Fiona’s face was smashed up against John’s chest, and she found it a little difficult to breathe for a few seconds.

“You shouldn’t go away from therapy for two whole months then, John,” Fiona lectured when she was finally set free.

“Blah blah blah,” John said to her, flapping his fingers at her like a bird’s beak. Fiona had to laugh at that. John plopped down on the sofa and stretched out comfortably, making himself totally at home. “So. All kinds of exciting stuff to tell you.”

“Oh?” Fiona asked. “Like what?”

John thrust his left hand out and waved his fingers around. “Like this!”

Fiona scooted forward in her seat so she could see John’s hand better. A ring. It was a rather unusual and attractive ring, with the yin/yang symbol on top. “That’s very nice,” she said, confused.

John laughed at her face. He took it off, and handed the ring to her. “Read the inscription,” he directed.

Fiona did as she was told. She read out loud, “Always.” Her eyes beetled together a little and then suddenly she issued forth a strong “Ohhhh!”

John laughed at Fiona’s face.

“Did Paul give this to you?” Fiona asked, her happiness for John not at all hidden.

John said, “No, I gave one just like it to him, and he accepted it.”

“So what does it mean to you?” Fiona asked. “Friendship? Devotion? Marriage?”

“To me - all of those things. Not 100% sure Paul is all the way there. I think for him maybe friendship, devotion, and engagement?” John chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. He isn’t going anywhere, and he knows it.”

Fiona was staring at John as if he were a stranger. “Who is this well adjusted person, and what have you done with my patient?” Fiona teased.

John’s face grew more serious. He sat up and forward again, and reached down under the neckline of his t-shirt and pulled out a chain from underneath. On the end of the chain dangled two rings. “These are Paul’s wedding rings from when he was married to Linda. He gave them to me for safekeeping when he accepted my ring.”

Fiona was dumbfounded. Words failed her. She was finally able to say, “What a profound thing to do.”

John’s eyes met hers and they teared up a bit. “I never expected it. I was so afraid he would refuse the gesture, or tell me it was too soon. But his response was almost automatic. It was so fucking beautiful.”

“That’s a major step forward for both of you,” Fiona said seriously.

“Yeah - and can I have my ring back?” John joked. Fiona handed him the ring back, and watched John slip it on his left hand ring finger.

“What other ‘stuff’ happened? You said there were ‘lots,’” Fiona reminded him.

“I brought up two touchy subjects with him, and we managed to get through them without ruining our stay and without hurting each other.”

“What subjects?” Fiona asked. She was feeling very good about John’s mental health at the moment. He had come an enormous distance, even if it had taken years to get there.

“Well, you know how I complain all the time about how he goes off into Paul Land? I always feel so left out. Well, I told him I didn’t like it when he did that. And you know what he said?”

“No,” Fiona said automatically, eager to hear the answer.

“He said he was very sorry but that was part of who he is, and I might as well accept that he isn’t perfect.” John was looking at Fiona with an awestruck face. “Isn’t that fucking amazing?”

In truth, Fiona thought it was amazing, considering Paul’s allergy to speaking blunt truths.

“Except he said it nicer than I did,” John added.

Fiona thought, figures.

“But still - he didn’t say what I wanted to hear, he said the truth. And I didn’t have a tantrum afterwards! I accepted his view of it. I don’t think I’ll be as bothered by him doing that ever again.” John paused. “He also told me he was never sure if I wanted to hear what he really felt, or if I just wanted to hear what I wanted to hear. He said he was always worried I’d go into a tear if I heard something I didn’t want to hear.”

“How did you respond to that?” Fiona asked.

“It was a miracle,” John said, his face very pleased. “I said I saw his point, and I would try not to do that if he told me the truth.”

Fiona, on one level, was thinking how elementary these accomplishments were. Normal people automatically handled tricky transactions this way. But neither John nor Paul was a ‘normal person’, and the way they handled these reactions were therefore - on another level - truly miraculous. “Was it hard for you to admit that he was right about that?”

“It might have been,” John said, “but somehow it wasn’t.”

“What was the other subject?” Fiona asked.

“I asked him if he trusted me.” John looked up and his eyes met Fiona’s, and they exchanged a very serious look. Fiona looked very impressed.

“Just like that, you asked him?” She prompted.

“Yeah. And he got very uncomfortable. He didn’t want to talk. But then I kept telling him we had to talk about it, and he admitted that he has a hard time trusting me on an emotional level. Not on what he called an ‘intellectual’ level - on that level, he said he trusted me. I thought what he meant was his conscious mind trusts me, but his subconscious mind doesn’t. I thought that was a very deep statement.”

“Did you explore what he meant about the ‘emotional’ level?”

“Yeah - with him figuratively kicking and screaming the whole way.” John smiled his kooky smile. “But it was weird. It all came down to something that happened when we were teenagers.”

“Teenagers?” Fiona asked. She had not expected that.

“I know. You’d think a smart, practical, pragmatic guy like Paul wouldn’t hold on to slights from when he was a kid. I certainly had no idea he felt that strongly about it.”

“What was this ‘thing’ that happened?” Fiona asked.

“About a year and a half after we met, I was starting art college, and Paul was only 16. He was living in his dad’s house, and he was still in school. I met this other art student named Stu, and I became infatuated with him. I didn’t spare much time for Paul. I guess I thought Paul was so self-sufficient. He was a bit of a loner, and he was still very young. I figured he wouldn’t mind. Anyway, his father ordered him about, and he usually obeyed his father, which was a major drag. I was dying to be free of my aunt, and of being told what to do, and everything was so refreshing living in a flat and hanging out in clubs with all these other young adults. I still saw Paul to work on music, and for occasional band gigs, but it wasn’t like it had been before, when we’d spent hours and hours alone together. Anyway, apparently he was terribly wounded by that. And he accused me of lying to him about the nature of my relationship with Stu.”

“How so?”

“He thought I’d lied about having a sexual relationship with Stu.”

“Did you have one or not?” Fiona asked, a little confused.

“I was deeply infatuated with Stu. I used to sit on the sofa in our flat while he was painting and just watch him. He had the physicality of a small jungle cat, like an ocelot. He was tiny - he had tiny hands and feet. His voice was a disappointment, though. It was kind of tinny. But he had exquisite cheekbones, and deep-set blue eyes, and looked a lot like James Dean, who was all the rage at the time. I fancied him very much, and wanted him for a lover. But I was just coming to terms with it - you know - the urges I had for men as opposed to women. He seemed a lot ‘safer’ to me than Paul. He seemed like a bohemian to me, and we sometimes did kind of stare at each other too intensely. I think now if I had been courageous enough to make the first move that he would have agreed. But it was all so scary and I never made a direct approach. And this was more like a crush, you know. Once he was in the band, and he was such a bad musician, and he didn’t take it seriously, and then we were in Hamburg and he fell in love with this German woman, well, it all kind of petered out.”

“So you didn’t have a sexual relationship with Stu, but you wanted one.” Fiona summarized.

“I told Paul that. I thought it was better than what he was already thinking - that I did have sex with Stu. But he seemed even more upset when I told him the truth. He clammed up and didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“He was jealous that you might have had a sexual relationship with Stu 40 years ago?” Fiona thought this sounded very unlikely for some reason.

“I figured it out while he was talking. He wasn’t worried about the sex so much as the loss of my friendship, and the time we spent together writing music. He thought that the reason why I abandoned him for Stu was because I was having sex with Stu. I’m not sure he believed me when I said I don’t ever think about it, and I don’t regret how it played out, although of course I am sorry that Stu died.”

Fiona had read about Stu Sutcliffe when she had read about John. She had wondered herself if that relationship had been sexual. But apparently it was not. “So Paul says it was the fact that you abandoned your friendship with him that hurt him so badly?”

“Yes, and to be fair, I have done this to him many times. But all the other times - I either was lobbying for a preeminent position in the band, like with our manager Brian, or I was trying to fill the time when he was doing other stuff, or I was trying to make him jealous. He saw these as betrayals of our friendship, I believe, although he only spoke about Stu and Yoko.”

“It is positive that he is at least talking about it,” Fiona said.

“I think so too. I made him promise he will address the ‘trust’ issue in this therapy. I hope he will. But you know, it doesn’t feel as life-or-death as it once did. I know he loves me, I know he wants to be with me, and as he pointed out - he’s not perfect. He is who he is. And ever since I put that ring on his finger, I’ve felt a lot more secure about everything.”

“This is good, John, but I caution you not to become complaisant. There will be ups and downs, and there will be more challenges. Life is like that. Don’t build yourself up for a disappointment, expecting everything to go smoothly from now on.”

John was blinking at her. He finally said, “I’ve been coming here for how many years to deal with my insecurity and depression? I’m finally seeing the bright side, and now you want me to see the dark side?” His eyes twinkled.

“No, John,” Fiona said softly. “I want you to see both - the light and the dark - and be able to handle them both as need be.”

 

 

*****


	137. Chapter 137

Cavendish  
A Few Weeks Later  
April 2000

 

John and Paul were going to Mary’s for dinner. They had spent the last few weeks working in the studio on their new songs. In the evenings they had enjoyed quiet hours where they read books, or watched movies on the DVD player. As the days had sailed by, John kept pinching himself because he found it hard to believe that his life had finally settled into the comfortable routine that he wanted: Paul to himself, 24 hours a day, no one to compete for attention with, and that ring safely around the blasted man’s finger! He couldn’t have been happier. As a result, he had been very nurturing, making meals and fussing over Paul’s light eating habits and long working hours. Paul, (although perhaps not ready to admit it consciously), was enjoying all the fussing. John’s attentions were actually more solicitous even than Linda’s! He was beginning to feel pretty good about this new commitment he’d made. If it weren’t for that nagging feeling in the back of his head... the fear of the other shoe dropping...

Anyway, Mary had invited them over for dinner, and they were both looking forward to seeing Arthur, who had celebrated his first birthday a few days earlier at a big family party at Cavendish. It seemed every time John and Paul saw Arthur, he’d grown much bigger. Arthur was now trying to walk, and every day there were significant changes in his physical and mental abilities.

This dinner was in advance of the second anniversary of Linda’s death, and Mary had felt the need to have her dad nearby - well, her dad and John. She smiled as she thought of the two of them. They were really too adorable, with their silly bickering followed soon after by sentimental goo-goo eyes. Mary chuckled at her own thoughts as she set the table. Somehow she could never see her father in a sexual way with her mother, but she could see his sexiness vis a vis John. She supposed she would need psychological help later on, but she couldn’t help having a huge soft spot for their love story. She knew Stella felt the same way. The last time they had gossiped about it, Stella had said (and reduced the two women to helpless giggles afterwards), “Daddy better leave us a whole lot of money to pay for all the therapy...”

Paul and John arrived through the back door. Alistair always moved his car out of the mews when the two superstars were coming over, so they could have some privacy. After they both hugged Mary, who met them there, John followed Mary into the kitchen, and Paul headed for the sitting room where Arthur was to be found under the supervision of his father. Mary was very happy to see John. She had meant to be further along in preparing the salad but Arthur had continually dragged her away. She pointed at the kitchen island, where a marble cutting board sat full of salad vegetables to be cut and arranged. John headed straight for it. He immediately picked up the knife and began to chop. A moment later, Mary plopped a glass of red wine next to him, and the two exchanged a loving smile.

 

*****

 

“He’s been trying to walk for over a week now,” Alistair said to Paul as they watched Arthur making movements from a sitting position that resembled those of a person trying to stand up. “He hasn’t quite got the idea yet.”

“It’s funny,” Paul said knowingly, “they are struggling one minute and then the next they just stand up and start walking. Each time I’ve seen it in each of my children I’ve been amazed. It’s like a miracle!”

 

*****

 

“So, do you want the whole bell pepper slivered, or only half?” John asked, the knife hovering over the end of a red bell pepper.

Mary looked over idly to see John’s hands holding the pepper. “The whole thing.” She thought to herself as she rinsed some kitchen implements - that’s a very unusual and attractive ring...

 

*****

 

Paul had helped Arthur stand up by holding on to each of his little arms, and pulling a little until Arthur was wobbling on his feet, which couldn’t quite flatten on the floor. But Arthur’s face was filled with absolute delight and pride - look what I can do! Paul and Alistair chuckled, a combination of affection and pride in their faces.

“Dinner’s ready!” Mary announced from the sitting room door. Paul carried the baby into the dining room where Mary had set up a high chair, with an array of finely cut vegetables laid out on the high chair’s tray. Arthur kicked his legs in excitement as Paul tried to insert him into the seat. Mary watched her father’s exertions with amusement and affection, and then turned away for a moment. But then she froze and turned back. Her father was already sitting down in his chair, and she couldn’t see his hands anymore. She shook her head back and forth, telling herself she was going barmy, and then took her seat at the head of the table. 

John and Paul were across from each other along the sides of the table, and Alistair and Mary were at either end of the table. Arthur’s high chair was situated between Mary and Paul. Everyone began to eat. It wasn’t long before Mary (who made a point of looking) got a good look at Paul’s left ring finger, and her earlier suspicion was confirmed. She said nothing. Yet. She wanted to get her father alone to quiz him about it. But she was very hopeful that he and John had made their future intentions clear to each other. This hope lit up her face, and she looked especially angelic that night.

Later that evening, Mary went upstairs to put Arthur to bed. She had asked her father to join her, and he came up a few moments later. They each gave Arthur a cuddle and a kiss, and then sat in the nursery, the lights off, speaking softly to each other as Arthur settled and fell off to sleep. 

“I hope John isn’t downstairs being too ironic for Alistair,” Paul whispered to his daughter. “Alistair is very sweet, but not very spicy.”

Mary chuckled softly. “I know. When our family is gathering, have you ever noticed how his eyes look huge? He can’t believe what he sees and hears!” 

Father and daughter exchanged amused glances. “I didn’t give you the most conventional childhood,” he finally said softly, with regret. “I dragged you all over the world with what amounted to a hippie commune, drugs included.”

“You didn’t do the drugs in front of us kids. We never saw it.” Mary was very loyal to her parents, and would hear no criticism of their child-rearing abilities.

Paul was relieved to hear her say that. He and Linda had been blindly naïve and stupid about drugs and other responsible parental things - like vaccinations and letting toddlers ramble around naked. He and Linda had seen it as a kind of back-to-nature, very innocent thing. But he knew more about the evils of the world now, and he knew if he had to raise a child now, he would do it a lot differently. 

After the quiet had descended upon them for a few minutes, father and daughter - in separate rocking chairs - enjoyed the silence as they rocked back and forth. Finally, Mary said gently, “That’s a new ring you’re wearing. Mum’s rings are gone.”

Paul had forgotten all about the rings. In fact, when Mary spoke he looked at his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time. He looked up at her guiltily. “Do you mind? I took them off.” 

Mary was heartbroken by her father’s expression - so torn, so fearful of causing pain, so unsure... “Daddy, it’s been two years. Mummy wouldn’t have wanted you to grieve her forever. That was so not what Mum was about.”

Paul’s expression relaxed somewhat, and he rocked quietly for a few more seconds until Mary spoke again.

“John has an identical ring. I noticed while we were in the kitchen.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.

Paul looked very sheepish, and stared at his hands like a guilty little boy as he spoke. “He gave this ring to me. So I gave him mum’s rings. He’s wearing them on a chain around his neck.” 

Mary felt tears in the back of her eyes. “That’s very touching,” she said, simply. Still, her father wouldn’t meet her eyes. She supposed he was very torn about the whole subject. She asked softly, “Do the rings represent a pledge of some kind?”

Paul looked up, alarmed. Mary thought he looked just like a deer caught in the headlights. He said, “We didn’t really say any words.” He looked down at the ring on his fingers. He pulled off the ring and handed it to Mary. “But read the inscription.”

Mary, touched by her father’s shyness and trust, looked into the interior of the ring band. It was hard to see, because it was dark in the nursery with only one shaded light and a nightlight on. But she barely made out the word ‘Always.’ She looked up and smiled warmly at her dad. “This is very sweet,” she said, handing the ring back. “Do you consider it to be like a wedding ring?”

“Wedding ring!?” Paul’s response was a bit loud, but he quickly shushed himself because of the sleeping baby. He added, “No, I don’t think it’s like we’re married, although maybe John feels that way...” Paul stopped to think about this thorny issue. Mary had good, commonsense opinions. Maybe she would have something helpful to say to him. “I guess I struggle with the idea of ‘marriage’ between two men. I don’t have a problem with the word ‘commitment’, though. Not sure what the difference is. Do you think there is a difference?”

Mary could see her father was a little embarrassed. Her heart tugged. She loved the man so much. He tried to be so strong and practical and in charge, but the little boy in him kept popping out at moments of emotional intimacy. She smiled and said, “Daddy, you live with John. I’m assuming you don’t have other lovers. You couldn’t possibly live without him. I guess it doesn’t matter if you call it a ‘marriage’ or a ‘commitment’ - it’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?” 

Paul listened to Mary, and knew that she was saying it like it was. In truth, Paul had already admitted to himself that this ‘commitment’ he made was very like a ‘marriage.’ He had just been reluctant to say so to Linda’s daughter. But Linda’s daughter - true to her mother’s spirit - was letting him know she understood and approved of his decision to move forward with John, and only with John. Paul sighed and leaned back in the rocking chair, letting it move back and forth a few more strokes, and then said, “John is so much happier since the ring exchange. He seems to feel so much more secure.”

“Do you remember what you whispered to me as you were walking me down the aisle as I married Alistair?” Mary asked.

Paul thought back, and then remembered. He smiled. “Yes, I do,” he said, and exchanged another knowing smile with his daughter. Being married is about making each other feel safe enough so you can both fly...

“Well, consider this my way of telling you the same thing back again.” Mary grinned very pertly. 

Her father chuckled softly. “I think we should go down and save Alistair from John’s alternative universe,” he joked. Mary held her giggles back until they had left the nursery and were tripping down the stairs.

 

*****

 

The Next Day

 

“Stella! You’ll never guess!” Mary’s voice was breathless as she emoted into her cell phone.

“Well tell me what it is then, since I’ll never guess,” Stella responded in a kind of smartass manner. 

“So Daddy and John were over for dinner last night, and I just happened to notice that they were wearing identical rings on their ring fingers!”

“No shit!” Stella yelled into her phone. “For real?” 

“Yes! Very stylish rings at that - yin and yang symbols on top, and ‘Always’ in script engraved inside.”

“No way! How corny!” Stella cried.

“It is so cute. It is really very very cute,” Mary corrected, but her voice couldn’t hide her amusement.

“Did you say anything?” Stella’s voice was filled with intense interest.

“I spoke to Daddy about it. He was a little sheepish, but he admitted that he and John had made a commitment of some kind,” Mary gossiped.

“Well, d’uh,” Stella said indignantly. “The whole frickin’ world knows they’re committed to each other. It’s about time that they acknowledged it themselves.”

Mary laughed at Stella’s dramatics, but wasn’t sure she agreed with her sister. “Do you really think that’s true? That the ‘whole world’ knows about it?” 

Stella said, “Well, I exaggerated to make a point. I mean, all of the family and all of our friends know. And I’m pretty sure all of their music business friends and associates have figured it out if they don’t know outright. And I would be surprised if most of their fans haven’t got a notion. I mean, especially since Mum’s death it’s pretty obvious.”

Mary sighed. She felt protective of her father and John, as if on her mother’s behalf, and she hoped there wasn’t a world of hurt ahead of them. “I suppose most people will be willing to go along with the ‘secret’ as long as the details aren’t rubbed in their faces,” Mary said slowly.

“I never thought of that,” Stella said. “But I suppose you’re right. But how sad if they have to keep pretending for the rest of their lives.” Stella’s voice had become subdued. “It must be painful to have to hide your feelings all the time.”

“Well, Daddy is used to holding back his feelings. But John...” Mary’s voice had trickled off.

“I know what you mean,” Stella responded. “Poor John. I think it must hurt him the most.”

 

*****

 

Later That Day

 

“So, how is married life treating you?” Fiona joked cheerfully, as John plopped down with abandon on her sofa. 

John swung one leg extravagantly over the other and chirped back in veddy veddy posh tones, “Very well, thank you.”

Fiona grinned at her patient. What a character! “Last week we left off discussing this new détente you have reached with Paul. How’s it coming along - seriously, now.”

John’s arm was stretched out over the back of the sofa, and his fingers were idly playing with the ribbing on the top of the cushion. He watched his fingers for a moment - especially the one wearing the ring - and then turned back to Fiona. “We’re like an old married couple, for sure,” he said easily. “I’m still overly emotional and needy, and Paul’s still cheerful and energetic and holding back his doubts and fears. We haven’t changed that much. My feelings about how we interact have changed, though.”

“How so?” 

“I guess I’m not so desperate now. I suppose it’s time I gave up that constant fear of abandonment. It’s kind of ridiculous really, when you consider all the years Paul has been loyal to me, you’d think I’d have cottoned to the realization sooner.” 

John was in a particularly thoughtful mood today, and Fiona was glad. He always did his best work when he was in this particular mood. “How does it affect Paul?”

“Hmmm?” John asked, confused.

“You being at ease in your relationship now - how has that affected Paul?” 

“I see what you mean. I guess he’s not walking on eggshells as much these days. You know - this brings up a thought I had the other day.”

“What’s that?” Fiona asked, leaning forwards a little to encourage him.

“It occurred to me that Paul might have a fear of abandonment too. You know, it just popped into my head while I was thinking of all that Stu Sutcliffe and Yoko stuff: maybe Paul is also insecure about people staying with him, but just does a much better job of hiding it than I do. After all, he lost his mother when he was young, too.”

Fiona considered John’s comment. She agreed with him. She had figured that out about Paul back in the days when he’d come in to see her for a while. Strange that John had never figured it out before, but then John was kind of a me-thinker. “I think that is a very interesting insight, John,” Fiona said.

“I mean, this way of looking at it makes me feel very bad about the way I’ve treated him over the years. I always thought he was so strong and stable, and emotionally capable of handling all kinds of emotional trauma. I also believed he was a bit of a loner - independent and wanting time to himself. I resented that about him, but now I wonder if that was all a way to protect himself from being hurt.”

“How so?” Fiona asked.

“Well, if he acts like he’s got it all together, and no one can touch him, no one will know how scared he is, or how lonely he is. You know? Maybe he feared trusting people - like I do - in case they got too close to him, and then abandoned him.”

“Like the times you set him aside to concentrate on Stu, and on Yoko?” Fiona asked.

John nodded, his expression one of sagacity. “Yeah, like that.” John shook his head. “I can’t quite believe that’s true, because my image of him is of someone so self-sufficient... but if I’m right about this, then I can begin to understand how badly I hurt him so many times. I couldn’t figure out why he was so fixated on that whole Stu thing, but this theory would explain it.”

“I had a similar thought, although a bit different,” Fiona commented.

“Oh, what’s that?” Now John leaned forward, his languid pose a thing of the past. He was fully engaged in the conversation now. 

“I had wondered if the reason he became so fearful of being abandoned was because of what happened with Stu. In other words, your treatment of him at that time in his life - he was a teenager, right? - Maybe that is what caused him to lose trust in people he cared about.” Fiona realized this was a heavy thought - it might hurt John badly. But he needed to realize how badly he damaged Paul before he could give Paul the reassurance he so obviously needed. 

John was silent after Fiona finished speaking. He was staring at the floor, deep in thought. He said, “I thought maybe it was losing his mother.” His voice was a little petulant, but also a little worried.

Fiona said, “The take I have on Paul is that he was a very self-confident kid, scarred a little by the teasing he got about his weight when he was young, but he knew he was adored by both of his parents and his large family, and so when his mother died, he had his father and his aunties and most especially you. I wonder sometimes about how he bonded to you so quickly, when he isn’t one to bond to others quickly. I wonder if he was thinking he could trust you to adore him, just like his whole family and his friends did.”

John was blinking, showing his confusion. “Are you saying that when I lost interest and went off with Stu it was his first abandonment, not his second?” John didn’t want this to be true. 

“That is what I think. I feel certain Paul was very sure of his mother’s love. He knew she would not leave him voluntarily, and he blamed the cancer for her death, not her. He was well adjusted. But I think he was clinging to you emotionally, John, at a very vulnerable time in his life, and when you suddenly directed your interest elsewhere, this was his first big heartbreak.”

“Wow,” John said, his eyes wide open. “I would never have come to that conclusion.”

“Why not?” Fiona asked, her voice open and inviting.

“Well, because...” John ran out of words. He was searching his brain madly for the right ones, but they wouldn’t come. It occurred to John that maybe the reason they wouldn’t come was that he had no argument against Fiona’s presentation of the facts. He cleared his throat as a delaying tactic, but finally said, “I guess because I’m a self-centered son of a bitch and it never occurred to me because, if it did occur to me, I would feel terribly guilty about what I did.”

“It’s food for thought, anyway,” Fiona said.

John quickly changed the subject, uncomfortable all of a sudden with what the conversation had reflected of his behavior. “Oh, I almost forgot - next week is the second anniversary of Linda’s death. I wanted to ask your advice. Should I bring the subject up with Paul, and ask him what he wants to do about it? Or should I say nothing, and let him bring it up with me?” John sincerely wanted advice, because he had no clue what was the better thing to do.

Fiona considered the question and then offered, “I would wait until the day before, and if Paul hasn’t brought it up with you, then I would bring it up. He might be concerned that he would hurt your feelings if he brought it up, and if that is the case it would be good if you allayed those fears by letting him know that you are missing Linda too.”

“That’s good advice,” John admitted. “Normally I would ask Mary what to do, but since Linda was her mother, I didn’t want to walk into that mare’s nest, either.”

Fiona had been about to ask who Mary was, but John had then identified her as Linda’s daughter. Interesting. Fiona hadn’t given much thought to John’s relationships with Paul’s children. She knew that Paul had close, loving and strong relationships with John’s two sons, but hadn’t dwelt too much on Paul’s four children. “You and Mary are close?” Fiona asked.

John smiled easily, “She’s the sunshine of my life. She is like a perfect mix between her father and her mother - of their sweet and gentle and thoughtful sides, and she looks so much like Paul. I think of her as a daughter, and I think she thinks of me as her replacement mother!” John laughed. “I mean, we talk about her baby, her marriage, my relationship with Paul, we shop and cook together - these are all kind of mother-daughter activities. She was very close to her mother, so I think she needed someone to fill part of the hole Linda’s death left.”

“It’s great that you have a good relationship with her. What about the other three?” Fiona asked.

“Stella’s personality is also a mix of her mother and father - the stronger, more direct and pushy aspects of them. She and I have a strong friendship. I think I am like a kind of uncle to her - but the kind of uncle who is immature, and who she bosses around. We spark off each other, and she’s no one’s fool. Love her.” 

“I can’t think why we haven’t spoken of this subject in so long,” Fiona said.

“Probably because the kids haven’t been a problem between Paul and me, or in my life. They have been a positive. James, Paul’s son, is very shy and introverted, but he has definite - even stubborn - opinions. He doesn’t always follow the jokes, though. I sometimes wonder if he’s all there. Maybe he has constructed a James-land, like Paul has his Paul-land, I don’t know. But we enjoy each other’s company.”

“And the fourth one? Another daughter, right?”

“Yeah, the eldest. She’s actually Linda’s daughter from her first marriage, but Paul adopted her when she was young. Heather is also shy and introverted. I think Heather and James take after their mother, personality wise, although they lack her chutzpah and her nurturing nature. Stella got Linda’s chutzpah, and Mary got her nurturing nature. I think Heather and James inherited more of her less positive traits, like her insecurity.”

“You’ve given it a lot of thought I see,” Fiona commented. “I recall that Heather was the one who took your relationship with her father the hardest. Has she accepted it since?”

“Yes, she’s accepted it - but in a less than fully honest way I think. She still misses her mother deeply, and Paul treats her like she is a fragile person, which in truth she is. He is very gentle and patient with her. She is the only one of the four whom I can’t really joke with or tease; she takes it literally, can’t respond in kind, and is easily hurt. She has none of those tough Irish McCartney genes. So I treat her gently, too, and I don’t play word games with her or challenge her with bold ideas.”

Fiona smiled and asked, “Does she see you as a father figure?”

“I don’t think so. I think she sees me as a kind of uncle or close family friend. I don’t think she’ll ever think of me as a parent.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“I don’t think she allows herself to think about Paul and me - I mean, that we sleep together. I think she just can’t fathom that, and anyway it interferes with her vision of her mother and father - she of all the kids clings to that childhood image of Paul and Linda, the hippie parents. Of course, she was the one who experienced it the most, since she was so much older than the others.”

“I see that,” Fiona admitted. “But how will she react to Paul taking off his wedding rings and wearing yours instead?”

John was brought up short. He was stumped. “I never thought of that.”

“It would probably be a good idea if you and Paul discussed how you are going to break this information to your respective children.”

“Mary and Stella know already. Mary saw the rings when we were at dinner at her house last night, and this morning she called Stella and told her, so of course Stella immediately called me and gave me grief about it.” John chuckled with the memory.

“Grief?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah, she was ragging at me for running off and eloping with her father without asking her permission. She was also ragging at me for denying her and Mary a big wedding to plan. She’s a total crack up.” 

Both John and Fiona were chuckling now.

 

*****

 

While John was at his therapist, Stella had decided to go visit her father at his office, and invite him out to lunch. She wanted to talk to him about the whole John thing, because she felt he needed some back stiffening along with some bracing reassurance. Paul had been delighted when his youngest daughter showed up. He was so immensely proud of her success, and enjoyed talking to her about her business. She had a strong head for business and finance, and in that way the two of them were matched. They went to an Italian café that they both liked, and settled in with a crisp pinot grigio.

“I called John this morning and read him the riot act,” Stella said archly, one eyebrow hovering upwards of her eye. 

Paul chuckled. “So I heard.”

“I can’t believe you two went off and basically got married and then didn’t even tell us when you got back! How could you do that to us?” Stella wasn’t really upset. She was just giving her father grief, as she had done to John earlier on the phone. 

“We didn’t get married, baby,” Paul said. 

“Well what do you call it then? You’re wearing each other’s rings, you’re living together, there’s no one else in your lives - is there? Or is there?” This last phrase was accentuated with a lower, menacing tone. She was glaring at her father, about to eat him alive if he was cheating on John.

Paul saw the murder in her eyes and smiled affectionately. “I don’t like to talk about such things with my children generally, but no, there is no one else but John.” 

Stella lightened up immediately and said, “Just as it should be. You ought to know that Mary and I will consider it cheating if either of you go off and play with someone else.”

“Stella, you go too far!” Paul’s expression and tone were playful, not upset. “I don’t dictate to you about who you sleep with.”

“But I’m not living with someone, and you are. I often thought you were living pretty high on the hog what with mum and John at your beck and call. I hope you haven’t got any ideas in your head that you are entitled to that sort of thing going forward.” Stella was using her wine glass as a kind of emphasis prop. Paul was watching the wine sloshing up and down the glass with worried fascination. How long could she keep it up without spilling? 

Paul roused himself from his ruminations about potential wine spillage and said dryly, “I take your point, and while I don’t agree with how you depicted what it was like for me when your mother was alive, I can agree with you that the triangle thing was very difficult for all of us at times, and it wasn’t a first choice for any of us. It was just the only option that worked at least 75% for each of us.”

Stella cocked her side to the head. This was interesting. She had never really discussed this topic with him before, not wanting to pry into her mother’s relationship with her father. “You make it sound like you didn’t consider having them both in your life to be ideal.” Her voice was not judgmental this time. It expressed Stella’s pure interest instead.

“It wasn’t. Especially when you kids were young. It was agony for me to be away from the family. And then it hurt like hell to leave John alone when I went back to you all.”

“Is that why John moved in with us?”

“Yes. We were all hurting too much the other way. But it wasn’t a walk in the park even so, Stella. It isn’t a choice I would have made if I had any other options. I’m sure your mother and John felt the same way about it.” 

“I haven’t loved someone yet so much that I couldn’t live without him,” she commented softly.

“My solemn prayer for you is that one day you will find someone who makes you feel that way.” Paul reached over and squeezed her hand - the hand that was so like Linda’s. Beautiful long, articulate fingers with perfect nail beds. He picked her hand up, kissed it, and replaced it on the tabletop. “But let me make it clear that I want it to be one person who makes you feel that way - not two.”

Stella giggled. Her father was so dreamy and lovely. She tried to picture a man who could even half-measure up. So far no man had. She decided to get the conversation back on track. “Anyway, in my clumsy way I was trying to let you know that Mary and I love you and John, and I mean that we love you and John as a couple. We don’t want you to feel shy or embarrassed about it with us. And I also wanted you to know that I am loyal to John just as I am to you, and so if either of you hurt the other badly you’ll have to deal with me!”

Paul laughed. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t lie awake all night in a cold sweat worrying about it?” 

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Stella told her father. “You don’t spend a second worrying about me coming after you. You know in the end I will melt and won’t be able to stay mad at you. But I do have something else I wanted to talk about with you.”

Paul took a deep, ostentatious breath, to show his daughter that he was preparing for the next onslaught. 

“Mary and I were talking about how the whole thing with you and John is kind of an open secret: a badly kept, widely known, open secret. But we suddenly realized that most of the world will leave you moreorless alone so long as you don’t go public with it. We were worried that if you did go public, it would be a nightmare. Do you think that’s accurate?”

Paul had been subconsciously nodding his head, ever so slightly, as Stella had been speaking. He said, “Yes, I think that is a very accurate way of putting it. Of course, there are the social activists always criticizing us for not being public about it, and there are others who basically have their heads in the sand and don’t want to know about it and will get upset if you talk about it, and then there is everyone else in the middle who either don't care, or don’t want to hear about it, but once they do hear about it, will eventually get used to it. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

Stella paused. “And what about John? What does he think about it?”

Paul looked up, a questioning look in his eyes. He allowed his eyebrows to ask for further elucidation.

“Mary and I were thinking that this whole living a lie thing must be far more hurtful to John than it is for you. He isn't good at hiding his feelings.”

Paul’s eyes flickered a bit, but he didn’t look away from Stella’s intense stare. “It isn’t so clear to me,” Paul finally said. “John has always been one to talk about letting things all hang out, but he hates the backlash when he does - much more than I do. It’s his magical thinking. He thinks if he sits in bags in the park that everyone will think he is amazing - a genius! But when they all laugh at him and call him crazy, he gets enraged and is very hurt. So, I guess I’m saying that John may think he wants the world to know, but the truth is that I would be able to handle a negative reaction far better than he would. For this reason, I feel as though I have to protect him from that happening.” 

Stella sat back respectfully in her chair and stared at her father. He was, of course, correct. And it occurred to her not for the first time that he knew John Lennon very well.

 

*****


	138. Chapter 138

A Week Later  
Marc’s Office  
April 16, 2000

 

It was 4 p.m., and there was a kind of gloomy grey cloud cover hanging over London. It was a typical mid-April afternoon, but it wasn’t a typical day for Paul. Tomorrow would be the second anniversary of Linda’s death. He’d spent a good part of the last few weeks obsessing about it, although he was doing it quietly and in private. He didn’t want to upset his kids, and he also didn’t want John to be hurt by the fact that he was still finding it difficult to get over Linda’s loss. So he had gone through the painful process of inching towards another bad anniversary alone. It had occurred to him while he was driving to the session that Marc was the perfect person to talk to about his dreams. The bad dreams that had been visiting him almost nightly for two weeks now: dreams where he had betrayed Linda in some unexplained way, and he was left racing around looking for her, trying to save her or make something up to her. Her voice would come from oddball inaccessible and inhuman places, like from inside machines, or echoing out of a light socket. None of it made any sense except that he felt one strong thing - an overriding sense of guilt for all the ways in which he had let her down - not only in her life, but also after her death. As he had this thought, Paul had looked down reflexively to his left ring finger. Her rings were gone, and John’s was there instead.

Marc had been watching Paul as he stared musingly out of the window at the grey skyline, and when his gaze had shifted to his hand. Paul was deep in thought, and perhaps not having the happiest of thoughts.

Marc cleared his throat.

Paul’s attention jerked back to Marc, and he smiled apologetically. “I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Paul explained.

“That’s a good thing to have when you’ve come for a therapy session,” Marc joked. “What’s the foremost thing on your mind? What is the heaviest thing?”

“Tomorrow is the second anniversary of Linda’s death,” Paul said flatly.

Oh. Marc had let that detail slip. He should read his earliest notes more often, he thought, chastising himself. He quickly regrouped. “How are you dealing with that?”

Paul sighed very heavily. “Not well. I mean, I’m functioning and all, but my outsides don’t match my insides.”

Marc’s smile was wistful. A childlike but extremely accurate description of Paul’s dissociation issues - his outsides often didn’t match his insides. “What is going on with the insides?” He asked gently.

“Dreams. I’m having these terrible dreams. I wake up feeling horrible.”

“Horrible how precisely?” Marc pressed.

“Anxious. I wake up anxious, feeling as though Linda was trying to reach me, but I couldn’t get to her. But she also was mad at me, like I’d betrayed her or something.” Paul’s thoughts were a scramble as he tried to explain the dreams to Marc.

“You say ‘dreams’. Are these repeated dreams? Do you have them regularly?”

“For the last 2 weeks or so, yes. They’re not identical, but the feelings they throw up are the same. I wake up with a start, my heart is beating fast, I’m a bit sweaty, and I feel...” Paul stopped as he tried to capture in a word or two what he felt when he woke up from those terrible dreams. “Inadequate and weak. I feel as though I wasn’t strong enough to be true to her, and to protect her...”

“From the cancer?” Marc asked, looking dubious.

Paul digested that question before responding. “No, I think it is because of John.”

There was a deep silence after Paul said this. Paul, because he hadn’t been aware he was about to say it, and so was very surprised by his own answer; and Marc, because Paul had been self-aware enough to realize what the dreams were about, and strong enough to say it out loud.

“Yes?” Marc prompted.

Paul waited for a few moments before trying to explain. “I replaced her with him.”

“I wouldn’t think so; she died and left the two of you behind. John was already there, so he isn’t a replacement, is he?”

“I don’t mean that. While we were away on holiday, I took off my wedding rings and gave them to John. And John and I have rings, now.” Paul was playing with his ring again. This explained to Marc the significance of Paul’s frequent glances down to his hand.

“And you feel guilt for removing her ring and replacing it with his.”

Paul met Marc’s eyes. “Yes. And this also opens up all the years I made her share. I should have been faithful to her, and given her a better life.”

It was Marc’s turn to take a deep breath. This was getting very heavy, very fast, and he didn’t want his patient walking out tonight without some kind of clarity to deal with these painful thoughts. Marc said, “Do you know what Linda would consider to be ‘a better life’?”

Paul had not expected that question. He thought the answer was obvious. But he said, “Well, when we got married she told me she would only do so if I was faithful to her. So I know that is what she wanted and expected from me.” He didn’t sound as positive verbally about this hypothesis, as he had felt internally before he spoke.

“She was in her fifties when she died. I think it is safe to assume that her wants and expectations had grown and changed over the years, don’t you think?” Marc asked.

Paul nodded, but very faintly, as if he wasn’t sure he agreed with where Marc was going with this. He said, “Yes, she reassured me that while she at first was unhappy about the John thing, she did come to accept it, and even to appreciate having John in our lives. But to me that falls short of her saying it was something she would have chosen if she wasn’t forced to.”

“What did you want and expect when you married? Did you have the same desires that Linda had?”

Paul thought back. He shook his head guiltily. “At first I was not happy about the monogamy thing. But I did believe that marriage should have monogamy, because what is the point otherwise? But I had - for several years - the freedom to go literally anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted, and to sleep with any woman I might want to sleep with. I’d also had the thing with John. So I had to give all of that up, you know? I would be lying if I said that was an easy choice for me. But in the end, I took a chance on Linda and monogamy, and it turned out to be exactly what I wanted and needed. I didn’t miss the playboy life at all, once I took the plunge.”

“Couldn’t that be exactly what Linda experienced when she ‘took the plunge’ and agreed to let John into your lives? Couldn’t she have been reluctant and worried she would miss your old life together, but over time realized that having John in your life enriched it?” Marc wondered if he was taking too wide a swing. But he wanted to see if Paul was prepared to move that far in his theorizing.

Paul sat motionless for a few moments, his eyes blinking rapidly. He hadn’t looked at it that way before. He had made a compromise for Linda - several compromises - when they married, and it had turned out fine in the end. He said, “I’ll have to think about that for a bit.”

Marc nodded in agreement. “It is a jump, I know, but you should start thinking about your relationship with Linda without absolutes. You tend to talk about Linda as if she were perfect, and as if any problems in the marriage were your fault. But at the same time you are able to dissect John’s flaws and issues and find a way to love him anyway.”

“Perfect? You think I believed Linda was perfect?” Paul said, genuinely surprised.

“I’ve never heard you say a negative thing about her. So, do you think she was perfect?” Marc stuck to his guns. This was important. “Or do you portray her this way even to yourself because you feel guilty about the compromise she had to make for you and John?”

That statement caused Paul’s mouth to snap shut. No one had ever dared to say anything like this to him about Linda before. But it would be silly to sit there and contend that Linda was perfect. It was just that Paul tended to take the blame for their marital problems once John was in the picture. He did vaguely remember how strained his relationship with Linda had been when she was complaining about going out on the road, and wanting to live in the countryside. That was in early 1980, before John came back in their lives. She wouldn’t go on tour with him anymore, and she wouldn’t let him go alone, either, because she feared the groupies. And the fact that Paul needed to perform for an audience like others needed to breathe didn’t change her stubborn opinion on the subject one iota. The thought made him uncomfortable. He shifted awkwardly in his seat, but ended up in almost the same position again once his limbs had stilled.

Marc recognized the signs of internal dissonance. “No human being is perfect, and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging a spouse’s faults. You certainly recognize John’s - why do you suppose you can’t recognize Linda’s?”

Paul found himself to be entirely inarticulate. He had no answers. Should he mention the stuff about the touring to Marc? It seemed like it was the right time. He cleared his throat a little and said, “About the time John came back into my life, Linda and I were going through a rough patch.”

“What was that about?” Marc struggled to keep his voice even. He didn’t want his excitement at this tiny breakthrough to show.

“I had been in jail - did you know I went to jail for 10 days in Japan?” Paul asked Marc.

Marc had, of course, heard about it, and he nodded his head in assent.

“Well, it was our third or fourth time getting popped for pot. We were like sitting ducks. We had been so vocal about our pot use, and so all the police and customs officials in all the countries knew about it. And we were too stupid to hide it properly. Anyway, that jail stint caused us to cancel our Japan tour, and when I got out of jail, Linda had been so scared and pissed by it that she said she was never touring again. I felt guilty, so at first I didn’t argue. But it was grating on me, inside. I hoped she would get over it once some time went by. And she insisted that we move out to the country and away from London. So this happened a little less than a year before John and I reconciled our friendship. And then of course we had a lot of tension - Linda and me - when John and I started up again. I mean, Linda said at first that it had to be invisible to her, and she didn’t want to hear about it, and didn’t want anyone to know about it, and the kids were to be protected from it.”

“Did this make you mad?” Marc asked.

“Well, I don’t think I was mad at the time, because I felt so guilty. But when I listed all that stuff out just now, it reminded me of all her conditions. I’m thinking I must have had some resentment about that, under all the guilt, because I kind of feel it now.”

Marc nodded. “You know, it isn’t at all unusual to bury negative feelings about someone you love when you feel guilty towards them.”

“I can see why that might be,” Paul agreed. He thought for a good fifteen seconds before venturing forward with his next revelation. “The reason why these dreams scare me so much, I think, is that when I wake up and all these feelings of guilt and lack of worth are in me, my first subconscious thought is to feel resentment: resentment that I was made to feel so guilty all the time. It isn’t rational, because what I asked her to do for me was pretty out there. I mean, most husbands don’t suddenly say to their wives, I want to have a male lover, and I want to share my time with him 50/50.”

“Maybe not,” Marc opined, “but plenty of them want more women in their lives, and expect their wives to tolerate that. At least you were upfront about it, you didn’t lie about it, you gave her a veto should she choose to use it, and you lived by all the conditions she set, right?”

Paul nodded, slowly beginning to understand what Marc was saying.

Marc saw this, and thought it was time for him to test the waters. “So, it was John you really wanted to spend your life with, wasn’t it? I mean, if all the societal and personal problems hadn’t been there? Don’t you think that is really where the guilt comes from?”

Paul sat back almost as if he had been slapped. He didn’t expect this kind of full frontal attack from Marc. He couldn’t speak; he just stared at Marc from under thunderous looking eyebrows.

Marc continued bravely. “Just for argument’s sake, let’s assume that is true. It’s just another way to look at the same events. I have to say that what I know about you and John is that you have what I would call a truly symbiotic relationship, and that you challenge and excite each other intellectually, emotionally, sexually, and creatively. It is difficult for me to imagine another partner for you who could do all that. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Paul, still wordless, nodded in hypnotic agreement.

“And in truth, while Linda was loyal, nurturing, and provided you with a safe home and a happy family, you couldn’t honestly compare her with John as an equal or superior intellectual and creative match for you, can you?”

Paul heaved a sigh that came all the way from his deep gut. “You’re saying I didn’t have two soul mates. You’re saying I only had one - John.”

“Well, I’m a psychologist, and I don’t think there is a solid definition for the word ‘soul mate.’ I can only say that most human beings live their entire lives without finding a person who is a perfect match for all of their abilities and desires. Consequently, my opinion is that the odds are that you didn’t find two such persons. My theory goes that you found one such person who, for a variety of reasons, you could not make a life with when you were young - John. You then found someone else who you loved and needed very much, who was socially acceptable but who could never fulfill every part of you the way John did - Linda. But when John showed up again, by then you had both matured, and you found a way to share your lives without discarding Linda, who had helped you through the sad and lonely times after you lost John. That’s the theory I’m positing. It’s just a possible version of events.”

Paul sat quietly. “I knew all that,” he finally whispered.

“Of course you did.” Marc’s smile was gentle and steady.

A long silence enveloped them as the clock ticked towards 4:50 p.m. Paul finally asked, “Should I talk about this with John? Do you think it will help him understand my loyalty to Linda better?”

Marc said, “Open and honest disclosures are always the best - at least in the long run. So, yes, I think you should.”

 

*****

 

John had outdone himself with dinner that night. He had felt like cooking, so had gone through all his cookbooks and found a promising roasted root-vegetable recipe, which featured beets as well as potatoes, carrots and parsnips, and John thought a swig of some earthy red wine wouldn’t hurt. He had been so wrapped up in his endeavors (he also had bread in the oven), that he didn’t hear Paul when he entered the kitchen. Paul was able to sneak up behind him, and wrap his arms around John’s waist. As he did so, he laid his head down on John’s upper back, and just hugged tightly for a good thirty seconds or so. John, who had been at first startled, and then surprised by the strength and length of Paul’s embrace, eventually relaxed, and grabbed hold of Paul’s arms, and embraced them too. Slowly, they parted.

“You okay babe?” John asked, his eyes full of concern as he turned to face Paul. Occasionally Paul looked utterly vulnerable when he returned from his therapy. Tonight was one of those nights. “Shall I hold you?” John asked.

Paul allowed himself to be pulled into John’s arms, this time with John facing forward.

“Hard session?” John finally asked quietly, after silently rocking Paul in his arms for over a minute.

Paul didn’t speak, but John could feel his head nodding ‘yes’. John smiled. He hated to see Paul so vulnerable, but it was a good sign. He was doing the hard work, obviously. Eventually, they drew apart. Paul said, “Whatever you’re making smells delicious.”

“Fresh bread and roasted vegetables. Done in less than fifteen,” John said pertly, clearing the throat that had become husky over the intensity of Paul’s embraces. “Sit down. I’ll pour you some wine.”

Paul did as he was told. He absent-mindedly played with the silverware while John continued cooking and chatted away.

“The girls and I went shopping today. They’re advising me on remodeling the kitchen. Do you have a problem with that?”

Paul looked vaguely around the kitchen and said, “No, what do you want to do to it?”

“Modernize it, make it more my style,” John said. Although he was pretending to focus on his cooking, he was actually straining his ears for the tone of Paul’s voice and reaction.

Paul chuckled. “It’s not going to be all blindingly white, is it? I don’t think I could be comfortable with that.”

John laughed with relief. “No, been there, done that. I thought something with the color green as an accent. Anyway, Mary and Stella are my advisors.”

“God help you,” Paul joked.

“It might cost a whole lot of money,” John warned.

“We’re richer than god, John,” Paul quipped.

“You might not like how much I want to spend,” John warned again. He couldn’t quite digest that Paul appeared to be totally fine with the remodel, and it’s cost.

“I would never deny you something you really wanted, John. It’s your money, too, and even if it weren’t I’d feel the same. You don’t need my permission to spend money.”

John allowed his breath to slowly leave his body. He managed to reply quite briskly, “Good then. But the house will be in an uproar for at least three months.”

Paul made a face but it quickly disappeared. He didn’t like change in his house that much. But now this house was John’s too, fair and proper. He would have to deal with the uproar. Maybe they could do it while they were on tour, or in Costa Rica. And this money thing... John behaved as though spending it was entirely Paul’s prerogative. Paul didn’t want it to be like that. He said, “I’ve been thinking, John. It’s a lot of trouble for me to manage two huge portfolios.”

“Portfolios? You mean art?” John stopped cooking long enough to turn in Paul’s direction and show him his confusion.

“No, I mean finances,” Paul clarified, amusement on his face.

“Oh, those,” John said, making a face and turning back to the stove. “Hey, can you get the bread out of the oven? There’s a warming rack on the counter there.”

Paul got up to follow John’s directions, but continued to talk. “What I was thinking was we should combine the two portfolios into one, and that way I don’t have to worry about the investments so much. Linda’s estate finally closed, and it’s a good time to consolidate everything into one.”

“You’re worried about the investments?” John asked. For some reason this surprised him.

“Well, not over much. It is just that I have to think - can your portfolio tolerate as much risk as mine? And if I put you in, and it fails, I’d feel guilty. But if I keep you out of it, and it succeeds, then I’ll feel guilty about that too. If we have just one big pot to stir, I won’t have to deal with that whole fiduciary/conflict of interest thing.” Paul had placed the heavenly smelling loaf of dark brown molasses bread on the rack and then took a huge whiff of it before wandering with his wine over to where John was standing. His stomach growled loudly.

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying, but of course you should do it - whatever it is - if it is going to be easier for you, and stop you from worrying.” John was bored by this conversation and pointed at the wine bottle with his wooden spoon. “Take that to the table, I’m about to serve.”

For the next twenty minutes the two men had an interesting conversation about John’s plans for the kitchen (John was interested) and Paul’s plans for their financial merger (Paul was interested) and then some more about the cute things Arthur had done that day while John was out shopping with the girls (they were both interested). As the routine conversation petered out, and they were left fingering their wineglass stems, Paul finally said, “So, the session was intense this evening.”

John snapped back from his reverie. Paul was actually going to talk about his therapy? Without being goaded or nagged? Miracle! John didn’t want to do anything to draw attention to his eagerness about this, so he schooled his expression, body language and voice to sound only politely interested. “Do you want to talk about it with me?” He asked, as if he didn’t care about the answer. He held his breath in anticipation.

“Yes, I think I do,” Paul said very deliberately. He took John’s silence as encouragement to continue. “I haven’t told you that I’ve been having nightmares for weeks...”

“Is that why you’re so restless at night, and sometimes get up in the middle of the night?”

“You noticed?”

John’s laugh was a sharp bark. “How could I not notice it?” He asked rhetorically.

“You didn’t say anything to me about it,” Paul rejoined.

“Because I thought I knew what it was about, and was waiting for you to tell me,” John explained gently.

“What do you think it was about?” Paul asked, dubious that John could possibly know.

“It’s the second anniversary of Linda’s death,” John said softly. “I’ve been waiting for you to broach the subject with me, but was going to bring it up tonight if you didn’t. I figured you had a lot of heavy emotional shit to deal with, and dreams are the product of that emotional shit.”

Paul took in what John said, and reminded himself for the millionth time that it didn’t pay to underestimate John Lennon. He said, “The dreams were all about me feeling inadequate and guilty towards Linda,” he said. “I would wake up feeling chased by guilt.”

“Am I the reason you feel guilty?” John asked.

Paul waited a moment before saying, “Yes.”

“Is it the ring thing?” John asked.

“That probably triggered it, but during the session another theory was discussed.” Paul was deadly serious now, watching John’s eyes intently.

“And?” John asked, his heart racing a bit. He was afraid that Paul was going to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. The ‘Danger Will Robinson’ warning was echoing in his head.

Paul paused significantly before finally saying what he needed to say. “My real guilt over Linda is probably because it was you I wanted all along. Since you were the one I always wanted, I felt bad that she was stuck with a husband who couldn’t love her as much as he loved someone else.” 

The kitchen was so quiet in the wake of this disclosure that the slight buzzing sound from the light over the oven could be heard distinctly. Paul was holding his breath and searching John’s eyes, and John was in a kind of shock. He had to shake his head a little to make himself focus.

“You mean that?” John was finally able to rasp. It was a tortured prayer.

Paul’s eyes softened and his voice grew very sensual. “It’s true, John. You must know it’s true. I’ve always known it - underneath, but I would push it away - but tonight it just floated to the top and stayed there. My therapist said it, and as he said it, I thought to myself, ‘I already know this.’”

“You don’t have to choose between me and Linda,” John was finally able to say. “I’m over that silliness. I won’t make you choose, you know that, right? The poor woman is dead.”

Paul gathered John’s one hand in both of his. He said, with a strong, assertive voice - a voice no longer plagued by doubt - “I made the choice myself, and sometimes even against my best judgment.” He laughed, and winked at John to encourage him to laugh too. “It was involuntary, John. You know that old line ‘the heart knows what it wants?’ It’s like that. I was incapable of making any other choice.”

John’s eyes were filled with tears. He was turning into a waterworks lately. He brushed the tears away with his free hand, and then said, “I had a revelation from my session yesterday, too. I was too insecure to tell you about it, but now I feel as though I have to.”

Paul said, “What’s that, then?” His eyes were smiling his support.

“It finally dawned on me - I’m a slow learner, as you know - that maybe you have insecurities too. Maybe you are afraid of being rejected and abandoned. Maybe I don’t have a lock on those feelings. And if that’s true - if you do have those feelings - all the times I got distracted by other shiny objects, and for whatever reasons I did that and despite whatever rationalizations I may have attached to that behavior - I can see how that would have been extremely hurtful to you. I can see why you would not be able to trust me. I shouldn’t have put you on that pedestal; I thought you were invulnerable and unassailable up on that pedestal. I’m sorry for being so insensitive, Paul. I wish I could do it all over.”

Paul groaned. “No, let’s don’t and say we did. You’d probably do a whole lot of other ill-advised things if we went back in time! Let’s just say we have both learned from our mistakes.”

John chuckled. “With me and you, it isn’t the learning so much as the applying. We have to apply what we have learned.”

Paul nodded. “Habits of a lifetime die hard. But I guess we have to start somewhere, so why not here and now?”

“I can’t believe this is us,” John said apropos of nothing.

“Why’s that?” Paul asked, knowing full well he was walking straight into a punch line.

“Because all this shit we’re saying is way too mature and sensible. It can’t possibly be us!”

Paul, having dumped his load of hard emotions and feeling all the more carefree and spritely for it, said, “Well, lets go to bed and I can try to convince you that I mean every word I said.”

John had absolutely no objection to this proposal.

 

*****

 

A Few Days Later

 

John was relaxing in the sitting room, looking at the first drawings of his dream kitchen. He was feeling pretty good. He and Paul were at the editing stage in their new album, which meant that Paul was doing the lion’s share of the work now. He was off at the studio working at that very moment. John had given himself a whimsical moment by fancying himself as the pampered upper class wife, whose husband had gone off to do all the heavy lifting. Only thing I need now is a box of bon-bons, he joked to himself. Not for the first time in the last few days he had to mentally pinch himself. Was this the denouement? Forty years of fighting for this goal - even though for some of that time he had no real clue of what he was actually fighting for - and now he had attained it. Paul had finally resigned his sovereignty to him. He had finally capitulated his independence, and surrendered his heart.

Of course, John was nothing if not paranoid. He began to wonder if things were not as they seemed. What if Paul was only telling him what Paul thought John wanted to hear? Maybe he had tired of John’s tactics - the whining, the pouting, the shouting, the begging, the pleading, the blowjobs... and had given up his resistance in order to have a peaceful life. John chuckled. He had thrown everything at the poor man but the kitchen sink. And now he was sitting there picking out a new kitchen sink, so the old one would soon be available for throwing. John chuckled again. I’m crackers, John thought. He loves me. I know he loves me. But what if... And he was off again with his fear-driven scenarios.

The phone rang, mercifully cutting off another one of John’s paranoid ramblings. Philosophically accepting that he would have to put his conspiracy theories on hold for a few moments in order to talk to this rude person who had interrupted his day by calling... But then... maybe it was Mary or Stella? That cheered up John considerably as he picked up the receiver. He whistled into the phone speaker.

“Dad! It’s Sean. Stella called me...”

“Of course she did!” John announced loudly. He was happy. Sean was even better than Stella or Mary, because he spoke to and saw him so infrequently. “Why?”

“Why? Why?” Sean was mock shouting.

“That’s what I asked,” John responded, surprised by Sean’s espresso reaction.

“So you didn’t call me? I didn’t warrant a flippin’ call?” Sean sounded a little miffed. This confused John.

“What are you on about?” John responded.

“You and Paul - you’re a real thing now?” Sean asked, aggravated that his father still hadn’t considered that he, his son, would want to know little details like that.

“Sean, I don’t know how to break this to you, but Paul and I have been a ‘real thing’ since we were teenagers. You haven’t noticed?” John now knew why Sean was upset, and decided to have a little fun with him.

“My understanding is that you popped the question, and Pup said ‘yes’,” Sean drawled. “Is that true?”

“I am far too refined to ‘pop’ questions, Sean,” John drawled right back. “And Pup is far too refined to just say ‘yes’ back. In fact, we didn’t actually exchange words at all. Just rings.”

“Dad!” Sean had lost his patience.

John laughed. “Look, Paul and I didn’t see it as something that changed anything with anyone else. It was just us promising ‘forever’ to each other.”

“Just? Dad, this is big news! Us kids have a right to be told, and to be able to hear about it. Why didn’t you call me?” Sean’s feelings were, truthfully, a little hurt.

John wondered why they hadn’t told the kids as soon as they had gotten back from Costa Rica. He wasn’t sure. He had not said anything to anyone because he thought that Paul would'nt want him to, and now he began to wonder why Paul wouldn't want him to? Maybe he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear? 

And the paranoid wheels began to turn again.

 

*****


	139. Chapter 139

Sean Confronts John  
(Continued)

 

“Look, Dad, I’m not calling to bust your chops,” Sean said, leaning heavily on the Americanism.

“If not, you’re doing a good job of it,” John quipped.

Sean laughed. “You can take it.”

“In fact,” John said, this time quite seriously, “I frequently need it.”

Sean heard the truth in his father’s words. Yes, his father was (a) John Lennon (the crazy boy from Liverpool - an accomplishment in and of itself), (b) a creative genius, (c) a Beatle, and (d) an international superstar in his own right. Any one of those four factors was isolating at one end and ego inflating at the other; but all four at once? Indeed, his father did need someone speaking truth to him as often as possible. Sean thought that his father - throughout his life - had always clung to at least one close friend or partner who would tell him the truth. In this manner, his father had also managed through it all to cling to the threads of his sanity.

“I only wanted to hear about it from you,” Sean’s voice was fondness personified, “I think it’s great news. And us kids - we only want to celebrate with you, just a little dinner party.”

John chuckled gently. “Did Stella put you up to this?”

Sean laughed. He loved Stella’s in-your-face tactics just as much as John did. That girl had a strong kick to her gallop. “It was Mary and Stella who called me - together. I think they’d had a bit of wine with their dinner first. They also called Julian. They thought we ought to know.”

“Busybodies, is what they are,” John said, but his voice was full of affection.

“Why didn’t you announce it to us as soon as you got back?” Sean asked again, although this time in a much gentler tone. 

“I guess we’re kind of shy about it and not wanting a fuss,” John admitted sheepishly. “We’re not the girly-giggly type of person. It was enough for us just to signify it to each other.”

“So tell me about how it happened,” Sean urged, dragging his father back to the subject.

“I bought some rings, and I brought them with me when we went away to the Caribbean. I was hoping it wasn’t too soon after Linda... Well, I was also afraid Pup would think I’d gone barmy.”

Sean interjected, “You are barmy Dad, but I’m pretty sure that’s why Pup loves you so much.”

John heard those words and was comforted by them. If other people believed Paul loved him so much, then it must be true, mustn’t it? He said, “Well, I finally brought the subject up, and he didn’t even blink an eye. He just accepted the ring, and there we were.”

“I’m so happy for you Dad,” Sean said sincerely. “Are things more settled now for you both? I know Linda’s death was a huge emotional wrench and a gigantic upheaval in your lives...”

John thought about his answer for a while. In fact, he delayed so long Sean had begun to think there had been a disconnection of the line. But finally John said, “Yes, I can honestly say that our life is very settled now. It’s kind of strange, actually.”

Sean shook his head in quiet amusement. Only his Dad and Pup would consider a normal, settled life “strange”. But then, if they weren’t the over-the-top, out-there, risk-takers that they were, they’d never have made it out of Liverpool. Another thought followed hard on this one: would this ‘settling’ of their relationship become its doom? Would they be able to live without chaos and confusion? He would have to think about that. But out loud Sean said,

“The girls and I want to put on a dinner party for you two and the other kids. Mary said she would host it at her house. So it won’t be public, there won’t be paps, and it will be just us six kids and the two of you. Oh, and Alistair and Arthur of course. But no girlfriends or boyfriends.”

Six kids? Did they really have six kids together? Geesh! John had not thought of it that way before for some reason. What happened if they all got married? And they all had children? They’d be surrounded by a fucking menagerie! The thought cheered him.

“Let me talk to Pup about it, although I don’t imagine he’ll have a problem with it. He loves family gatherings. But promise me you won’t make a huge fuss. That will just be too embarrassing for us. I mean, we’re two blokes after all. You can take the boys out of Liverpool, but you can’t take Liverpool out of the boys,” John cautioned. “If it’s too corny, we’ll be very uncomfortable, and the idea is for all of us to have a fun family evening, right?”

Sean was silently chuckling on the other end. How typical of his two beloved fathers. Doing it their way in all things to the bitter end.

 

*****

 

The Night Before

 

Mary and Stella had decided to call Sean the night before because they had felt guilty being the only two of six kids that were in possession of the information that, quite rightly, ought to be shared by all six of them. Assessing their four other siblings, they’d automatically realized that Sean was the only one - like them - who would be utterly cool with it, and in fact actively happy about it. Julian might be happy about it too, but he kept to himself a lot and so they didn’t know him as well as they did Sean. They decided they’d call Sean, and then ask him about how to tell Julian. 

That conversation with Sean having gone so well, they had then called Julian. He wasn’t immediately available, so they were stuck having to think about Heather and James.

“Heather will freak out,” Stella said flatly. “James will be quiet, and will bury his feelings about it. It’ll be a project getting them to accept it and be okay with it.”

Mary said, “I think you and I should approach them in person. Go visit them down in Sussex for a weekend. I’ll bring the baby. It isn’t something we can do over the phone.” She then added, “Do you think the dads will be upset that we’re meddling like this?”

“Oh, they’re used to us meddling,” Stella said matter-of-factly, waving Mary’s concern away blithely. “In fact, they may be counting on us to break the news to the others. I think they’re actually embarrassed by it all, so they can’t say the words.”

“What do you mean ‘embarrassed’?” Mary asked. 

“They both think of themselves as kind of macho, you know, although not in the sports-hunting-fishing way. I guess I mean, they see themselves as 100% male, and where they grew up, that meant hetero, hence ‘real’ men didn’t marry each other.”

“But they have sex?” Mary asked. She laughed. “I mean, it’s absurd. The really controversial thing, you’d think, would be the sleeping together part. Not the part where you promise each other to be loving, faithful and loyal to each other forever.”

“But Mary, they’re men. To men, sex is always understandable - it is a drive, and it must be satisfied. Often. The really scary thing for men is the emotional commitment - the sentimental words and traditions associated with getting married. That’s embarrassing to them.”

“Men are really a different species from us, aren’t they?” Mary mused. In that moment, neither woman was thinking of her father. In fact, each of them was thinking of the special man in her life, and this helped to connect the dots. 

The phone rang. Mary answered it with a quick hello.

“Mary? This is Julian. Is everything okay?” Julian sounded worried.

Mary said, “All’s well, but Stella and I want to give you some news. I’m going to put the phone on speaker.” 

Julian waited patiently while Mary fussed with her phone and suddenly he heard Stella saying, “Hey Jules.” 

Only Paul called him ‘Jules’, so he guessed Stella got it from her father. Julian said, mimicking Stella’s voice, “Hello, Stell.”

“So we’re calling to tell you that your dad and our dad have exchanged commitment rings,” Stella said in a take-no-prisoners tone of voice. 

“Commitment rings?” Julian repeated. He wasn’t familiar with the term.

“It’s what same sex couples do instead of getting married, since getting married isn’t allowed,” Stella explained.

“So, like, they’re married now?” Julian asked.

“Well, don’t tell them that,” Mary interjected hurriedly.

“When did all this go down?” Julian was surprised, although he didn’t know why.

“While they were off in their secret hideaway in the Caribbean. They refuse to tell us where this hideaway is...” Stella had started out on her soapbox.

“It wouldn’t be a secret if they told us,” Julian responded reasonably.

“Well, I know that, don’t I. I just don’t see why it has to be such a secret, is my point,” Stella complained.

On the other end, Julian smiled. Stella was a firecracker. 

“I think it’s kind of cute and romantic that they have this secret,” Mary offered in a conciliatory tone. 

“So, they were off in their secret place, and they had some kind of ceremony?” Julian asked, trying to get the conversation back on some organized kind of track.

“I don’t think they had a ceremony,” Mary answered, “so much as your dad said, ‘here’s a ring, I’ve got one to match,’ and my dad said, ‘thanks.’”

Stella was chuckling in the background, and Julian laughed out loud. “That sounds about right,” he said, “I was having a hard time seeing them doing anything sentimental or corny. It just doesn’t fit who they are. Somehow I’m relieved to hear that it wasn’t anything too frou-frou.”

Mary heaved a sigh and said, “You men. You’re such spoilsports!”

Julian laughed again. 

 

Stella jumped in. “So, can you come to London for a family celebration we’re putting together?”

Julian said, “Are you sure they’d like that?”

“Daddy loves family gatherings,” Mary said quickly, “And your dad enjoys them too. Sean thinks it’s a good idea.”

“Sean knows?” Julian was going to be upset if he found out that his father told Sean, but not him.

Stella said, “Yeah, we called him to tell him just before we called you. He’s gonna come from New York. I know you’re in Italy, but I thought you’d want to come too.”

Julian felt better to find out that Sean didn’t hear it from their father, either. This triggered a thought. “So how did you two find out?”

“I noticed they were wearing matching rings when they were over to my house for dinner,” Mary answered. “They were so sneaky! They’d been back for weeks and hadn’t said a word.”

“Are you sure they won’t be upset about our barging in?” Julian asked again.

“Don’t worry about the dads,” Stella said flatly. “Mary and I will corral them.” Her voice was self-confident and firm.

Julian laughed. “I’m sure you will,” he said. “Okay, count me in. When’s the date?” 

Mary filled him in on the proposed dates and told him she’d call him back when it was firmed up. Soon, they hung up. 

 

*****

 

A Week or So Later  
Fiona’s Office

 

“It’s been such a whirlwind,” John was saying, as he stretched out on the couch, and stared at the ceiling. “It’s all happening so fast. I mean, Paul is showing me sides to himself he’s never shown me before. I knew they were there, ‘cuz he treated Linda that way, but now he’s treating me that way, and it is blowing my mind.”

“In a good way?” Fiona asked.

“Yeesss...” John responded.

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“I’m so afraid of the whole thing falling to the ground!” John finally spitted out. “I’m so fucking afraid it is all an illusion! How can I trust it? How can I believe it? Nothing has ever really worked out for me before in love. Why now?” John’s voice was truly anguished.

Fiona regarded him blandly for a few minutes and then said, “Are you sure that this isn’t the same old ‘I’m about to be abandoned’ message you’re sending to yourself?”

“I don’t know. You’re the fucking therapist. You tell me!”

Fiona smiled at John’s juvenile frustration. “After all these years, you know it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t really matter what I think. It only matters what you think. Why are you so afraid to believe in Paul’s love?”

John blinked his eyes in rapid succession as he digested what Fiona had said. He finally lowered his eyes to his hands and said, “I’ve been so horrible to him so many times. How could he possibly love me after that?”

“That is a question you should ask Paul. I’m pretty sure he does love you, so I am sure he will have an answer for you if you ask him.” Fiona had gentled her tone, and was trying to meet John’s eyes, which were still lowered so that his hands and the floor were the only visible objects.

John sat quietly for a moment and then spoke out loud, “He said to me that there was never a choice - that the heart knows what it wants. And he didn’t have any choice but to choose me.”

Fiona was privately moved. She wished someone someday would say that to her. She pushed that thought out of her mind and said, “Sounds pretty sincere to me.”

“Yes, but why?” John cried. His voice was suddenly louder and higher pitched. “He could have anybody he wants - why me? I’m such an arsehole!”

“I think he answered that question by telling you that the heart knows what it wants. You’d have to ask him ‘why’, but I’m wondering why is it so important for you to know why? Can’t you just accept that he is offering you his heart? Why must there be logic and reason behind it?” Fiona’s voice had grown passionate. Her patient was thisclose to realizing his lifelong dream - and one that was achievable and sustainable - and he was acting like a mule being led to water.

John sighed. “I want it all to be true too bad,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’ll be devastated if it turns out not to be true.”

Fiona tried another tack. “Paul is a cautious risk taker, isn’t he? He calculates risks before taking them, right?”

John looked up with a little confusion in his eyes but nodded ‘yes.’ 

“He doesn’t go out on a limb without thinking it through, and having an escape route, right?” Fiona continued.

John chuckled a little at Fiona’s insight. “Yeah, he thinks things through before acting.”

“So there you have it - Paul didn’t just blurt this stuff out to you without thinking, without calculating the risks, without considering the downside. He did all those things, and yet he still shared those feelings with you. It must have been scary for him, but do you really doubt that he didn’t think it over numerous times before finally speaking of it with you?”

John’s face looked hopeful. “He had an intense session with his therapist, and his therapist told him this version of the facts, that maybe Paul wanted me all along, and Paul said he’d known that - when he heard the therapist say it, he ‘knew’ it.”

“That’s how it so often works. For months he has been cooking these ideas in his brain. And one day, when the cooking is done, he will understand what he didn’t understand before.” Fiona smiled confidently at John. “You don’t need to be afraid. Paul is not the type of person to make commitments and then back out of them. You know that as well as anyone - his devotion to his wife all those years is a prime example. If he says you’re the one he wants, then I’d go to the bank with that if I were you.”

 

*****

 

A Few Weeks Later  
Recording Studio

 

Paul was leaning back in a worn leather chair in the control booth. Earphones were circling his neck. George Martin’s Air Studios was the locale. And George himself was seated in another chair, facing Paul. They had listened to the latest version of the new Lennon & McCartney master recording together, and had just finished their professional discussion about it. There was more to the Martin / McCartney relationship than their longtime music partnership. Paul considered George to be almost like a second father, and he respected George’s advice on all things immensely. For his part, George was deeply fond of Paul. He felt honored to be the one to first recognize the musical genius and help develop it. What’s more, Paul was a grateful and generous person who was happy to share credit with him. George was glad to see that Paul was looking much better - more himself. Ever since Linda had died, George had worried about Paul. He worried that John was not as nurturing and gentle with Paul as Linda had been. He worried that John would not handle Paul’s insecurities as deftly as Linda had done. And frankly, he also worried that John might even still be mean to Paul as he had been in the ‘60s. George loved John, of course he did, but he was fully aware of John’s flashing temper and his quicksilver moods.

“How’s John doing?” George asked Paul.

“He’s in roaring good health,” Paul chuckled. “He and my girls are remodeling the kitchen.”

“Oh no,” George commiserated. “I hate when that happens.” 

Paul nodded in a world-weary, accepting way. “I just try to stay out of it. Today they’re apparently emptying all the cupboards and packing it all up so the crew can come in and demo it.” 

George winced. Like Paul, he wasn’t that particular about his surroundings so long as they were comfortable and peaceful. Remodeling was a form of torture for people like George and Paul. George was a bit shy about his next question, so he asked it as if it were a throwaway. “So, John’s living full time at Cavendish now?”

Paul looked up quickly and saw that George was uncomfortable asking the question, so he smiled warmly to let him know it was not a problem. “Yeah. Ever since Linda got really sick, he’s pretty much been living with me.” 

“What is he going to do with his house?” George asked.

Paul shrugged. “He’s keeping it to give us plausible deniability,” he joked.

George chuckled along, thinking it was purely a joke. Then he noted that Paul wasn’t providing any further explanation. “Really?” He asked.

Paul nodded. “I suppose it’s a bit like closing the barn door after the horse gets out, but we’ve sort of reached that point where we assume that a lot of people have figured us out, but would prefer us not to make it too obvious.”

George went quiet. He had to admit that he’d never thought about how difficult it must be for John and Paul to live with such a secret hanging over their heads - kind of like the proverbial Damascus sword. At any moment it might come swinging down and decapitate them professionally and socially. He said, “Is the press bothering you about it?”

Paul said, “Not lately. We’ve been low key. But when the new record comes out and we are back on tour...”

George sighed. He acknowledged regretfully to himself that yes, once they were high profile again ‘it’ would start up again too. “What are you going to do about that?” He asked gently.

Paul made a funny face. “We’ll just make it up as we go along, like usual,” he announced cheerfully. 

“Don’t you think you should prepare a response?” George asked, concerned.

“We will. I’m not so worried about myself, but John... He won’t like it if people get nasty over it. And I really don’t want people to say that Linda was just a beard for us. That really worries me.” Paul’s tone had become serious. 

“Your friends and family know how much you and Linda loved each other. They’ll speak up for you both.” George wanted to reassure Paul that no matter what happened it would be okay. There would still be millions of people who loved them, right along with their friends and family.

“One way or another we’ll get past all that, and just play our music,” Paul said wistfully, although he wasn’t sure he really believed it. 

 

*****

 

Friday  
April 28, 2000  
Rye, Sussex

 

Mary and Stella had finally found a weekend when they were both free to go visit Heather and James down at the Sussex farmhouse. They had packed Arthur and enough baby paraphernalia to put Patton’s World War II logistics chain across Europe to shame. Arthur was in his car seat in the back making intermittent demanding and cooing noises, clearly attempts to form words. Mary sat shotgun as Stella drove. They discussed how they were going to break the news to their siblings as they traveled. 

“Do you think we should tell them together, or one at a time?” Mary asked.

“Both together,” Stella dictated. “Just get it over with in one fell swoop. James can help us deal with Heather’s reaction.”

“Do you think it will be bad?” Mary asked, worrying out loud. 

Stella thought about this for a moment. Then she said, “It will be a shock for her. She lives in a kind of fantasy world where Mummy and Daddy are always together. She has never fully integrated John into the picture.”

“She’s very fond of John,” Mary corrected.

“Yes, but I think she likes to think of him as an uncle or a close family friend. I’m pretty sure she never dwells on the fact that he is much more than that to Dad.” 

Mary sighed with resignation. She felt the truth of what Stella had said. It was not going to be pleasant, but it had to be done. Stella and Mary had mentioned their plans to John while they had been working on packing up the kitchen and he had agreed that the others should know, but had clearly been worried about how James and Heather would receive the news. It was going to be touch-and-go. By the time their car was coming to a halt in the farmhouse driveway, Mary had worked herself up to a fairly high state of anxiety. She caught a glimpse of Stella, who appeared calm and undaunted by the prospect of another display of hysteria from their highly emotional older sister.

But there she was, standing on the front porch waving excitedly at them. Soon they were in a three-way sisterly embrace and Heather was cooing over Arthur as all the luggage and baby stuff was unloaded and delivered to the appropriate bedrooms. They all met up in the kitchen about a half hour later, and Heather was bouncing Arthur on her knee.

“Where’s James?” Mary asked blithely, as she set about inspecting the inside of the fridge. The contents were pathetic. Neither James nor Heather was much on keeping a healthy fridge full of food. She imagined they probably ate a lot of Linda McCartney frozen meals and fast food from the local villages. She began drafting a grocery list for the weekend. She’d go do the shopping in a bit and make them some dinner tonight. 

“He’s off in his cabin,” Heather said.

The cabin. The little pre-fab house James had constructed with friends in a corner of the property. It was off-permit of course, but it wasn’t bothering anybody. How like James to spend much of his time in a 12’ by 12’ cabin when he had the entire farmhouse to roam around in. 

“Why don’t you two go rout him out, while I go to the grocery store with Arthur?” Mary asked.

This being agreeable to both women, they handed over the baby to Mary and started for the kitchen door. The walk was short, it only took about 15 minutes, and as they approached the cabin they could hear guitar chords. 

“James!” Stella called as they reached the door. She knocked and threw the door open.

James was seated on a beat up old armchair, with his guitar in his lap. He jumped up when he saw his sister, and greeted her with an enthusiastic hug. A lot of chattering went on, and eventually they all walked back to the farmhouse, and plopped down on the comfy sofas in the great room. There they continued their small talk until they heard the car returning. 

After dinner (Mary had made a delicious spinach and vegan sausage lasagna with a cucumber salad) the four siblings sat around in the great room laughing and talking. Mary was nervous and kept shooting Stella anxious looks. Stella finally took the hint and leaned forward. 

“We have some fantastic news to share,” Stella said with admirable enthusiasm. Mary, however, was worried that Stella was overselling it. 

“What’s that?” Heather asked eagerly.

“It’s about the dads,” Stella continued.

“The ‘dads’?” Heather asked cluelessly.

“Daddy and John,” Mary translated softly.

“Yeah - so, they’ve exchanged commitment rings,” Stella began, determined to finish her sentence even as her brother and oldest sister’s faces were clouding over in confusion. “And we’re throwing them a family party at Mary’s house in a few weeks.”

“What does that mean - ‘commitment rings’?” Heather asked sharply. She was getting an idea of what it might mean and was not happy about it at all.

Mary turned to Heather, and grasped her hands. “They have promised to be faithful to each other.”

Heather’s face was a combination of stubborn resistance and threatening thunderstorm. She didn’t want to accept the information at all, but was finding it difficult to keep it from infiltrating.

“So soon after Mum’s death?” This question came from James. He had been so quiet that the girls had almost forgotten he was there.

“It’s been two years since Mum died,” Stella pointed out, a bit of impatience in her voice. “Are they supposed to live in mourning longer than that?”

James was a little taken aback by the strength of Stella’s comment. He said, “I guess I just don’t understand.”

Again, Mary took over. “Think about how it has been for John - all those years being the third wheel. It is very important for him to know where he stands, and so now he does.” 

James had a riot of emotions running through his mind. On one level he felt what he knew was misplaced loyalty to his mother, and hated to see her special place usurped in any way. On another level he was relieved there wasn’t going to be a stepmother. He didn’t think he could deal with that. On yet another level he was fearful of the scandal should the news become public. But then again, he loved his father and he loved John, and he did want them to be happy. 

Mary and Stella were gauging James’s reaction when Heather finally said, in a very strident voice, “It’s disgusting. Two men shouldn’t do that!”

Stella turned, about to rip her sister’s head off, but Mary intervened by grabbing Stella’s arm. She then turned back to Heather and said in her soft, reasonable voice, “There’s nothing disgusting about any of it. You know that. You’re upset. What’s upsetting you really?”

Heather leaned back heavily in the sofa; her face was darkened by an angry scowl. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and even her legs were tightly crossed. She said, “It isn’t decent - John taking Mum’s place!”

Stella heaved an irritated sigh, but Mary persevered. “He isn’t taking Mum’s place,” she said persuasively. “He’s got his own place. It’s the same place he’s always had. Only now, since Mum is gone, they plan on being just a twosome. It only means there isn’t going to be a woman in either of their lives.”

Heather was pouting. She wasn’t sure why she was so angry, because what Mary said was true. Her mother was gone, and wasn’t it better that her dad never marry another woman? Wasn’t it better that the status quo was maintained as much as possible? Heather was a deeply insecure person, and she disliked change. She supposed she was now being forced to deal with the issue that she had deftly sidestepped for years - her father’s relationship with John, and what it truly consisted of. She had believed she didn’t like thinking of it because of what it meant to her mother. But now she began to wonder if she also didn’t like the idea of her father being in love with another man. 

Stella said, “Whatever you feel about it, it’s a done deal. They want to be together. I, for one, want them to be together too. They match.”

James was nodding his head in reluctant agreement. He was still sad about his mother’s death. He had been unmoored by it, and he’d never really dealt with it properly. This new arrangement was really only symbolic; after all, his dad and John were living together already and had been since his mother’s death. Nothing had really changed, and if his dad and John wanted to make private promises to each other, how did that really change the reality of it all? 

Mary shot Stella a warning glance and said, “Well, I can see you both need to think about it for a while. That’s fine. Whatever you feel about it is fine, too. Just keep reminding yourselves that you love Daddy and you love John. As long as you keep ahold of that thought, nothing else really matters.” 

Heather was still pouting, and James was very subdued. He finally said, “That’s why you both came down here, isn’t it. Just to tell us this.”

Mary said, “Yes. We thought it would be better in person than by phone. On the other hand, we’re happy to be here, and we can spend the rest of the weekend having fun together.”

A sound very much like a harrumph came from Heather’s direction, but James smiled at Mary. She was the new mother in their family now that their real mother had died. She was the one who would keep them all together no matter what.


	140. Chapter 140

A Few Weeks Later  
May 14, 2000  
Mary and Alistair’s Home

 

It was Saturday morning, and Mary’s house was buzzing with activity. Sean had arrived the night before, and was staying in Mary’s guestroom. He hadn’t bestirred himself yet, but Stella had come over early that morning and was helping Mary prep the food for the dinner party. Arthur, now over a year old, was in his little baby walker, skidding around the kitchen and getting under foot while periodically grabbing at cabinet handles. He was unsuccessful at unlatching any of them, however, because of the child guards Alistair had installed. 

Mary had planned the meal using some old family recipes and some new ones. She and Stella were in the process of chopping vegetables. 

“When is Julian getting here?” Stella asked. 

“I think he’s coming just before dinner,” Mary answered. “He’s staying in a hotel.” 

“It will be good to see him again after so long,” Stella commented.

“It will,” Mary agreed. “I sometimes miss those huge family vacations we used to take in exotic locales, with Sean and Julian too.”

“Sean’s been asleep a long time,” Stella commented in a slightly disapproving voice. It had been over a decade since she allowed herself to sleep in mornings. She was an early riser like her father, and basically started doing productive things as soon as her feet hit the floor, like her father. 

“He was out late with his friends at the pub,” Mary commented, sticking up for Sean’s sleeping habits. “He was a bit loud when he came home last night. I was afraid he’d wake up the baby, but of course I needn’t have worried, because Arthur can sleep through anything. Thank God.” 

As if they had conjured him up, Sean slouched into the kitchen. His hair was an unholy mess, and his beard and mustache were messy. Sean wasn’t big on keeping his hair trimmed and neat, be it on his head or on his face. He was scratching his head, and his eyes were puffy.

Mary said softly, “I suppose you need a hangover remedy,” and chuckled very quietly. 

Stella, however, took one look at Sean and shouted in an unnaturally loud voice, “’Morning Sean!”

Sean winced, and covered his ears with his hands. He slumped down at the kitchen table, leaning against his elbows, forehead in his cupped hands. He made an inarticulate groan. 

Mary had whipped around, poured a cup of hot herbal tea, and pushed it in front of Sean. She also rammed two pieces of whole wheat bread into the toaster for him. As the toaster ticked away, Sean sipped the heavenly hot liquid. 

Stella managed to chop in a surprisingly loud manner, periodically casting her gaze over to Sean’s bowed head and smirking. Mary whispered to her, “Stop,” in her mature and gentle way, but with an understanding smile. Stella stopped. Stella and Sean had always had a full-on brother-sister relationship; they had often ribbed each other in this way. But Stella realized that Mary was right - Sean had a real hangover, and she’d made her point. It was the year 2000 after all, and Sean was almost 25 years old. He hadn’t yet shown signs of growing out of his teenage habits, and this worried Stella, just as James worried her, and for the same reason. She often wondered if there was something about being a Beatle’s son that was infantilizing. But then she corrected herself immediately. Dhani Harrison was very together, and so were Uncle Ritchie’s sons. It was only Julian, Sean and James that seemed extremely reluctant to grow up to be fully realized adult men. The thought struck her with a small buzz of alarm. She hoped it wasn’t because of the John/Paul relationship. But no, she thought it might be because John and Paul were the two ‘major’ Beatles, the songwriters and ‘geniuses’, and thus the expectations for their sons were much higher and therefore more intimidating. 

The doorbell rang. Mary asked Stella to answer the door, since she was doing some tricky vegetable carving. At the door Stella found her sister Heather and James. They had just driven up from Sussex and looked tired and ready to flop. Stella routed out Alistair from the backyard where he was arranging tables, and soon all the luggage was out of their car and up in the guestrooms. James was sharing a room with Sean, like old times, and Heather would have her own room. 

Soon all five of them were gathered in the kitchen hugging, laughing and talking. Sean felt exactly like the others. He had been raised since age 5 with Paul in his life, and since age 7 with the whole family. He barely remembered a time without them all. He truthfully saw more of the McCartney kids than he did his own half-brother, who was so much older and who kept pretty much to himself off on the Continent. Nevertheless, Sean loved and even idolized Julian, and was happy he was going to see him that evening.

In the ensuing two weeks since she had found out about her father’s decision to wear John’s ring, Heather’s mind had experienced the news as if it were a bird of prey, gliding in ever-narrowing and then ever-widening circles over it’s target. She hadn’t yet been able to swoop down and finally grab the idea. She hoped that once she had been able to speak to her dad about it, she might be able to wrestle what was bothering her to the ground. She certainly wasn’t an uptight soul. She had fully incorporated her hippie childhood into her way of thinking and living, and so had no moral or emotional objection to two men pledging their fidelity to each other. In truth, her views on the subject were much to the contrary - but what if her liberality on the subject was only in the abstract? Something about the news bothered Heather, and she was beginning to believe it had to do with the loss of her mother. Heather had really not fully integrated that sad reality into her daily thinking. She often pretended, while working in her pottery studio in Sussex, that her mother was off in London, and might suddenly drop down to visit her on a weekend. Heather knew this was not going to happen, but it was a little fantasy exercise she played with herself to keep the aching depth of her loss at bay. Maybe the reality of her father choosing to move on was interfering with Heather’s ability to keep her little fantasy alive. While Heather mused, she slowly became aware that the others were talking about their fathers.

“I don’t know why they’re being so bloody-minded about it,” Stella opined. “I suggested inviting more people - maybe the rest of the Beatle family, or at least George Martin. But John kept saying they didn’t want a big fuss. I wonder why? It’s kind of a major event in their lives.”

“Maybe to them it isn’t that big of an event. Maybe they think it was just the next step in a long journey,” Sean suggested.

James, lounging across the table from Sean, smiled. He had been listening avidly to what the others were saying. They clearly did not have any problem with the ‘commitment ring’ thing like he did, and he liked the poetic sound of Sean’s suggestion. James had been torn about the news too, but he had allowed himself to think about it and parse out his feelings on the matter and conclude that he was missing his mother; he was missing the spice that she brought to the brew that was the McLen family (as John often called it). James had actively loved having John in the family, and had long since gotten over any qualms he’d once had over the triangle relationship. But his mother had been an integral part of him feeling at ease and secure in the triangle situation. Subtracting her had left a huge hole for James, and knowing that most of the rest of the family was moving on to try to fill that hole in different ways, was at the root of James’s confusion.

“That’s a very interesting take on it Sean,” Mary said.

Sean added, “The sense I have is that this is just a very personal thing to them, and they really don’t want to share it with the world,” Sean concluded. “And if so, that’s their prerogative, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is,” Mary agreed. By now, Heather was helping Mary and Stella prepare the food. Mary had two sous chefs but she was quietly giving all the directions, as once her mother had done. 

Heather felt safe and secure when Mary was around. Mary gave off the closest vibe of their mother, and so Heather craved her company. She had listened avidly to what Sean had said, and hoped it was true. She didn’t want the whole world to know that her mother had been effectively replaced. 

James heard what Sean had said, and it softened his heart. He loved his dad, and he loved John, and he wanted them to be happy. He was going to do his best to bury the anxious feelings that were niggling at him.

Stella heard what Sean had said and responded with some skepticism. “I think they’re a bit embarrassed about it, and that is why they don’t want anyone to know. They trust us to keep our mouths shut, but as soon as you tell one person, you know your secret isn’t going to last. I didn’t even tell my boyfriend. But Mary had to tell Alistair. And I suppose Julian told his girlfriend. It’s like concentric circles the way news like this flows, and I think the whole thing embarrasses them a bit so they limit the number of people who know.”

Sean heard Stella out, and felt that she was probably right to an extent. But he didn’t see it as being in conflict with what he’d suggested. Yes, they thought of this as a very private moment, and part of that was fear of others’ reactions. But Sean continued to believe that the emotional dance between his father and Paul was very intricate, and in truth they each performed for an audience of one: each one performed only for the other. That others were around to watch and enjoy was entirely incidental to them. They shared a very self-contained, magical kind of connection, and no one else but they themselves were permitted to see, feel, hear, taste, or touch it. 

Sean said, “I get what you’re saying, Stell, but I think that’s only part of it. But even if it were all of it, we should respect it. They get to decide how to share their relationship, and we really don’t have a say in it.”

Mary smiled to herself as she chopped her vegetables. Sean was more than a match for the fiery Stella. And she was finding Sean’s take on it to be far more nuanced and interesting than the take she and Stella had shared between them.

“I guess it frustrates me that they don’t feel strong enough about each other to be public about it,” Stella said, only this time her voice had lost much of it’s stridency and certainty.

Heather’s interruption surprised them all. She hadn’t contributed even a peep thus far: “No! I don’t want them to go public! It would be horrible!”

Everyone turned to look at Heather, taken aback by her emotional vehemence. 

“Why do you say that?” Mary asked gently.

“Think about it! They’ll all say Mummy was a beard!” Heather looked and sounded very distressed.

The others hadn’t thought about it from that perspective yet, but James quickly said, “I agree with Heather. You know they’ll say it wasn’t a ‘real’ marriage. That would damage Mum’s memory.” James’s voice was calmer and less hysterical than Heather’s, but he clearly felt strongly about it too.

“That’s an excellent point,” Sean said. “I hadn’t thought of it, but now that you’ve said it, I can see Pup putting his foot down over that, so as not to deal with people trashing his wife.”

“If no one steps forward and stands up for what is right, things will never change,” Stella argued. “And our dads have a tremendous amount of social influence. If anyone can afford to stand up to the pressure, they can. And then other people might find that their lives will be a little easier because of it.”

“I agree with what you say,” Sean said, “but you and I don’t have to live with the backlash, except vicariously, because we love them.” 

“And Mummy’s memory!” Heather cried.

“Daddy isn’t going to let anyone say anything nasty about Mum without fiercely defending her,” Mary said gently. She gave her older sister an enveloping hug. “No matter what happens, Daddy won’t stand still for it. And neither will any of us.”

Stella laughed. “Yeah - we’ll all come marching! They’ll rue the day!”

Heather found herself calming down. She knew how protective her father was of his wife and his children, and also of John. Mary and Stella were right. The family wouldn’t let the press get away with a character assassination of her mother.

Mary said, “And there is something else.”

Everyone looked at her expectantly.

“Daddy told me himself. He thinks John would not handle the backlash well. He thinks he wouldn’t take being called names and being insulted well, because he takes that kind of thing to heart. Daddy thinks he himself would handle it better. So, maybe we’re all right. Maybe for all the reasons we’ve mentioned they’ve decided to keep it secret from everyone but us.”

“It’s too bad though,” Stella said, finally accepting the strength of the various arguments she’d heard her siblings make. “It is a great opportunity for them to help change social attitudes on the subject. But I guess that’s a lot to ask of them, when they have so many important things at stake.”

The controversial conversation ended, and the five of them moved on to less heavy subjects. But although it had been a little stressful for them, both Heather and James felt better about the whole thing having heard what their siblings had to say. And they were grateful their father and John were being circumspect about it, no matter the reason.

 

*****

 

That Afternoon  
Cavendish

 

“I sure hope they haven’t gone overboard,” John was musing to Paul as they lounged on the sitting room sofa. John had been thumbing through the television channels with the sound down low, and Paul had been reading a newspaper. Hearing no response from Paul, John added, “I dreamt last night that they had naked men jumping out of cakes. It was horrifying. Woke up in a cold sweat.”

This got a rise out of Paul. From behind the newspaper John heard a snicker. 

Encouraged, John continued with his fantasy worries. “I am scared they are going to do something really corny, like play soppy music, or read out smarmy poetry.”

Paul finally spoke from behind the newspaper. “These are our children we are talking about, you know...” 

John chuckled. “I admit they’re not the most sentimental people on the planet.” 

“They’re Liverpudlian-by-proxy,” Paul agreed.

John liked that. Liverpudlian-by-proxy. Every time John got full of himself and his verbal and lyrical abilities, Paul would suddenly show him up like this and send him hurtling back to earth with a thud. That was one of the many reasons why John adored Paul so much. No hair growing on him!

“Why do you suppose they want to make such a fuss over it?” John asked a few moments later. This time his voice was more serious. As a result, it caused Paul to bring his paper down so he could see John’s face. John, noting that he finally had Paul’s full attention, added, “I mean, your kids especially. In a way they must feel as though I’m taking Linda’s place.”

Paul’s eyes warmed reassuringly as they met John’s. “My kids love you like a second father,” Paul said firmly. “They don’t think you’re replacing their mother.”

“Stella and Mary told me that Heather and James were a bit upset about it, especially Heather. I’m worried they are hurt by it.” John was looking at Paul with intensity, his insecurity showing plainly in his eyes. 

“We all took Linda’s death hard, John,” Paul finally responded. “And Heather and James most of all. They needed their mother more than Mary and Stella did, because Mary and Stella are much stronger emotionally. So no matter what I would do to change my life after Linda died, they were going to be thrown by it. But I don’t think it will be bad tonight, John. I really don’t. They know how to behave, even if they’re struggling with it.”

Another thing John loved about Paul: Paul always told him the truth, even if the truth was hard to hear. Of course, Paul had a way of ‘packaging’ the truth so that it went down much more smoothly than it otherwise would. 

“They wanted to invite the others, but I said no,” John confessed. He hadn’t shared Stella’s urgings to invite the rest of the Beatle family with Paul. He had assumed that Paul would be freaked out by the very suggestion.

“The others?” Paul asked, momentarily stumped.

“Ritchie, George H., George M. and families,” John explained. “Your brother and his family.”

Paul said, “Why did you say no?” He was honestly surprised that John hadn’t wanted to invite them.

“I didn’t think you would like too many people there,” John said.

“Why ever not?”

“Well, you don’t want it to get out. You want to keep it secret.” John was looking confused by Paul’s mild reaction to the idea.

Paul said patiently, “I don’t want it to get out publicly, but of course the others are family, too. We can trust them to say nothing to anyone.” 

John was pleasantly surprised. “Well, maybe sometime later in the year, we can host our own celebration with them.”

Paul smiled easily. “That would be great,” he said, winking. “I’m not a shrinking violet, Johnny. The whole family and our best friends know we’re living together. We don’t hide it from them. They don’t pry, and we don’t provide details. But they all know what is going on between us, and I’m very comfortable with that. Aren’t you?”

“I am. I guess I’ve always felt as though you weren’t comfortable with it.” John’s tone reflected the surprise he was feeling.

Paul sat up, folding the newspaper and pushing it away. He leaned towards John and said with intense clarity, “I only ever worried about my wife and the children. We created that family, and it was up to us to protect them from ugly public scrutiny. I also didn’t want our work to get overshadowed by prurient gossip. I wanted it to be appreciated for itself. But I’m not ashamed of us, John. I guess I just think this decision we’ve made is no one’s business except for our very closest friends and our families.”

John had listened to Paul with his whole being, and he felt tears pressing to be released, but he fought them off. He nodded, but didn’t trust himself yet to speak. 

Paul then asked, “Do you feel differently? Do you find it hurtful that we don’t talk about it more openly in public?”

“I guess I would find it hurtful if I thought you were ashamed of us or embarrassed by it. But since you say you’re not, I’m not hurt by it. But do you have an objection to me sharing it with more of our friends? Like can I talk to Jason about it?”

Paul looked distressed. “John - it’s your life too! Of course you can talk to your friends about it. Jason especially! I’m a little surprised you haven’t told him already.” Paul added, chuckling.

John said, “I’ve been feeling so grateful that you accepted the ring. I know it was a difficult decision for you to make, and I don’t want to push you further than you’re ready to go.”

“Listen to us, John,” Paul said, chuckling deeply. “We’re so fucking mature. I’m thinking we’ll have to leave a significant amount of our combined fortune to our therapists in our wills.” John laughed at Paul’s joke. But then Paul added more seriously, “The only difficult part for me was telling myself ‘no more women.’ You know, I had gotten used to having sex both ways on a regular basis. It kind of surprises me to say it, but I never thought I’d get to the point where I wouldn’t want to live without both kinds of sex. But once I talked about it with Marc, and once I thought about it for a while, the answer was clear - I just want to be with you. It’s not a sacrifice for me, John. Even if I picked up some woman, I would be thinking of you and feeling horribly guilty, so what would be the point?”

John smiled. “It wasn’t like I was ever going to let you out of my sight, Pud. You wouldn’t have had the chance to cheat on me.”

“That’s what Linda said to me once,” Paul replied, surprised. “We’d go to parties and she wouldn’t let go of my arm. Sometimes it felt like a death grip.”

John laughed out loud. “Well, last November when you were being ambivalent about it, I was pricing choke-collars and leashes, so you ought to be glad you decided to come quietly.”

“I don’t know why neither of you trusted me to be faithful,” Paul said, a little put out. “I’m a faithful guy.”

“Oh, Linda and I trusted you. But we didn’t trust any of those people out there that wanted to get their hands on you. We each spent decades beating them off with sticks.” 

Paul guffawed. “You’re making that up. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a congenital flirt, Paul, and you are too damn sexy for your own good. You can’t help yourself. And people read those signals and think you’re get-able. Linda and I spoke about this on many occasions, and we both agreed: one of us always had to have an eye on you when we were in crowds. We took turns.”

“This is ridiculous, I’m not going to encourage any more of this nonsense,” Paul scoffed, and he plopped unceremoniously back against the sofa cushions. He then grabbed the newspaper and snapped it open again until he was once more hidden behind it. 

John saw this tactic and laughed heartily. “You can hide, Baby, but you can’t run...”

 

*****

 

That Night  
Mary’s Home in Maida Vale

 

Julian arrived earlier than he had planned. He had wanted to arrive fashionably late, and act impossibly blasé. But his anticipation of seeing all the family again got the best of him, so he took a cab over to Mary’s house to arrive at 5 p.m., even though the party wasn’t starting until 6:30 p.m. 

James opened the door, and was delighted to see Julian. He showed Julian into the sitting room where he, Alistair and Sean had been playing a video game on the TV set. “Wanna join?” He asked.

“I’ll just say hello to the girls,” Julian said politely. He wasn’t in to video games, but didn’t want to say so. He found ‘the girls’ - all three of them - in Mary’s kitchen, putting finishing touches on hors d’oeuvres and still working on the entrees. 

“Jules!” Stella cried as he walked in the door. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and rushed over to give him a big hug. Julian had a kind of charisma - it was hard to describe - and most of the younger Beatle kids were affected by it. He was like their joint, much admired big brother. (Ringo’s older son Zak was too close to Julian’s age and too independent to feel the same way about it.) 

“Hello Stella,” Julian said as he was engulfed in a hug. He was smiling at the greeting. Mary and Heather were waiting patiently for their turns. He looked over Stella’s shoulder to the kitchen and said, “You’ve really got a spread on here, haven’t you?”

Mary laughed. “I suppose so. Stella, let go. My turn.” 

After a few more minutes of hugging and excitement, Julian settled down at the kitchen table and Mary poured him a crisp white wine. Mary was preparing the appetizer plates, and periodically gave a piece of cheese or sweet pickle to Julian on the sly. Each time she did it she winked at him, and he hid a grin.

“So where are the men of honor?” Julian asked.

“Oh, they won’t get here until 6:30,” Mary said. “I told them not to turn up early, because I want it all to be done and beautiful when they get here.”

“You spoil them,” Julian said with a sweet smile.

“I know,” Stella said. “We all do. None of us can help it. They’re so darn cute.”

Julian laughed out loud. “They’ve skimmed along through life riding that joint charm and combined adorable-ness, I’ll say that for them.”

Heather said shyly, taking the subject perhaps more seriously than did her siblings, “Things have been a lot harder for them on the inside than they looked to be on the outside.”

Julian met her eyes and said softly, “I know. I’m just giving them the piss. Their egos are so huge. They can take it.”

Heather didn’t like anyone to criticize her father. She agreed that John’s ego was huge. But she didn’t like anyone saying her father’s ego was huge. She frowned a little, but said nothing.

Mary said, “Well, what I know about Daddy is that maybe he has a big ego, but it is also fragile. So is your dad’s ego. They’re so easily bruised. I think Daddy is a bit tougher about it than your dad is, though.” 

Julian nodded as Mary was speaking, “Yes, I agree. Pup - don’t tell him I called him that, he hates it - well, he’s a much more balanced person.”

“Why do you call him ‘Pup’?” Heather asked. She’d never had it satisfactorily explained to her before.

Julian laughed. “It’s kind of embarrassing. Just what I thought to call him when I was first learning to talk.”

“Pup? But why pup?” Heather persisted. 

“He was kind of like an uncle to me. I actually played more with him than I did with my dad when I was little. He was very playful and imaginative. He reminded me of a puppy, so I called him ‘Uncle Puppy.’” 

All three girls giggled at that. “It’s very descriptive, and right on point,” Stella guffawed.

“It got too long, and it eventually got shortened to ‘Pup’, you know, when I was approaching my teens. It wasn’t cool to call him ‘Uncle Puppy’ any more.” 

“Why doesn’t Daddy like you to call him that?” Heather asked.

Mary interrupted. “I don’t think he dislikes it really. I think he is just teasing Julian when he says that.”

“I think your sister is right,” Julian told Heather. “I don’t think he minds it really. But it’s something I can do to give him a little friendly grief.”

“Sean calls him that,” Heather said. “I suppose he got it from you?”

“Yeah, he heard me doing it, so he started doing it. But he does it in all seriousness now, without irony. And I doubt he remembers its derivation - the ‘puppy’ part.”

Heather chuckled. “I think it’s perfect. Daddy does look like a puppy!” 

 

*****

 

The drive from Cavendish to Mary’s home in Maida Vale was very short. Within ten minutes, the car was pulling into Mary’s mews. Paul had spent that 10 minutes grumbling to himself about how John had laid out his clothes for him again, as if he were a child. He was going to have to say something to John about it. The truth was that other people always complimented him on his clothes when John picked them out; they didn’t always do the same when he chose his own clothes. But that was missing the point! The flash teenaged John Lennon and the flash teenaged Paul McCartney had both been fashion hounds, and had influenced each other’s style. He didn’t like the unsaid judgment - that he had terrible taste, and John had great taste. 

John had no clue this was going through Paul’s mind, because he was so busy slyly staring at Paul through the corners of his eyes. In that beautiful dark navy silk suit and that silky white shirt, and that deep purple satin tie, Paul was a sight to behold. Paul had always ‘cleaned up’ spectacularly well, but ever since he’d met Linda his sartorial standards had slipped substantially. She had encouraged him not to worry about such things as grooming and clothes, and to just let it all hang out and wear comfortable things. She’d encouraged weird color and print combinations and strange hairstyles. The 1970s were a kaleidoscope of horrible Paul outfits, from John’s point of view. Couldn’t recognize the guy as the same dandy who wore such tightly fitting suits in the early ‘60s! Now, John loved Linda, and he had come to appreciate how she had nurtured and de-stressed the highly tuned Paul McCartney. But since Paul didn’t have to look at himself, and John did, John felt he had every right to put Paul’s wardrobe back on the right track. Thus, he didn’t worry overmuch about Paul’s feelings in the matter. Just as on this evening, it never crossed his mind.

John, himself, was beautifully dressed also. He had never looked as good in suits as Paul did, probably because he didn’t have Paul’s long, slender legs. So instead, John wore high quality slacks - black - with a straight leg, and a deep medium blue pullover crew-necked sweater along with a nice array of the South American jewelry Paul had bought for him. Just thinking of that South American trip - even for a few seconds - sent a thrill up John’s spine. That had been so fucking romantic! He really did want to take Paul away from the world again - back to their hideaway in Costa Rica, or maybe they could do another exotic concert tour when their new album came out...

“We’re here,” Paul pointed out. The car had come to a complete stop and it had sat still for a few seconds while Paul gazed at John, who was in a dream. “What’re you thinking about?” He asked.

“You and me - getting away. South America. Remember that trip?” John’s smile was knowing and beatific. 

Paul’s eyes went lazy with the sexy memory. “I sure do,” he said with a low, drawling voice. 

“We need to do that again - touring in an exotic locale.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Paul said, smiling dangerously. “In the meantime - it’s time for our party!”


	141. Chapter 141

London  
Late May 2000

 

After John and Paul walked in the back door of Mary’s Maida Vale home, the usual mayhem erupted. Shouted greetings, Round-Robin hugs, and rude badinage warred with Arthur’s high-pitched cries for primacy. This was the typical McCartney family madness, and although John had long since fit into it, Sean and Julian were always a little set back by it. Each of them had grown up as ‘only’ children for the vast majority of their lives, living at least half of the time with their mothers. Still, it didn’t take long for them to get with the program, once the all-accepting warmth of the McCartney clan took root.

John had been pleasantly surprised to find that both James and Heather had given him their usual warm embraces. If they were struggling with what the rings signified at least they weren’t struggling with their feelings about him. This was a major relief for John.

The dinner table was set with a series of small square glass vases down the middle, each bursting with color from the blue and violet hydrangea blossoms. Mary had laid out her cobalt blue chargers, and against the crisp white linen tablecloth, the colored glass platters shone.

“Everything looks lovely,” John told Mary sincerely as he took his seat at one end of the table. Paul had been placed at the other end. As Paul sat down he gazed down the table at John and grinned. “I have a direct shot at you, John, when the food starts flying,” he joked.

“No flying food tonight!” Mary decreed firmly. “Tonight we’re all going to pretend as though we had class.”

Amongst the chuckles there was one overly dramatic groan. “I hate when we do that,” James intoned. “I sat myself across from Sean especially, to get the perfect aim.”

Mary had already warned Julian that he would be required to make the toast. (Heather was about three months older than him but much too shy to make a speech.) He and Mary had decided to do the toast right up front in order to get it out of the way. Forewarned, Julian had been able to gin up a few words, but he suffered from a little performance anxiety in front of the witty, irreverent group arrayed around him.

As everyone settled in their seats, an expectant hush fell over the table. Julian said, casting a quick glance in his father’s direction and then in Paul’s, “I will try to capture everyone’s feelings in my remarks.” Julian paused, nervousness momentarily getting the better of him. But then a spark of humor showed in his eyes. “And speaking for everyone here is probably an impossibility. We all have such different opinions - so if I leave your thoughts out, jump up and add them when I’m done.” Julian’s audience chuckled a little, knowing exactly how very different their views on the matter were.

“First, we are all happy if you’re both happy...”

“I’m happy!” John shouted from his end of the table to a great deal of nervous laughter.

“Second, we all love both of you and want nothing but the best for you.”

“Here, here!” Stella sounded, banging her water glass with a spoon.

“Get to the good stuff!” John demanded raucously. “Tell us the ‘but’!”

“Oh shush, John,” Mary giggled. “Let Julian get a word in.”

“I can hear the ‘but’ a mile off!” John protested, in defense of his interruption.

Stella turned to her father. “Dad, can’t you make him behave?”

Paul snorted. “Oh hell no,” he responded crisply but calmly. “Lost that war eons ago.” He smiled pleasantly to show no hard feelings.

Julian saw that the thing was truly out of control now. Somehow he had to rein it all back in. “As I was saying,” Julian pronounced loudly and clearly, “we are all happy to be here with you to celebrate this next chapter of your lives.”

“Only a chapter?” John asked, his voice dripping with disappointment. “I hoped for a lot more than that.”

“John - really.” This gentle warning came from Paul. Paul then turned to Julian and said, “I appreciate the courage it took for you to stand up and try to be earnest and sincere in front of this motley crew. It’s a thankless job.”

Everyone clapped cheerfully for Julian, and then John said, “I want to hear from each of you what you really think...”

Mary looked alarmed. She wondered if John had had too much to drink already. It didn’t seem possible; they'd only just started. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” she protested, thinking of James’s and Heather’s objections and concerns and also what they might say.

“Mary, your Dad and I can take it. What makes this family so special is that we tell each other the truth. Why don’t you start?” John asked Mary.

“Well,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “I’m glad that I don’t have to stay up nights worrying about either one of you getting into trouble in the middle of the night.”

“But we might get in trouble together in the middle of the night,” John pointed out in an exaggeratedly reasonable tone of voice.

“The least said about that, the better,” Paul riposted.

All the kids groaned. Stella spoke for all of them: “Too much information guys!”

“Yeah Paul,” John taunted, “you keep forgetting about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

“You started it,” Paul pointed out.

“I can see you have a very mature relationship,” Sean chuckled. “I’ll go next.” He leaned forward. “Paul, you have always been there for my Dad, through thick and thin. You have also always been there for Julian and me.”

Julian nodded fervently and said, “Amen.”

“You have been kind to my mother, and also to Julian’s mother. I think I can speak for him when I say we are blessed to have you in our lives.”

There was a general chorus of “ahhhh” from the group before Sean continued. 

“So for me, and maybe for the others, this ring thing was only a physical manifestation of what we have experienced from you for years - we are part of your family and you are part of ours.”

Paul blushed a little and said, “Very kind of you to say...”

Sean smiled in response and then turned to his father. “And Dad, you have obviously met your match. I’m so happy for you. It’s pretty clear to me that it is what you’ve always wanted, but could never have before.” Sean hoisted his glass. “A toast!” he announced.

All the other kids raised their glasses, and several of them repeated, “A toast!”

Sean said, “To our crazy, talented, loving, and seriously cool fathers - long life and happiness together!”

“To our dads!” Answered the siblings. Even Heather participated. She was feeling a lot better about the whole situation tonight for some odd reason.

“Okay, my turn,” said Stella. She saw everyone’s smirks, and said, “I’m entitled to a turn! Did you think I wouldn’t take one?”

Paul said softly, “I’m sure we all knew you would take your turn, baby,” causing some titters around the table.

“Well, I feel compelled to say something after that wonderful thing Sean said about our Dad. I have to say how much us McCartney kids adore John.” She turned to face him. “We started out kind of rocky, you and me,” Stella told him, “largely because I sensed you were taking my father away from my family. It took me a while to realize that in fact you were only enlarging our family. But I have to say I’ve always thought you were the coolest dude ever, and I am so glad that you have been a part of my life.”

John said, “Your Dad and I might just die of diabetes tonight with all this concentrated sweetness,” but his face was aglow with pleasure and warmth. 

 

*****

 

Fiona’s Office  
Later That Week

 

“It went very well,” John told her. “None of the kids seemed to be holding a grudge against me.”

Fiona chuckled. Only a pessimist like John would say something went “very well” based on the mere dubious fact that no one had held a grudge. His expectations had obviously not been very high. “You were worried about two of Paul’s children,” she prompted, seeking more detail.

“The oldest one, Heather - she was extremely close to her mother, and she isn’t exactly ready to move on to another world order, if you get my meaning. And James - the youngest one - also was very close to his mother, but he seems to be coming to grips with things changing a bit.” John frowned slightly, and then added, “Not that anything has really changed. We were living together before, and we’re living together now. Its not like Linda is still alive and Paul is leaving her for me. So I didn’t really get why they would be upset by it.”

Fiona said, “They’re not living with you, John, so they don’t see the new status quo very often. It is easy for them to imagine that nothing has changed since their mother was alive. When something symbolic like your commitment exchange happens, it is a sharp reminder of how all things must change, eventually.”

John listened, but he didn’t look convinced. “I guess,” he said, his doubt clearly showing on his face. 

Feeling as though the subject had been tapped out, Fiona asked, “So how are things going with Paul?”

John brightened up at the question. “I really don’t have anything to complain about.”

“No?” Fiona asked, pretending shock.

“Very funny, Fi,” John said smartly. “It’s just that right now we’re on the same wavelength. It happens from time to time. We’ll be sneaking off for two weeks to the Caribbean in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to that.”

“And your work projects are moving forward?”

“Yeah, relentlessly. You-Know-Who is at the helm, after all,” John chuckled. “The album will be released in July, and a tour is planned to start in September. We'll be touring on and off for a year! They’re pulling dates together, although they haven’t announced it yet.”

Fiona cleared her throat to ready herself for what she planned to say next. “So, what I’ve been thinking for a while now - it sounds like you don’t need to come to sessions every week anymore. What do you think?” Fiona was smiling proudly at John. “Maybe we bring it down to once every other week, or even less if you like.”

John was surprised. He wasn’t sure if it was in a good or a bad way. “You think I don’t need you as much anymore?” He asked. He looked gutted.

Fiona smiled warmly. “I think you have come a very long way, John. You are in a good place in your personal life, and also in your professional life. You have strong relationships with all the children, and also with your friends. Your moods are well within the normal range, and you have learned to think through your feelings before reacting to them. I think you should try to fly a bit more on your own for a while. If it turns out to be too difficult, we can always start up more frequently again.”

John wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. Everything Fiona said sounded good. He supposed all those things were true, too. But he’d had his head down as he slogged forward to the point where he hadn’t been taking stock of the milestones. He made a decision. 

“Okay, let’s try every other week for a while. Of course, while I’m in the Caribbean I’ll be out of touch completely. And when I’m on tour, I may find I need to call you and talk to you more regularly.”

“Let’s play it by ear. I’ll be flexible if you will too,” Fiona said reassuringly. “I rarely get to tell my clients to ‘fly’, but in your case I really do think it is time to give it a try.”

“I hope it all doesn’t revert to hell in a hand basket,” John mumbled. “I’m superstitious.”

Fiona laughed lightly. “I doubt that, but if it does...I’m still here! Not going anywhere.”

Feeling scared but hopeful, John left Fiona’s office. He told himself that it only meant that instead of 4 times a month he’d be seeing Fiona 2 times a month. When he thought about it that way, it didn’t seem so scary.

 

*****

 

Marc’s Office  
That Same Day, in the Afternoon

 

“You‘ve missed a few sessions,” Marc pointed out flatly as Paul settled himself on the sofa.

Paul didn’t hear the slight rebuke and said cheerfully, “Yeah - it has been crazy busy. Getting ready for the record launch, and making plans for a world tour...”

“Usually, you don’t let life get in the way of our sessions,” Mark stated, thinking he’d have to hit the blasted man over the head with a two by four since he wasn’t getting the point.

Paul looked up and there was a note of surprised realization in his expression. “I guess I haven’t needed to come so much lately,” he said slowly. “Before I was driven to come because of stuff in my life, and chaos. But lately I’ve been feeling stable again. Life has settled down.”

Marc smiled. At least Paul was - for the moment anyway - looking inward again, instead of that infuriating way he sometimes acted - as if nothing in the world touched him, and he was just politely passing time as he sat through sessions. Marc said, “The dust is finally settling after the years of stress and change driven by your wife’s illness and death.”

Paul’s intense attention was now directed fully at Marc. He finally said, with great finality, “Yes.” Paul waited for the guilt to come rushing in - the guilt occasioned by a feeling of betrayal of Linda if he was no longer mourning her all day every day. But the guilt, when it finally wandered in, was a pallid thing. It barely echoed, much less throbbed. Instead he heard Linda’s voice telling him, you’re entitled. A very wispy smile played across Paul’s beautiful face. 

“What are you thinking?” Marc asked  
.  
Paul said, “I just heard Linda telling me in my head that it’s okay for me to go on living, and to enjoy what time I have left.”

“You don’t have to keep coming every week if you don’t need it, you know. This isn’t indentured servitude.” Marc grinned.

Paul looked pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t that he felt that Marc was giving him permission to move on from therapy; it was just this was the first moment when he’d felt he actually had the choice to move on. The choice was his! It wasn’t driven anymore by some fearful, angry, depressed voice deep in his subconscious mind. He said, “You know, just recently I have been coming out of a sense of duty - like it was something somehow I had to do. But that isn’t really true, is it?”

Marc smiled. Inside he felt torn, because he truly enjoyed Paul’s company and found the humor, and insight, and crazy goings on that came with Paul’s presence to be an enhancement in his life. But Marc knew his patients weren’t there to provide richness to his life. They were there to make their own lives richer. Ultimately, Paul had never been an emotionally ill person. He was an incredibly strong character, who had gone through terrible pain and loss. His issues had always been acute and born out of life events beyond his control; he did not have a chronic mental illness. 

Marc said, “Come only if and when you want. We don’t have to have a standing appointment. If you have an urgent need to talk to me, call me and I’ll arrange something. If you want to plan a session, call my service and make an appointment. If you never want to come again - well, that’s entirely up to you.”

Paul heard what Marc said and it filled him with peace and a sense of achievement. He had found his way out of the dark place he’d been in, and he wondered if he would have been able to do so without Marc’s help. He felt as though he should say something to the man who had been so calm, so full of gentle humor, so understanding and nonjudgmental. Paul had a hard time saying intimate things even to his most intimate loved ones. Saying something intimate and heartfelt to someone he knew professionally was a lot harder. The kind person in Paul knew he had to step up to the plate, though, however difficult it may be. 

“I think I’m going to take you up on that Marc,” Paul said seriously. 

Marc was a bit surprised. He wasn’t sure that Paul had ever called him ‘Marc’ before - like they were equals. 

“I’d like to try to go without therapy for a while, to see how I go. But...” Paul stopped. He struggled with the words and knew that he had to hold back emotion or he would embarrass himself. “...I need to tell you...” To Paul’s horror, his voice cracked a little. And he couldn’t meet Marc’s eyes. His eyes were flickering all over the place, except in Marc’s direction. “...I need to tell you thank you for your help.” He stopped, unable to go on.

Marc was deeply touched. He knew Paul very well by then, and knew how these sincere expressions of feeling were difficult for him. He could charm like a pro and lay down a suppressing fire of friendly small talk to cover awkward situations, and he could praise and congratulate people easily for their successes. But deeply connecting with another human being with a sincere expression of gratitude - that, Marc knew, was very hard for Paul to do. Therefore, the fact that Paul was forcing himself to do it meant that much more to Marc. Marc was about to say soothing words so that Paul wouldn’t feel obliged to say more, but Paul started talking again before Marc could react.

“I’ve never been so clueless and bewildered as I was when I came in to see you.”

“You’re an incredibly strong person, Paul. You would have to be utterly clueless and bewildered to even consider therapy,” Marc said.

Paul smiled wistfully. “I wish I was as strong as everyone seems to think I am. I’ve heard people tell me that all my life. When my mum died I didn’t break into a thousand pieces or go about wailing, but I felt very broken inside. But I heard one of my aunties saying, ‘that boy feels nothing.’ And John always accused me of not feeling anything when we were arguing, but inside there would be a riot going on! Apparently, it has always been invisible to everyone else.” Paul stopped. He suddenly realized he had allowed himself to go off on one uncomfortable tangent in order to avoid a markedly more uncomfortable path. He forced himself back to his duty.

“Anyway,” Paul said, speaking firmly and with certainty this time, “at that moment in my life I was pretty much down for the count. You made a huge difference in my life, and I’m not sure I’d have gotten through all that without your help.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” Marc said simply. “I have enjoyed your company immensely. But it is my responsibility as a professional to let you know that I don’t believe therapy is necessary for you anymore. Again - if you ever need to talk, even a sounding board, feel free to call.”

“I’ll do that,” Paul said as he offered his hand and opened the door. Then he walked out, and headed for his car.

 

*****

 

When he drove into the driveway at Cavendish, Paul felt a new sense of confidence and freedom. He was normal again! He’d been through another crazy hailstorm of change and strong emotions, and had emerged relatively unscathed on the other side. His whole life had been pock-holed with such moments - his mother’s death, the craziness of Beatlemania, the horrible dark days of his break up with John and the Beatles, the bewildering period when John first came back into his life, John’s cancer, Linda’s cancer, Linda’s death. Ahead of him no doubt lay more such life-changing events. That was the one sure thing about life, Paul had learned. But already the memory of his latest bout with turmoil was fading in strength and color. Soon he would have difficulty remembering the details of how horrible it had been. That is how it had played out after past tragedies, and he had no doubt that this latest experience would be no different.

In this strong mood, he strode into the house. As he opened the door he smelled dinner cooking. He smiled in a genuinely surprised and contented way. It reminded him of how he felt after all the Abbey Road wars in late 1968 when Linda had first started living with him, and he’d come in the door at Cavendish after a hellish day sparring with his former friends, and he would smell dinner cooking: after all those insane bachelor years, suddenly a homely normality. Now he felt the same thing again, only now it was John in the kitchen, not Linda. But the feeling inside Paul was truly the same: this house, with John in it, was his haven. He headed (as he always did upon first arriving home) straight for the kitchen. For John.

John had heard him arrive. As Paul popped through the kitchen door, he looked up from the table where he was reading a book while keeping an eye on a bubbling casserole, and said in greeting, “Hey babe! Come over here and give me a hug!”

Paul promptly did so, and then he plopped down at the kitchen table near John. “It smells really good. What are you making?”

“Your favorite - roasted root vegies with tofu,” John said, placing his book firmly on the table, and turning all his attention to Paul. “You’ll never guess what happened in therapy today,” he said, excited.

Paul stifled a laugh. He had been about to say the exact same thing to John. How often in their long years together had that happened? Seemingly every day, if not several times a day. But he knew how the game was played, and said, “Oh? What happened?” 

“Fiona told me I didn’t need to come every week. I’m going down to twice per month to see how it goes. Apparently I’m cured,” John said with ersatz drama.

Paul laughed light-heartedly. “Congratulations! But you’ll never believe this,” he said, his face dancing with mischief and fun.

“Oh?” John asked, but mainly he was staring at that matchless face and all of its thousands of adorable fleeting expressions.

“My therapist gave me my marching orders. I don’t have to go anymore.” Paul’s face reflected his pride and sense of achievement.

John smiled fondly at him. “It looks like we cured each other,” he said simply.

“But - with a little help from our friends,” Paul added with a laugh.

 

*****

 

Costa Rica  
El Nido  
June 18, 2000

 

They’d been at their hideaway for a week, but tonight was Paul’s 58th birthday. John had wanted to pull out all the stops for the celebration. It might have been the only time since he’d known Paul that he’d had Paul entirely to himself for the whole day of Paul’s birthday. Always he’d had to share - with parents, a brother, uncles, aunts, with other Beatles and friends, with Paul’s various girlfriends, and then for so long with Linda and the children... To John it was a momentous occasion, and he wanted to celebrate it as such. 

To that end, he had (conspiring with the married couple who were caretakers of the property) accumulated a basket full of the freshest vegetables and fruits they could find, and his plans for the dinner had been cooking in his brain for the whole week. The little front patio had been lit with fairy lights and candles, and flowers seemed to be growing out of every pot and spilling over every wall. The night blooming plants put off beautiful aromas, and John had decided to play the thirties’ and forties’ style popular music that Paul had a huge soft spot for, much to the bemusement of many of the rockers they had known growing up in Liverpool and hanging about in swinging London. To Paul, that music reminded him of his father and his large family at their happy events, everyone gathered around the piano and singing. It brought back strong memories. But also, that music formed the mental basis for Paul’s talent for structuring songs. It had been entirely subconscious - how the strong structures of that era had invaded his brain, and how it came out later in Paul’s own work. Truthfully, John, too, had a soft spot for a lot of that music. When he was younger, he would only admit it to and around Paul, being too embarrassed to admit it to anyone else for fear of not appearing ‘cool’. It was one of the things that John secretly admired about Paul (even when it was embarrassing or annoying to him): Paul didn’t care about looking cool, or acting cool, and he never worried if others didn’t think he was cool. In fact, Paul was so free from the chains of ‘coolness’ that he actually defined for himself his own kind of coolness. In this way, John thought, Paul was actually more cool than everyone else, because everything he thought and did and believed in was genuinely his own, and not adopted in order to impress or satisfy others.

So tonight John was playing songs sung by the American masters: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Whiting, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong, Sarah Vaughn...the songs came out of the speakers in a smooth ribbon, like perfectly chilled martinis being poured into the most classic looking cocktail glasses. Each song triggered a memory, and surprisingly they both knew all the words and chords to all the songs. That music had been so deeply engrained in their subconscious minds from when they were very young - when they had glued themselves to the radio in the evenings soaking up all the music. It was only just recently that they had realized how deep the imprinting went, and began to give credit where credit was due.

John had been relieved to see how readily Paul had agreed to wear the tux jacket and slacks John had brought with him in his luggage. John had worried that the tuxedo was a touch too far, but Paul got right into the spirit: tonight they were back in the early ‘60s wearing their severe black clothes, with sharp white shirts, and neat bow ties. 

John raised his martini glass and announced with studied solemnity, “To many happy returns!” 

Paul playfully clicked glasses with John, and then said, “You know, I never knew what that meant. Returns of what?”

John laughed. “Of the day of course...”

“Yeah, but what the hell does that mean?”

John sighed with pretend annoyance. “You’re so literal minded, Pud. Honestly.”

“For a while when I was a kid I thought it meant when you went to the store to return and exchange all your birthday gifts...” Paul rambled on.

John nearly spat out his drink as he laughed. “You must have been a singularly irritating child,” he opined.

“I did have a lot of questions,” Paul admitted agreeably. “My Dad used to send me to the encyclopedia when he’d run out of patience.”

John’s chin was in his hand, and he was smiling dreamily across the table at Paul, utterly entranced by Paul’s free association. It happened so rarely. “I’ll bet you actually did look it up in the encyclopedia, too, didn’t you? I would have grumbled to myself, ‘sod off.’”

Paul looked at John suspiciously. He was a little uncertain whether John was teasing or serious. He asked, “Do I annoy you because of the way I am? I know I sometimes go off on weird tangents, or lose the thread of things.”

John quietly shook his head back and forth. “No, I’ve often said it. I could listen to you for hours.”

“That’s not really a compliment,” Paul said, his eyebrows crossing a little.

John said, “It’s endearing to me, Paul, not annoying.” 

“Except when other people are around,” Paul edited.

John shook his head ‘no’ again. “When we were younger, yes, it did embarrass me because I was afraid other people would think you were daft. I didn’t want them to think badly of you because it would reflect badly on me, I thought. But now I just drink it all in. It’s ambrosia to me now.”

Paul smiled at this comment; he was still a little shy and uncertain. “I sometimes don’t know when you’re having me on.”

“Good,” John said, his chin still lodged on his hand. “A little mystery is a wonderful thing.”

Paul relaxed and sat back in his chair. His left hand was gently playing with the martini glass stem. He said, “This is all very romantic, John.” His eyes danced with naughtiness.

“I’m glad you finally noticed,” John teased right back. Finally taking his chin off his hand, and sitting back in his own chair. “This is a momentous occasion for me.”

Paul’s querying eyebrow flew up his forehead. “Oh? How so? It’s my birthday after all.”

“Because all day yesterday, all day today, and all day tomorrow, I have you all to myself,” John said. “I don’t have to share with anyone. Not even phone calls from friends. That has never ever happened before.”

Paul was a little embarrassed by this revelation. He didn’t understand why his mere presence was such a special gift in John’s eyes. He wasn’t upset about it, of course, but he did find it perplexing. He said, “I never really thought about it that way.”

“Maybe you should think about it from now on. The thing I crave most in the world is your company, alone, with no one else around. Your present to me could be to ensure that I always have enough of that.” John’s expression was bewitching, and Paul blushed a bit as he smiled in return.

“Well,” Paul said formally, awkwardly clearing his throat, “I will certainly keep that in mind in future.” 

Later, after the dessert dishes had been pushed aside, and the two men were sipping from their whiskey glasses while still seated at the table on the little patio, John broke the silence to say, “So we have that fucking press stuff to do when we get back to London.” His voice was a monotone, and his expression matched.

Paul sighed deeply, knowing that the ‘press thing’ was going to be a regular pig fuck this time ‘round. He said, “Just keep telling yourself while it’s going on, that when we go home we can leave it all behind.”

“Yeah, but babe, this time it will stick to us. It will follow us everywhere forever.” The fear in John’s voice pulled the tough protector out of Paul. He knew what John meant about ‘it’. He knew that it would most likely be open season on their private relationship this time ‘round. Linda had been dead for over 2 years and they were still a fairly obvious twosome. Maybe the press had protected them before a little, because they were so beloved. But Paul too felt John’s sense of doom: those days of kid gloves were coming to an end. There would be no soft-shoeing their way around the inevitable questions this time. His job now was to protect John from his own insecurities.

Paul said, “We have each other. That is the thing to always remember. We always have each other.”

 

*****


	142. Chapter 142

Cavendish  
Early July 2000

 

“John!” Paul was shouting up the stairwell. It was past time John should have come downstairs, ready to go. As it was, they would be late to their first interview, which would mean that all their subsequent interviews would be late, too. Paul was sympathetic to John’s delaying tactics, but enough was enough.

“I’m coming already!” John’s voice echoed down the stairwell.

That means another five minutes, no doubt, Paul thought to himself. He turned away and continued his pacing around the foyer and the sitting room. He was extremely nervous. Perhaps he was more nervous about these interviews than any others he’d ever done. At least they had foiled the press somewhat by limiting each interview to 20 minutes. Not much damage could be done in that amount of time, if he and John kept their bottle. 

Their new press agent, Henry, poked his head into the foyer again just as Paul paced past. “We’re late!” He said.

Paul gave him the classic ‘no kidding!’ shrug, and then quietly gestured upstairs.

“Can’t you persuade him to come down?” Henry asked.

Paul said sharply, “He’ll be down when he’s ready.” The voice was firm and protective. Henry recognized that tone and immediately withdrew his head. Paul shook away his momentary irritation. Other people had no business ordering him or John around. It was their life, their career, and their prerogative to do what they wanted, when they wanted, as they wanted. But he did secretly wish that John would hurry up. Paul’s nerves were like dashes of oil thrown down on a sizzling pan. They were dancing around in unpredictable sizzles, and Paul had begun to feel that uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He often became queasy when he had to stand around waiting for a scary event. He turned at the sound of John’s footsteps on the stairs. 

“He appears!” Paul sang.

John looked splendid in tight fitting blue jeans, a crisp white shirt, and his trademark Converse shoes. But he looked vexed. “I really don’t want to go,” he told Paul flatly.

“So you expect me to go alone and face the bastards by myself?” Paul asked provocatively, his eyes twinkling. He, too, looked splendid in a well tailored dark grey suit and open-necked white shirt with dress shoes.

John grimaced. “I don’t know why we agreed to press in any event. We don’t have to. Our album will sell, and so will our concert tickets.”

Paul was nodding as John was talking, but headed for the door and went straight out. John could do nothing but follow. John followed Paul right into the limousine, as Henry heaved a huge sigh of relief. Henry then jumped into the front seat next to the driver, and soon they were off.

Snug inside the back seat with the divider window closed tight, John said, “You never answered me. Why did you agree to do this?” His voice reflected his irritation.

Paul said, “We have never been cowardly before, John. We’ve always faced the music. Remember what you faced during 'the Beatles are bigger than Jesus' remark?”

John groaned and turned away.

Paul continued talking to the side of John's face. “It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pleasant, but it was necessary. And we barreled through it and went on to finish that tour on our own terms.” Although he was speaking to the side of John’s face, he knew that John was listening. “This is no different. We just have to face them down. Sangfroid. That’s the main thing we have to remember.”

John glared dubiously at Paul. “It’s going to be a fucking free for all.” 

“There’s only one reporter at a time. We have them outnumbered!” Paul pointed out.

“You only need one reporter to spoil your whole day,” John muttered. But he turned to look out the window, and lost himself in his glum thoughts. For years he had wanted the world to know about Paul and him. For years! He had pouted about it, whined about it, rebelled about it, and nagged about it. And now that he felt it was very near - the moment of truth - he surprisingly found that he had no desire to experience that exposure whatsoever. In fact, the closer they had gotten to the moment of truth, the more John’s reluctance had gained momentum. Now he was overwhelmingly against the very idea of it! He shook his head and mumbled to himself.

Next to him, Paul smiled. He, in turn, looked out his window. For years he had wanted to avoid talking about his relationship with John. He had never wanted the world to know the truth about it. Was it shame or was it self-preservation? He supposed it was some of this and a whole lot of the other. Now it was like a wave at high tide, moving in on him relentlessly. Would he outsmart the wave and jump under it at just the right moment, kicking to the surface a moment later, or would the wave catch him head on, and push him down under, where he would struggle for terrifying moments for air. How did he feel about it? He wasn’t sure. One thing he was sure of: he wasn’t going to let them ruffle his feathers. He was going to be calm and matter-of-fact no matter what they said or asked. He turned to gaze at John, who was still glaring out the window. His visage softened as he watched his lover. His life mate. His partner. John would be fine. John would handle it like the pro he was. No worries! (As the Aussies said.)

The interviews were scheduled to take place in a hotel in Central London. John and Paul were escorted to the proper floor on the freight elevator. They were accustomed to freight elevators by now. That had become their lot in life. It was strange really - all of their wealth and fame had reduced them to the servants’ entrances! The set up was in a hotel room. The interviewers would be cycling through one at a time in 20- minute intervals. Since the same camera and sound men were doing the recording, once the small talk was over with each new interviewer, there would be maybe only 15 minutes for actual questions.

As soon as they entered the room, Paul asked to see the list of interviewers. Reluctantly, Henry’s assistant handed Paul the clipboard. The assistant had been told not to let John or Paul see the list unless they asked for it directly. Well, Paul had asked very directly, right as soon as he came in the room. He was all business. John, on the other hand, wandered into the sitting area, and plopped dramatically on to a sofa. He appeared to be glaring angrily at the chairs where soon he and Paul would be sitting, in front of lights and cameras. 

Paul perused the list and about three quarters of the way down he stopped, his eyes not believing what he was seeing. “Henry!!!” He shouted.

Paul rarely shouted. This shout aroused everyone’s attention, and Henry, who was standing on the other side of the room, felt the hairs going up on the back of his neck. What now? He wondered. He quickly approached Paul, whose face looked like a black cloud. Henry was vaguely aware that John had gotten up and was headed for Paul too, asking, “What is it?” repeatedly. Henry got to Paul just seconds after John did.

Paul looked pointedly at the assistant until the young man realized he was supposed to make himself scarce. He scurried away. Paul saw the curious looks on the faces of the camera, lighting, and sound crews. He told Henry shortly, “Get rid of them for a few minutes.” 

Henry asked everyone to leave the room for a few minutes. They all trundled out, dying of curiosity, and hung around whispering gossip in the hallway outside the room.

“Why is this magazine on the list?” Paul asked, his voice a deep, disapproving growl.

Henry looked at the list and saw where Paul was pointing. He had worried about how that particular magazine would go down with John and Paul. Before he could say anything, John grabbed the clipboard and yelled,

“The Advocate? You fucking invited the fucking Advocate here?” John’s voice reflected extreme disbelief and outrage. “How could you do such a stupid thing?”

Henry cleared his throat. “I had 12 spots. There were over 70 requests. They drew numbers, and the ones whose numbers were called got on the list. It’s standard procedure,” Henry added.

Paul was staring at Henry in an unnerving way, while John began to panic. “Paul! I’m not going to do any of these damn interviews! We’re here to talk about our music and our tour. The fucking Advocate is not here to talk about our music and our tour!”

Paul was more self-contained. He said calmly to Henry, his eyes never leaving his face, “Are you telling me you didn’t vet the applicants before letting them draw numbers?” His voice was quiet, but scary.

“My assistant vetted them. He... he didn’t know what The Advocate was.”

“And where were you when this was going on?” Paul asked. His voice was too silky, too smooth.

“I was overseeing the press packets...” Henry explained. “There were problems with them.”

“It doesn’t matter, Paul, because I’m not doing this...” John was saying. He hadn’t been listening to the conversation between Paul and Henry.

Paul sighed. “Okay. This is what we’re going to do. I note that The Advocate is scheduled in the last 45 minutes. Henry, you’re going to announce that John here isn’t feeling well, and we’re leaving earlier than scheduled, and we’re sorry but the last 5 interviews are cancelled. In addition, you are going to tell each interviewer as they come in the room that we will not entertain questions about our private lives, and if they ask them, we will politely decline to answer.”

Henry blanched. “They’re going to riot.”

“Well, they can riot or John and I can riot. Pick your poison,” Paul said flatly, and there was no humor in his voice or expression at all.

Henry swallowed and said, “They’re gonna know John isn’t unwell, because he will have sat for the other interviews...”

“He’ll say he is incredibly weak, and he can’t sit there for four hours. Three is all he can handle. It’s that or nothing, right John?”

John was nodding fiercely. He didn’t realize that Paul had cleverly roped him in to doing three hours of interviews when he had wanted to leave immediately.

Henry nodded his surrender, and said, “You two relax. We’ll get the first interviews started and a little later I will break the news to the others.”

Paul patted Henry lightly on the back as he turned to leave the room. “This was a big mistake, Henry, but you’re entitled to one. Don’t ever let this happen again.” He turned and headed for the little fridge in the room to get bottles of water for John and himself. He sat down next to John on the sofa. John was holding a throw pillow on his lap and looked dejected.

“So, John, you’re not feeling well - don’t forget.” Paul had a mischievous smile on his face. He was trying to charm John out of his mood.

“I won’t have to pretend,” John growled. “I do feel sick.”

“So, if they ask about it, we’ll smile neutrally and remind them we’re not here to talk about our private lives, and turn the subject back to the album or the tour.” Paul was speaking softly to John, building him up mentally for what was to come. John nodded weakly, but he didn’t look happy at all.

The first interviewer was from the BBC, and she came in looking young and perky. Paul heaved a sigh of relief. She wasn’t going to want to rock the boat. He had her sized up in a split second. They sat in the “hot chairs”, as John and Paul always jokingly called them, and turned pleasant, calm faces to the camera. 

Paul was right. Miss BBC did not ask any questions about their personal lives. They had a good 15 minutes’ discussion about the upcoming tour. The album reviews had been great, and the first week’s sales were also great, so the interview went very well. As the interviewer left, Paul whispered to John, “You were getting awfully cheerful there at the end, John. Don’t forget you’re sick!” 

John guffawed. “Maybe I can gin up some vomit for the next one.”

Paul laughed. “Let’s don’t go that far...”

The first 5 interviews flew by, and while one of the interviewers, an older woman from a Canadian television show, asked them how they felt about all the rumors about their relationship, Paul deftly handled that one by saying, “Oh, we don’t pay any attention to rumors and gossip. No point to it.” And then he had smiled warmly to show her he had nothing to hide. She didn’t have the courage to pry further in that direction, and as soon as the clock approached the 15th minute, Henry hustled her out. 

It was about this time that Henry’s assistants were telling the last five on the list that John Lennon was not feeling well, and couldn’t continue after the next two interviews. There was an immediate uproar as the five who were cancelled protested and attempted negotiations for a few minutes at least. Henry overheard the uproar, and stepped in to turn them all down politely but firmly. After Henry turned around and disappeared back in the room with the sixth interviewer, the remaining 6 reporters began to express their outrage to each other. 

The reporter from the Advocate told the others, “I was going to confront them about their relationship. I think I’m the only one who has the balls to do it.” 

Another reporter said, “They get famous and they forget they owe things to the press that helped them get famous.”

A third reporter said, “If the man is sick, he’s sick. I don’t see why we need to turn this into some kind of conspiracy.” At that point he, and another two of the disappointed reporters, turned and left.

The lucky reporter who was to be the seventh and last interviewer said to the remaining two disappointed reporters, including the reporter from the Advocate, “Each of you give me a question you wanted to ask, and I’ll see if I can get to them after mine are done.” The two reporters each handed over their most important question, and the Advocate reporter said, “Don’t ask mine until last, because they’ll cut you short if you do.”

Meanwhile, back in the interview room, the sixth interviewer was expressing skeptical concern about John’s health. 

“We’re told you’re too ill to finish?” He asked.

John stared at the man with icy eyes. The man was taken aback by this. It was one thing to come up with confrontational questions while waiting outside in the hallway. It was another thing entirely to be faced with another human being who was taking offense at what you’d said. John finally said, “I didn’t want to come at all. I’ve lasted as long as I can.” These words, at least, were true.

“I hope it is nothing serious?” The reporter asked, quickly trying to show a sympathetic face. 

“I doubt if I’ll die, if that’s what you mean,” John said, chuckling a little to reduce the tension in the air.

“If you feel at any moment like you might die, please let us know and we’ll call an ambulance,” Paul quipped to John. “We wouldn’t want you dead on our hands, would we?” Paul had turned to the reporter as he asked the impertinent question. 

The reporter chuckled uneasily. He had succeeded in pissing them both off, and he hadn’t asked any of his prepared questions yet. “I’m very sorry you’re feeling ill,” he said sincerely. And then he moved on to the stock questions about the album and tour. Soon he was being escorted out, feeling like an abject failure. No Pulitzer Prizes for him!

Number Seven strolled in to the room. He was going to play it cool until the end. He had read the Advocate’s question, and was actually glad he had offered to ask it. He could blame the Advocate reporter for it if it pissed off John and Paul. 

Paul immediately caught the cagey gleam in the reporter’s eye, and he turned to John until their eyes met. He sent a very clear message to John, although no one else noticed it. Be careful - this guy’s up to something. This was the silent warning. John nodded imperceptibly. Then he turned toward the reporter with a studiedly sickly smile and a limp handshake. Paul’s greeting and handshake was far more robust.

This reporter worked for Variety, a Los Angeles-based entertainment trade magazine. More news than gossip, Variety had been the main business periodical for Hollywood show business for decades. Thus, Reporter No. Seven was a real news reporter. He wasn’t likely to be intimidated by John Lennon’s steely gaze, nor waylaid by Paul’s smooth charm. Both men had figured this out just by eyeballing him. They’d been exposed to every kind of reporter there was in the last almost 40 years, and quickly knew what they were dealing with. They were glad he was the last one of the day.

The reporter wasn’t interested in small talk. While he quickly asked John if he was okay, and received a shrug expressing ‘just barely’, the reporter dove right into his own questions. He needed to try to squeeze in the Advocate’s question.

“John, you will be sixty in a few months. Do you envision continuing in this business much longer?” The reporter’s face was neutral, and reflected little warmth and no good will. “And Paul - you’re not far behind.”

Paul laughed and said, “When we were your age we distrusted old people too.” 

John was looking at the reporter with an odd expression on his face. He finally said, “I think we’ll keep writing songs as long as we enjoy doing it. If it stops being successful, then we may just write songs for fun. For us, music isn’t hard labor or anything. It’s a pleasure.”

Paul added, “And what would we do if we didn’t do this? Sit around and watch television and count our awards? After a month of doing that, I think I at least would die of boredom.”

“Your world tour is very ambitious, though. It stretches out for almost a year.”

“It may take longer than that,” Paul said matter-of-factly. “We’re taking it a few dates at a time, with breaks in between. We’re still working out the details for some of the gigs.”

John wrapped his arms around his stomach as though he was feeling bad. He kept his head down. Paul had looked over to John with concern on his face, and then turned back to the reporter, who noticed all this and thought for the first time, I think the man really is sick. But he told himself not to go soft on them. His job was to dig for an interesting news bite.

“Will you be able to keep up that pace? Your press packet says your shows will last almost three hours.” The reporter was not giving up his assumption that John and Paul’s advanced ages would make it impossible for them to do a professional job. 

This attitude irritated Paul, but he smiled warmly instead of showing it. “We’ll soon find out, won’t we, John?” He poked John with his elbow, and John’s head flew up from their place in the palms of his hands.

“Yeah. What he said.” John had decided to get rid of this guy as soon as possible. He was trouble. So he had to step up his ‘sick’ act. He managed to look quite miserable.

The reporter felt his time melting away, and so he said, “One of the reporters whose turn was cancelled asked me to ask a question for him. He works for the Advocate, which is a gay men’s magazine. He wants you to respond directly to the widespread rumors that the two of you are actually living together as lovers.”

Paul was surprised by this gambit, but then berated himself for not anticipating it. He schooled his face not to change expression and said, “I believe we stated that we would not be discussing personal issues here today.” His voice was polite, but firm.

“You can’t expect people not to ask the question, though. It is like the elephant in the room!” The reporter protested.

“So you asked the question. Move on.” This was John, looking up from his hands and leveling a beady-eye on the reporter.

“I didn’t get an answer,” the reporter said. “It’s a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

Paul was worried that John would say something indiscreet at this provocation, so he jumped in and said, “For us it isn’t ‘simple.’ If we answer these intrusive questions about our personal lives, where does it end? We’ve lived our entire adult lives in the spotlight. We each want to have corners in our lives that are just for us. We have often regretted saying too much about our private lives in interviews in the past. We just decided we aren’t going to give in to that pressure where we’re made to feel as though we’re liars or worse just because we want some measure of privacy for ourselves.” Paul’s voice was not hostile; it was an attempt to reason with the reporter so he could see their side of it. 

John had lost patience. He had felt the rage building up in him as Paul’s plea was being delivered. How dare these reporters behave as though they were entitled to know their private business! He suddenly jumped in as Paul was just ending his comment and said, “You reporters are all the same. If a celebrity wants privacy, you call him ‘secretive’, as though there is some horrible dark secret he is hiding. We don’t owe you information! We’re here to sell our album and our tour. You’re here to sell magazines. This is a commercial transaction. We’re not sitting here asking you about your private life, and you have no business sitting there, asking us! Our personal lives are not for sale!” John’s voice was vibrating with passion. 

The reporter knew he was going to be escorted out any minute now, but felt he had one more point to make before leaving. “People will think because you won’t answer the question ‘no’, that it means that the answer is ‘yes.’ And even if it is ‘yes’, what’s the big deal? Don’t you see how that information sheds light on your creative partnership, and the songs that you write?”

John was fit to be tied. He was vibrating with anger. Paul reached over and grabbed John’s wrist, squeezing it tightly. This served to remind John that he was supposed to be sick. He slunk back in his chair and put his hand over his forehead.

“I really don’t think we have anything more to say,” Paul said quietly to the reporter. “John isn’t feeling well, and we need to end this now.” 

As if on cue, the lighting lead cut the lights, and the cameraman stopped filming. Paul immediately began removing the little microphone from his lapel, and the soundman assisted John in removing his. The reporter felt awkward, but he also felt proud of himself. He’d asked the question - about the elephant in the room - and although he never got a straight answer, the quick wrist squeeze Paul had given John to calm him down had told it’s own story. No, it wasn’t evidence in the strictest sense of the word, but for the person who witnessed it, it appeared to be a very husbandly thing to do. The reporter couldn’t really blame them for not wanting to talk about it publicly. What would happen to their legacy if they ever acknowledged it? Most of their fans were older, and probably more conservative about such matters. In a way, they had shown a lot of courage to sit there and not lie. It could have been so easy to say ‘no’ and move on. But they didn’t. They’d always been brutally honest about themselves in the almost four decades of their fame, and the reporter had a fugitive admiration for their choice: so much more honest to say, mind your own business, than to lie - which would have gotten most of the monkeys off their backs.

As the door closed behind the reporter, and when all the crew had left the room, John fell back in his chair and groaned, “Oh my fucking god that was every bit as horrible as I thought it would be!” It came out without stopping or punctuation, almost like the first verse of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. 

Henry said, “It wasn’t bad at all. You had a good number of strong interviews there for your album and tour. And you stood up to that last guy really well.”

John was not in a forgiving mood. “Yeah, which we wouldn’t have had to do, if you hadn’t put the Advocate on the interview list!”

Henry felt the rebuke, but responded honestly. “If we’d eliminated him from the draw, he would have written that we’d deliberately excluded him and suggested that it was because you knew he’d be asking about your relationship. At least this way you have plausible deniability.”

Paul said, “That’s a charitable interpretation of what just happened,” but then he sighed and got up. “Come on John, let’s get you home. You’re ill, remember? We have to play the game until the bitter end.”

John did get up, but he was heard to mutter, “My life is not a fucking game!”

 

*****

 

Two Weeks Later  
Fiona’s Office

 

“I was really shook up by those interviews we did,” John told Fiona. 

“Why is that?”

“I was terrified they were going to confront me about my relationship with Paul, and one of them did.” John looked seriously bummed.

Fiona cocked her head to the side. The devil’s advocate role was her burden in life. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard you say that you wanted to be open about your relationship with Paul. You used to be very upset that Linda was getting all the attention as Paul’s spouse. What’s changed?”

John looked irked that Fiona had remembered his comments from years ago, and was equally irked that she had reminded him of them. He said with a pout in his voice, “That was before it was possible for it to happen. Linda was like the dam that kept the water back. We had to keep it secret so she wouldn’t be hurt. It never occurred to me that I was actually grateful that she was there as an obstacle.”

Fiona considered what John had said. “In truth, what was bothering you was that you couldn’t be the one and only in Paul’s life. It wasn’t the public acknowledgement of it, so much as the private reality of it.” 

John looked at Fiona directly for several moments and then said, “That’s a good way to put it. When it comes down to it, I wanted Paul to myself, and the only reason I wanted everyone to know was that I thought this would make it so. But now that it really is so, I don’t need that fantasy of exposure anymore. It’s really weird.”

“How does Paul feel about the idea of coming out?” Fiona asked.

“Don’t use those words ‘coming out.’ It makes it sound like we’re gay, and we’ve been living in the closet all these years.”

Fiona was silent. She waited while John’s words could echo in his head for a while. Finally she said, “Well, maybe you’re bisexual, but your relationship with Paul has been in the closet for some time, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” John argued. “When I met Paul I was attracted to his being - his aura, his beauty, his body language, his talent, his intellect, his sense of humor - it was the package that attracted me. I didn’t see his private bits at first; I saw this beautiful human package. It wasn’t male or female to me. And that is how it has been for me ever since - I’m attracted to a human package, and then after I’ve been attracted to their gestalt I notice their private bits. Like, ‘oh! He’s got a cock!’ Or, ‘she’s got a pussy!’ It’s kind of a surprise to me. I don’t particularly care what parts they have. So it is more complicated than you make it sound.”

“Sounds like a perfect definition of ‘bisexual’ to me,” Fiona said, defending herself. 

John paused and said, “Yeah, well, Paul is different. He was meant to be straight.”

“We’ve talked about this before. I feel as though I should challenge you on that. Would a straight man fall in love with someone of the same sex and maintain a decades’ long sexual relationship with him?” Fiona was honestly curious about John’s response.

“Well, I don’t know the answer to that as a general matter, but I can assure you that Paul did exactly that. He’s not attracted to men; he is attracted to women. It took me years of scheming to get him to see me as a sexual object, and then I suspected he was just humoring me because he didn’t want to lose my partnership, and thus the band. The band was fucking everything to him back then.”

“But when you walked back into his life later? He was happily married with children. Why do you suppose he succumbed to your seduction then?” Fiona knew she was pushing John, but it was time he understood that he wasn’t alone in his bisexual yearnings. When it finally dawned on him that Paul, too, obviously had at least some bisexual yearnings, it would no doubt help John to cement his sense of security in the relationship. 

John shook his head. “I know he loves me. But I’m an anomaly to him. For him, it’s like there are men, women and John Lennon. I’m like a third sex to him in some way. I guess ‘cuz I got ahold of him when he was so young.”

“But weren’t you afraid he was having an affair with another man? What was his name?” Fiona fumbled with her notebook.

“Rob.” John said the word as if he were saying “hell on earth.”

“Yes - Rob. Would he have been attracted to this other man if he wasn’t also bisexual?”

John again shook his head. “He told me about that. He was feeling terribly hurt by the crap I was putting him through. I was going through a kind of nervous breakdown after the cancer, and I was horrible to him, and then I ignored him, and then I disappeared for several weeks. I even had that horrible sexual encounter with another man while I was away from him. Rob was literally stalking him, seducing him. And the thing was, Paul could never cheat on Linda with a woman. He just would never go there, period, because he had promised her. So Rob seemed like a possibility to him.”

Fiona listened politely and then asked, “Why is it so important for you to think of Paul as straight as opposed to bisexual?”

John was left speechless. He hadn’t expected the session to take this weird turn into an area he had never examined before. 

“I don’t think it is ‘important’, Fiona,” John said slowly, with some irritation. “I just believe it to be true.” John stopped for a moment, and then his face lit up with amusement. “Or, maybe it is important for me to think he is utterly straight because he found it so easy to resist my charms for so long.”

Fiona chuckled along with John, but felt that John had again escaped from facing an interesting insight through his sense of humor.

 

*****

 

Later That Night

 

They were in bed, they had fooled around, and now they were lying quietly beside each other. John’s head was nestled on Paul’s chest, and Paul’s arm was wrapped around John’s shoulder. 

“Paul?” John asked in a subdued voice.

“Hmm?” Paul was half asleep.

“Do you think you are straight, or bisexual?”

That got Paul’s attention. His eyes flew open. “What?” He asked.

“You heard me. It came up in my session today.”

“Whether I’m straight or bi came out in your session today?” Paul couldn’t quite imagine how this topic could possibly have come up in John’s session.

“Fiona seems to think I have some need to think of you as straight.”

“Well, John,” Paul said after a very long moment of silence during which he had been carefully selecting his words, “you do know that I have sex with you, don’t you?”

John snickered. “Of course.”

“And that I thoroughly enjoy it?” 

“Glad to hear that,” John responded.

“Doesn’t sound very straight to me,” Paul pointed out. He waited a few seconds and then added, “Just sayin’.”

 

*****


	143. Chapter 143

“JOHN ‘N PAUL DON’T DENY   
GAY RUMORS!”  
Tabloid Headline  
Early September 2000

 

The shouted headline was a source of aggravation for Henry, as well, no doubt, as for his clients - John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Since when was it news when someone doesn’t deny or admit something? Henry growled to himself. He amused himself with thinking of similar headlines: “The U.S. Doesn’t Deny that it is Not At War!” “The Queen Doesn’t Deny that she is Not a Courtesan!” Of course, said a tiny voice in Henry’s head, in John and Paul’s case, maybe the rumors were true? After all, they lived in the same house, or at least they seemed to do so, even though John had a perfectly lovely house on the other side of the mews. Henry had never asked about it outright, and had been reluctant in his first weeks on the job to inquire too closely of staff that had worked with the two men longer. Their loyalties would obviously lie with John and Paul, and no doubt they would tell them that the new press agent was asking nosy questions. So, Henry publicly assumed that the rumors were deniable. Privately, he had serious doubts that the rumors were untrue. Right now, however, he was more worried that his new clients were blaming him for the hubbub that had bubbled up after Variety and The Advocate had published stories about John and Paul’s refusal to answer direct questions about whether their relationship was sexual. The tabloids in America and in England had grabbed ahold of the more nuanced Variety and Advocate articles and had come up with some very provocative headlines. Their stories, however, remained devoid of any real facts. 

It wasn’t all bad news from a press agent’s point of view: both of the serious magazine articles also mentioned the new album and it’s success, and the new tour and it’s success, and as the saying goes - there is no such thing as bad publicity. Within minutes of each tour concert being announced, the tickets would sell out. But still, Henry was smarting from the displeasure his clients had shown when he failed to eliminate The Advocate from the press pool vote. Paul had not mentioned it again, but Henry had noted a bit of side-eye from John on a number of occasions; a certain malicious resentment and distrust seemed to simmer in his eyes on such occasions.

Henry had talked to others who had worked closely with Lennon and McCartney before coming to work for them. He had wanted the job, and campaigned for it, but he had been made fully aware of the downside of working for the world’s most famous and successful musicians. Previous press agents and other former employees had pointed out that the two of them were absolutely indivisible - a two-headed monster - and even if they disagreed between themselves, if anyone else tried to take a side they’d both turn on the outsider and ruthlessly put him down. Then they’d go back to their own disagreement again, as if the interruption had not occurred. He had also heard that Lennon was ‘iffy.’ This had turned out to be absolutely true. John could be warm and friendly the one day, and cold and hostile the next. He was an untrusting person who sometimes behaved as though he did trust, only to show in the next moment how little he actually did. McCartney, although far less moody and unpredictable, was in some ways even scarier. There was nothing a press agent could know that McCartney didn’t already know. He had lived in front of the press for 38 years, and he knew all the tricks, pitfalls, and manipulations reporters came equipped with, and saw their machinations coming a mile away. Henry was also now wondering why he didn’t ask these former employees about the nature of his new bosses-to-be relationship. But honestly, it hadn’t occurred to him at the time that the rumors could even remotely be true. Now, of course, his inner voice was telling him he had a public relations time bomb on his hands, and he hadn’t thought to ask any of his predecessors about it. This was a huge ‘elephant in the room,’ to quote the fucking reporter who had started all this controversy.

Henry’s ruminations had suddenly come to a halt when the phone rang. It was a contact from the New York Times.

“What can you tell me about the Lennon/McCartney relationship?” He asked bluntly. He was a real reporter and didn’t mess around.

“You know I don’t answer questions about their personal lives, and neither do they,” Henry said, his voice sounding almost weary. He’d received calls like these for days, several times a day. He had supplied the same answer every time.

“They didn’t deny the rumors, though. If they’re not true, why don’t they deny them?” The reporter persisted.

“Why should people have to deny things like that?” Henry asked back, more spirit in his voice. “Just because people make up rumors, doesn’t mean that the subjects of those rumors have to confirm or deny them.” 

The reporter on the other end of the line sighed. “I feel stupid having to follow this kind of thing up,” he admitted. “But it’s my job. Apparently, according to my editor, being the first paper to break the news officially about them is the latest competition between the major news outlets.”

Henry noted that the reporter assumed that the rumors were true. He remained silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the reporter’s comment. 

As the seconds ticked by, the reporter seemed to have accepted the fact that he was not going to get that story. Instead, he said a little wistfully, “What I really want to be is a war correspondent. This celebrity shit pisses me off.”

 

*****

 

Cavendish  
Mid September 2000

 

Packing for the tour had been a chore John had put off for as long as feasibly possible. But today he had finally buckled down, and had started writing out a list for himself, and also one for Paul. Paul was hopeless about packing. Linda had always done that stuff for him except for the few times John had done it. Back in the early Beatle tour days, Paul had often shown up with several pairs of socks, but no underwear. Brian had ultimately given Paul a checklist to pack by, and after that at least Paul always had brought the essential minimum. Before leaving for the ’66 European and Asian tour, Brian had asked John privately to check Paul’s suitcases. By that point, although the subject was never mentioned directly, Brian knew about the John/Paul ménage, and neither John nor Paul attempted to fool him about it any longer. It was just the secret assumed truth that lay unspoken between the three of them. And, since Linda's death, John had just picked up fulltime where Linda had left off when it came to Paul’s suitcases.

Paul was at the office and had been for most of the day. John presumed it was for his bimonthly marathon meeting with the accountants to go over all the finances and sign all the checks. Afterwards, Paul was in the habit of bringing home a stack of checks for John to sign, and then would chase John all over the house to get them signed. John was thoroughly tired of it, not having the slightest interest in bills, checks, or anything else to do with finance. He had complained bitterly about it, asking Paul why he couldn’t do it himself? Paul had always said, with a long-suffering voice, “We’re not actually the same person, John. I’m Paul - a whole other person entirely.”

But despite John’s assumptions about Paul’s activities that day, in reality Paul was working on the project he’d envisioned some time ago as a way to reduce the amount of stress and paperwork he had to do. He was working on a plan to merge his finances with John’s. It was very complicated. His reasons for doing so had a lot to do with not wanting to stress over two large financial portfolios. All sorts of conflicts arose between the two. Paul had the much greater portfolio, because John had given up so much to win his freedom from Yoko. Although in the years since the divorce Paul and his business partner John Eastman had greatly increased the value of John’s portfolio, still, Paul’s portfolio could tolerate much more risk than John’s. So often Paul and John Eastman were put in an awkward and stressful position: here is a hot potential investment. It has a huge upside, but also a huge downside. Paul could feel free to invest his own money in such a scheme, because his portfolio could take the hit if it did not work out; but John’s portfolio? Not so much. So, if Paul put his own money into the investment and it hit the jackpot, someone (the proverbial ‘reasonable man’) could ask why he didn’t share that information and wealth with John? And, if Paul had put John’s money into the investment along with his own, and the investment bombed, someone could ask, why did he put John’s money into it when Paul had to know that John’s portfolio was less able to sustain a loss that size? These were the insurmountable conflicts of interest that Paul and John Eastman were faced with regularly, and try as they might, they could never get John to help them out. “Do what you think is best,” is all he would say, assuming John would entertain their urgent questions at all. John meant for this response to set their worries at rest. Instead, such responses only reinforced the feeling in both Paul and John Eastman - who were both hyper-responsible men - that John was relying on them entirely, and that they had to do ‘the right thing.’ But what was that? They both were totally aware of the fact that if they guessed wrong, it could all go to hell in a hand basket, and they both had scars left over from the last time John got pissed off at Paul over business matters!

Paul was done with all that, and had asked his financial advisors to come up with a plan to merge his finances with John’s, assuming this was something John would want to do. Of course, John would have been an idiot not to agree to it, because he had far more to gain monetarily than Paul under the proposed new structure; but what Paul wanted out of it was peace of mind, and that was far more valuable to him than a bit of money.

 

That night, Paul decided to broach the subject with John. The plans were at the stage when all the constituents had green-lighted it: the tax experts, the wills and estates experts, the lawyers, the escrow officers...there had been a legion of experts put to work on it. Now it was time for action: either put it into motion or drop the whole idea. So what Paul needed now was John’s yea or nay. He had selected the tail end of dinnertime as the ideal moment. So, as he nursed the last of his cabernet, he brought the subject up.

“John, I’ve got an idea about our finances...”

“That’s great,” John drawled, “keep those ideas coming. Ka-ching, ka-ching.”

“Very funny. I want to talk to you about it.” Paul had expected attempts to thwart the discussion, so he didn’t let John’s playful avoidance tactics derail him.

“Why? I never know what the fuck you’re talking about,” John said reasonably.

“We’ve been through this before - it’s only because you’re bored by the subject.” Paul hadn’t meant to go back to this hobbyhorse argument, but John had successfully prodded him there nonetheless.

“I’m ignorant about business, Paul, just face the ugly truth,” John declared comically.

“Willfully ignorant. You’re smart enough to understand, John.” 

“If you say so,” John chirped pleasantly, and then gave Paul one of his clownish close-mouthed grins.

Paul sighed and started again. “Well this time I want to talk about a concept - big picture, not details. I think even you with your tiny brain can grasp the main points of the idea.” Paul had decided to fight fire with fire.

John chuckled, acknowledging the hit. “Okay, what’s this ‘big picture’ when it’s at home?”

“I think I’ve mentioned this to you before - I think we ought to merge our finances.” 

“Sounds great. Is that all then?” John asked flippantly.

“You need to understand what I mean by that,” Paul persevered.

John fluttered his eyelashes and responded in a mincing voice, “When you talk dirty like that to me - merging...” John emphasized the words with a great fluttering of eyelashes and a flamboyant gay flourish, “...well, it makes me weak at the knees.”

In spite of his impatience, Paul had to laugh. He decided to ignore the provocation, and proceed as though he had not been so rudely interrupted. “It’s too stressful for me maintaining our finances separately. I thought if we combined them, it would be far less stressful.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” John asked, this time with an adult attitude.

“It’s a serious thing, John. It would mean that we would both own everything equally.”

“You mean we don’t already?” John asked, confused. He had always thought they earned everything 50/50. 

“You have your money, and I have mine. How could you possibly not know that?” Paul was, in truth, a bit stupefied by the depth of John’s willful ignorance.

“I guess I knew that,” John said, looking confused, “but I didn’t see why that didn’t mean we owned everything 50/50.” 

Paul sighed. “Actually, what you’re confusing, I think, is the fact that we own our partnerships as 50% each partners, which means our present incomes from these partnerships is equal.”

“Yeah...so?” John tended to get a bit snippy when he thought someone was patronizing him.

“But income is different than assets, John. Income is the money you earn, assets are what you invested your income in, and which then can accrue a greater value over time and throw off new income streams.”

“You lost me. I hate when you talk about this shit.” John was looking frustrated.

“When the Beatles broke up,” Paul began, after tamping down an urge to go for John’s throat, “I hired different money managers than you did.”

“Yeah, I remember that. It was in all the papers,” John sneered.

Paul ignored this. “You went with someone who was greedy for himself and also incompetent. I hired the Eastmans.”

“Here we go...” John grumbled.

“You asked the question, and I’m answering it,” Paul said firmly. “I managed my money better in the ‘70s than you did, because I had better money managers.”

“I don’t know why you’re rubbing my nose in this now,” John complained.

“Because I’m trying to explain and you’re being bloody minded about it - will you let me finish a whole thought before you cut me off?” 

John noticed that Paul was beginning to get hot under the collar. He decided he should just shut up and let Paul shoot his wad. “Okay, so I was a jerk about the management, but you had the last laugh. We all know that story by heart.”

“My point wasn’t to have a last laugh, it was to explain why I have more assets than you. I invested my money more wisely, and had honest people handing my finances for me. Also, I made all that money in Wings, too.”

“Okay, yeah, and I was in the Dakota sitting on my ass.” John was starting to get pissed.

“John - please - listen. Yoko didn’t do badly for you when she took over the finances. She actually handled them very well and recouped most of your losses. But then she took the lion’s share of the assets with your divorce, remember?”

“She was a greedy pig...” John grumbled.

“You got the best asset, though - your song rights. Those were by far the best assets you had, and over the long run have increased your wealth substantially,” Paul pointed out.

“So, okay, and?”

“So, because of those historical factors, I have more money than you do, even though now we are making 50/50 from our partnerships,” Paul said, his patience frayed and at an end.

“So you have more money than me. Got it.” John looked pissed.

Where did I go wrong? Paul wondered. He hadn’t meant to go into this much detail. John would try the patience of a saint. He smiled to ease the tension. “I’m only saying I want us each to put our assets - excepting the trusts for our families and charities of course - in one basket, and then we can each own an equal amount of those assets.”

John was thoroughly confused, but he was also bored and wanted the conversation over. It was raking up all sorts of bad memories. And, more to the point, he totally trusted Paul to do the right thing by him. In truth, that was why John had never bothered to learn anything about finance and business. It was boring and required deep thinking, and he knew Paul would do a better job of that sort of thing than he would; he knew he could rely on Paul to handle everything well, so it wouldn’t matter if he understood it or not. “Paul, just do what you’re going to do. If it is easier for you, then by all means do it. I trust you not to screw me.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he made a comical face and said, “Let me rephrase that...”

Paul was already laughing. “I will go ahead then, but I want you to go alone to consult with an independent lawyer and financial advisor before we sign anything.”

John groaned. “Can’t I just go in and have my thumbs hammered for an hour instead?” 

 

*****

 

A Few Days Later  
Early September 2000

 

The tour was kicking off in Paris. The European tour encompassed 11 concerts in 9 cities, to be followed by a tour of the British Isles - 7 concerts in 6 cities. After this they were scheduled to perform a concert in Red Square - the first western performers to be invited to do so. These 19 concerts would take up the remainder of the year 2000, leaving the last half of December free for the holidays. January and February were going to be spent, for the most part, hiding away in Costa Rica. Australia was next, with 3 concerts in March, bleeding into South America again for a number of dates in Brazil, Peru and Argentina that would get them through April. A few Asian dates would follow in May, and then the month of June would be a rest time before starting the American leg of the tour in New York City in early July in Central Park. The American tour would cover all of July and August, and would conclude in the beginning of September 2001: a full year of touring, but with lots of time off in between. It wouldn’t be a Beatles-style Epstein-driven Death March, which was something even Paul wanted to avoid, who had repeated the death marches during his Wings career and never wanted to do that again. 

Paris was, of course, John’s absolute favorite city, and it held a lot of intense memories for John - almost all of them having to do with Paul. When he was in Paris, he always felt nearer to the young John and Paul - when they first became lovers, however imperfectly and awkwardly. It was a memory that had a strong hold on him, and often he felt a grab in his throat when he was dwelling on those early memorized scenes of a finally realized physical connection with Paul. Over four years he had waited! 

Paul also thought of Paris as his and John’s city. For that reason he had made sure never to make the city his and Linda’s. Thankfully, Linda was more of a country-lover, so she never knew Paul’s thoughts on the subject of Paris. For Paul, though, the romance of Paris had more to do with later memories - the secret few-day getaways to a certain pensione during the madness of the Beatle years. Fleeting memories of pot and sex, and sex and pot, and knowing that no one in the fucking world knew where he and John were. 

For this trip, they decided to stay in the Hotel George V, just as they had done in early 1964 when they had learned that the Beatles had their first number one in America: I Want to Hold Your Hand. The suite was utterly luxurious of course, and it brought back memories of their first stay there. 

“Do you remember those pink marble bathrooms with gold fixtures?” John asked. “I see they’ve changed that out.”

“I’d never seen anything like it,” Paul recalled. “It looked like one of those opulent Hollywood sets. And the little box in the wall that you could put your shoes in to get shined?”

“Yeah, and the man could come and unlock the box in the hallway to get them, and then put them back in. That was very surprising,” John agreed. “It seemed like the heights of class to me at the time. I felt unworthy of it.” 

Paul laughed. “Yeah. I felt like the below-stairs scullery boy who had snuck into the master’s suite while he was away. At any moment someone might come in and yell at me to disappear.” 

A pleasant silence followed this memory, and then another more stirring memory came unbidden to John. “And then there was when Brian came in to the room and there were two beds...”

“And only one slept in. Yeah.” Paul chuckled a bit at how much they had worried about it at the time.

“Do you think he noticed it?” John asked.

“He thought something fishy was going on, but he wasn’t sure what it was. But he no doubt later put two and two together and got...”

“...Lovers,” John finished.

“He was never quite sure, though,” Paul mused.

“We were cruel. We teased him with it,” John pointed out.

Paul chuckled. “He was perfect for us. We were sadists, and he was a masochist.” This earned a huge laugh from John.

“Well,” John said, shifting his attention back to the present, “this suite they gave us has two separate massive bedrooms. Which one do you want to try out tonight? The silver one or the gold one?” 

“I’m feeling the gold,” Paul said judiciously, but with a twinkle in his eye. It was the kind of twinkle that always promised - to John Lennon at least - wishes were soon to become true. “But we’ll have to go in and mess up the other bed first, to throw off the maid staff in the morning,” he pointed out.

“That ought to be fun,” John commented. “No time like the present.” So, together they went to the silver bedroom, and put their creative minds together to put the bed’s linens in an appropriate state of disarray, as if a single man had spent the night in it. When pleased with the results, they decamped to the gold room, where Paul disappeared into the bathroom. 

Alone in the bedroom, John stripped off his clothes, ensconced himself in a fluffy hotel bathrobe, and then poked through their suitcases to make some decisions about the next day’s clothing. He then went out on to the little ornate balcony off the bedroom, and stared across the darkened Paris skyline. Gorgeous. Unbeatable. Say what you will about the French (and there was plenty to say), they had created a culture of refinement, taste and discernment in architecture, clothing, food, drink and the arts. It was a culture jam-packed with the most elegant class the world had to offer. Too bad so many of the French were so full of themselves, and looked down on others. Still, John thought, the culture was worth bragging about. It wasn’t as if they were bigheaded over nothing. Lost in his musings, John didn’t hear Paul’s quiet approach.

“It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?” Paul’s voice was soft, low, and held a slight throb of emotion in it. He had wrapped his arm around John’s shoulders and was leaning against him. John felt the never-dying thrill of being physically connected to Paul. It never went away, and it never lessened. It was like an intense electrical wave going through him. 

John turned sideways to look into Paul’s eyes. He really didn’t have any words to say. Words were not important. John just turned to head back into the bedroom, and, clutching Paul’s wrist, pulled him gently behind him. Paul pushed the balcony door closed, and realized, as John pulled him towards the bed, that tonight he would be the follower, not the leader. This was fine with him.

Through silent body language, John indicated that Paul should lie down on the bed. Paul, reading this body language perfectly, did just that. He held his arms out to encourage John to join him there, and within seconds John had done so. John luxuriated in the feel of his naked legs touching Paul’s naked legs, and also his chest skimming Paul’s chest. He also loved it when Paul’s face melted into a soft and yielding mien. Although John loved forceful, strong, determined Paul, he also cherished the angel-faced boy who lived up to his face. And in this moment, John was gazing down on liquid brown eyes fringed with long eyelashes, and a full almost pouty mouth. It was a sight that caused a ripple of excitement in his belly. He coached himself not to crush this flower. Slowly, he leaned down to steal a kiss. 

But Paul was no innocent blushing bride. The kiss soon deepened into something far more passionate and worldly. At moments like these both men felt they could even possibly devour each other and finally become one person, if they only plunged their tongues into each other’s mouths deeply enough. While their tongues warred, John was using his right knee to separate Paul’s legs. Paul felt the motion and it thrilled him. He clasped John’s right leg with both of his own, and John groaned and had to pull away from Paul’s mouth for long enough to still them both so he would not come too soon.

Paul was frustrated by the delay, even though he knew what it was about. There was a familiar jungle beat going on inside of his loins, and he was having a hard time controlling it. 

John instinctively understood Paul’s problem, and began soothing movements to calm him down. He sprinkled light kisses all over Paul’s face, and whispered low, loving words in a sensual tone directly into Paul’s ear, and these tactics indeed caused the near-boil to return to a steady simmer. Now Paul was focusing on John’s light kisses, touches and low sexy words. It was privately fulfilling for Paul to allow himself to let go - to let someone else take the lead and call the shots. This was something he could not freely allow himself to do in another situation - not in business, not in the recording studio, not on the stage, and not in any of his other personal activities. Only in bed with John on those occasions when John took the lead, could Paul allow himself to be dominated in this way.

Paul’s hands began to do their magic. They were free, while John’s were occupied. He let those hands roam down John’s back, and all the way down to his bum, where Paul could grasp a cheek in each hand and squeeze. This did create a reaction in John: a rather immediate one. He bucked up, pushing his hands down into the mattress until he was hovering a bit over Paul, and he glared down into Paul’s face with an almost demonically sexual expression. This made Paul smile. He loved it when John got wicked. Now he was in for it! And didn’t he look forward to it!

So that’s how he wants it! The devil in John announced, although only John could hear it. Paul felt the challenge, however, and it thrilled him. John dug his knees down in the mattress, firmly between Paul’s two legs, and then roughly lifted Paul’s legs up in one strong movement. Once Paul’s legs were up, Paul bent them at the knees. He could feel John’s pubic hair rubbing up against his anus. This was exciting. John, meanwhile, had grabbed the lube from the bedside table and then held Paul’s wrist while he pushed out a healthy amount of the unction into Paul’s hand. 

“Prepare me,” John growled at Paul, who obediently rubbed his hands together to spread the lube and warm it up, and then, as John muttered impatiently, he began to cover John’s cock in the jelly while overtly pumping to increase the erection. John moaned with pleasure, but then impatiently snatched Paul’s hand away when he was ready to fuck Paul up his ass. This was what he was thinking: I’m gonna fuck that man up his ass, and I am going to show him once again that he is my property. John’s territorial drives always came to the forefront just as he was plunging his penis into Paul’s rectum. He liked to imagine Paul, utterly vanquished, finally giving up his sovereignty to him while mewing like a kitten. John’s limbic brain was entirely satisfied by that image, and in those few moments of conquest John felt utterly in charge.

Paul felt the tip of John’s cock rubbing against him, and then John’s finger opening his passage. Paul groaned in a kind of mixture of pain and pleasure as this happened, and the pain and the pleasure intensified ever more with each push and stroke. When not in the throes of sex, but sometimes afterward, Paul thought it was odd that he kind find sexual satisfaction in pain, but he supposed women must have felt much the same way when he fucked them. But these were thoughts that would occur to him randomly when he hadn’t lost control of his libido. In this particular moment, his libido was in complete control. 

John had found a warm, tight place, and he sensed that Paul had relaxed and was starting to enjoy the sensations, so he began the age-old rhythmic rut, and his toes curled and his eyes seemed to move up into his head as he abandoned himself to his urges. He could hear Paul’s huffs and moans along with his own - in fact, they were actually harmonizing even as they fucked - and this only assured John that his partner was enjoying being ridden, just as he was enjoying the ride. It was only a moment later when John felt the tension building to that magical place - that place where you teetered for a moment praying you’d fall over the age into the orgasm, rather than drop back the other side, to be frustrated. This time, as always happened for John when he was fucking Paul, he went straight over that edge and down into a throbbing, aching, pulsating, tingling orgasm, and somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear Paul’s half-smothered cries. In that moment of perfect connection they might suspend themselves in that throbbing place for a few seconds before letting it all go. 

John pulled out just in time to spend his jism into a waiting towel. Then he collapsed back down on to Paul’s chest, their individual sweat combining and becoming one as each of their racing hearts gradually stilled.

Paul had felt the orgasm coming and had just thrown himself into it. He always felt like he was falling into a vortex of sensation, and along with it came flashes of darkness and light in confusing patterns. It was freeing and frightening at the same time to lose oneself so thoroughly in the arms and heart of another human being.

Several moments went by before either of them spoke. John first had to find the energy to pull himself off Paul, and he finally flopped backwards on to his back and then heaved a giant sigh. The cool air immediately began to evaporate his sweat, but he missed the warmth and wetness of Paul’s skin. Without thinking, he reached his hand out to find Paul’s hand, and then he grasped it until both of their knuckles went white. Paul squeezed back. It was their way of saying it to each other without actually having to say anything quite so corny to each other in real time: you’re my everything.


	144. Chapter 144

Paris, France  
The Next Morning

 

The morning sun was shining through the gauze curtains, and Paul, who had awakened a few moments earlier, was gazing at the windows in a state of relaxation. Next to him John was cuddled up, breathing heavily through what seemed like a pleasant dream. Paul smiled, and allowed himself to stretch his limbs a bit. A nice lie-in after a night of energetic sex in a romantic location: could it get much better than that? Most likely not. He turned to see the clock by the bed. It was almost 9 a.m., and Paul groaned, knowing that he would have to get up now, and find the hotel gym and do his workout. It seemed unfair that John could maintain his ‘girlish’ figure without working out. But then, John denied himself all kinds of food that Paul chose to eat. Stuff like pizza, and pasta... He forced himself to get up, and as he struggled out of the soft bed, John stirred. As Paul was tiptoeing to the bathroom, John’s arch voice broke the silence.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He croaked.

“The bathroom?” Paul responded, surprised by the surliness of John’s tone. 

“Ok, but come right back,” John ordered.

Paul said, “I had planned to go to the gym...”

“I have a different kind of exercise in mind,” John responded suggestively. 

Paul actually blushed a little. With all the sex lately, they were behaving like guys in their twenties’, not men in their late fifties’/early sixties’. He said, “I’ll blow up like a balloon if I don’t do my cardio.”

“Did you know how hard your heart works during sex? I think you’ll be fine,” John said flatly, propping his head up on his elbow, and patting the mattress peremptorily for emphasis.

Paul sighed theatrically, as though he was being asked to make a huge sacrifice. “Well...if you insist...’ He said, turning on his heel, and sashaying into the bathroom. 

John chuckled and lay back on the mattress, facing the ceiling. “Round Two,” he whispered.

 

*****

A Week Later  
Berlin

 

“Why don’t you give longer interviews? Twenty minutes is over before it begins,” the German journalist complained. He was sitting in a hotel room setup, with a half dozen other journalists waiting outside, going through the press squeeze with Lennon & McCartney.

Those two gentlemen were seated in matching chairs, facing the aggrieved journalist. He was a print journalist, so the cameras weren’t rolling. 

John and Paul exchanged a quick look, and silently decided who should respond. They then both faced the journalist again in a simultaneous motion. John said, “That’s how we like interviews - over before they begin!” He said it with a smile, and Paul chuckled. One could always count on John to say just the right thing at times like these.

“It is impossible to have a meaningful conversation in this short a time,” the journalist continued. “It is a waste of your time and mine too.”

John said amiably, “If you’re bored, you can leave. We’re not holding a gun to your head.”

The journalist shook his head vehemently. “No! I don’t mean it that way. My English is not very... What I mean to say is, I have questions about the songs on your new album. And I have questions about your plans for the future. But these questions require thoughtful answers.” The reporter’s frustration was writ large on his face.

“We’ll do our best to answer your questions in the time available,” Paul said gently, smiling to show the reporter that while he understood the frustration, the rules of engagement would stand. 

The reporter sighed. Wasted 5 minutes already. “Your songs seem almost... weary ... this time out,” the reporter said.

“Weary???” This was John. He had an expression of comical indignation on his face. Paul laughed, but in a confused way. 

“It is not the music that is weary,” the reporter struggled. “It is the - how do you say - ambience of the songs that seems weary. As if you were in a grey place when you wrote the songs.”

Paul’s interest was piqued. This was a new and different question. He had a sense of what the reporter meant, and he was impressed the young man had asked the question. “A grey place?” Paul asked, hoping for a better description.

“Not white, not black. Grey.” The reporter shrugged and raised his hands up in a kind of symbolic surrender. Grautone, we say in German.”

“Grey tones... do you mean like shades of grey?” Paul asked. “The nuanced shades between black and white?”

“Yes. That is how it sounds to me. Was that what you were going for?” 

John had been listening closely, his head tilted to one side. He, too, had been intrigued by the unusual line of questioning. He leaned forward and said, “I know what you mean. We seemed both to be writing in a kind of numb never-land, where we were seeing and hearing emotions, but not really feeling them.”

The reporter was enthused. He had connected with his idols despite the language barrier. “The French say ‘désengagé,” he offered. 

“Yes - I see what you mean,” Paul jumped in. “And to answer your question, I don’t try to ‘go for’ anything when I write. Whatever comes into my head is what I work on. But I think as you get older, your feelings are more...detached. You’ve been through the ringer with emotions so many times, that you can stand back a little, and see them with a little bit of distance.”

John had been listening to Paul’s comment, and was struck again about how much fun it was to talk to Paul. Maybe no one else would see it, but it was like listening to the other side of his own brain - the quiet side. John added, “What you picked up, I think, is what happens when you’re viewing the same life events through older, wearier eyes. ‘Been there, done that.’”

“So, yes, back to weary,” the reporter said, smiling triumphantly. John and Paul laughed and clapped, and the reporter blushed a little. 

“And after this tour is finished, next year, do you know what you are going to do next?” He asked.

“No!” John declared emphatically. He turned to Paul with amusement dancing in his eyes, “And you better not have any plans, boy-o!”

Paul’s eyes danced right back. “Who me?” He asked John, looking improbably innocent. He turned back to the reporter and told him, “I never have any of those.”

Now John turned to the reporter. “He just lied right there. Could you tell?” 

The reporter was entranced by his heroes and their teasing interactions, but he had no intention of taking sides. “It is best that I do not understand your language so well, I think,” the reporter said.

*****

Madrid, Late November

 

In Spain, based on endless clamoring and numerous complaints from the worldwide press, Harvey begrudgingly scheduled a press conference. The press was fed up with the spoon fed 15 minute soundbites, and wanted a crack at John and Paul. Harvey’s thinking was Madrid was a bit off the beaten path, so maybe the attendance at such a press conference would be smaller, and less aggressive. It was a vain hope.

In September 2000, before they had left on tour, Paul and Youth had released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals, they had worked on over the summer, using the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that had fascinated Paul in the mid-1960s. This was an underground release, which took the press time to trace back to Paul. This connection was discovered while John and Paul were touring, and it prompted some particularly tricky questions at their press conference in Madrid. A number of English reporters had flown there specifically to question Lennon & McCartney about Paul’s solo flight with another composer.

“Paul, what does it mean that you are collaborating with someone other than John? Is this an indication that you might be working separately in the future?” One of them asked.

Paul had expected someone to ask the question (once he’d been warned by the press agent that his involvement in that album had become known in the underground rock world). He smiled and said, “All it means is that I messed around in the studio for a few days with Martin Glover, who I admire very much. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”

John added, “I was invited but said ‘no’.”

The reporter then turned to John. “Why ‘no’? Do you not respect electronica?”

“No, no, of course I do. I enjoy listening to it. But there isn’t much I can contribute to it. It’s really not my métier.” John was a little upset, but was not showing it. He had worried that Paul’s extracurricular activities with another pop music artist would cause this kind of trouble. But he’d be damned if he was going to let the press figure that out. “I do stuff on my own, too. I write poetry. Paul does classical music. And we both do artwork on our own. Not every waking, breathing moment do we have to be working on the same projects.”

Paul was smiling placidly, but he could tell from John’s tense posture that he was going to be ‘getting it’ when they got back to the hotel. John hated when any other person - other than him - was linked to Paul. He was very possessive and territorial that way. Still, Paul felt he was entitled to his music experimentation. He enjoyed collaborating very much, and if John didn’t want to do it, then why not someone else who was equally interested in it? Of course, John was unlikely to see it that way, now that the press was making hay out of it. 

“It’s one thing to do solo projects,” one particularly annoying reporter pointed out, “but this is different. This is a collaboration with another artist!”

Gee thanks asshole, Paul was thinking. This was going to wind John up.

“It’s not a big deal,” Paul said softly, smiling a little to reduce the tension. “Martin is a friend of ours. It was just a fun diversion.”

“But aren’t you busy enough with all your other projects, Paul? Why this now?” Another reporter had gotten in to the act. 

“It is something that interests me - fascinates me even. It didn’t take an enormous amount of time. The classical composing I do takes far more time than the electronica.” Paul’s voice was patient and even, but he was hoping that the reporters would soon lose interest.

“Do you see yourself doing this more often, Paul? Working with other composers and artists? Or you, John?” A reporter asked.

John’s response was blunt and immediate: “No! It’s a one-off!” John had been silently simmering at Paul’s side as the reporters had leant in on their questioning.

Paul was a little surprised by John’s hostile tone. He had been thinking he’d want to make more recordings like these with Youth in the future. But he did not show his surprise to the ravenous pack salivating before him. He coached his face into the bland, nothing-bothers-me mien that John resented so much. 

John could see Paul’s expression out of the periphery of his eye, and thought to himself, ‘Paul’s gonna kill me for that later.’ 

“Do you agree with that Paul?”

“I have no plans to work with any other composers or artists,” he said truthfully. He might work with Youth again, but not with any other people!

The reporters finally ran out of questions about Paul’s electronica album. But then they doubled down.

“So, which one of you is going to comment on all the rumors about your personal relationship?”

John said wearily, “You know very well that we don’t comment on our personal lives. Next question.”

Three reporters jumped up. 

“But John!” The loudest one shouted. “You can’t continue to refuse to address these rumors! They’re everywhere!”

“I can, and I will,” John growled, looking seriously pissed off.

Paul knew it was time to jump in. “We came here to discuss our album and our tour. Questions related to our professional lives are welcome. But how we individually spend our private time is not up for grabs. In the past we were far too open about our private lives, and we lived to regret it.”

“How so?” One of the reporters demanded, frustrated by Paul’s softly reasoned response.

“Like speaking too much about our individual marriages, or other personal issues,” John answered flatly. “There were repercussions. And I said things in interviews in the ‘70s that really hurt people I love, like my ex-wife Cynthia, and my son Julian. I was just shooting off my mouth, and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. We just don’t see the point in making that kind of mistake again.”

“Well, you don’t have to discuss your private lives,” one reporter reasoned (irrationally), “You just have to say if the rumors are true or not true.” 

Paul laughed, but not in a nice way, and John allowed his face to fall into his hands. John said, “That would be commenting on our private lives, and we have already said we won’t do it.” He turned around with irritation, looking for his press agent. Where the fuck was he?

Harvey realized that his clients expected him to extricate them from this debacle, so he said, “Well, since you have no further questions about the tour or the album, the press conference is over now. Thanks everyone!”

John immediately stood up and peeled off his lapel mic. His body language was sharp and irritated. Paul, more casually, removed his mic and got up more slowly, looking more relaxed. He even leaned over to say a few words to a female reporter who had approached the table, answering one of her quiet questions about the tour, and then sauntered out of the room. John had already stalked out angrily.

When Paul reached the back room, John was already tearing into Henry. “I told you it was going to happen! Why did we have to do a fucking press conference any way! You told us there wouldn’t be any English reporters there!”

“I said, there might not be any English reporters there, and I said that before the news of Paul’s involvement in the Sound Collage recording was leaked,” Henry clarified.

Paul said, “Gee, thanks, Henry, for throwing me under the bus,” but his face was alight with amusement. Henry looked in that sane direction for support. Paul obliged.

“My only comment is, when you see they’re all gathering for a kill, that’s the time to get us out of there. The first question, okay, we answered it. The follow up question, okay. But when they all started jumping in, that is when you should have pulled the plug. Lesson learned for the future,” Paul added, to show no hard feelings. 

“There will be no ‘future’ when it comes to press conferences!” John declared loudly and angrily. “It’s embarrassing to sit there being called out like that. They know the rumors are true, and they know we can’t comment on them, so they are taunting us! I’ll not go through that again!” John was angry that he had been put in a position where he looked stupid, because he would not admit an obvious truth. 

Paul knew there was going to be a major argument back in the hotel room, and he could only hope John would hold out until all third parties were gone. He stood quietly in the elevator heading up to their floor (the press conference had been held in a conference room in the hotel basement), praying that John would control his temper until they were safely behind locked doors, and alone together. Henry had left them in the lobby, so the ride up the elevator was just John and Paul and a handful of people going back to their rooms. To say the ride was awkward is an understatement. All of the elevator’s occupants recognized John and Paul, of course, and those two men were pointedly not talking, staring straight ahead, trying to look cool. They were last off the elevator, since they were in the penthouse suite, and John (thankfully) waited for their room door to slam behind them before he spoke.

“That’s all on you,” he told Paul. “All of it.”

“How do you figure that?” Paul asked, stung. He’d expected John to be mad about the Sound Collage stuff, but how was the other stuff ‘on’ him? He was sincerely surprised by John’s full frontal attack.

“You had to know that damn electronica album was going to cause controversy, so why the hell did you insist on releasing it just as we were going on tour? I have to sit there and have them ask all these insinuating questions about how you basically dumped me to work with some other musician?”

Paul sighed in aggravation. “I didn’t ‘dump’ you - that’s ridiculous. You didn’t want to participate.”

“And that should have ended it for you! You should have dropped the idea!” John said, stridently. He wasn’t shouting. Yet. “You’re not doing that again,” John added forcefully, as he turned on his heel and headed for the bedroom door.

“Excuse me?” Paul responded, following right on John’s heels. Now they were in the bedroom, and John was starting to strip off his clothes. Paul was too pissed off to follow suit, so he stood there, arms akimbo on hips, glaring at John and awaiting a clarification. 

“I’m saying,” John said, exaggerating the word ‘saying’ in his aggravation, “that you won’t be moonlighting with other musicians or composers without me in the future. That’s a deal breaker for me.” 

“A deal-breaker?” Paul’s voice occasionally went up an octave when he was angry. This was one of those times. “What does that mean, John?”

“It means that I’m not giving you permission to do that again.”

“Or else what?” Paul demanded.

John paused for a long moment, pondering his impotence. “Or else you are going to seriously hurt my feelings!” He finally said, weakly.

This response was something of a letdown. Paul stopped in mid-huff and had to hold back his involuntary laughter. He paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t like being ordered about, John. You know I don’t, and it gets me going. If you really don’t want me to do something, you should tell me. We’ll worry about any differences we might have at that point. Silly to argue about it in the hypothetical, don’t you think?”

John had already backed off his pugnacious attitude once he realized he didn’t really have any comeback to Paul’s question of ‘or else what?’ He was grateful Paul had stepped away from the argument, and found a way for them both to save face. But Paul wasn’t finished yet. He asked,

“But you haven’t explained how it was my fault when they asked about our private business? Why is that my fault?”

John said, “You’re the one who wants to keep the whole thing quiet. I’ve not liked having to dodge around and not answer questions - it makes me look like a fool.”

“Well, I think you handled yourself very well,” Paul said calmly, his voice placating, “and you didn’t look like a fool at all.”

“I felt like one!” John declared stubbornly.

“John, what do you want me to do about it?” Paul asked, holding on to his patience by the hair on his chin.

By now John had removed all his clothing, and in a moment of extravagant frustration he eloquently waved his limp cock at Paul and gave him a cock-eyed grin as a response. Then he turned and headed for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. 

Paul sighed, and slowly began to undress. Why did life with John have to resemble so much a Monty Python sketch?

 

*****

 

Although the two of them ‘made it up’ in the bed that night, they both knew that this problem of not answering “the usual question” (as they had begun calling it) was not going to go away. It was only going to get worse and the reporters more insistent as time went by. John felt that he was ready to just answer the damn question honestly and be done with it. He was telling himself, with his usual magical thinking, that if they would only just answer that one question, people would then leave them alone about it.

Paul knew better. He knew it was a slippery slope. So the press pushed you into admitting the truth of the relationship. Then they’d be pushing more, not less. When did they become lovers? How did they become lovers? Why did they become lovers? And why didn’t they admit it sooner? And why did they drag their poor wives into it? And - yes, this would happen, too - who’s on top and who’s on the bottom? There would be no end to the questions, and no question would be one too far. It was a Pandora’s Box - answering that question - and he also truly believed John would implode if he were confronted with such personal, embarrassing and intrusive questions. There was no sating the appetite of the press when it came to the subject of celebrity gossip. It was a shark feeding frenzy, in fact. 

But Paul also knew that John would not think the problem through to its logical conclusion. He knew that John always wanted to do the expedient thing - the thing that would get him out of the hot spot in this moment. He wouldn’t consider the numerous other, hotter spots that would follow on if he gave in to the provocation. Yet again, Paul felt as though he was the one having to be the grown up. It was just an additional headache and burden to have John beat him up about it. 

 

*****

 

Meanwhile, Back in England...  
Early December 2000

George was lying on the sofa in his favorite receiving room at Friar Park. He was feeling very, very tired. It had been a difficult few weeks. He had come down with flu, and it seemed that he was unable to fight it off. He just kept feeling low energy and uninspired. He was getting nudges from the Traveling Wilbury members to go on tour with them, but the mere idea of a tour exhausted George. He had not had good experiences on tour since the Beatles. The mass audience did not appreciate his reverence for Indian music, nor did they seem to tolerate his one octave voice (singing always in the minor key) for long. He could have added a harmony singer to enhance his sound, but this reminded him too much of Paul - who had, by the sheer transcendence of his musical talent - often helped to transform George’s music from the atonal style to something more melodic. George preferred the atonal. Unfortunately, as he had found out the hard way, it was difficult for him to find large audiences who could listen to his more obscure work, although they always enjoyed his top ten hits, most of which came during the Beatles years. That was not satisfying for George, who wanted to put his Beatles years behind him. He had therefore experienced enough audience disappointment for one lifetime and had no desire to risk more. And, truth be told, he did not relish life on the road. He had worked his ass off during the Epstein years, and one thing he had learned about himself was that the Death March style of touring was not for him. He also obsessed about his physical safety, even more so since he had been attacked in his own home by a deranged fan. 

Olivia walked in to the room and asked if there was anything she could get for him. George asked for some hot Earl Grey tea. After this had been produced for him, and Olivia was sitting quietly beside him, George said, “I have no energy anymore. Do you think it’s coming back?”

Olivia knew what he meant. “You should make an appointment with your doctor.”

George stared bleakly at the ceiling. He finally grunted, but Olivia knew that this meant he agreed with her. A silence descended, save for the sound of the timber crackling in the fireplace.

 

*****

 

The Week Before  
Christmas, 2000

 

John and Paul had flown back to Cavendish for the Christmas holidays, hoping to spend time with their respective children. The big to-do was going to take place at Cavendish, so in the days leading up to the holiday, Mary and Stella could be seen coming in and out of the house bringing groceries, supplies and items for the dinner party. The stalking paparazzi noticed the activity, and a small group of them gathered on the sidewalk opposite to Cavendish and took pictures of the activity. In turn, a certain British tabloid ran some of the pictures and wondered out loud. 

“A Celebration in the Works?”

The story leaned on virtually no facts and some particularly grainy photos of Mary and Stella that were taken at such an obscured distance that it was barely possible to recognize them. From these meager strands the tabloid editor asked his readers if it were possible that John and Paul were planning some kind of celebration about their relationship. It was truly a pitiful effort. Stella saw the photos in a vendor’s booth, as she was walking down the Kensington High Street, and stood there shaking her head and laughing in disbelief. She then immediately phoned her sister and told her the news. “Don’t they know its fucking Christmas?” she asked her chuckling sister. 

This was only one of a number of little non-story articles that had been popping up in British and American tabloids since the tour began. The pair’s avoidance of any real exposure to journalists, followed by the free-for-all in Madrid, naturally aroused the suspicion of editors and reporters alike, who felt as though they were the center of the universe, and if someone was avoiding them then they obviously had something naughty or nefarious to hide.

Two days before Christmas, Stella found Mary in the kitchen at Cavendish, where they were scheduled to begin the Christmas baking. “Paps all over the place out there, of course, howling for blood,” she said, “Shouting all sorts of nonsense at me over the wall.”

“It is very worrying, how aggressive they’re all getting. It’s like they are in some kind of competition to be the one to break us,” Mary responded. “I’m thinking the dads have to put us all out of our misery and just admit defeat. You can’t fight the whole world.”

“Mary, I would agree with you in principal because I think they should be open about it for social reasons. But damn it, I don’t want those gasbags to win! If they’d back off and be more respectful, I think I’d be encouraging Daddy to answer the damn question and be done with it.”

Mary smiled but said nothing. That was an interesting proposition: who would break first, her father or her sister? She would take odds on her father, but she wasn’t about to tell Stella that.

 

*****

 

Christmas that year was just a lovely family event. All of the McCartney and Lennon children made it on the day itself. This was largely due to the detailed planning and patience of one Mary McCartney Donald. She had cooed, she had cajoled, she had charmed, and they all eventually agreed to eschew their significant others’ families, and to meet at Cavendish in a show of solidarity for their fathers.

Mary and her husband were hosting her sister Heather. Stella was hosting Sean and his girlfriend. At Cavendish, James was settling in, along with Julian and his girlfriend. Mary had meticulously planned it all, working with Stella and John as her point persons. She had made some other pronouncements - each person had one person to give a gift to, that she had arbitrarily assigned by pulling names out of a hat (she was giving a gift to her son, Arthur, but everyone else was a Secret Santa), and that gift had to be hand made or created - not purchased. It could be funny, but not ribald. And it could not cost, all in, more than 25 pounds. They would have to produce receipts to Mary, who was the sole arbitrar of whether they had complied with the rules. Everyone would vote on the best and most creative present, and the winner of that contest would be given a special present selected by Mary (and to which each family member other than Arthur contributed 25 pounds). No other presents were permitted. Thus, no one would be spending more than 50 pounds in gifts this Christmas. 

Of course, the Donalds celebrated their tiny family Christmas on Christmas Eve, so that they could shower their baby with attention and gifts. Everyone had been permitted to give Arthur a gift, so he had a plethora of presents under the tree. He was now 21 months old, and for the first time had an understanding of what all those presents met. He had quite the night, opening all those presents! John and Paul were there, of course, along with Stella. 

Christmas Day did dawn, and by noon all the daughters of the family were already at Cavendish. James and Julian were already hanging out in the sitting room with their fathers when Mary and Heather arrived, followed not long after by Stella. Sean and his girlfriend rolled in by 3 p.m. When they arrived, all the girls headed straight for the kitchen because the blokes were all watching the telly.

The dinner was wonderful, but the very fun part was the presents-distribution after dinner. The Secret Santa had worked out like this:

John had drawn Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte, and had made a cartoon of her with Julian, sitting at a dinner table with John on the other side, blabbing away, and them just looking at each other with big hearts in the bubbles over their heads.

Julian had drawn Stella, and had hand-made her a wrist bracelet with a leather thong and beads, with each bead having it’s own meaning. The beads Julian had chosen were for strength, integrity, artistic vision, and loyalty. 

Julian’s girlfriend Lucy had drawn Heather, and, since she had been taught this skill by her grandmother, had embroidered a linen handkerchief with small animals, with a blond woman bending over her garden - an homage to Linda.

Sean had drawn Julian’s girlfriend Lucy, and had given her a blank diary with a hand made, hand-designed book cover. 

And Sean’s girlfriend Charlotte had drawn James. She had made him a little avant-garde painting.

Paul, meanwhile, had drawn Julian, and he had composed a piece of music, which he offered to Julian to add lyrics for his next album. “A new Lennon/McCartney original,” he had joked.

Heather had drawn John, and had made him a beautiful ceramic vase in the colors of sea foam and soft orange, for his New York apartment living room. 

Mary’s husband Alistair had drawn Sean, and, as he was a video director, he had made a video out of one of Sean’s songs. Sean was extremely chuffed.

Stella had drawn her father Paul, and had hand made a beautiful but warm scarf for him to wear in the wintertime.

James had drawn Mary’s husband Alistair, and had made a sculpture - it was a modern take on what looked like a father figure, reaching out for a baby figure.

And, finally, Mary had taken a self-photo of herself with Arthur, and had mounted and framed it for her son’s nursery. In exchange, Arthur had given his mum some hugs and kisses.

The vote was taken, and everyone agreed Arthur’s gift was the best, so the prize - a brand new stereo set worth 300 pounds - was awarded to the baby, who had no clue what it was. But his mother and father had a few ideas...

In this quiet way, the year 2000 bowed out. The year 2001 was about to start, and there would be a torrent of rain to face that year. Luckily, the families Lennon and McCartney did not know this as they all dispersed for their New Year celebrations. Stella was off with some girlfriends to the Spanish Costa del Sol. James and Heather both buried themselves back in the woods of Peasmarsh. Sean and Charlotte headed back to New York to spend the New Year with Sean’s mother, and Julian headed to Spain, where he was to spend the New Year with his mother. Mary, Alistair and Arthur were promised to Alistair’s family for the New Year. 

None of this was not distressing to John and Paul, because they were spending the New Year and the whole month of January at El Nido.


	145. Chapter 145

February 2001  
El Nido

 

The month-long interlude at El Nido had been a necessary soul recharger for John and Paul. The increasingly hostile press and increasingly aggressive paparazzi had given both men a brief glimpse into the chaos that would happen when the truth of their relationship was made public. It was as if the press was a pack of sharks that had smelled blood in the water. This scenario had shaken John’s confidence, and he was glad of the restorative properties of the hideaway in the jungle.

This time away also gave John a peaceful place to review the final galleys of his latest volume of poetry. This was the “scream or die” manuscript. John had already been through his edits so many times he was beginning to worry that the poems were boring. In the few years that he and Paul had owned El Nido, they had bowed sufficiently to the outside world to install Internet and phone service. They needed ways to communicate should one of them fall sick, and to check in with family to make sure there were no emergencies. Also, since they tended to go away for a month and sometimes longer, there would be pressing business that they would have to attend to periodically. Still, they had rules between them about such usage, which both men generally followed, although Paul tended to push the rules a bit further than John would prefer. 

This morning John had emailed his approval of the final manuscript to his literary agent, and then the agent had emailed him back with a question: would he be open to doing a print interview about the new volume of poetry for a cover story for the New York Times Review of Books? John thought about it a bit, and responded, “sure.” As he did this, Paul pulled himself out of the pool, where he had been doing laps, and sashayed over to where John was sitting, under an umbrella and out of the sun. Paul was a warm peachy color now, and dripping wet, and he appeared to be suffused in a golden glow as he approached. John’s smile was involuntary. So much beauty in one place; there ought to be a law.

“Whatcha up to?” Paul asked cheerfully.

“Corresponding with my literary agent. I just gave him an okay on the final galleys of my poetry.”

“Congratulations!” Paul chirped. He pulled a towel around his waist and plopped down at the little table, in the chair just across from John’s. 

“That damn manuscript only took several years, half my nerves, and one of my kidneys...” John grumbled. 

Paul chuckled. John was cute when he was grumpy. “You need cheering up,” Paul opined objectively.

“You got any ideas?” John asked, just as objectively.

“One or two,” Paul said judiciously. He paused, with pursed lips. He then said, “Of course, you probably won’t like them...”

John was enjoying this now. “Oh? Why?” He asked. 

“They each require a whole lot of energy, and you look so tired,” Paul explained.

“So, tell me what they are?” John asked, leaning forward, elbow on table, chin on hand.

“Well,” Paul was drawing this out, “we could hike down to the waterfall...”

“Oh crap no!” John screeched. “You tease!”

Paul looked worried, and he said, dubiously, “Well, the other idea is worse...”

John was suspicious now. He crooked an eyebrow. “And, so...what is it?”

“I’m almost afraid to say, based on your reaction to my first idea,” Paul worried out loud.

“Paul! Tell me right now!” John realized that the game was still on.

“Don’t get mad...” 

“Paul!”

“Well,” Paul’s voice got small and tentative, “I thought maybe we could, well, fuck or something.”

John grinned lasciviously. He said in a poor imitation of a New Jersey Italian mobster, “Take the fuck, leave the ‘or something.’”

 

*****

 

Early March 2001  
McLen Offices, London

 

Lennon and McCartney were going to leave for the Asia leg of their concert tour the next day, but on this day John was squeezing in an interview with the New York Times Review of Books reporter to promote his newest volume of poetry that was to be released in a week’s time. The reporter had flown to London for the purpose, and was shown into a comfortable lounge room where he could set up his tape machine and the photographer could set up his lights. A few moments later, John Lennon strolled in, accompanied by Henry, his press agent. Introductions were made, and John posed for some photos so they could dispose of the photographer and get down to business. John then set about trying to make the reporter feel at ease. He chatted casually with the man while he nervously fiddled with his tape recorder. The reporter, Jim Fell, a man in his early thirties, suddenly found that his fingers wouldn’t stop shaking. He felt as though he was sitting in a room across from a lion, and here he was - ready with a stick to poke that lion. He gave himself a stern talking to, and cleared his throat so that his first words wouldn’t sound high, weak, and croaky.

John was watching all this and inwardly smiling. It never stopped amazing him that people were so in awe of him that they could barely move or talk. He waited patiently. After what seemed an unnecessarily long time, the reporter finally began his questioning.

“Many have thought of your lyrics as poetry for many years, so what made you decide to sit down and write serious poetry?”

John was relieved that the interview was starting out on the actual subject of his poetry. “I’ve always quietly written poetry on the side, but before my first volume of poetry I was too shy to show it to anyone,” he answered seriously. “Lyrics are easier than poetry - I mean, there’s the rhyming thing with lyrics, but poetry is subtler than that. I wasn’t sure I had sufficient subtlety. I’m glad now I didn’t try to publish poetry when I was young. I needed more life behind me before I could express myself properly in this medium.”

“A recurring, albeit not the only, theme of the volume appears to be the tracking of a long lasting but very dysfunctional relationship,” the reporter commented.

John cackled. He knew he had to make light of this one. “That’s me. You’ve heard that saying? I put the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional.’” 

The reporter smiled wanly, but remained serious. “The relationship you describe in these poems seems intense and fiery - even obsessive. Is that how you meant it to sound?”

John was becoming engaged now. He had to pay attention because the questioning was starting to feel like a minefield. “I didn’t ‘mean’ it to sound any particular way, except true to my ear and my mind. What comes out isn’t literal, it’s never literal - I mean, it isn’t literally what I felt or experienced.” 

“There are also a number of poems about Paris - the city as a venue pops up in various poems throughout the book. What does Paris mean to you?”

Fuck, John thought. This man is a ball buster. John forced himself to retain a neutral expression and casual tone. “I was 21 years old the first time I went, and it was Paris. It is an almost magical memory to me. Paris is such a romantic place. There were people hugging and kissing - you know, under trees, next to the river, in the middle of narrow cobble-stoned alleyways. In England in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, you know, especially Northern England, we were too straight-laced and uptight to express love in such a public, romantic way. So Paris - to me - it represents free, open, extravagant, careless love. Not worrying what other people think, just getting lost in this other person and the fantasies you dream up together.”

“The city does come off that way in the poems - the way you write, it has a kind of eerie, fairytale aspect to it. It is like another character in the set of poems. But, that first trip to Paris you referenced - when you were 21 - that was the trip you took with Paul, in 1961, wasn’t it? The infamous hitchhiking trip?”

John laughed, and he hoped it didn’t sound too much like a nervous reaction. It was time to start obfuscating. “We didn’t do much hitchhiking. We just talked about hitchhiking. We had done some hitchhiking earlier, in England, when we were teenagers, but hitchhiking in a foreign country - we were a little intimidated, I think, so we took the train. We even flew home - our first plane ride ever.”

The reporter told himself to be strong, and just ask the questions he had planned to ask. It was hard to do that, sitting across from this intimidating person. He took a deep breath and jumped in. “As you know, there have been a lot of rumors about your sexuality, and also your relationship with Paul. It is tempting to see in these poems a reflection of those things.”

John’s irritation showed a little now. “Is that a question?”

The reporter laughed nervously. “I guess I’m asking if the relationship you write about in these poems is yours with Paul.”

Well, at least it is out there in the open, John thought. Oh what a tangled web... “Ah, the $64,000 question,” he temporized. “I’d be lying if I said I was surprised by the question. There is something of our relationship in the poems, of course there is, but not to the exclusion of other relationships I’ve had. It’s just that when you have a creative partnership with someone, especially one that has lasted so long and been through so many...er...trials and tribulations, it comes out - at least for me it does - in lyrics and poetry. But some people are too literal minded. There are as many kinds of love as there are two people to share it.” 

The reporter went for the jugular. “What kind of love do you and Paul share, then?”

John knew not to pause; not even a little bit. He immediately responded, “We grew up together. We took on the world together. We walk around at will in each other’s minds, which is the deepest kind of intimacy there is, I believe. There are hundreds of levels to our relationship, and while some of those levels are great, there are also some that aren’t very pleasant. I think you can get the gist of that from the poetry, not to mention our treatment of each other in the ‘70s. But, as we matured, we decided that our friendship and partnership were more important to us than our individual differences.”

The reporter was frustrated, but he tried not to let it show. He smiled and said, “Okay, what does that mean - what you just said?”

“I think you’re pretending not to understand,” John said calmly. “I said that Paul and I have a very complex, layered, intimate friendship, and there are fiery aspects to it, but we’re committed to have it survive no matter what craziness either one of us throws at it.”

The reporter decided he should move on for a while and circle back later. “A number of the poems appear to deal with a struggle with your sexuality. For example, one poem that comes to mind is the very clever and funny yet still erotic ‘Matching Parts.’ Is your sexuality something you still struggle with internally, or have you come to peace with it?”

Thank heaven, he is moving on, John thought. He liked the question, and was impressed the guy had actually read and understood his poetry. “I’ve mainly struggled with the idea that a person would voluntarily eliminate 50% of the world’s population from being potential lovers in one fell swoop. That’s a huge cut right off the top! But of course, when I was very young, age 15 - 16, I was afraid to even think about it, because it was such a social taboo. A guy like me, though, always ends up bucking the trend when it comes down to it. If it was ‘expected’ of me, then I would want to do the opposite. So after I was about 19 or 20, and I had met gay men who were relatively open about it, I did think about what it might be like, and I despised the hypocrisy of society on the subject since so many people in power were gay, but it wasn’t something I had the courage to try myself as a young man.” 

“So are you gay? Have you come to that conclusion?” 

Crap. Back in the soup. “I don't think so, no. But if we’re talking about what turns me on sexually, it’s the person. The person could be either a woman or a man.”

“So, you’re bisexual?”

John decided to confront the issue face on. “I don’t understand this demand to put people in little boxes with labels on them. I think human sexuality is more complicated than that. It’s a continuum, and you could fall anywhere along that line, from completely straight to completely queer, or anywhere in between.”

The reporter decided to try a different tack - one he had thought of beforehand. “The songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart had a very productive songwriting partnership for years, and Rodgers was straight, married with a family, while Hart was gay, and some claim he had an unrequited love for Rodgers.”

Oh good lord. I’ll have to play along. “Really? I mean, I knew Hart was gay - everyone knows that - but I didn’t know that he was attracted to Rodgers. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, because of what I said earlier - when you create with another person, it is a level of intimacy that isn’t matched by anything else, not even sex. So, is it true about them?” Right back at ya, mister!

Man, he’s good, the reporter thought. A slippery one. The reporter responded, “It’s a theory. Could this be part of what is going on with you and Paul, though?”

John coached himself to look amused, and he chuckled modestly. “I should have seen that one coming. I guess my answer to that would be: ‘it’s a theory.’” 

Not one to give up easily, the reporter changed tacks again. “So, the erotic poetry in this volume is about a woman? I ask because you haven’t been linked with any woman since you divorced Yoko Ono - that’s about 10 years ago now.”

Here we go. “I haven’t had a long-term relationship with a woman since my divorce, that’s true. But I haven’t been wrapped in cotton wool for the last 10 years; I get around. I just haven’t felt the desire to have a live-in relationship with a woman again. I was married twice, for about ten years to each woman. Both of my marriages failed, and they failed mainly because of me. I’ve decided that I’m not meant to be married. I would get bored, restless, I would cheat, I would get mean and moody. I would feel like I had to escape. It becomes very toxic, and I have no interest in repeating that pattern ever again.”

The reporter decided to back off for a bit. “But a few of your poems are very affecting in their treatment of how hard it is to be alone.”

Finally. Back to safe ground. “All people are alone all the time. Surrounding yourself with others is just a way to disguise the fact that you are completely alone inside your head. I’ve had this fantasy for a long time that I could just crawl into someone else’s brain and then I could finally live with someone, not alone. But you can’t do that no matter how hard you try. I tried it with Yoko, and it didn’t work. We ended up hating each other. The thing is, the other person always needs a space of their own, and ultimately so do you. To me it is a very interesting subject to think about, and that leads me of course to find words to try to describe it. I think poetry does a better job of describing it than literal words, if you’re open to it.”

The reporter was intrigued by the conversation now. “So what’s the answer do you think? Because the poems keep cycling back to the intense, obsessive relationship we discussed earlier. To me, as a reader, it felt as though you were saying that this relationship, for you, is the way you deal with being alone.”

John smiled. “There’s no mystery to this, you know. Love is the answer. I have been saying and writing that since I was in my twenties. Love is the answer to those bad moments when you don’t like being alone.”

The reporter took a deep breath to steady himself. “Your partner, Paul, had a very long and successful marriage, but his wife died from breast cancer a few years ago. It’s a cruel coincidence, seeing as how that is what his mother died from, too. How is Paul holding up?”

What the fuck has that got to do with my poetry? John asked himself angrily. But he said, judiciously, carefully, “He’s very strong. In fact, he’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. He’s doing fine.”

“I note that you and Paul have recently released new material, and you’re touring again after a long break. Why did you wait so long to work together again?”

John said, “Paul was distracted for a long time by Linda’s illness and death, and he tried to stay close to home, so touring and recording was out of the question. But we were always writing, and occasionally we’d sit down in his music room and work together. He just didn’t want to leave the house for very long.”

“That’s understandable,” the reporter commented. He felt a little bad about intruding in this painful area. “Some of your poems deal with illness and death - the loss of a loved one. Was this based on what you went through with Paul and Linda?”

John looked around for his press agent, but Henry had momentarily disappeared. John was done with this interview because it had strayed too far from his poetry. Finding no immediate relief, John answered with some irritation showing. “I honestly don’t feel comfortable talking about it publicly. It isn’t my story to tell. I suffered from cancer for about 2 years, about 7 years ago or so, so I know a little of what they went through. Linda wanted her privacy, and she wanted to deal with the treatment for the disease - which I thought was worse than the disease itself - on her own terms, without a bunch of strangers’ curiosity intruding into her life. It isn’t for me to talk about.”

“I suppose that Paul needed support too, with what he went through,” the reporter was edging back to the core question.

“Linda and Paul have awesome children,” John declared. “Their daughters were really incredible, and their son spent hours with his mother. They’re a big support to Paul.” John felt proud of his diversionary tactics. But the reporter was not to be waylaid.

“What about you?” He asked. “Did you provide support for Paul during that period?”

John sighed. He could see he was not getting out of this line of questioning, so he had to follow it through. “I’m not sure he would agree, but I tried. You know, he and Linda were there for me when I had cancer. I wouldn’t have made it through that experience without them. So, of course I tried to return the favor.”

“So they’re like family to you, then?” The reporter asked. “A thread in your poetry discusses family, and what it means. There was the particularly affecting poem about how a family catches you when you fall.”

“Yes, actually. I do feel like the McCartneys are my family. Paul’s kids, too. They think of me as a kind of uncle, I think.”

The reporter decided that he had to make one more attempt, and decided that a direct approach might work where all of his coy questions did not. “Well, there have been a lot of rumors about you and Paul - that you are actually lovers. How have your sons and Paul’s kids handled that?”

That’s a new approach, John thought sardonically. He’s throwing everything at me but the kitchen sink. Again, misdirection was the key: “All of us former Beatles - we are honest with our children. Once they were old enough to understand, we all found ways to explain not only the crazy gossip and the nasty things, but also the uncomfortable truths that people say about us just because we’re famous. All the Beatle children have grown up in the spotlight and they may not like the negative attention, but they are accustomed to it. It’s like they all have developed their own way to shield themselves. I think they’re all functioning really well with it, actually.”

“The poems that explore your struggle with sexual identity: there were rumors a few years ago that you were frequenting gay cruise bars in New York City. One of the poems appears to be about this. You’ve never actually admitted or denied these rumors - you have more or less refused to discuss it, except to joke about it. Are the poems a way to address those rumors?”

John said, “Those were rumors - gossip. My poems have nothing to do with gossip. There’s no relation.” He leaned forward for emphasis, and his face was reflecting the beginning of a scowl. 

The reporter said, “Well, you never really answered the questions about the rumors. Why not admit it if it is true, or deny it if it isn’t true?”

“Or, how about I get to choose what questions I’m going to answer? Don’t I have that right?” John’s face was a full scowl now, and the reporter sat back, chastened. 

“Yes, of course,” he sputtered. “But you have this reputation for being a very honest person...”

John’s temper snapped. He said in an exasperated tone, “That reputation of ‘honest John’ is as phony as the rest of my image: it’s just an image, it’s not me. You know, I lie and obfuscate and delude myself like everyone else does. But I’m a bit offended that people think it is okay to spy on me, or track down people who think they’ve met me, and go through my garbage cans...I guess my stubbornness kicks in at times like these. I mean - who are these people who have so little life of their own that they have to go out and drag me into their little scenarios?”

“But you have admitted to doing that sort of thing - cruising gay bars - in the ‘70s, however. You weren’t shy about talking about it then, and one of your poems does seem to address this issue.”

John took an internal deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He said, “Yes, for a kick I did do that a number of times in the ‘70s. It was fun: it was harmless fun. People are so serious about this kind of thing. Like it is life or death. It’s just a night out in a club, letting go in a funky way. Nothing to get all stressed out about. And how do you know if you’ll enjoy an experience if you don’t give it a go? And as for the poem you are talking about - again, it wasn't literal. It is about how nightmarish scenarios can really be even though on the surface they appear to be happy.”

The reporter said, “But the rumors a few years ago were pretty specific: about a stay in an apparently well-known hotel that caters to an upper class gay clientele. Supposedly you used your credit card there, and there was a photo of it...”

John jumped in defensively. “I’m not saying I stayed there, and such documents can be faked, but what if I did? What’s the big deal? What’s all the scandal about? It seems like a non-event to me. John Lennon might have stayed at a hotel where gay people also stay. Oooooo...salacious! I don’t get it. It is so ridiculous that people think this is news, so all I could do was make jokes about it.”

The reporter admitted, “I kind of see your point...” but he sounded doubtful.

“I kind of appreciate it,” John answered back pointedly.

The gloves are off now, so I might as well, the reporter told himself. “So, let me summarize. You might be bisexual, but you might not. You and Paul might be lovers, but you might not. You might have gone cruising in New York gay bars a few years ago, but you might not have. We’ve accomplished quite a lot in this interview.”

John leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. He studied his fingernails for a few brief moments. He then looked up, leveled his eyes on the reporter’s eyes, and said agreeably (but with a warning gleam in his eyes), “The one thing we’ve barely talked about, however, is the reason why I’m here: my volume of poetry. Perhaps we can focus on that for a while?” 

 

*****

 

“Where the fuck were you, Henry?” John bellowed. “You left me alone with that shark!”

“You were doing really well; I had to step out to handle an emergency...”

“Nothing is more of an emergency than me - your client - sitting in front of a fucking reporter!” John was standing in front of Henry, arms on hips, in full angry glory. They were in Henry’s office, the reporter safely escorted off the premises.

Henry’s lips twitched a little. You had to love these egomaniacal rock stars. “John, John...” he said pleadingly, but John interrupted him.

“Don’t ‘John’ me! You deserted your post! I needed to get that damn interview back on track, or I needed it ended!” John was still shouting. Outside Henry’s office, where everyone could hear John’s loud angry voice, people were scurrying quietly to and fro, completing their assigned tasks, but also curious about what John was shouting about, and grateful that he wasn’t shouting at them. 

“I left Priscilla in there...” Henry defended himself.

“Your little student intern? Yeah, she was up to the task,” John responded, although he had stopped shouting at least. 

“She said you did very well, and got the best of that interview,” Henry pointed out, knowing that praise often soothed the savage breasts of celebrities. 

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks. It matters what they do in the editing room. I have no clue what I said - I had to go off script several times. I have a bad feeling about it.” John was rambling now. 

“I’ll ask for an advance copy,” Henry soothed. “I’ll compare it to the recording, and if the edits are misleading, I will insist that they clarify.” 

John was becalmed now, and realized that there was nothing left for him but to go home and let Henry deal with the editors. He wished he could remember what all he said. Did he say something wrong? Did he leave an insinuating comment unanswered? What would he tell Paul if he misspoke and it got published? John noticed that Henry was watching him, waiting for a response. “Well, you be sure to fact check that article before it comes out,” John growled.

Henry nodded his agreement, and then coaxed John down the stairs and into his car by reminding him that he had to get ready to leave for the Asia tour the next day. In truth, though, Henry liked it better when John was not in the office. John was a ticking time bomb and no one had a clue when he might go off, so whenever John was on the premises everyone walked around on tiptoes. So, from his point of view, best to get John back in his car, and on his way back to Cavendish, where Paul could deal with him. Henry wasted a brief moment to think, Poor Paul. Henry no longer had any doubts about the nature of that relationship.

 

*****

 

Seoul, South Korea  
Mid-March 2001

 

John and Paul had arrived at the second stop of their short Asia tour. In the past week and a half, they had completed a string of concerts in three Australian cities, and now they were scheduled for two back-to-back concerts in Seoul, and planned to spend a few days enjoying the country after the concerts. A week later they would be in Tokyo for three nights, and the week after that in Hong Kong. Then they’d be headed for Hawaii. 

This morning, John was enjoying his coffee and a newspaper on the sweeping patio that overlooked the cityscape. Paul was, of course, in the gym working out. Into this quiet scene the tour manager, Timothy, walked. He plopped a pile of mail and magazines on the table, and John smiled up at him. 

“Come join me! There’s coffee in the pot over there,” John said kindly, indicating a small service table nearby. Timothy did as he was invited, and then sat at the table with John. There was a companionable silence as John finished the last of the article he had been reading, but then he folded up the paper and addressed his attention to Timothy. “What’s up? Any issues for tonight?” John asked.

Timothy said, “Sound check at 4 p.m. today.”

“Does Paul know?” John asked idly.

“Yes. I saw him in the gym.”

“Oh no, not you too! Another exercise hound making me feel like a slug.” But John obviously didn’t feel like a slug, given the satisfied smile on his face.

Timothy chuckled. “Oh - Henry asked me to give you a message. He said the review of your poetry volume and the interview looks good.” Timothy sifted through the magazines and mail he had thrown on the table and finally pulled out, with a victorious flourish, the New York Times Review of Books issue with a very flattering close up photo of John Lennon on the cover. “Here it is.” 

John grabbed it greedily, and scanned the magazine until he found his interview. He began to read. With this, Timothy assumed he had been dismissed, and he took a final sip of his coffee and made himself scarce. John was flitting through it, looking for any obvious mistake he might have made, but his first quick perusal told him he had managed to walk through that minefield and come out unscathed. He sighed heavily in relief. Just then Paul joined him on the patio, recently showered and looking peppy.

“The interview is okay!” John trumpeted happily.

Paul didn’t need to ask ‘what interview.’ John had been moaning and worrying and whinging about it ever since he got back from the office a few weeks earlier. “I told you it would be okay,” Paul said, but his voice was indulgent. 

“How could you possibly know if it was alright or not? You weren’t there!” John griped.

“Because,” Paul said, emphasizing the word heavily, “I know how you handle yourself when under fire. You’re a pro. I never doubted for a moment that you’d get it right.” 

John was satisfied by this response, although he muttered, “Buttering me up. You must want me to go to sound check with you.”

Paul laughed, carefree. Paul enjoyed being on tour, and he enjoyed being alone in a kind of traveling space capsule with John while they were on tour. So many distractions and diversions were left at home, and now they were doing what he loved the most - performing. He was a happy camper. “I would of course love it if you would come to sound check,” he said amiably, “but I will of course understand it if you don’t want to.” 

John looked askance at Paul, with a suspicious glint in his eye. “You’re managing me, aren’t you babe?” He asked dangerously.

“Moi?” Paul squeaked. “I wouldn’t dare!” His whole aspect was of overly ripe personal affront. He had puffed himself up to his full height in fraudulent indignation.

John grabbed Paul’s hand and pulled him until he was next to John’s chair, and then John grabbed the waistband of Paul’s jeans, and pulled him down until Paul was sitting on John’s lap. He wrapped his arms around Paul’s waist and leaned his head against Paul’s back. “I’m so fucking relieved about it,” John said softly. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Paul looked nervously around to see if there were any nearby balconies or windows. He could see some buildings far away, but nothing too close. Still, he quickly extricated himself from John’s embrace and then his lap. 

John looked up at Paul, bereft. 

Paul smiled gently back at him and said, “If we’re going to get naughty we have to go inside.”

 

*****


	146. Chapter 146

Hong Kong  
The Peninsula Hotel  
Late March 2001

 

John and Paul were staying in the Peninsula Suite in the Grande Dame of all Chinese hotels. The suite was over 4500 square feet large, and spared no luxury. The views from this penthouse suite were magnificent, and Paul was excited about staying in the city for a few days now that their concerts were finished. It had been a long time since he had been to Hong Kong - not since the Beatles had played there in June 1964, sans Ringo (who had been recovering from having his tonsils out). Neither he nor John had visited Hong Kong since the changeover in government, either, and it was almost as if Paul was visiting a whole new city, since so much had changed. He was lingering on the expansive patio, his forearms leaning on the railings, a glass of red wine in one hand. It was twilight, and lights were coming on all over the city, but there were still the remnants of a sunset in the sky.

Paul wasn’t just enjoying the sight of this beautiful city; he was also ruminating glumly on the tabloid story that had come out in the New York Post the week before, when they’d been in Tokyo. It was the old ‘Brad’ story come back to haunt them. First, the reporter who had interviewed John for the poetry volume had brought up that story, and now the Post was trotting out the story again, only this time pointing out John’s non-responsive answers to the questions as evidence that the story was true. It was very tacky, the way the story was spun. It made the clubs and the hotel and the people who frequented them sound debauched, and John was made to look as a knowing member of that demi-monde and a clueless sucker, both at the same time. It was as if the tabloid couldn’t decide which of the two caricatures they should settle on, so decided to choose both. Paul sighed and took an absent-minded sip of wine. John had been beside himself when he read it; not because of the revelations so much, but more because he couldn’t get out in front of these stories and either quash them or reveal them in his own way. In other words, he hated not having control of the situation. It had taken all of Paul’s persuasive talents to calm John down, and he had to do this repeatedly, several times a day and every day since the story first hit the press.

Almost as if he thought by doing so he could change what he was thinking, too, Paul turned away from the view, and leaned back against the railing instead. He stared through the glass sliding doors into the living room of the suite. He saw John stretched out on one of the sofas, apparently asleep. Poor bloke. At least Brad, himself, had stayed underground. That unspeakable reporter, Williams, had chased Brad around his neighborhood for days until Brad called the newspaper and threatened to get a protective order injunction against the man. Brad had then decided to visit his parents back home, and had disappeared from press view after that. Henry had conveyed this information to Paul, thinking it would cheer him up a bit. Still, Paul had to admit that the candid photos taken of Brad looked at least reminiscently of him when he was young. For that reason, these photos told their own story on the front pages of the tabloids (because of course all the other tabloids jumped on the story after the Post had published it’s story). Paul had stared at the blurry photos intensely numerous times since they had been published, but never when John was around to see. Paul remembered how learning of John’s seeking out a lover who was a younger version of him had sent him reeling into an anxiety-ridden depression for months. So this was the young man who had caused it all...

Paul chased that idea away, knowing intellectually it was not the man’s fault so much as it had been John’s fault. But this trend of being outed by the tabloid press had gotten out of hand now, and Paul had started to admit to himself that he and John would have to figure out how to put some kind of a handle on it. Paul didn’t think they would be able to control the story, but at least they might be able to frame it in a less tawdry way. Still, Paul hadn’t yet said anything to John about this idea, because he wanted to think it through and make sure that this story, too, didn’t just fade away like others had. If that happened, they could avoid confronting this issue publicly for a while longer. This was a possibility, although Paul recognized it was not a very distinct one. After all, when they finished in Asia they would be heading for the U.S., and Paul had no illusions about what awaited them there. 

The phone rang inside the suite, and John didn’t stir. Paul smiled. The man could sleep through a bomb blast. He went inside and picked up the receiver.

“Daddy!” Stella declared.

Paul smiled. “Hey, baby, how great to hear your voice.”

“I’m calling about this tabloid business,” Stella said, her voice firm and purposeful.

“Not you, too,” Paul groaned. 

“It’s not fair to John,” she said stoutly. “They’re only singling him out because he’s easier prey. It’s only a matter of time before they come after you.”

“Stella, really, you make them sound like big game hunters.” Paul chuckled. “They’re just making stuff up.”

“Is any of it true?” Stella asked in a hushed voice. She couldn’t believe for one moment that John had gone out trolling for gay hookers, and had found himself in such a compromising position. And she, for one, thought that young man looked nothing like her beautiful father!

Paul looked nervously at John’s recumbent form. He said, “Give me your number. I’ll call you back in a few moments and we can talk.” He then hung up the phone and went into the private study area, and used his own cell phone to call Stella back.

“So what’s going on?” Stella asked him abruptly when she picked up her line.

“Nothing. John was sleeping in that room, and I didn’t want to awaken him,” Paul prevaricated.

“So - is any of that crap true? I can’t believe it.”

“If it were true, would it make any difference to you?” Paul asked quietly.

Stella was stilled by this question. She listened to her father’s following silence and then said, “It isn’t true, is it?” Her voice this time was plaintive.

Paul said, “Like some of these tabloid stories, there are elements of truth in it, but the truthful elements are placed in false contexts, and then elaborated on with made up stuff.”

Stella was quiet for a long pause, and then said, “Daddy, I’m so sorry. How could he do that to you? How could he put you in that situation?” 

Paul didn’t really know how to answer except to say firmly, “It’s between John and me, and we’re cool. No one else should bother about it.”

“It makes me want to smack him,” Stella said loyally.

Paul chuckled. “Stand in line,” he joked. 

“Doesn’t it hurt? Isn’t it embarrassing to you?” Stella couldn’t understand her father’s calm and reasoned reactions.

“I did nothing to embarrass myself, Stella. At least, not in this particular scenario.” He laughed again. “And people you love have the power to hurt you. It is one of the downsides to loving someone. But it has never stopped me from loving someone.” 

Stella digested this comment. She supposed she would never understand what passed emotionally between her father and John. It was bewilderingly chaotic. She decided not to judge it. “So what are you going to do about all this?” She asked, finally. It was - after all - the reason she had made the call.

“What do you mean?” Paul asked, biding his time.

“You have to get John out of his misery, Daddy. You’ve got to take control of this thing. It will be far less hurtful if you do.”

Paul listened to his daughter and knew that she was right. He was already thinking along those lines, too. But he didn’t want to do this in the midst of the tour when they were subject to numerous press interviews and had to court photographers and reporters in order to promote their shows. The news would completely take over the whole tour, and it would be immensely unpleasant to boot. When the tour was over, then he could consider directly addressing these stories... 

To his daughter, Paul said, “We’ve just got to get ourselves through the rest of this tour, and then we can regroup.”

Stella figured this was as far as she was going to push her father on her first attempt to persuade him on this issue. The next time she would push him a little further. She had learned this technique from her mother, and it had always eventually worked.

 

*****

 

The remainder of the Asia concert dates had been extremely successful, and the 15-minute snippet interviews they had done with local reporters had been smooth. Henry put it down to the Asian press culture being less intrusive and aggressive, although he didn’t know if this were true. All he knew was that while Lennon was still licking his wounds over the New York Post story, which had been written in such an unnecessarily nasty tone, there had been no more gossip story lines picked up and distributed in the last few weeks. 

The next stop was Honolulu, Hawaii, but there was a full month off between the end of the Asia dates and that date. John and Paul returned to Cavendish to spend the month of May there.

 

*****

Early May 2001

 

Meanwhile, George Harrison had just endured surgery at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. Over the previous few months he had been through numerous tests, and it was determined that the cancer he had beaten in his throat in 1997 had come back - but this time in one of his lungs. The fear was - as it had been with Linda - that the metastasized cancer cells were roaming free in the lymphatic system, and that from now on it would be stop gap measures to slow down the disease’s progress. It was an old story - one that George had endured now twice, and that Paul had endured three times vicariously: with his mother, with John and with his wife, and that John had survived once. It appeared as though the scourge disease was not going to leave any of them unscathed. 

The surgery itself had been successful, in that the entire growth had been removed from the lung. But chemotherapy was going to be necessary in the hopes of killing any remaining cancerous cells. He and Olivia had planned a trip to Tuscany, Italy, to recover from the surgery and soak up some relaxing peace and quiet. They would return for the chemotherapy in a few weeks. Before they left, though, George called Ringo to tell him the news (because there was going to be a press release on the subject due to a leak to the press and he wanted his friends to hear it from him first), and Olivia called Paul and John, who were at Cavendish, to tell them the news.

When Paul hung up (he had been the one to answer the phone) he explained the situation to John. They exchanged serious herewegoagain looks with each other. They both knew what this meant. “If it happens quickly, like it did with Derek Taylor, will we cancel our tour?” John asked. 

Paul weighed the idea. “I don’t know. He is a very private person. He might not want us to make a public meal of it.”

John nodded in recognition of this truth. George, of all four of them, had been the one to most effectively incorporate the alleged British trait of “stiff upper lip” into his conduct. No doubt he wouldn’t want any emotional displays of grief (which he would no doubt consider to be ‘hysteria’) on his behalf. “I hope this time he beats the odds,” was all John could think to say.

It was while mulling over the fragility of life, John began to think that one of those whole family vacations - where they all trundle off to some exotic place together - was just the thing they all needed. It had been three years since Linda died, and in those three years they had not done one of these pilgrimages: Linda had been the one to inspire and plan them. Since the next concert was going to be in Hawaii, John thought that maybe the whole family could fly over to Hawaii a week early and celebrate Paul’s 59th birthday there while they were at it. The Honolulu concerts were on June 12th and 13th, and they had to be in San Francisco by June 21, but there was about a week in the middle for them to squeeze in a little trip before that. Paul had green-lighted this suggestion, and John had gone about planning it. He’d called all six kids to invite them to come.

It was after the invitations were extended, and the night before John and Paul were flying out to Hawaii to begin the U.S.A. leg of their tour, that Mary received a telephone call from her sister Stella.

Stella had been dating Alasdhair Willis for a few months, but the two of them had been joined at the hip from the time they first met across a table in a business meeting. Stella had - just that April - left Chloe to open her own eponymous fashion brand under the Gucci franchise, and Willis was an independent but quite successful product placement and advertising expert who was hired by Gucci to advise her on the subject of setting up her own brand. Stella had known right away that he was ‘the one’, and sure enough Alasdhair had called her that afternoon, just a few hours after the business meeting ended. Stella had been giddy, and thus far she had confided about her new love affair only to her sister Mary and a few of her closest girlfriends. After John had called her to invite her to Hawaii for several days, she had called to ask Mary whether it might be okay to invite Alasdhair along too. She thought it was about time that she introduced her new love to her family.

Mary had asked her, “Are you sure you’re ready to expose him to all our collective craziness?” 

“If he’s the one, then it will have to happen sooner or later. So I might as well go for it.” Stella responded. She then paused strategically.

Mary heard the pause, and understood the strategy. “Do you want me to break it to Dad and ask him if he is okay with it?”

“Would you?” Stella rushed gratefully. “It’ll be easier for him to tell you if he isn’t comfortable with it. Maybe he’d rather first meet him separately, at a lunch table somewhere.”

Mary smiled into the phone. She knew her father would of course welcome any and all of Stella’s friends. He had never been controlling of who amongst their friends was welcomed into their little world; it had always been his children who had carefully handpicked the people they invited in - especially since John had become a part of their family. Mary had met Alasdhair, and apart from thinking it was an amazing coincidence that Stella had fallen in love with a man with the same name (phonetically, at least) as her husband, she had liked him very much. He was calm and patient, and had some of Linda’s nurturing energy, which was a perfect contrast to Stella’s fiery and sometimes-impulsive nature. He was also very good-looking. Mary couldn’t deny that! So she had called her father who was at Cavendish at the time.

“About this holiday in Hawaii,” she started. “I’m an emissary for Stella.”

“For Stella?” Paul asked, disbelievingly. “When is Stella ever lost for words?”

Mary chuckled but said, “On this subject she is.”

Paul had gone silent. He was worried that this would be about the disquieting Hong Kong telephone conversation he’d had with Stella about the tabloid rumors weeks before. “What subject is this?” He asked, his heart full of foreboding.

“Well, she’s in love.”

Paul had to repeat that line in his head again. “In love?” He finally said, out loud.

“Yes. She’s been in love for a few months now, and she says she knows that this is ‘the one.’” 

“Who is he?” Paul asked. Of course he was happy his daughter had found someone, but there was always that fear that his beloved daughter might get hurt by a main chancer.

“He is someone she met in business, and I’ve met him a number of times. He is lovely - smart, funny, warm, gentle.”

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Paul responded.

“I have, yes. Sorry.” 

“You don’t sound the least bit sorry, Mary,” her father chuckled. “So is that the whole thing? That she’s in love?”

“She was thinking she might invite him to Hawaii with her, if it is alright with you and John.”

Oh. Paul thought about that. This really was serious. In the past, Paul had only met guys Stella had dated at quick dinners, with Linda at his side, or at a luncheon table in a restaurant. Stella had never invited any of them into the bosom of her family. Paul said, “Of course she should bring him, if she thinks he’s up to it.”

Mary’s laugh was musical and gay. “She says he has to take the plunge sometime, so it might as well happen in a tropical paradise.”

 

*****

June 14 - 18, 2001  
Kauai, Hawaii

 

After John and Paul’s triumphant concert performance in Honolulu, Henry the press agent had said goodbye to them, and, along with Timothy, the tour manager, left to fly on to San Francisco, where Lennon & McCartney were continuing their 2001 U.S.A. tour in ten days. Henry and Timothy both knew that they had a whole lot of work to do to make sure the interviews were under control, and that their clients were protected from the reach of tabloids and paparazzi.

Meanwhile, Paul and John had taken a private plane to the island of Kauai, where they had rented a large private home right on the ocean. Several of the kids were coming, at least for part of the holiday. Mary was coming with her husband and little Arthur, now a robust 2 years old, and James was coming too. Sean and Charlotte were dropping by for at least a few days over the weekend, and Stella was using this trip as a way to introduce her boyfriend to the bulk of her family. Only Heather had chosen to stay home, and Julian had been regretfully otherwise engaged, although he made plans to see his dad and Paul to belatedly celebrate Paul’s birthday when they were back in London. 

Paul had rented a private jet to take the London contingent to Hawaii, with a few fueling stops. It had been a luxurious flight for Alasdhair, who was not used to such accommodations. Mary’s husband Alistair had been in the family long enough to be used to it, but the soft leather-bound and roomy club seats, the swanky furnishings, and the champagne and high quality food being served had a way of increasing, not decreasing, Alasdhair’s growing dread of meeting Stella’s father, Paul McCartney. Stella, too, was nervous, because she had not managed to tell Alasdhair about the true nature of her father’s relationship with his writing partner, John Lennon. She had meant to so many times, but it was as if the words had been chained to the wall of her throat, and she couldn’t set them free. She’d spent so many years guarding the information with her life. Alasdhair hadn’t even asked about it, and the one time he commented on the issue (in connection with reading one of the recent tabloid stories about John) was to say, “What rubbish. How awful that your family has to deal with all this nonsense.” Stella worried that Alasdhair might find their family arrangement to be nonsensical, or even worse, like rubbish. She truly did not believe so, but she could not help worrying about it. If that happened - if she sensed even a whiff of disapproval from Alasdhair - she knew she would have to break off the relationship immediately. To Stella, her family was that important.

On the last leg of the trip, from San Francisco to Kauai airports, Stella found a quiet moment to whisper alone with her sister. She confessed that she hadn’t managed to tell Alasdhair the truth about their father and John. Mary was sympathetic but practical. 

“He seems like a very observant guy. He’s going to notice on his own, very quickly. Why do you need to ‘warn’ him?”

“What if he finds it offensive?” Stella asked.

“It’s too late now. If you’d told him before you left, he could have begged off. But he’s stuck now. But honestly, Stell, do you really think he is that shallow? I mean, you couldn’t love him so much if he were.”

Stella nodded in agreement. “All that’s true. It’s so hard to know what to do. I want to behave as though our family is normal - like any other family. We just had three parents in it for a while, and now we have two. When I met Alasdhair’s family, he didn’t have to explain that his father and mother were lovers. It went without saying, right?”

“So don’t make a big deal over it,” Stella advised. “Be matter of fact. When he looks at you with the question in his eyes, which he probably will do at some point, you can say, ‘this is my family. This is our normal.’” 

Stella went back to her seat, and noted that Alasdhair was awake again, studying his laptop screen. She slid in next to him and said, “Alasdhair, I have to let you know something.”

He looked up inquisitively. 

Stella said, “I have a very close family. We are all extremely tight. It’s rare for families to all get along, but we do, and we’re fiercely loyal to each other.”

Alasdhair smiled. “I figured that out myself. I’ve heard you talk about them. I’ve watched you with your sister. I’ve heard the two of you talking about your family. I see how protective James is of you, and how you and Mary are protective of him. I think it is really special. Your parents must have been really great to have fostered such a tight knit family.”

Stella heard this and was reminded of why she was so much in love. “My family means more to me than anything.”

“I feel the same way about my family,” Alasdhair said. “It is something very important that we have in common.”

Stella sighed, and wondered how to start again. Alasdhair was watching her closely. “Is there something else you want to tell me?” He asked her gently.

“It’s about my dad... er, ... my parents,” she said haltingly. “I’ve been debating whether to mention it to you or to let you find out for yourself, and I’ve finally decided it wouldn’t be fair not to warn you.”

“Warn me?” Alasdhair looked amused. “I’m scared enough already, tell the truth. I not only have to meet my girlfriend’s father, but he is a bloody superstar! What else?”

Stella chuckled, but it was a half-hearted affair. “See, it isn’t just my dad and my siblings you’ll be meeting. John Lennon is part of our family too. As are his two sons, although only one of them will be holidaying with us this trip.”

Alasdhair said, “I read that interesting interview he gave about his poetry recently. He mentioned how he felt a part of your family. I thought that was really sweet.”

Stella wanted to scream. He was clearly not getting her point! She tried again. “Yeesss, that’s true, but... he isn’t like an ‘uncle’ to us, like he said in that interview. He’s like a second dad. I think of him as a father, too.”

Alasdhair was a little lost. He thought he had agreed with her, but she seemed to think he didn’t. 

Stella could see the confusion and she said flatly, “He’s living with my father. Ever since my mother died it’s been full time. They live together.”

Ohhhhhh, Alasdhair thought, as the other shoe finally dropped. He laughed. “You had me worried there. I was thinking maybe your dad was a werewolf or something, the way you were going on.” 

Stella giggled. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Alasdhair said, “Why would it bother me? What’s it got to do with me anyway?” He stopped for a moment and then gave Stella a deeper look. “Did you think this would upset me in some way? You do know that most people realize that they are probably together in that way. It’s just that most of us don’t think it is really any of our business.” 

Stella let loose a huge sigh. “I had no idea how you would react. If you didn’t like it, I would have dumped you immediately.”

“Just like that?” Alasdhair asked, his eyes dancing with mischief. “You’d leave me stranded at the airport?”

“Yup. I’d leave you in a cloud of dust as the limo pulled away,” she joked. She was feeling very much better now that she had that off her chest!

 

*****

 

The limo pulled up to the frontage of an obviously very expensive modern home, complete with a large front portico. 

“Ooooh,” Mary joked, “Fancy.” Everyone laughed.

If they were expecting some manservant to greet them, they were to be disappointed. John came bounding out of the house and met them halfway down the portico. He immediately engulfed Mary, and then Stella, and then James in hugs. Alistair held out his hand and met John’s for a warm handshake, and then John immediately leant down and swept Arthur up in to his arms saying, “Hello Little Macca!” John then fastened his eyes on Alasdhair. 

“So you’re the upstart who thinks he’s good enough for our Stella, eh?” He asked in a smartass tone.

Alasdhair blushed a little. Lennon’s eyes were a little too ironic and distrusting for his taste. “How do you do, I’m Alasdhair Willis.” 

John stared for a moment longer and then grudgingly held out his hand to be grasped. Alasdhair found the hand grasp to be harsh and the staring to be even harsher. 

Stella cried, “John! Stop! He’s nervous enough already!”

John gave Alasdhair another long look and said, “He’d better be...” He then smiled a bit to take the sting out of it. John then turned on his heel and headed back towards the house, talking cheerfully with Arthur the whole way.

Stella waited a moment for Alasdhair to catch up with her, and then she held out her hand. He took it. “Courage!” She whispered, and then giggled. “John’s the worst of it. Daddy’s much easier.”

“Oh thank god,” Alasdhair managed to exhale.

As everyone was gathering in the elegant sunroom, which had magnificent views of the pool patio and the ocean, and as they all were imbibing the tropical drinks John had prepared for them, Paul suddenly appeared from another part of the house. 

“I didn’t hear you come in! ‘No one’ thought to tell me.” Paul had aimed the second part of his comment at John, with a faux angry look.

“Oops,” John said, but without an ounce of true apology in his voice.

Unlike John, Paul looked around for the newcomer first, and soon sorted him out, shy and hovering in the background.  
“You must be Alasdhair,” Paul said warmly, approaching. “I’m Paul.” He held out his hand, and Alasdhair put out his hand, too, which Paul grasped with both of his. He looked Alasdhair straight in the eyes, but kindly, and said, “You must be very special for Stella to bring you to us. I’m glad to finally meet you.” 

Alasdhair felt a rush of relief flooding through his body, and he hoped it wasn’t obvious to everyone. He relaxed and said, “Stella speaks so lovingly of you and of her whole family. I’m glad to finally meet all of you, too.”

Paul thought, graceful. Well said. He turned to Stella and winked at her. Well done, girl, was the message Stella got. She broke out in a wreath of a smile, which took over almost her whole face. Paul turned to John. “So what’s the program, maestro? What do we all do next?” 

Everyone laughed. John had, by default, taken over the family’s Holiday Tour Directorship job from Linda upon her death. 

John suggested everyone find their rooms, unpack, refresh themselves, settle in, and they were all going to have a meal out on the pool patio in a few hours. This being agreeable to everyone, they all disappeared. After they’d all left the room, John asked Paul, “Do you think she told him about us, or are we supposed to pretend to be ‘friends’? Will I be sleeping on the sofa all week?”

“There are more than enough bedrooms for you to have your own,” Paul said thoughtfully, as if he were taking John’s comment seriously. But then he laughed and said, “Either way, we’re going to be ourselves. And he can like it or lump it.”

That being exactly what John wanted to hear, he smiled brightly and headed for the kitchen. Paul went back to the room he had designated the ‘music room’ on the other side of the house, to be kept company by his latest classical composing project.

 

*****

 

A few days after the holiday began, Sean arrived with his girlfriend Charlotte. They slipped into the family milieu easily and without fuss. On their first night there, after a great dinner, Sean was seated near Alasdhair on the pool patio. Both were drinking cocktails. Sean said, “You got the best one of the bunch.”

Alasdhair said, “Hmmm?”

“Stella. She’s the best of my siblings. They’re all great, but she’s amazing.” 

Alasdhair smiled. “No argument here.” He was curious, though. He couldn’t help it. “So you grew up with Stella, did you?”

“For half of the year, since I was about 7 or 8, until I grew up, yes,” Sean responded.

“So she is like a sister to you?” Alasdhair asked.

“Yes - she is my sister. That’s how it is,” Sean responded. He turned to Alasdhair. “The way it is - between our fathers - we see ourselves as related. And since I knew and loved Linda so much - she was a second mother to me - it is the same as if we were stepsiblings, you know? But I loved their mother, and they love my father - no drama there.”

Alasdhair smiled. “Your dad scared the crap out of me at first. I could hardly talk straight. But I watch him with Stella - he really loves her, I can tell, and she adores him. And he and Mary seem to have a very special relationship, too.”

Sean laughed. “Dad and Mary are incredibly close. They talk several times a day when Dad’s not on tour.”

“Really?” Alasdhair said.

“Yeah - about recipes, the baby, what’s going on in their lives. It’s kind of cute, I think. He’s kind of a substitute mother for her, I think.” Sean looked at his glass, which was now empty. “You want another drink?”

 

*****

 

“I really like Stella’s fella," John said.

Paul chortled. 

“What?” John asked.

“Stella’s fella? The rhyme?” 

John belly laughed. “I didn’t even notice that.”

Paul said, “I like him very much, too. He’s a steadying influence, and she really respects him. It is so important in a relationship.”

The two of them were lying in bed, side lamps on, and each had abandoned their reading material to engage in this discussion. John eyed Paul with deep affection. “You’re the steadying influence for me, and I really respect you, Paul,” John said sweetly.

Paul grinned at John. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, I was just agreeing with you about Alasdhair.”

There was quiet for a few moments until John commented, “But what were the odds that both of your daughters would end up with guys named Alistair? It isn’t exactly a common name.” 

Paul put his book to the side, and turned off his side lamp. He turned over on to his side, and held his arm out, inviting John to shelter within it. John literally threw his magazine on to the floor, and swung around to shut off his light, and then dove into a cuddle with Paul. Paul kissed John quickly on the tip of his nose. John then used that nose to nuzzle Paul’s nose. And then inevitably, slowly, their lips met.


	147. Chapter 147

June 21, 2001

 

The Hawaiian holiday ended, as all holidays unfortunately do, and the kids all returned to their lives. On the flight home, Alasdhair was thoughtful, as Stella, her head on his shoulder, slept beside him. He had, in a very short time, been seduced and engulfed by this magical family. John was - there was no other word for it - addictive. He was scary but utterly entertaining. He was actually very warm and nurturing. Except when he was giving you the warning eye - don’t you dare hurt my baby Stella or I will destroy you! And Paul was incredibly warm and welcoming. He was non-judgmental and both silly and serious. He was clearly the levelheaded one as between him and John, but there was a joyfulness there that kept him from being anything but wonderful company. No wonder they had turned the world on its head! Already, Alasdhair felt embedded in this family, and believed that he had found his permanent niche. He and Stella would create a family of their own to add to this ménage, and think of the great love and the amazing experiences their children would have! With this last thought, Alasdhair closed his eyes, and within a few moments, he had fallen asleep.

 

*****

 

San Francisco

 

It was mid-evening when John and Paul trailed into their hotel suite at the Fairmount Hotel. There had been a delay leaving Hawaii because of a weather-front in the mid-Pacific, so they were weary and needed to recuperate. It was too bad, but they had to rush out to do their 15-minute interviews with the local news media within the hour. John was grumbling and wanted to cancel.

“They’re only going to hassle me about that Post story,” John was complaining to Henry, as Paul fixed everyone a drink. 

“It’s the 15-minute routine. I’ve told them they can only ask about the tour and the album, or we’re cutting the interview short. I made it clear we’re not going to comment on those rumors.” Henry was all business now; having learned that to be firm and positive in John’s presence was essential. The least amount of doubt, and John sensed that weakness and went after it relentlessly.

Paul was smiling to himself as he listened to Henry. The guy really had turned out to be good at managing John. You never really knew about people, until you gave them a chance. He handed a whiskey to Henry, and then to John, and then sat down next to John with his own.

“So where are the interviews? I hope they’re in this hotel. I’m exhausted,” Paul said.

“On the sixth floor. We’ve booked a few suites there. Only five interviews.”

“Five?” John yelped.

Paul laughed. “That’s nothing, John. We’ll be out of there within 90 minutes.”

 

Ninety minutes wasn’t too bad, John had to admit, so he settled down. “When do we start?” He asked.

“I’ve explained that your flight was a bit late, so you have an hour to pull yourself together. So meet me at 6 p.m. in the Gold Suite on the Sixth Floor.” With that Henry disappeared. 

John turned to Paul. “It’s going to be a blood bath,” he droned.

 

*****

 

Because John and Paul were so exhausted, they showed up for their five journalists’15-minute interviews (“the firing squad” is what John called them) with very low energy. This worked in their favor, because it requires too much energy to be anxious and nervy. Thus, to observers at least, they appeared very relaxed and unconcerned about the interview process.

Henry had chosen wisely, because none of these journalists was from a print organization, and so they were the sorts of good-looking, polished but not very experienced young people that populate local TV news’ shows the world over. Whether a couple of really old dudes were lovers was not the sort of story that rang their bells. Not terribly familiar with John and Paul’s more modern work, they were more interested in talking about when they were Beatles; that is, when they were young and beautiful. So the interviews went smoothly, with not one journalist challenging the rules that Henry had set out for them. Although these young presenters were not practiced enough to adopt this interview style as a strategy, they inadvertently obtained footage of some very charming interplay between themselves and John and Paul. John had relaxed and was teasing the young people, and Paul was playful and warm - even a little paternal. The reporters all walked away coopted by the famous Beatle charm, and the news editors all walked away with some great little fun soundbites: always good to have some of those to follow on after the “family of five die in light plane crash” fare.

John and Paul returned to their suite and decided to have a quiet dinner brought up to them by room service. As they waited, sprawled out on separate sofas, John commented, “That was the tamest group of reporters I’ve ever met, at least since Beatlemania.” 

Paul chuckled in agreement and then said shrewdly, “I think Henry needs a rise in pay. He sure earned it today.” 

 

*****

 

It was too much to expect that kind of luck to last for long, however. They were, after all, in San Francisco, which might not have the largest gay population in the U.S. in terms of numbers, but it certainly had the loudest and proudest! Many of the local politicians were gay, and the same too with local influential business moguls. Since most San Franciscan gay men did not inhabit the closet, they would naturally see nothing wrong with openly asking about the nature of John and Paul’s relationship. It was too much to hope that Henry could get his clients out of San Francisco without agreeing to an interview with one of the many vibrant LGBT periodicals. Of course, the newspaper Henry was most pressed to talk to was the Bay Area Reporter - the oldest and most prominent LGBT periodical in the San Francisco area. The news editor of that august institution had been engaging in a slow dance with Henry over the past several weeks - ever since John and Paul’s concert in San Francisco was announced - quietly reeling him in to the idea of doing a “brief” exclusive interview. 

Thus far, Henry had been maintaining the bottom line - his clients were not doing much press on this tour, and their time in San Francisco was already too heavily booked. However, Henry and Timothy had figured out almost as soon as they arrived in San Francisco several days earlier (it had been a base of operations as they finalized the press plans for the whole U.S. tour) that the gay community was coming out in force to the Lennon & McCartney concert, and it was going to be a kind of celebration in that community. It would seem arrogant and rude if their most esteemed newspaper didn’t get some kind of interview. This was a subject that he would have to discuss with Paul, since John could be so touchy. One minute John would be bitterly complaining about the fact that he could not speak freely about his personal life, and the next he would be outraged and frightened over having to talk about his private life. Henry often thought that it must be hard to be in John Lennon’s head. It must be a very exhausting and confusing place to be. 

So, early the day of the concert, Henry went to discuss the issue with Paul in the elegant Fairmount hotel suite. He admired the tastefulness of the appointments and was pleased to find Paul at the very end of his breakfast, sipping coffee and folding up his newspaper, and - more to the point - alone at the table.

“Where’s John?” Henry asked.

“He’s taking a shower, I think,” Paul responded, gesturing for Henry to sit at the empty chair across from him. “What you got?”

“It’s a very tricky situation I’ve been negotiating since I got here,” Henry started.

“Tricky how?” Paul asked, his body language calm and businesslike. Internally he was thinking it must have something to do with those awful New York Post stories about John’s “adventure in a male brothel.” He was wary as Henry wound himself up to explain.

“The gay community here is a huge supporter of your concert tonight. It’s a major ‘event’ in their social calendar this summer.”

“Yesss...” Paul said softly.

“And I have been deluged with requests from local LGBT newspapers for an interview.” Henry held his breath.

Paul’s eyes blinked slowly, but there was no other noticeable outward reaction to this news. When he realized that Henry was expecting a response, Paul said, “And?”

He’s not going to make this easy for me, Henry thought. “The most eminent and influential is the Bay Area Reporter. I wanted to float the idea of giving them a brief interview in advance of the show.”

Paul was still not outwardly reacting. He said, “So, what did you have in mind?”

Henry was surprised that Paul was willing to entertain the idea, and not shut it down immediately. “I’m thinking we set 15 minutes aside before sound check. The reporter can watch sound check, they can get some photos, and we can lay down some ground rules. The same ground rules we always have.” 

Paul gave this idea some serious thought. “Is this a militant or political newspaper?” He finally asked. “Will we get ambushed or used?”

“No, it is a legitimate newspaper, but it does have the editorial bent towards LGBT issues and opinions, of course. That is their subscriber profile, after all.” Henry was holding his breath now.

Paul seemed to have made up his mind. He said, “Let me talk to John about it, and I’ll let you know within the hour.”

Henry walked out of the suite feeling much lighter than he had felt when he walked in.

 

*****

 

“Why would we treat this newspaper any differently than we treat the others?” John asked Paul. “I thought we were just giving no individual interviews this trip.”

“Henry says the gay community here is going all out promoting our concert tonight. It’s apparently a big celebration. He thinks it would be appropriate for us to show our appreciation for that.” Paul was not selling the idea. He was sharing it with John in order to make a decision whether he wanted to participate. 

“I don’t see how they will be able to sit there and talk to us for 15 minutes without asking about at least the whole Post story angle, if not the ‘usual question,’” John pointed out logically.

“Well, Henry says he’ll lay down the same ground rules, so we’d just be giving the same interview we always give to this particular paper so it can have an exclusive, and this will be a thank you to the community.”

John thought about this for a while. “I’m cool with it, if you are. But if they start breaking the rules, I will stand up and walk out. I’m tired of being the giant red circle at everyone’s target practice.” 

 

*****

 

It was for this reason that John actually accompanied Paul to sound check that afternoon. Henry had set up a few comfy chairs in a corner of the vast dressing room at Giants Stadium for the Bay Area Reporter interview. The reporter, Sam Richards, was seasoned; he had worked for the paper for twenty years, and had interviewed many major news, sports, and entertainment figures over the decades. Still, interviewing John Lennon and Paul McCartney was in a category all of its own. He was the lead reporter on the hard news page, and he and his editor had been utterly amazed that they had been offered this exclusive one-on-two interview. Although he and his editor had agreed to the stipulations placed on the interview - nothing about their personal lives - he still wondered if John and Paul had become more open to discussing their relationship, or if this interview was just a savvy PR move to stroke the egos of the gay community. Either way, he was appreciative of the opportunity. 

Sam had set up his little command center, and the photographer was checking the light and projecting the angles when first Paul and then John entered the room. Henry made some friendly introductions, and then John and Paul sat down in two easy chairs, across from Sam’s easy chair. 

“Welcome to the Bay Area,” Sam said officially on the record. “Your concerts tonight and tomorrow night are complete sellouts. A large contingent from the gay community will be at both concerts. Are you aware of what icons you are in that community?”

John and Paul looked at each other and chuckled. John said, “I’ve always wanted to be an icon. Is there a salary attached?” Everyone laughed nervously.

“They pay by showing their pride,” Sam said, smiling. “There are a number of your songs that are very popular here - Rough Ride, Whatever Gets You Through the Night, You Want It Too, A Friend of Dorothy’s and It’s So Hard come to mind immediately. Are any of these songs on your set list tonight or tomorrow?”

“We’re doing Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” Paul confirmed.

“We do that one in every concert,” John added. 

“The songs I listed are all considered gay anthems by many in the LGBT community here. Had you given any thought to adding another one of them to the San Francisco concerts?”

Paul had honestly never given that issue any thought. He said, with charming sheepishness, “I never thought of it, I’m afraid. I’m like a horse returning to the barn sometimes.”

John said, “If we’d thought of it, we’d have rehearsed one of ‘em, but as it is, we couldn’t possibly do any of those songs justice. We’ll have to consider some of those songs for our next tour...” John turned to Paul to see if there was an agreement there, and Paul nodded slightly.

“Your popularity in the LGBT community is so strong because - rightly or wrongly, correctly or incorrectly - the two of you are viewed as a romantic couple. I am not at all asking you to confirm or deny or even to respond to the truth or falsity of those beliefs, but instead I’m asking if it bothers you that your personal relationship is such an important part of your appeal to much of your fan base?”

John and Paul had followed the man’s words with wide eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When the man threaded the needle so expertly, they both felt a little in awe of him. They then smiled easily at him. This reporter was a class act. 

John said, “No, it doesn’t bother us if they want to fantasize about stuff like that. We prefer being appreciated for our music, our art, our poetry, our whatever, but if some fans want to focus on that aspect, it doesn’t bother us. Does it Paul?” This last was said in a jocular fashion.

Paul smiled his agreement.

Sam said, “But you agree that - unlike many of your contemporaries, and even newer pop and rock music stars - your personalities are a major part of your public appeal?”

John had never thought of it that way, and neither had Paul. Again they looked at each other, clueless. Paul shrugged a little and decided to take a swing at the question. “I think it goes back to the Beatles,” he said, his voice slightly uncertain. 

“Yeah,” John added, jumping in. “The Beatles’ personalities were part of the whole Beatle gestalt. It probably comes from that.” 

“You used to speak quite openly about your private lives, but I heard you say in a recent press conference that being that open led to unhappy consequences so you don’t want to do that any more. Can you explain in more depth how being so open can be a damaging experience for you?”

John and Paul were frankly surprised at the man’s empathy. They were uncharacteristically quiet for a few moments until John said, “Paul and I spent a decade - the ‘70s - sniping at each other in interviews. The sad bit was, a lot of the time what we said and how we said it wasn’t meant to be a ‘snipe’, but the way it was reported, or the way it looked in cold black and white, made it sound mean or sarcastic. That’s perhaps the most profound example I have of how talking to your friends, your partners, your family or your loved ones through the press is a really bad idea. I once - this is a really bad one - I once was a bit drunk during an interview and I made a crack about how my first son was the result of my having drunk too much. This cut him to the bone. It was a cheap joke to make - in addition to being completely untrue - but I never considered the consequences. It isn’t worth it - you know, to be that great interview subject - if the price you pay is to hurt people you care about.” 

Sam had been listening to Lennon’s response and he felt the truth of what he was saying. He turned to Paul to see if he had anything further to add.

Paul said, “Once my kids got to a certain age, I was quite embarrassed at some of the things I’d said in interviews when I was younger - about drugs and such. They had to go to school and face their classmates, you know? And my wife - she was fighting off cancer for years, and all these paparazzi were desperately trying to take photos of her when she felt really bad about the way she looked. It is just best to keep the press at arm’s length, because in the end they’re not really your friends. No offense intended. You have a job to do, papers to sell, and so your interests are not the same as John’s and mine. Our interests only intersect where we need you to help promote our work, and you need us to help sell your advertising.”

Sam took this comment in stride. He had noted that Paul had a way of saying direct and even critical things in a very reasonable, charming way. He allowed his eyes to linger just a moment on Paul’s mobile face: so many expressions, and all of them attractive. No wonder there were so many photos over the decades of John staring adoringly at Paul’s face. Those photos alone were a dead giveaway to Sam, but then he realized he was predisposed to see sexual desire where maybe there was just strong affection. It mattered not, because the interview was over. Henry was giving him the high sign. 

After Sam’s tape recorder was turned off, and as he gathered his things, John Lennon stopped him for a moment and said, “Thanks for your very thoughtful questions.”

Sam smiled - very pleasantly surprised - and said, “Well, thanks to you and Paul for your very thoughtful answers. I think this will be a good read.” 

 

*****

 

Los Angeles  
Late June 2001

 

Ringo and his wife Barbara lived most of the year in Los Angeles these days, high up in the hills overlooking West LA. John and Paul always spent time with him when they were in LA, and Ringo planned to make a surprise visit to the stage at their first (of two) concerts there. It was in anticipation of this surprise appearance, that John, Paul, their band and Ringo had met together at a local rehearsal studio and practiced A Little Help From My Friends. Ringo was already singing that song in his own solo concerts, so it was just a matter of John and Paul’s band learning the number, and John and Paul remembering their back up vocals.

On the night of the first concert, John and Paul had made it almost to the end of their set, when John approached the mic and said, conversationally, “Paul, you know what I think?”

Paul, playing the straight man in this little set piece, responded, “When do I ever know what you think, John?” This little interplay encouraged a lot of affectionate laughter from the crowd.

Undaunted, John announced, “I think we need a little help from our friend.” He then stared blankly with anticipation at the audience until the penny dropped and people started cheering. 

“It’s Ringo!” Paul cried, as Ringo strolled out on the stage. He hugged first Paul and then John while the audience went wild. Because Abe Laboriel, Jr. was playing the drums, Ringo was free to sing with a handheld mic. They went immediately into a rousing rendition of A Little Help From My Friends.

Later that night, Ringo accompanied John and Paul back to the house they had rented in Beverly Hills. It was a quiet, laid back property, well protected by trees and fences up on a hillside. This time around Paul was determined that he wasn’t going to undermine Ringo with endless rounds of scotch. Instead, he immediately began making some herbal tea. When John saw what was on order, as Paul brought the tea tray into the sitting room, he joked, “Oh how the years have taken their toll.” But he was in full agreement with Paul. This time they weren’t going to sabotage Ringo’s determination to remain sober.

“I can’t believe we’re all going through this again,” Ringo mourned, his mind immediately straying to thoughts of George.

“It’s too much,” Paul agreed.

“One of these days one of us will have to catch a break,” John said quietly. And the room fell quiet and an air of depression fell over it. 

Then Paul said, “That time Geo and I went hitchhiking to Cardiff - did I tell you about the spider?”

“Spider?” John asked. 

“I’m sure you didn’t tell me about the spider,” Ringo said, chuckling.

“We stayed at this lady’s house - she had a room for let. And there was this huge spider web over the bed we were sharing with a big fat spider in the middle. And Geo and I were horrified! I mean, we came from very hygienic homes! Our mothers would have died to see such a big spider web! So we thought we’d do the nice lady a favor since she didn’t appear to have any sons to do these things for her. So between the two of us we managed to kill the spider and clean up the web. We felt very good about ourselves. So the next morning we’re having jam and bread, and the lady says, ‘So did you see our friend Reg?’ And Geo and I look at each other and say, ‘no, we didn’t see Reg,’ thinking this was another boarder or something. And she said, ‘Reg is our pet spider. He’s lived there for years.’”

John shouted out “Oh no!” while Ringo collapsed in laughter.

“So Geo and I - our eyes meet and we’re stricken with fear. So we very quickly got the hell out of there and we virtually ran down several lanes until we were way away, and then we collapsed on the verge, just rolling around in laughter.”

As the laughs died away, John said, “And remember that time he vomited in our digs in Hamburg, and he refused to clean it up? And none of us would do it either, so it just sat there, gathering dust?”

“I wasn’t with you then,” Ringo said wistfully. “I don’t remember that.”

Paul explained. “George had been spoiled by his mother, being the youngest child, so in those days he wouldn’t clean up, even after himself. So John, Stu, Pete and I decided we’d just leave it to teach him a lesson. It was right by his bed, and we figured he’d clean it up eventually because it was so disgusting. But it stayed there right until the end of the gig - and it had so much dust on it, we were all calling it ‘Harry,’ which George wasn’t happy about.”

John was chuckling as he sipped his tea. “Good old Harri - he was so gloomy for such a young kid. He could see the downside in any situation; I swear - he could even see fly poop on rice!”

 

*****

 

July 2001

 

George’s peaceful month-long visit to Tuscany took up all of May, but in early June he and Olivia had flown to Providence, Rhode Island, where he watched his son Dhani graduate from Brown University from a safe distance - on a hillock above and (he hoped) away from prying eyes. An ambulance had brought him there and was standing by in case he was needed because he was undergoing chemo at the time. Unfortunately, a paparazzo took photos of him. He looked very weak but he had a huge grin on his face because he was extremely proud of his son’s outstanding performance in physics and industrial design. He was staying in New York to receive treatment from Sloan Kettering, the same medical center Linda had gone to in the last years of her treatment. It was there that he discovered that the cancer had returned and was now growing in his brain. The tumor was inoperable, but there was an experimental program in Switzerland that was piloting a non-surgical treatment for certain brain tumors, so off he and Olivia went in early July. 

While George and Olivia were in Switzerland, Ringo came to visit them. He could only stay for the day, because his own daughter was receiving emergency brain surgery in Boston. 

“It feels like the sky is falling,” Ringo told his old friend sadly, his face a picture of bewilderment. “I can’t keep track of all the bad stuff happening.”

George had smiled in his warm, mischievous way and asked, “Do you want me to go with you?” Ringo looked at his friend and tried to picture him as a travel companion. George was as thin as a skeleton with tubes coming out of both of his arms. Ringo had to laugh. 

 

*****

 

Late July 2001  
New York City

 

Both Olivia and Ringo were keeping John and Paul current on George’s travails. Paul had asked Olivia if he and John should cancel their tour and spend time with George, but she insisted George would not hear of it. “He doesn’t want the attention that would cause, and he says there is nothing you could do even if you were here.”

This was nothing less than what Paul and John had predicted George would say, but they had felt they should at least offer to do it. They were certainly willing, but they completely understood George’s desire for absolute privacy. Linda had been the same. And John could remember being horrified by the idea of anyone photographing him when he was bald and going through chemo. As John (while undergoing chemo) had once said to Paul - quite seriously, much to Paul’s amusement - “It’s hard to have cancer when you’re vain.”

The day before, they had arrived back in their beautiful Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park, and they both felt that it was a relief to be at one of their own homes. They’d done several concerts in the last month since the Los Angeles gigs - it had been non-stop for four weeks - and so the comforts of home were much appreciated. And better yet, that night they were going to have Jason and Gerry over for dinner. John was really looking forward to it, and bustled about the house, cooking up a storm, newly energized by his freedom from the road.

Paul, meanwhile, spent the day in their business manager’s office in New York. Meeting with Paul there, in addition to John Eastman was John’s son Lee, who was a partner in his father’s law firm and was training to take over much of John and Paul’s business and finance. Also there were the tour manager Timothy, and the press agent, Henry. The meeting was nearing its end, having gone through lunch and late into the afternoon. 

“What are we doing for press in New York?” Paul asked as the meeting finally got to tour details. At this time, the whiskey bottle was out and everyone was having two stiff fingers. 

“We’re under real pressure to do another press conference,” Henry admitted, sharing a nervous glance with Timothy. Henry and Timothy had discussed this thorny issue the night before.

“That’s not going to happen,” Paul said, chuckling.

“It’s gotten really bad. It’s either some in depth print or television interviews, or a press conference. The demand is off the charts. We’re not going to get away with our 15-minute soundbites. They’re threatening not to publish or broadcast any more of those because, as they say, they’re ‘boring and repetitive.’”

Paul sighed heavily. “Look, John will have a cow. I’m not thrilled at the idea myself, but John - he already told us he wasn’t going to do any more of those.”

John Eastman, who was just sitting in at this point since the business and finance parts of the meeting had concluded, asked Henry, “They don’t really need publicity do they? There are two concerts in New York and two in Brooklyn, and they’re all sold out. Why should they care if the press is restless?”

“The press has an enormous ego,” Henry explained. “You have to stroke them periodically or they turn nasty on you. One reporter said to me the other day that he didn’t know what the big hoopla was over their concerts - he said, ‘they just play the same songs over and over.’”

Paul laughed. “Yeah. It’s called ‘a concert.’” He shook his head while he chuckled. “Do they think we write all new songs one night, learn them in the mornings, and perform them the next night?”

“What I’m worried about,” Henry said, “is that you might start to get some backlash from the press. You know, they build people up, and then they tear them down.”

“Been there, done that, a dozen times; have the t-shirts and the scars,” Paul mumbled grumpily. 

“If you feed their egos every once in a while you can cut their growing grumpiness off at the knees,” Henry finished. “It’s at fever pitch here in New York. They see themselves as the cream of the crop of all journalists, and they need special handling.”

Paul considered this point at some length. He finally said, “I’ll talk to John. I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Henry. But I’m just wondering, which would be more excruciating - a 30- minute press conference, or one of those long TV or print interviews? I don’t like the fact that on TV or in print interviews they can edit your comments, whereas the press conference is live and they can’t really edit around what you said because there are so many other people there who heard what you said and are reporting on it. On the other hand, because it’s live, it is so easy to say something wrong or that can be misconstrued.”

Henry reminded himself for the hundredth time that his client was very savvy when it came to public relations. “My thinking is that - as awful as they are - press conferences are a much easier medium to control than those in depth personal interviews, because of the power of the editor.”

Paul nodded, reflecting that he understood and agreed, and then the meeting broke up. He was glad it was finally over, and he was looking forward to dinner tonight with Gerry and Jason. With that cheerful thought, he popped into the limo that would deliver him home to John.

 

*****

 

John had sent a limo for Jason and Gerry, and they felt quite special as the limo ducked into the underground parking garage to deliver them to the valet lobby. They then stepped on to the luxuriously large elevator, and were sent directly up to the penthouse suite. The penthouse suite had the entire floor, so John had left the front door wide open, and so when Jason and Gerry stepped off into the suite’s elevator lobby, they were able to walk right in the door, down the hall, and into the massive open plan area of sitting room, kitchen and patio.

John had received the valet’s call, and so had managed to finish shaving and get to the sitting room just as Jason and Gerry entered. Then he was embracing them. For a good 45 minutes the three men just sat in the sitting room, sipping aperitifs, and discussing what had been going on in their lives. John had handed Gerry VIP tickets to the first Manhattan concert, and Gerry had pocketed the valuable items in his wallet immediately. He had become - almost against his will - a massive Lennon & McCartney fan and was very much looking forward to the concert, which was going forward in two days. He had “allowed” Jason to accumulate all of their music - it was the only pop music they owned, but for a few of the most sophisticated Broadway musical soundtracks. Guiltily, secretly, Gerry had been working his way through their earliest work (he was especially impressed with how alive and fresh the young John and Paul sounded on those live at the BBC radio recordings), and was making his way now through the solo work of both men. Jason pretended not to notice any of this, but of course he did. He figured that, like everyone, Gerry needed his secret vice and plausible deniability.

 

Luv ya all!


	148. Chapter 148

New York City  
July 2001

 

After the more superficial personal news had been shared between John, Jason and Gerry, John said, “A dear friend of ours is dying.” He had wanted to share this information with someone he trusted, because he and Paul had been so careful not to mention this to anyone - so protective was George about his privacy, and so fiercely did he and Paul want to honor George’s wishes. 

“Oh no!” Jason cried. “Who?”

“Our former band-mate, George Harrison.”

“The lead guitarist.” Gerry said this reflexively, and then looked embarrassed when both Jason and John stared at him in surprise. Too late he remembered he wasn’t supposed to know this much detail. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m very sorry to hear it.”

“And our other band-mate, Ringo...”

The drummer, Gerry thought, although this time he didn’t blurt it out loud.

“His daughter just had emergency brain surgery,” John revealed.

“That’s terrible - how old is she?” Jason asked, his eyes two pools of distress.

John had to think about that. “She was born just as the band was breaking up,” he reminded himself, “so she’s about 30, I guess.” 

“How did her surgery go?”

“I spoke with Richie the other day. He said she had a completely successful operation - it was a benign tumor - but she is very weak, and it will be a long recovery. Apparently, for instance, she has a hard time finding words.”

“It’s a blessing they got it all. You know, I have a friend who had a stroke and suffered from aphasia for several months, but he’s as right as rain now,” Jason comforted.

Gerry asked, “And what about your friend George?”

John sighed heavily. “I’m not processing it yet. It doesn’t feel real. I keep hoping that there is a miracle, but we just went through this with Linda a few years ago, and the realistic side of me knows that there are no miracles once this disease reaches a certain phase.” 

“How long has he got?” Jason asked quietly.

John’s face expressed his ignorance. “I have no idea, but they took it out of his throat four years ago. Then earlier this year they took it out of one of his lungs. He’s been in chemo ever since. And now - just this month - they found it in his brain.”

“Oh, ouch,” Gerry said. 

“Yeah,” John said, defeated. “He’s in the middle of a very experimental treatment for this abroad. We talk to him every few days, and he always tries to sound like he’s doing well, but we can hardly recognize his voice.”

As John finished this depressing statement, Paul walked in. “You do know,” he announced to the room, “that the front door was wide open?”

Everyone chuckled. “And I’m sure you’ve closed it, haven’t you?” John teased, knowing that Paul’s behavior at times bordered on the OCD scale. After all, no one else had access to the floor, so why shouldn’t the door hang open?

Paul didn’t respond; he was busy giving Jason and Gerry his big, enveloping hugs. 

Over dinner they discussed the things they always discussed together - books, movies, plays, music, politics and funny anecdotes. The conversation was suffused with wit, warmth and intelligence, with an occasional side trip into silliness. They then repaired to the sitting room to have their after-dinner drinks. 

“Are you looking forward to your concerts here?” Gerry asked Paul shyly. 

Paul said, “I look forward to every performance.” He looked a little sheepish. “I’m a born ham.” 

“Yeah,” John laughed. “When Paul came out of the womb he was like - ta da! You know, doing a round of tap dancing and throwing his arms up in the air.” As they all laughed, Paul held his fire. Then he said,

“And when John came out of the womb, he was yawning, and he was mad at the doctor - ‘Dude - you spoiled my nap.’”

 

*****

 

The Next Morning

 

At the breakfast table, Paul brought up the subject of the press conference with John. John seemed to be in a calm, happy mood, and so it was a good moment to raise the troubling subject.

“So, Henry advises that we should do a press conference tomorrow, in advance of the show,” Paul said lightly, holding his breath. His elbows were on the table, and his hands were both holding on to his coffee cup, which was suspended in mid-air.

“A press conference! Is he out of his fucking mind?” John squeaked. 

Paul had to laugh at John’s reaction. “He thinks it’s either that or an in depth interview on TV or for one of the print outlets.”

“I don’t understand why he keeps doing this to us! We have a clause in our contract that says we don’t have to promote our concerts if we don’t want to,” John argued.

“This isn’t coming from the promoters, John. This is Henry’s opinion that the New York press doesn’t like being spoon fed, and if we don’t give them something more substantial they’re liable to get nasty and start criticizing our concerts.”

John, exercised now, cried, “They’re already nasty. Look at that Post story!” 

“Oh, we wouldn’t be talking to the tabloids directly, John. A legitimate news conference - tabloid reporters will be there, of course they will, but the real reporters will be there to keep them in line. Or else, that is what Henry thinks.”

“Maybe we should pick a tame reporter and just do another exclusive, like that really cool guy in San Francisco,” John suggested hopefully. 

“He wasn’t tame, John. He empathized with us - no doubt he’s had to do his share of keeping things to himself over the years. He made a conscious choice to respect our privacy.” Paul’s face was thoughtful and serious. “The sad thing is, we are unlikely to find a New York reporter worth his salt who won’t insist upon asking the ‘usual question,’ and they won’t be satisfied until you directly comment on that Post story.”

John had listened to Paul with a deep intensity. Over the years he had learned that when Paul spoke like this he had something important to say, and it was no doubt true. He said, “I can’t comment on that Post story. What can I possibly say? Unless you think I should lie?”

Paul’s face reflected his open sympathy. “No, you don’t have to lie. You just handle it exactly as you did in that print interview about your volume of poetry. You were brilliant in that. If you respond in just that way, the legitimate press will be satisfied and will move on.”

“But the tabloids will double down...”

“They’re doubling-down already anyway though,” Paul observed. 

John nodded. He had been trying to ignore the latest round of headlines about him and his alleged ‘gay antics’ from the New York tabloid press. He finally said, “I’ll do it, Paul, if you think it is best. But I’m not sure I can control my temper.”

“We’ll just have to count on Henry to jump in when it gets too hot.”

“Well, he didn’t ‘jump in’ to help me with that print interview a few months ago!” John was still smarting over that, apparently.

“I think he learned his lesson there. Anyway, I will make it clear to him what we expect from him,” Paul assured.

With that, the fateful decision was made.

 

*****

 

Press Conference  
New York Hilton Hotel  
Late July 2001

 

As soon as Paul had called Henry to tell him that the press conference was a ‘go’, Henry had sent out an all-points bulletin to his contacts in the legitimate press that John and Paul had decided to cede to their request for a press conference. Henry had laid down the ground rules - it would be 30 minutes long, period, and if John and Paul felt the questions were abusive of their privacy they would end the conference early. Henry knew better than to say, ‘no personal questions allowed,’ because he was aware that the main purpose of this interview was for John and Paul to be able to address those rumors directly, if only to tell everyone to mind their own business, in order to calm the gossip down. The conference was to be held at precisely 2:30 p.m. the day of the first Manhattan concert; John and Paul would leave for sound check immediately thereafter. Since sound check was at 4 p.m., this provided the perfect excuse for ending the conference precisely 30 minutes after it started. 

Henry had arrived an hour early to observe how his assistants were setting up the room. There were 100 press packets of tour and album information that he’d had thrown together that morning to hand out to the attendees, and he brought the box containing these packets with him as he arrived. He was stunned to find what seemed to be many dozens of reporters waiting patiently in line outside the conference hall, and the line serpentined down the corridor. He was now worried that he hadn’t made enough press packets. He grabbed an assistant and told her to go back to the office and prepare 100 more, and get them back as soon as possible. She left the room at a trot. 

Realizing that the conference was going to be packed, Henry quickly asked about the room limits as established by the NY Fire Department, and then made sure that the maximum number of chairs were fit in to the room. It was going to be first come, first serve, and if more than 200 reporters and photographers showed up they would not be allowed in the room. He was extremely nervous as the clock ticked down towards 2:30; he watched the television and video cameras being set up at the back of the room, and saw the still camera photographers staking out their spots, sitting on the floor in the front of the room, and along the sides. As the crowd grew to maximum strength, Henry became very worried. He wasn’t at all sure he could keep a crowd of New Yorkers this size contained for even 10 minutes, much less 30. New Yorkers did not take ‘no’ for an answer; that had been Henry’s experience anyway. Henry had managed to talk to the Rolling Stone reporter earlier in the day. He said he would call on Rolling Stone first, if the reporter would ask a question related solely to the concert, to which the reporter happily assented. He had intended to ask about the music anyway.

There was no time for backing out now, John thought as he and Paul arrived at the Hilton Hotel and traveled up the staff elevator to the conference room level. He and Paul were led down some private staff hallways to a small staff staging area behind the largest conference hall. They each picked up a bottle of water, and tried to keep from getting too nervous. They had 5 minutes to go before the start of the conference. Just then Henry burst in and was relieved to see them there. For one horrible moment he had worried that John might refuse to come at the last moment. 

As soon as he hit the room he said excitedly, “It’s a full house - we’ve had to turn people away at the doors. There will be 200 reporters and photographers out there.” Henry wanted to get the ‘bad’ news out as quickly as he could.

“Two hundred?” John cried. He turned to Paul, his face a study in panic. 

Instinctively, Paul moved in John’s direction and put his arm around John’s shoulders. “Piece of cake,” he whispered in John’s ear. 

John’s eyes lit up with delight at Paul’s wordplay - “Too Many People!” He chuckled.

“Do you want me to make an introduction, or do you just want to walk in unannounced?” Henry asked.

“We’ll just walk in,” Paul said decisively, which is exactly what John would have said if he could talk. His heart was pounding so hard he was worried it might burst, and he wasn’t at all sure his voice would work.

 

*****

 

From the reporters’ point of view, the press conference was shaping up to be a pig fuck. There were too many reporters there, and only a few would be permitted to ask questions given the 30-minute time limit. The tabloid reporters figured they’d just have to shout out their questions louder than the legit press guys and hope that theirs would have to be answered in order to shut them up. The legit press was pissed that the tabloid press was there, because those guys did not follow the rules of large press conferences, where the most prestigious legitimate press outlets went first, and it was done in an orderly fashion. Yup, it was going to a pig fuck, but nothing to be done but get it over with.

Suddenly, and without any fanfare or warning, Paul McCartney and then John Lennon came in to the room from a door behind the podium, and took their places in seats at the table on the podium. The room was suddenly alight with flashes from cameras, and people were already shouting - “John!” “Paul!”

Henry was standing to the side, and with a hand mic he demanded that everyone be quiet, so the conference could start. “The longer you waste your time doing this, the shorter time you will have to ask questions,” he warned. Soon the reporters were shushing each other.

John and Paul watched all this with disbelieving amusement. They shared a quick look between them. Roller coaster time! They seemed to say to each other. John’s eyes danced. Maybe this could be fun after all.

Henry said, “The reporter from Rolling Stone...” and he pointed at the man sitting in the seat that had been saved for him, first row center. (Certain members of the legitimate press had assigned seats; everyone else was first come, first serve.) 

“Your tour so far this year has broken all the records in terms of numbers of tickets sold and dollars grossed. And your new album has received fantastic reviews and has sold extremely well. Why do you think you are still so wildly popular after all these years?”

Paul thought to himself, Henry set that up, bless him, and then said, “We don’t know. We’ve never known. We like it though.”

“A lot,” John appended, with a Groucho leer.

The reporters, even the hard-bitten ones, had to chuckle a little. The Beatle charm was beginning to work it’s magic again.

Henry called on the radio reporter from the most popular classic rock music station in New York City, WAXG-FM. He had made another deal with this reporter in the hour before the press conference. 

“Are you going to change up the set list for tonight? Any special surprises in store for the audience?” He asked.

Since John and Paul had made an effort to throw a few of their sound check songs into the mix that night, including a new sound check staple of theirs where they both took turns singing lead, Under the Boardwalk, John said, “There might be a surprise or two specially for New York,” and then he grinned cheerily. This was not so bad, he thought. Why was I so worried?

Henry held his breath. He had to call on the reporters blind now. He began by choosing one of the big television networks and crossed his fingers.

“John, there have been some pretty outrageous and salacious stories about you published in the New York Post, among other tabloids. Do you have any comment about those stories?” The reporter asked.

(This deeply offended Williams, the reporter from the Post, who nonetheless paid strict attention to John’s answer.)

John said matter-of-factly, “That story has been around a dog’s age and I’ve had to comment on it numerous times over the years. At a certain point I have to draw the line and say ‘I’m not going to comment anymore.’ Nothing I have said so far has made them stop printing it, and I doubt that anything I might say today would stop it either.”

“Follow up!” The Post reporter yelled from his seat in the third row. “It’s my story! I want a follow up!”

Henry looked over at John and Paul for guidance. Paul turned to John and gave him a reassuring smile. John shrugged ‘okay.’ So Henry called on Williams, the reporter who was behind the ‘Brad’ story.

“You have never denied this story outright,” he declared. “If it isn’t true, why not deny it? You’ve had plenty of opportunities.”

John felt his temper rising. He decided to give the bloke a dose of his own medicine. “Maybe I don’t like to give people like you the time of day.” Many reporters laughed, some applauded, and others hissed in shock. John then continued, “You crawl around in the gutter putting the worst spin on people’s perfectly innocent behavior, and then expect them to deny it? I don’t think I’m required to respond at all.” Again there was scattered applause, and several voices began shouting for attention again.

Henry called on another large television network. That reporter said, “Will you comment on the rumors about your...”

Both John and Paul joined the reporter in finishing his sentence: “...personal relationship?” Everyone laughed, relaxing now. It seemed that at least John and Paul were going to be good sports about it all.

John then responded, “Come on folks, you all know the drill.” John looked at Paul in silent encouragement. Then they both recited at once:

“We don’t comment on our personal lives.” 

This was followed by a lot of good-natured laughter from the press. However, one reporter, near the back of the room, shouted, “It’s a bit ridiculous though that you won’t answer if it’s true or not!”

The room went quiet. John and Paul regrouped and then John said, “Well, we think it’s a bit ridiculous that you keep asking us a question that you know we won’t answer.” 

Paul added, “It’s a bit of a distraction from what we’re here to talk about - our album and our tour.”

John added, “Yeah, as we’ve said ‘til we’re both blue in the face, our personal lives are not for sale.”

Another reporter from the back of the room shouted, “You could end the distraction by just answering the question!”

John turned to Paul and whispered theatrically (so that everyone could hear him), “Can I hit him now?” Paul appeared to take the question seriously, and then shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Fine by me. The room burst out in laughter.

John turned back to the reporters in mock outrage. “You’re a broken record - the whole pack of you!” More laughter.

Henry quickly called on the New York Times music reporter, hoping for a return to normalcy. That reporter, however, asked in an almost reproachful voice, “You are both very honest about everything else; why not this?”

Again the room went silent. The reporters waited with baited breath. It was Paul who finally responded. 

“I’ve always thought that total honesty is a highly overrated virtue.” 

From the back of the room again came another demanding shout: “But what’s the point of avoiding the question when we all know it’s true?”

Paul was beginning to get angry now. He had that resting bitch face that John knew so well. His voice got lower, the way it did when he was getting angry, and he said back to the reporter, “If you think you already know the answer, then why ask it?”

A reporter from the Village Voice - an out and proud gay man - shouted out, “It’s about time you spoke out about it!”

In that moment, John snapped. Later, he would not be able to say what had gotten into him. But, filled with manic energy he jumped up from his seat and threw his arms up in the air and shouted out, hilariously: “Alright! It’s true! I can’t take it anymore! You’ve driven me right off the edge! Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!”

At this point the entire room was howling with laughter. Paul - still seated calmly in his chair - was watching John with a slightly awed and amused expression on his face, which many photographers captured. But John wasn’t finished yet, his arms gesturing wildly:

“Are you satisfied now? Have we satisfied your creepy little minds? Will you leave us the fuck alone now?” John’s manic energy was filling the room, and overloading the senses of everyone around him. And then, suddenly - as suddenly as he had erupted - John stopped shouting. He took a number of deep breaths, and then plopped back down in this seat, and continued to breath deeply as he calmed himself down. He felt surreal but terribly satisfied. Fuck them all! He then smiled pleasantly at the room, making everyone laugh.

Paul had been watching John’s performance with a wry expression. John finally met his eyes, and Paul said directly to him, but speaking in a low, amused voice into the microphone, “Feeling better?”

Reporters, fascinated by what they had just experienced, laughed.

John muttered - directly to Paul, but aware that he had a full audience - “Sorry. Whatever it was, it’s out now.” Paul chuckled and turned back to the audience. He felt completely calm. He was relaxed in his seat, although he was leaning forward. He had his elbow on the table, and his cheekbone was resting in his hand. 

“Paul! Paul!” A reporter shouted. “Are you surprised by what John just admitted?”

Paul regarded the room with a languid expression. He waited for judicious moment, and when he spoke he did so very calmly in a low lazy voice directly into the microphone. “Surprised? No.” He paused again briefly and added, “I already knew about it.” His face was the very picture of innocence.

The room exploded in laughter, and John let loose with a huge belly laugh. He felt exultant and relieved. 

“But Paul!” a reporter shouted, “What do you think about what John said? Are you upset by it?”

John whispered to Paul, sotto voce, “They drove me to it, I swear.” This set loose another round of laughter. 

Paul smiled and winked at John and then answered the reporter’s question. “What I have to say about John’s behavior just now - and, come to think of it, ever since I first met him - is that it is the living embodiment of the phrase, ‘I can’t take him anywhere.’”

Surprisingly, the laughing reporters burst into applause as John allowed his head to fall down on to his folded arms, laughing. 

As the laughter finally petered out Paul, still cool and collected said, “Now. What were we talking about before all this nonsense? Something about a tour?”

“And an album...” John added helpfully.

 

*****

 

“Well, that was quite something,” Paul said to John and Henry as they settled in the limo taking them to the concert hall for sound check. 

“Are you pissed at me?” John asked, a little fearfully.

Paul squeezed John’s hand and said, “No, of course not. We were going to have to address it sometime. I actually think this was the best possible way.”

“Really?” John asked, tremendously relieved.

“I think so too,” Henry interjected. “It was hilarious. Funniest damn thing I ever saw in a press conference in my whole career. It’s going to be all over the Internet and the press wires. Lots of publicity!”

“Yes, well...” John said nervously. He was looking worriedly in Paul’s direction. He didn’t think Paul would be too happy about Henry’s enthusiasm. 

Paul noticed John’s concern and said, “That doesn’t exactly fill our hearts with joy, Henry.”

“But maybe now they’ll stop asking us about it,” John offered hopefully.

“No,” Paul said regretfully. “They’ll want to know more, and the questions will get more - not less - pointed. But it can’t be helped. It was bound to happen, and now we can plan around it.”

John felt bad. “It was just so fucking frustrating - the ugly slant they were putting on it - the things they were shouting. I wanted to ram it all down their throats.”

Paul laughed easily. “You certainly accomplished that! But they totally provoked you, John, and anyway, it was very entertaining. No one was bored at all.” Paul’s eyes were dancing, and John’s mind was set at ease. 

But after a few moments John spoke more softly, and with additional tension: “We’re gonna hear from everyone about this now. The kids, our friends, we’ll be explaining forever, and oh...” John groaned as he had this thought, “Your brother...I never consider the fucking consequences!”

Paul said, “John, don’t worry. It will be okay. The kids, at least, will think it’s hysterical.”

John grinned sheepishly. “Stella will for sure. She’ll take the mickey out of me.”

Paul chuckled. “You’re on your own there, mate.”

 

*****

 

Jason and Gerry were going back to John and Paul’s apartment with them after the show. They had of course heard and seen all the screaming news headlines about John’s performance at the press conference, and had witnessed over and over on the news stations the video of John raving, but had been savvy enough not to mention it backstage or on the way to the apartment in their limo afterwards. But now they were comfortably arrayed around the sitting room. Paul had disappeared into the master suite where he was taking a shower and changing his clothes. John, who had already done so, was seated on one of the sea foam colored sofas, already starting his second helping of whiskey.

“I blew my top today,” he confessed to his friends.

“We heard,” Jason said, his face lit up with amusement.

“The whole bloody world heard, “ John moaned. “And are hearing it over and over now...”

“Paul certainly took it well. He looked completely unconcerned afterwards,” Gerry offered. He had been quite proud of his friend Paul’s reaction, actually. Cool as a cucumber.

John said, “I’m worried that he is faking it.”

“Why would he fake it?” Jason asked.

“He wouldn’t want to upset me. But I’m worried that underneath it all he’s pissed. He hates confrontation, and guards his privacy.”

“Don’t go borrowing trouble again, John,” Jason counseled. “Let things unfold. I’d be very surprised if Paul was angry at you.”

“Why is that?” John asked hopefully.

“Because, John, in my experience, he adores you and worships the ground you walk on.” Jason’s words were succinct and to the point. John blinked.

“That’s how it looks to you?” He asked, insecure.

“Deep inside you must know it’s true,” Jason chided.

Before John could answer, Paul came in to the room. He looked refreshed and chipper. There was a spring in his step. He plopped down on to the sofa next to John, and took the glass of whiskey Jason leaned over to hand him. 

“So, John let the cat out of the bag today!” He announced cheerfully. “It’s such a fuckin’ relief to have that over with!”

 

*****

 

London  
Early the Next Morning

 

“Oh my god Mary! Did you hear what John did?” Stella was almost apoplectic as she shouted into her cell phone.

“John? No. What did he do?” Mary’s heart was pounding. John was so unpredictable. He was liable to do anything. She had been up all night with Arthur, who had been fretful and feverish, so she had been focusing on him and hadn’t tuned into any media yet that morning.

“They had a press conference yesterday in New York, and they were being heckled by a few reporters about ‘the usual question,’ and John just blew a gasket!” Stella answered.

“What did he do?” Mary was very worried now.

“It was hilarious! It was great! You have to watch it - it’s all over the news and the Internet - and Daddy was so hilariously blasé about it!” 

“But what did he say?” Mary was still in the dark, and becoming increasingly frustrated by it.

“He was yelling ‘Yes! It’s true! Are you happy now?’ It’s like he got fed up and just started yelling. He jumped up and down. It’s priceless. Go check it out on Google right now! Call me back after!” Stella hung up and picked up the phone to call her father and John in New York, but stopped when she realized it was only about 4 a.m. there. She would have to wait several more hours before she could call. She would have to wait several more hours until she could give John the ribbing of his life!


	149. Chapter 149

LENNON ADMITS THAT   
MCCARTNEY IS HIS LOVER!

 

This was only one of hundreds of worldwide headlines that screamed at Paul from magazines, newspapers, Internet stories, and live broadcasts, and it was hardly the most lurid. MTV and talk radio was agog about the news, and interview requests were coming in from everywhere. They all wanted the ‘tell all’ story. The tabloids were playing it for all it was worth. The ‘straight’ press was conservatively hedging its bets, unsure if John’s outburst was a joke. In any case, amongst Beatle followers and fans, there was mass chaos going on.

“This is just about as bad as I thought it would be,” a subdued Paul said to Henry. Henry had covered his New York office desk with a smattering of these headlines, and John Eastman and Timothy were there for moral support - Eastman for Paul, and Timothy for Henry. Paul added softly, “It’s Pandora’s Box.” John Lennon had chosen to stay home, not wanting to face the real life consequences of his momentary departure from sanity.

Henry said, “There’s a lot of it, but mainly the legit press is very sympathetic. They either are writing that it might have been a big joke, or they’re appreciative that you were both so honest about it. They think John was hilarious.”

“The backlash won’t be far behind,” Paul said gloomily. “The religious right...”

“They aren’t major fans of yours anyway,” John Eastman comforted. 

“I’m not worried about ticket or album sales,” Paul said honestly. “It’s the moral crap they’re going to spew, and the things that will hurt Linda’s memory. I know it is in the pipeline. The devil always has his day.” This led to an uncomfortable silence. But Paul perked up, as he always did. “Still, as I’ve said, it can’t be helped.”

Henry said, in an attempt to lighten the mood, “At least we’re ahead of the story now, and that puts us in the catbird seat.”

“How so?” Paul asked skeptically.

“It’s much easier to be disdainful of people’s prurient curiously when you have admitted the truth about yourself. Maybe the fact of your relationship - by a stretch of the imagination - is news, but the details about your relationship are not. The legitimate press will not go there because if you say, ‘that’s too personal’, they will feel icky.”

Paul sighed. “I wish I had your confidence in what you call the ‘legitimate’ press. Back in the day I would have agreed with you, but in the last 15 years or so the line between the legit press and the tabloid press has blurred.”

“That’s true,” Henry agreed, “but it’s a question of degree. The established news organizations will pull back when it becomes tasteless, and will leave the tackiness to the tabloids. And people really don’t believe all that they read in tabloids. To them it is like fiction in a way. They read it to be titillated, but they don’t really believe all of it.”

“It’s wrong though,” John Eastman grumped. “It’s like poking people with sticks. It’s immoral.”

Paul smiled at his brother-in-law. He was such a loyal friend and partner. He sighed with decisiveness. “So, okay, this is where we are. Where do we go from here, Henry?” Paul asked, his voice now sounding in kick ass mode.

“It depends. Do you want to address the subject in more depth in an exclusive interview with a friendly reporter? Or do you want to go back to the 15-minute soundbites where you refuse to discuss it?” 

Paul regarded Henry with hooded eyes for a few moments and then said, “At least until the tour is over, let’s go back to the 15-minute soundbites. I think John and I have had enough excitement for the next little while. We’ve only got one more month on tour left, after all. And we really do need to see how the dust settles. The way many are interpreting it is that it was a big joke.”

 

*****

 

While Paul was at the business offices, John was puttering around the apartment, trying to avoid looking at the Internet. He was very curious about how the information was being treated there, but terrified he’d be sick to his stomach if he found out. He was the one who answered the phone when Stella finally got through.

“Finally!” She shouted down the phone line. “Getting through to Dad has been impossible! And I’ve tried your line about 5 times!”

John chuckled. “Your dad’s at a business meeting, and I’ve been screening my calls. They’re coming fast and furious, and I’ve been ducking them all. This time when the phone rang I noticed it was your number though, so I picked up.”

“I’ve called to bust your chops,” Stella said in mock anger.

For a moment John was worried. It was only after all the dust had settled the night before that he had remembered Paul’s and his kids’ fears of how Linda would be treated if the truth were to come out. “Stella, I didn’t think...”

Stella laughed. “I’m just teasing, John. I thought you were spectacular! Amazing! Good for you - getting your own back!”

John sighed with relief. “To be honest, I’ve been worried about what you would say.”

“I’ve been urging you both to be honest about this for a long time,” Stella chided. “It’s about time.”

“But your mother’s memory...”

“We will all stick up for Mum’s memory, John. I’d like to see them try to tear her down.” Stella’s voice was stoic and cold as a stone. “None of us will put up with it, even for a moment.”

John said, “I hope your Dad feels the same way about it...”

Stella considered this remark. “Well, what I know about my father is, once the shit hits the fan, he goes into overdrive. Now that it is out there, he will do everything in his power to protect both you and my mother. He’ll be your strongest supporter - you watch.”

John felt better when he heard those words. He knew instinctively that Stella was absolutely right about that. Paul had certainly been the only one in the Beatles inner circle who had stood up for John fiercely and without reservation, both publicly and privately, during that whole Beatles-are-bigger-than-Christ debacle.

 

*****

 

August 1, 2001  
New York City

Jason and Gerry were deep in the throes of their Wednesday evening at-home. It was a full house tonight - no doubt all the men had come to gossip about the John and Paul revelations. Of course, they’d all known the truth for years, but they were highly amused and excited by John’s way of announcing it to the world, and Paul’s laissez-faire reaction to it. Of course this announcement had cheered up the LGBT crowd immensely, from the older, discreet crowd, to the younger in-your-face crowd, and all the ‘crowds’ in between. 

“Did you go to one of their concerts?” Jason was asked as they settled in with assorted after-hours drinks. 

“We went to their first one in Manhattan,” Jason answered. “It was fantastic. The crowd was electric, and whenever they sang a love song the audience went crazy.”

Gerry said, “They were very circumspect though. Professional. There was no difference in their presentation than any of the other concerts of theirs I’ve attended.” In truth, Gerry had been a little offended by some of the naughty signs that the audience had been flaunting. He thought of Paul as a very dignified person, and did not like to see that dignity slighted in any way. 

“Where are they now?” Another man asked.

Jason said, “They’re in Philadelphia tonight I think. They’ll be finishing up the tour in a few weeks.”

“It’s been non-stop press about it,” a third man pointed out.

“I’m sure they are used to this level of scrutiny,” Gerry said loyally. “At least from my perspective they always seem to be so.”

Someone said, “Did you see the Saturday Night Live sketch on this - when the guy playing John - what’s his name? Will Farrell - went crazy in the press conference? It was hilarious. And Jimmy Fallon - as Paul - he sat there with this unsurprised and utterly entertained grin on his face, eating popcorn like he was watching a movie. It was hilarious.”

Everyone laughed, because everyone of course (except maybe Gerry) had seen it, if not on the night, then on the Internet afterwards. 

“Lorne Michaels, who produces that show, is a very good friend of theirs,” Jason said knowingly. “I’m sure they laughed their asses off when they saw it.”

“Do you think so? Do they have a sense of humor about it?” The man asked.

“They have a sense of humor about everything,” Gerry responded firmly.

 

*****

 

John and Paul had watched SNL that particular night, because Lorne had warned them. Alone in the privacy of their hotel suite (they had been in Chicago that night for their concert the next day) they had laughed themselves sick. 

“Oh, the popcorn!” John had squealed in between bouts of laughter. 

Paul laughed. He had watched himself in the video feed of the press conference and had noted how completely at ease and amused he had seemed throughout John’s ravings. Giving his character popcorn while watching pretty much captured the vibe. He had to laugh at that! 

Still, facing the press and the audience in the wake of John’s revelations had not been altogether easy. They had tiptoed through a number of their 15-minute sound bite interviews with local presenters, all of whom wanted to ask questions about it, but were afraid they’d get cut off. John and Paul could see the question on the tip of every tongue, and it was a weighty presence in every interaction they had with the press. What’s worse, they felt the need to not show or express undue affection for one another, so they sat further apart than they normally did, and very rarely exchanged looks between them. Now everyone would be looking for a ‘tell,’ and they felt as though a super microscope was on them all the time. And then there were the paparazzi. The photographers were revved up by the promise of huge bucks from the print press - everyone wanted the ‘money shot’ - i.e., some kind of physical affection between John and Paul. Well, those two gentlemen were not going to accommodate the press in that way. They were very determined on that score.

Now, in Philadelphia, John and Paul were on the way back from the concert in their limo. They were tired and thus uncharacteristically quiet as the car took them back to their hotel. Each concert got crazier, with more signs with naughty sayings, and more religious fanatics carrying banners and protesting the show. It felt a bit like being trapped in a circus, and neither one of them was comfortable with it. 

John, especially, was feeling oppressed by it. At first, the sheer exhilaration of getting the damn thing off his chest, and shoving it down all those voracious throats in his own inimitable style had kept him mostly up. There had been moments of fear and doubt, but mainly he had been up. Now, a few weeks later, he was mainly down about it. It had been a cheap thrill, but he wondered now if he could pay the price for it. In addition, amazingly, a whole lot of people had watched and heard what he said and believed it was all a joke, so the monkey wasn’t really entirely off their backs! He looked nervously over at Paul, who was keeping his own counsel. Paul’s head was thrown back against the car seat, and his eyes were closed. John didn’t think he was asleep; he just didn’t want to talk. John knew that Paul wasn’t angry with him, but maybe he had been hurt or disappointed that he’d done the thing unilaterally? John turned back towards the car window, and stared out into the darkness, watching the debilitated downtown Philadelphia flash by him. What had he set loose? He hoped that it wouldn’t end up being a terrible mistake.

 

*****

The Hamptons, New York  
Mid August, 2001

 

John and Paul and family had arrived at the new house they had purchased in Amagansett, in a development in the woods a few miles away from the old McCartney home. That old home had been Linda’s place, and Paul had discussed it with his kids, and they all agreed that they should start anew in a different house so there wouldn’t be so many ghosts. When they spent a few weeks on Long Island with Linda’s family every August, they needed a home to go to that was not redolent with Linda’s memory. John had been tremendously but quietly relieved by this, and had hired the same man who had decorated his New York apartment to help with the Hamptons house. It was very beachy and comfortable without being a cliché, and the family found it restful and bright. It was a relatively humble one-level house, at least for that neighborhood, but it had sufficient bedrooms for the whole conjoined family, and a large, meandering and sprawling deck and pool area. 

This time Sean had come, and Julian also. Julian needed to follow up on his rain check to take his father and Paul to dinner. He figured he’d celebrate Paul’s birthday belatedly and his father’s in advance, since he planned to be involved in an art show with his mother in early October. Julian had come by himself this time, without his girlfriend. There were problems there, but he didn’t discuss this with any of his family. So, surrounded by all the McCartney kids, and both the Lennon kids, the McLens were spending a very relaxed end-of-summer break with the Eastman clan. 

Their first evening there, John and Jodie Eastman had invited them over to their house, a few miles away, and after a loud party and a lot of pool nonsense involving almost all of the cousins, the kids had decided to head to the nearest hip town to hang out in a popular club. Even Julian went along. He didn’t get to spend much time with Sean, who was also there without his girlfriend, so he elected to go despite his greater age. Only Heather remained home, but she was closeted in her room and was quite happily reading and spending time to herself. She was easily overwhelmed by the energy her family exuded, and needed frequent breaks from it. Meanwhile, John and Jodie, and John and Paul, remained out on the pool party drinking Margaritas.

“How are you two holding up?” Jodie asked gently. “There’s been a lot of press frenzy.”

John said, “We’re done with the tour now, thank god. I didn’t think it would ever end.”

Even Paul had grown tired of the tour after John’s impromptu press declaration. Being on the stage was great, but everything else associated with the tour was now a drain. He was ready to go home to London and hibernate for a good long time, at least until the gossip settled down. There would be, eventually, a new startling news event to axe them out of the headlines. There always was. He said, “I’m glad we did it, but I’m glad it’s over.”

John chuckled: such a Paul thing to say. Always seeing the glass half full. 

“It was a tremendous success,” John Eastman commented, “both critically and financially.”

They all lapsed into a comfortable silence after that until John said, “I’m sorry to put you all through this. I know it can’t be easy having paparazzi hanging out across the street.” (John had noticed them as their car approached the Eastmans’ gate.)

Jodie shrugged. “They don’t bother me. I’m nobody. They never want my picture. It’s kind of funny, really, they’ll see the gate open, and I’ll drive out, and I can actually hear them all moan in disappointment.”

Paul and John laughed out loud, and Jodie’s husband patted her hand and smiled at her lovingly. 

“But you’re the ones under the gun,” Jodie added. “It’s so unpleasant...”

“But predictable...” John Eastman added.

Paul smiled at Jodie and said, “We’re used to it. Really, we are. We may not always like it, but we’re used to it. And we’d probably get very worried if suddenly nobody bothered about us.”

John snickered. He acknowledged the ugly truth in that - he and Paul both had gotten so used to adoration and being the center of attention that, if it ever ended, they’d be bereft and wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. 

Paul cleared his throat and said to his brother-in-law, “I’m sorry about that nasty piece about Linda in the Post.”

John and Jodie had been studiously avoiding the subject, and Paul’s John looked down at his hands, despondent. He felt it was his fault, because he had gone after the Post reporter at the press conference, and had made it personal.

“Henry and I are dealing with it, don’t worry,” John Eastman said, gritting his teeth. “Those people are unspeakable.”

“I wish they were ‘unspeakable’,” John said wistfully, making everyone laugh.

 

*****

 

This had been Alasdhair’s second exposure to the McCartney-Lennon family, and his first exposure to the Eastman family. He was overwhelmed trying to keep all the relationships and names straight. They were all a tight bunch, which - to be honest, Alasdhair had to admit it - surprised him. He hadn’t thought that the Eastmans would be that welcoming to Lennon. But clearly they were, and they obviously included him as part of their family.

He had noted Stella’s exhilaration about John’s announcement at the press conference, and he himself had thought it was - objectively - very funny. But he worried about how it must feel to Stella’s more sensitive siblings, Heather and James. And he also wondered how John’s sons would feel about it. He couldn’t see any noticeable discomfort between these people and John and Paul. In fact, they all seemed to be very open and friendly with each other. And tonight, Julian had taken John and Paul out to dinner, and as Julian and Paul had waited for John in the hallway, Alasdhair had witnessed a loving hug between the two men. It certainly seemed genuine. He was slowly learning that he should get used to seeing weird and unusual things while hanging out with this interconnected family.

Julian, meanwhile, enjoyed his night out with his two ‘dads.’ One was his biological dad, and the other was his emotional dad. He no longer felt deprived of a father figure. He had learned finally to think himself lucky to have the waterfront covered by two remarkable father figures. Whatever he might need from a father, one of them was there willing to supply it. And tonight they were incandescent together, as usual. They looked at him with eager fondness, and hung on his every word. Their pride in his accomplishments was obvious, and it touched Julian in his deepest heart. At one point, John went off to the restroom and then over to the bar to reorder a round of drinks. While he was gone, Paul asked softly (anticipating the answer),

“Where’s your girl?” 

Julian looked up. This was Paul, and he could tell Paul anything. “We’re breaking up. She’s moving out.”

“Is this her doing or yours? Or is it a mutual decision?”  
Paul asked gently.

“Mine mainly. She wanted to get married and have babies. I’ve always made it clear that’s not my ambition.” Julian had a mulish look about his face that Paul knew well. John incarnate. 

To disarm him, Paul smiled softly and said, “I didn’t know you felt that way. Tell me more about it.”

Julian lowered his voice after looking around to make sure his father wasn’t approaching the table. “I don’t think I’ll make a good husband or a good father. I haven’t really got a clue how to do either thing, and I also worry if this depression thing that runs in my father’s family would be passed on to my children. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” 

Paul nodded. Julian was a deeply empathetic human being who was perhaps a little too sensitive to deal comfortably with the basic slings and arrows of everyday life. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see John approaching, so he said, “Well, all I can say by way of advice is - try to keep your mind open to possibilities.” He winked, and a moment later John was with them. Paul thought it was a shame that Julian still was uncertain about what he could and could not say around his father. Perhaps there would always be some residual damage to that relationship.

Mary had been worried about her father, and also her mother’s memory, and had been very much upset by the Post’s nasty comments about how callous her father was - using Linda as a ‘beard.’ They’d never said a kind thing about Linda in all the years that she had been married to her father, and now all of a sudden they’re her champions over the alleged villain, her dad? She seethed with a deep anger, and it was so unusual for her that it actually worried her. She felt she could discuss this anger with her uncle, John Eastman.

“What are we going to do about this?” She asked him. “Stella wants to come out guns blasting. What do you think?”

“I think we handle this with disdain and dignity. We wait a respectable amount of time, and then release a statement signed by all of us - her whole family, denouncing the story.

Mary was sure this was correct, and offered to help her uncle write the statement. She also offered to collect all the approvals to use names. They would draft a letter, and then they would all have their names attached to it - all of Linda’s sisters and nieces and nephews, all of the in-laws, all of the McCartney kids, John’s two sons, and her Uncle Mike of course. She’d even get some of their closest friends in on it. It was a great idea, she thought. She wrote the first draft and showed it to her uncle, who made a few corrections and additions. Then she showed it to Stella who wanted to add some inflammatory statements, but was talked down to one tough comment that was added to the draft. James and Heather had a say in it, as did Sean and Julian. 

This was all going on around him, but Paul had no idea. The letter was sent to the Post, but also simultaneously to several news wire outfits, and was soon being sent to media all over the world by the news wires. It read:

“To the Editors of the New York Post,

“We of course have become accustomed to reading inappropriate and completely inaccurate reporting in your newspaper about our family. But the story about our beloved Mother, Sister, Aunt and Friend - Linda Eastman McCartney - published on July 29th sets a new low. The story quotes alleged ‘insiders’ who claim that Linda was not the center of her family’s world; that she was not the love of her husband’s life; that she was not the warm and beautiful soul who grounded us all. 

“Let us be clear about this: there are no such ‘insiders.’ Linda’s entire family, and all of her friends and associates loved her totally, understood the deep dynamic of love and respect that ran through our conjoined families, and would never have said such vapid and tactless things. [That was Stella’s contribution.] The Post has made this ugliness up from whole cloth, for the sole and ignoble purpose of selling newspapers.

“Not satisfied to besmirch Linda’s memory, the Post goes on to savage our Father, Brother, Uncle and Friend - Paul McCartney - by claiming he did not utterly love and adore Linda. Anyone who knows him will tell you he was her best friend, her most ardent lover, and the one who was beside her throughout her ordeal with cancer, and who was utterly devastated afterwards. Paul and Linda’s love was real and alive, and it is a desecration of her memory to claim otherwise.

“Finally, we ask that the press stay away from our private family business, of which they know nothing, and let us live our lives in peace. If any more stories of this kind are published, Linda’s family will take legal action to defend her memory.

“We are Paul and Linda McCartney’s family and friends.”

 

The letter was acknowledged by Heather, James, Mary and Stella McCartney, Julian and Sean Lennon, John and Jodie Eastman and their children, Linda’s two sisters and their husbands and children, Michael McCartney and his wife and grown children, George and Judy Martin, Ringo and Barbara, Olivia and George (well, Livy had signed for him). And, the first person to actually sign the letter (after he was let into the secret), in a huge flowery signature like John Hancock’s on the Declaration of Independence, was John Lennon. He wanted the press to be able to read it without their glasses.

Paul had been deeply moved by this gesture proffered by his family and closest friends. He took the time to write each of them a brief note thanking them for standing up for Linda. His ‘thank you’ to John was a great deal more personal and private, however, and left its recipient with no doubt about the depth of Paul’s gratitude.

 

*****

 

New York Post  
Editorial Meeting  
Early August 2001

 

“We’ve gone too far with that Linda piece,” the Editor-In -Chief announced to the conference room filed with sub-editors. “The paper has not got so much hate mail in over half a century. Not since that Jackie story about Bobby.”

“It didn’t help - the dignified response coming from the McCartney family. They made us look cruel.” This came from the Assistant Editor-in-Chief, who, along with the Editor-in-Chief had been called to the carpet by the paper’s board of directors earlier that day.

None of them cared if they had actually been cruel. They were only worried that they looked that way in the eyes of people who buy newspapers. Celebrities were fair game, after all. They asked for it when they decided to become famous.

“So the Board wants us to walk the story back,” the editor said.

“Williams will go ape-shit,” the city page editor commented.

“Williams can kiss my ass,” growled the editor. “We need to do a story discrediting the criticism, and acting as though we weren’t the ones who started it.” He honestly and sincerely did not see the irony in what he had just said.

 

*****

September 11, 2001  
New York City

 

A week earlier, all of the family had dispersed back to their various primary homes, and John and Paul had decamped to their New York apartment. There they had entertained Jason and Gerry along with a number of other friends for a week, and planned to take the 9:15 a.m. Concorde flight back to London on the bright, clear Tuesday morning of September 11th. 

John didn’t like to wake up so early in the morning (he was shaken awake by Paul at 6:15 a.m.), but the Concorde left at 9:15 a.m. come hell or high water, so if he didn’t want to spend twice as long on an airplane he had to get up in time to catch the flight. He and Paul ate a desultory breakfast that morning, each lost in his own thoughts. John was thinking how much he looked forward to getting back to Cavendish: to sleeping in late and entertaining all his friends. Paul was thinking ahead to all the business that faced him in London. 

They were at the airport and fully checked in by 8:15 a.m., and waited in the VIP lounge. Even in the VIP lounge they were the center of attention, with many rich fellow passengers eyeing them avidly from behind newspapers. John and Paul had a sixth sense about such things. They always knew when they were being watched. The hairs on the back of their necks would stand at attention. Each did his very best to look disinterested and detached from the other: neither one of them wanted to encourage gossip or speculation. So Paul was looking at business papers while sipping coffee, and John was reading the latest book to catch his fancy, the utterly entrancing epic John Adams by David McCullough. John had only picked it up in Amagansett as a beach read, and now he was almost done with it. He was addicted to it now. He felt in league with John Adams. He felt as though he would have really liked the man, and thought he was a lot like Paul, and he also thought that maybe he was like Adams’ cousin, the fiery and unpredictable Samuel Adams. He was utterly lost in the story when the announcement to board the flight was made. 

Paul gathered up his papers and stuffed them into his briefcase, and both men - waiting until everyone else had left - moved towards the boarding gate. 

It was 8:45 a.m.

 

*****

 

As John and Paul had been sitting quietly in the VIP lounge sipping their coffee and reading, the world as everyone knew it at the time was on the verge of an enormous change. Less than 25 minutes earlier, an airplane leaving Boston Logan Airport for the West Coast of the U.S. had been hijacked. Minutes later a second plane out of Boston Logan would be hijacked. Waiting to take off at the moment were two more planes, one leaving Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. for Los Angeles, and the other from Newark Airport in New Jersey for San Francisco. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, was scrambling its jet defenses in response to the first hijack. The early warning had come from the first Boston flight, where the hijacker had inadvertently tripped ground control connections while trying to address the plane’s passengers. Still, the thought was it was only the one plane. Consequently, no flights were grounded.

All was quiet aboard the Concorde as the stewards and stewardesses served the customary coffee and orange juice with hot croissants, and offered alcoholic relief in the form of Mimosas for anyone who was interested. Paul had put his earphones on, and was plugged into his Macintosh ITunes player, ready to listen to a mix made for him of recent music by a dj friend. John had been immediately sucked up by his book, and was absent-mindedly sipping on orange juice. 

The plane was scheduled to take off at 9:15 a.m., but at 8:46 a.m. the first of the hijacked planes had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 9:08 a.m., air traffic controllers immediately halted all activity on the runways while they waited to find out from the FAA what the hell was going on. On the Concorde, the captain came on to the intercom.

“We will be delayed on the ground for a moment,” he said calmly. Half the plane’s passengers groaned with impatience. John didn’t care. He was wrapped up in his book. Paul didn’t hear at all, because he was listening to his music. It was John who first heard the rumblings of his fellow passengers. They seemed to be interested in something one could see out of the right side of the plane. John was seated at a window on that side, and looked out. He could see both of the tall buildings on the New York skyline 12 miles away with huge, billowing, fiery holes in their middles. He stared at this dumbly for several moments trying to make sense of it, and then elbowed Paul. 

Paul removed his earphones, and leaned across John so he could see out the window. “Holy hell,” he whispered. “What the fuck?”

As if he had heard Paul, the captain’s voice came over the intercom again. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are headed back to the terminal. There has been an aircraft incident involving the World Trade Center, and the flight has been grounded.” 

The cabin was alive with alarm and conjecture. John and Paul were quiet, looking about them, and then out the window in bewilderment. The plane turned around and headed back to the terminal, so John and Paul could no longer see the burning buildings. As soon as they deplaned, they were escorted back to the VIP lounge, where an airline representative told them the flight was cancelled, and would be rescheduled at a later time. She gave them a number to call for further information, and said they would receive reimbursement for the flight. But she had almost no one’s attention. Everyone had gravitated to the floor to ceiling windows where a perfect view of the bright blue New York skyline obscured by a horrific black cloud could be had. 

One passenger did say to the airline representative, “Can’t you book us on a different flight?”

The woman looked very uncomfortable. She said, “All flights in and out of the U.S. are grounded until further notice.”

That got everyone’s attention. As they turned away from the window to stare at her a woman watching the television monitors screamed, and everyone rushed over to the TV. There they all stood, wordless, for several minutes as they followed the screen that repeatedly showed video of an airliner crashing into one of the twin towers. The reporter was saying that two separate airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center Towers at 8:46 and 9:03 a.m. respectively. It was obviously a terrorist attack, and not a deadly accident. It was about 9:30 now, and suddenly the President of the United States was being broadcast from Florida, where he had been spending the day in a classroom. He acknowledged that these were terrorist attacks.

John and Paul - like everyone else - were shaken to the core. They looked at each other numbly, and it was Paul who said, “We have to get out of here. Let’s go home.” Paul had already called his manager, who had - while pinned to the television set - arranged for a driver to pick them up. It took over an hour and a half to get back to their apartment in the crazy traffic because the two towers had collapsed, sending debris and chaos for several blocks around them, and because emergency vehicles had blocked off all of lower Manhattan. Thankfully, their apartment was in mid-Town overlooking Central Park, far enough away from the site of the World Trade Centers in lower Manhattan on the East River so as not to be affected by it too badly. They probably should have gone back to Amagansett, Paul realized, as they were stuck in traffic and crawled along towards their destination using an extremely roundabout route. For some reason Paul hadn’t anticipated how massive the disaster was until that moment; his mind could not take it all in, he supposed. 

Once they had arrived, they headed straight for their back patio - the one off their master suite that faced lower Manhattan instead of the park. They were met with a huge cloud of smoke and white dust, obscuring their view. Choking on the dust, they quickly closed up the windows, and went back to the sitting room to watch the television. Paul called each of his kids in England to tell them they wouldn’t be home that day, because they were stuck in New York, but that they were safe and fine. He also called Julian and Sean and his various managers.

John was glued to the television set. He could not believe his eyes. Had this really happened? Had the world gone crazy? One thing that didn’t occur to him yet, but which would become apparent to him within the next day - was that he and Paul didn’t need to worry about being the subject of headlines anymore. They had been well and truly cast aside in favor of reporting this new millennial disaster.


	150. Chapter 150

New York City  
September 12, 2001

 

John and Paul were holed up in their apartment in Manhattan. They had invited Jason and Gerry over to watch television and share the stressful day with them. There was a complete grounding of all air, train and bus travel in the United States for the first time in its history. Jason and Gerry brought a large hamper of food and wine with them in the limo John had sent for them, because they were not the types of people to arrive at another’s home empty handed. Even if the world was on fire and totally upside down!

John had made a lot of comfort food for his friends, and the four of them huddled in front of the television watching history unfold. Jason and Gerry had been invited to spend a few days at the apartment, so they had brought some light luggage as well. They found their accommodations in Hotel de Lennon & McCartney to be quite luxurious, and were more than satisfied with their surroundings.

On the late afternoon of September 12th, the four men decided to turn off the television and have dinner in the apartment’s dining room without regard to the hysteria flowing around in the world beneath them. The patio was out of consideration: there was still much too much debris and dust in the air. A thick layer of it covered the entire patio. As they quietly ate the food that John had made them (a lovely vegetarian meal along with a white fish sauté for the three meat eaters), Jason remarked, “I hardly recognize New York, it’s like a ghost land.”

John said, “Hate is on the ascendant. We all have to stand up and fight against it.”

Paul contributed, “It’s like the Naxis. It’s their way or the highway.”

“Their way is a nightmare,” Gerry commented.

“Which is why we need to fight against them!” John declared. “They’re worse than medieval - they’re 7th century!”

“And it’s absolutely insane - this bit about all the virgins they will get in heaven,” Jason commented with disgust.

John sniffed. “Oh, yeah, Paul and I both had that back in the sixties. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

That comment pretty much ended the conversation, as they all fell apart in giggles. Of course, they had been drinking all day.

 

*****

 

The next night John and Paul (taking Jason and Gerry with them) went to dinner at the home of Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer. It was an impromptu gathering of a group of New Yorkers stranded in the City. While they were there these wealthy people began to discuss how they could help raise money to help the victims of the attack, as well as the first responders and their families. Among a number of schemes discussed, Weinstein suggested that John and Paul host a concert in New York and invite a number of their friends, in honor of the first responders. They both agreed in principle with the idea, and said they would discuss it with their manager and get back to him.

Finally, after three days, the airports were reopened, and John and Paul were able to board the Concorde at JFK airport and take off for London Heathrow. As the plane took off, it banked over the City, and John and Paul could look down and see the utter devastation in lower Manhattan. It was shocking and disturbing, and it was a sight that haunted them for months afterwards.

 

*****

 

October 2001  
New York City

 

It was being billed as “The Concert for New York,” and was organized by John and Paul, although truthfully Paul had done almost all the work cajoling people into participating. Harvey Weinstein produced the show. Performing would be numerous legendary English musicians, such as The Who, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, and Eric Clapton. The American artists included Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, the Backstreet Boys, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and many others. It was scheduled for October 20th at Madison Square Garden.

Paul had the quirky idea of hiring the remaining living Maysles brother, Albert, to follow John and him around as they prepared for and performed the show, just as he had done with his brother David in February 1964 when the Beatles had first come to America. But this time, John and Paul had a wiser, more educated idea of the power of film, so they had carefully determined when the camera would be on them, and when they would not. The point this time was not to promote themselves but to promote an issue. 

As part of the film, Paul suggested that they walk the streets of the City while going to rehearsals or about their business, so people would see them in the street and perhaps this would help allay some of their fears. One of the most surprising reactions to the World Trade Center tragedy was the fear many people had about being in New York City and of flying. Indeed, some of the artists Paul had contacted to join the concert regretfully declined because they were afraid of getting on an airplane and flying in to New York. 

So, the day before the concert, John and Paul, accompanied by Albert Maysles’ camera and sound equipment, decided to walk from their apartment to the Garden for their rehearsal. It was a walk of about 24 blocks, but nothing a normal New Yorker wouldn’t do on an occasional basis if the weather was fine. At certain times of the day and night, cars were superfluous in mid-Manhattan. Every few feet they were stopped. People would cry “Its John and Paul!” and gather around them. They would pose for photos and even talk to the pedestrians’ loved ones on phones, and thus it took them a great deal of time to finally make it to the Garden. 

Henry had arranged for John and Paul to do publicity to support the show. He had the crazy idea of having them go on Howard Stern’s radio talk show. Howard Stern was a notorious New York “shock jock” with a national following who asked wildly inappropriate questions of his guests. Paul said a little sheepishly, “I’m afraid of him, Henry. He always gets people in trouble.” 

John liked the idea immediately. He said, “At least when he asks embarrassing questions, it’s done in fun. He really doesn’t give a shit what the answers are. He just wants it to be entertaining.” 

“He’s going to ask us really embarrassing things, John. Are you sure you want to go there?” Paul couldn’t believe that John was so raring to do this, given how he’d been so regretful about his outburst in July. 

“It’s not an ambush when you know it is going to happen,” John argued. “So what is he gonna ask us? He’ll definitely ask about our sex life.”

Henry cleared his throat. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the conversation and was now sorry he had come up with the idea. He’d thrown it out there as a wild pitch, and hadn’t expected John to actually hit it. “Maybe I can talk to Howard...”

John laughed. “He doesn’t make those deals. It’s all or nothing with him.”

Paul, seeing that John had a good feeling about the idea, was going to reluctantly agree to it. In his savvy mind, it had occurred to him that it might be the best way to have those embarrassing personal questions asked of them and to get it out of the way - in a forum where they could make jokes and have fun with it, as opposed to a serious setting where the stakes were so much higher. He also realized that whatever they said or did during the interview would get only minor press coverage, because the American press was still completely obsessed - for obvious reasons - with the 9/11 news. So he said, “If you’re sure, John, I’ll go along with it.”

“I’m sure,” John said firmly. “So Henry - fix it.”

A day later, they took a limo to the radio station, and Albert was filming them from the front seat next to the driver. Paul and John were having a colloquy with the driver about Howard Stern.

“What’s he going to ask us?” Paul asked the driver.

“He’ll definitely ask how much money you have,” the driver opined. 

“Oh I hate money questions,” Paul grumbled. “It’s so crass to talk about how much money you have.”

“Do you think he’ll ask us about sex?” John asked playfully.

The driver, an older gentleman who was not quite comfortable with sex issues, chuckled nervously. “I would be amazed if he didn’t,” was what he said. 

Paul groaned. They were approaching the studio. “Can you drive around the block one more time?” he asked the driver. “Maybe I’ll decide to cut and run for it.” Paul was really trying to kill another 5 minutes. He didn’t want to show up early, because then Howard would have a chance to grill them before they went on the air. But eventually he had to get out of the car and head for the green room. He was lagging behind John, who approached the whole situation brazenly. Paul knew for certain that he would let John take the lead in answering the most invasive questions. John had a knack for coming up with the funniest responses to the worst questions. 

While in the green room, there was a live feed from the studio, where Ozzie Osborne was talking with Howard. John and Paul watched as Howard asked his usual slew of inappropriate questions. John thought it was hilarious; Paul was chewing on his finger nervously. As Osborne came out of the studio, and an ad was running, he was amazed to see his idols Lennon & McCartney standing there waiting to follow him. Hugs all around, and Ozzie showed his sincere pleasure at meeting them. Then John, followed by Paul, sauntered into the studio. Albert was filming it all.

Howard greeted them from his booth, and his sidekick Robin was seated nearby. John and Paul made themselves comfortable on a velour sofa. They sat before large microphones, and with earphones on so they could hear what Howard and Robin were saying. 

“So John!” Howard started right in. “Been to any male brothels recently?”

“Apparently I’ve been banned, Howard, because I bring too much attention with me.” John served it right back. “They see all the paps trailing after me and they pull up the drawbridges.”

“Paul - did you hit him with a rolling pin when you found out that he’d cheated on you?”

Paul was a little breathless at how quickly the damn thing had gone out of control. They hadn’t even been there a half- minute yet! 

John could see that Paul was deeply uncomfortable and not yet in the groove, so he decided to jump in. “Oh, I’m too fast for him. He took a few swipes at me, but it was futile.” 

“Does John always answer for you Paul?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Paul admitted sheepishly.

“It’s because I know what he’s going to say, and I can say it better,” John explained cheerfully.

“It’s true,” Paul confirmed as everyone in the studio broke up in laughter. 

“So which one of you is the bottom?” Howard asked. Robin shrieked and admonished Howard.

John and Paul looked at each other in amused astonishment. Paul’s face was saying, ‘I can’t believe he said that’, and John’s face was saying, ‘let’s play.’ So John turned to the mic and drawled into it suggestively, “Why do you think it has to be one or the other?” This drew a really loud and scandalized reaction from the studio crew.

At this point Paul was ready to die. But he was enough of a pro to behave as though none of this craziness was fazing him at all. Around him all the studio staff were laughing joyfully. He began to realize that this was theatre; it wasn’t really an interview, and no one expected real answers here. It was pure entertainment, and everyone was playing a part, so he might as well find a part and join in. 

“But you guys were both sex hounds in the sixties - I mean, the story is, you’ve both had hundreds of women! We’re all confused!”

“Not half as confused as we were,” Paul pointed out reasonably. John looked at Paul with joyful surprise and laughed delightedly. This was fun. Actual fun. It was so much better to have the secret out, even if it was still shrouded in mystery and doubt, because he didn’t feel like he was tightrope walking over a deep crevasse, fearful of putting a foot wrong. Now he was free to be himself.

“So Paul, have you had sex with any other men?” Howard asked. Paul was the shyer one about such things - Howard figured that out immediately. Howard had made a career out of sensing his guests’ weak spots and going for them mercilessly.

“No,” Paul said simply. He didn’t look stressed, and he didn’t feel the least bit pressured to add anything to that succinct response.

“We won’t ask John that question,” Howard said to Robin in a theatrical aside, “because we know that he has.”

John pretended to be insulted by this, but he wasn’t a bit insulted. It was a great freedom not to have to defend himself anymore. “Is that all you got, Howard?” John taunted. 

Howard’s face lit up. He was delighted that John and Paul had come to play. They were obviously enjoying the humor and the vibe. So Howard said, “So, were you doing it to each other back in the sixties, when you were in the Beatles?”

Without missing a beat, Paul said “No.”

John did a double take and thought to himself, so we’re going to lie about it. His face was the picture of surprise.

But Paul was not finished. He leaned into the microphone as if he were about to reveal a great secret. “What happened was...”

And John couldn’t help himself. He asked, “What happened?” 

Paul winked at John and repeated himself. “What happened was, we turned 40 and...”

John was saying, “Yeah, and...”

“We went POOF!!!!” Paul flashed his hands outward like a magician.

John collapsed backward on the sofa and was laughing whole-heartedly, and everyone else in the studio exploded in laughter too.

John then sat forward again, and he said into the mic, “For a moment there Paul, I had no idea where you were going with that.” 

“Yeah, John looked absolutely shell-shocked when you said ‘no.’” Howard pointed out.

“I have to work at keeping John guessing,” Paul explained sensibly. “Otherwise he’d get bored.” 

“You don’t want me and Paul bored, Howard,” John said. “We’re very creative, and it always leads to trouble.” 

“That’s a good question - which one of you creates the most trouble?” Robin asked.

“I was the one who got us into trouble, and Paul was the one who got us out,” John answered.

“Why are you using the past tense?” Paul asked John.

John laughed. “What I meant to say, I am the one who gets us into trouble, and Paul is the one who gets us out.” As everyone chuckled John said, “No really. He can talk us out of anything. It’s like some kind of crazy magical thing he does.”

Paul said wryly, “John thinks that negotiating politely with authority figures is some crazy magical thing. The rest of us call it ‘common sense.’” 

“Ok, John - what is the one thing about Paul that drives you up a wall?” Howard asked.

“Oh, you’re trying to break us up now,” John accused. 

Howard defended his question. “No relationship is perfect - we all know that.” 

“I’m not sure if we have enough time to explain all the ways in which Paul and I have pissed each other off over the years,” John said.

“Just one thing - the worst one,” Howard coaxed.

Paul was smiling during this interchange. He thought it was kind of amusing - talking about their ‘relationship’ on the radio. Just six months earlier he would have thought he would rather die than do this.

John said, “Okay, this will be no surprise to Paul. He compartmentalizes.”

“He what?” Robin asked.

“He goes to Paul Land, or wherever, and when he is there, you can’t really reach him. And so, in this compartment is his muse, and in that compartment is his business mind, and in the other compartment he is a great pal... My problem is, I want access to all the compartments, but I only have access to about 75% of them. And that has taken me decades to accomplish - something like 45 years!”

“You mean I have compartments left that you haven’t invaded yet?” Paul asked, feigning surprise. “I could have sworn you’d taken over all of them by now.” 

Everyone was laughing. Howard said, “This is really good stuff. You guys give good interview.”

“We give good everything,” John cooed naughtily.

“So Paul - your turn,” Robin chirped. “What is the one thing about John that makes you crazy?”

Paul exchanged a grin with John. He thought about it for a few moments, and then he said, “The fact that I can’t say ‘no’ to him. Well, I do say ‘no’, quite frequently, but I can never make it stick...”

Howard was laughing. “So that’s how he got you into bed, is it?”

“We’re not gonna answer that one, Howard,” John said sharply. “That would be giving away my secrets.” 

“So, you two are as rich as god, aren’t you?” 

“Is god rich?” Paul asked John.

John said, “God is anti-materialistic, so I think we’re way richer than god.” 

Paul groaned. “And now we’re going to get burned at the stake in the Bible belt. John - didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you said something like this?”

John laughed. “Oops. I forgot about that.”

“I think I want to change my answer about the most irritating thing about John,” Paul volunteered. 

John laughed and said more seriously, “What I should have said is that the whole point of religion is to value things other than money. So it seemed odd to me, Howard, that you would say something like that - ‘richer than god.’” John turned to Paul and said, “You like that better?”

Paul smiled and said, “Much better, thank you.”

“But you still haven’t answered my question? How much do you have? Are you billionaires?” Howard persisted.

“It’s tacky to talk about stuff like that,” Paul protested. 

“That’s me - I’m tacky,” Howard agreed cheerfully. “So what’s the answer John?”

“Don’t ask me - I haven’t got a clue. Paul does all that,” John responded honestly. “Although I did read in the paper that we were worth over a billion pounds, and I asked Paul if it were true. And Paul told me, ‘let me put it this way. You can buy that B1 Bomber you’ve always wanted.’”

Everyone laughed.

Howard said, “The B-1 bomber costs about a billion, doesn’t it?”

Paul said, “I really have no idea. I was just making a joke. I liked the image of John in the cockpit of a B1 Bomber. Look out world!”

“Speaking of the world, you’re both in town this week to host a huge fundraiser for the families of the first responders at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night. Are you headlining the show?”

“Yes,” John answered. “This is something we feel very strongly about.”

“We were on the runway at JFK when it happened,” Paul said. “We could see the burning buildings. They canceled our flight.”

“That must have been freakish,” Howard said.

“You couldn’t believe what you were seeing,” John said. “It didn’t compute. I’m still not sure I’ve made any sense of it. We’re all in a kind of free fall, and we’re hoping that getting together to share music will help us all settle down a little.”

“I’m really grateful you guys came here today, and you’ve been fantastic guests. Of course I’ve loved your music since I was a kid, and it is really an honor to have you here.”

Paul was waiting for the joke, but apparently Howard was being sincere. He smiled warmly.

John said, “I’m glad we came, too. I had fun.”

Paul added honestly, “And I’m glad it’s over.”

 

*****

 

“You were amazing,” John told Paul with admiration as they were being driven back to their apartment after the Stern interview. John had forgotten Albert was in the car and filming. Paul had not forgotten. He flashed a warning smile at John, who then said, “Oh! Albert! I forgot you were there! You’ll have to cut that bit out of your film!” 

Albert would of course cut out any bit that his subjects were uncomfortable about. He understood that John’s comment, and the way that he looked at Paul as he said it, reached a level of intimacy that neither of them wanted to expose publicly.

When they got to the apartment, they said goodbye to Albert in the parking garage, and then went up to their flat, where Jason and Gerry eventually joined them. They had been invited over for dinner and drinks. 

“You two were absolutely brilliant!” Jason cried. “Gerry and I listened to you on the radio.”

“That man was absolutely vile,” Gerry grumbled. “But I have to say you both handled him masterfully.” Gerry had never heard of Howard Stern before that day, and had been appalled by the man’s vulgarity. But yet again he was amazed at how beautifully John and Paul could thread the needle when it came to their confrontations with the press. 

“Well, I thought it was hilarious,” Jason said. “The great thing about it is that if some of your fans are not comfortable with your relationship, the way you answered everything so playfully will still allow them to believe you were just joking and it might not be true.”

John thought about what Jason said and, sadly, agreed. He and Paul were still hiding behind their wits and reputations to a certain extent, and there would always be a great number of people who would not want to know about the true nature of their relationship. It was good for their business, yes, but John wasn’t sure how good it was for his soul, or for anyone else’s soul, come to think of it, if learning to accept and even admire people who are different from the norm was a laudable societal goal. John thought it was a laudable goal. But he had to remember to work on being patient. As Fiona was always telling him: baby steps. Get used to baby steps. The trouble was, thinking small was anathema to John.

 

*****

 

October 20, 2001  
Madison Square Garden, NYC

 

There was a great vibe in the Garden that night. Paul had come up with a new song, Freedom, which he thought would be a good way to end the show. The terrorists’ agenda had reminded Paul of the Nazis - the arrogant assumption that people could be killed going about their daily lives just to make a political or religious point that less than 1% of the world’s population would fully agree with. Some things were worth fighting for, in Paul’s view.

John liked the song too, because ultimately that is what western civilization was trying to protect - the freedom to think what you want, to be whom you want, and to believe what you want. The political viewpoint of most terrorists was absolute: it had to be their way or no way. John fully opposed that way of thinking. He and Paul did discuss that the song might be taken as a war chant, but then they decided that they would not release it as a single, and they would just sing it in this venue because it would be much appreciated by the firefighters and police officers in the audience who were understandably angry given the appalling losses they had just sustained. There would be a time when all these people would regain their equilibrium, but right then they were hurting big time.

Billy Joel wanted Paul to listen to a tape of some music he was working on. He was trying to write classical music like Paul did. Bon Jovi wanted to spend a few minutes with John Lennon, his idol. Elton John ran into Paul in the hallway and the two men hugged and kissed. On the lips. Eric Clapton agreed to participate in the Freedom finale, but Mick Jagger did not. “Typical Mick, such a cunt,” John could be heard grumbling under his breath. Stella showed up after a quick flight over from London, and joined her dads in their dressing room. “This is my baby girl,” Paul said proudly, introducing Stella to a handful of celebrities hanging in the room. Then she flew into John’s arms and gave him a huge hug. And Albert caught all of this on film. Some of it would eventually make it into the film - not to be released for 10 years - and some of it wouldn’t.

John and Paul had handpicked their eight songs carefully, with an eye towards what was going on in the world. They started out with their duet, Because, and moved right into the happy Wings song What the Man Said, followed by John’s solo Instant Karma, Paul singing Hey Jude, and John singing Imagine. This led directly into All You Need is Love, Freedom, and finally Let It Be, with most of the performers joining them on the last two songs. Freedom was a huge hit with the audience, who sang along with it as if they had known the song for years. It was fun for all the celebrities who were on the stage singing, too, when a bunch of firefighters and police officers came out and sang with them. 

While everyone was singing, Pete Townshend was coming on big time to Paul, and in the background comedian Billy Crystal was visibly shocked by this display. John, who noticed it immediately, was ready to thump Pete. He was incredibly surprised by the intensity of his reaction. John figured it was because when they were keeping their relationship on the down low, all of these lecherous bisexual rock stars weren’t sure if Paul was bisexual too, but there was the chance that he wasn’t, and open flirting with him might end up being embarrassing for them. But now that they knew for sure that he was at least bisexual, some of them were apparently seeing green lights where they ought to see red lights (at least John thought so). John gritted his teeth and continued singing and smiling for the audience. He’d smack Pete in the back of his head later.

Finally, they were off the stage, and everyone was hugging each other and the first responders. John and Paul were surrounded by dozens of people - not just the firefighters, police, EMTs and their family members, but also celebrities. They each tried to focus on people one-to-one, but the crush was quite overwhelming. After 15 minutes of this, John grabbed ahold of Paul’s wrist, and dragged him down the hallway past grasping people, and then they made their way into their limo.

“Whoa!” John said as the car door closed behind them. “That was a serious crush, man.” 

“I was afraid we were going to be swallowed whole,” Paul responded. “It was a bit dicey.”

“Fucking Pete Townshend was slobbering all over you while we were doing Freedom,” John grumbled. (Albert was not in the car with them, and the driver had raised the privacy divider.)

Paul sniffed. “You’re dreaming,” he said.

“I’m not! He was fucking slobbering all over you!” John responded. “I wanted to fucking kill him!”

Paul laughed. “What was the worst that would happen? It isn’t as if he was going to get anywhere with me.”

John laughed. “I saw red. He was trespassing on my territory, man...”

“Territory?” Paul’s voice was quite squeaky. “Is that what I am to you - territory?”

“Abso-tutin’-lutely!” John responded unapologetically.

Paul laughed. “I’m not a pushover, Johnny.”

“That may be true, babe, but I’m gonna make sure that I keep you honest,” John said. “Not to worry. Lennon’s on the case.”

Paul laughed out loud. John was a very fun person. He was a constant hilarious surprise. And, truthfully, it was a little comforting that the man could still feel jealousy. Paul didn’t want John to be jealous, but if John showed it under these silly circumstances, it was something Paul could appreciate. It was satisfying to know that his lover was possessive enough to be worried over some third party’s half-hearted theatrical flirting. He felt warm and appreciated, and he turned a loving smile on John.

John melted: nothing like a full on Macca smile to make his day. He said, “I’m going to give Pete a piece of my mind when I see him next.”

Paul said softly, “Don’t be giving away pieces of your mind, Johnny. They’re far too valuable to waste on nonsense.”

John leaned over and offered up his lips for a kiss. Paul was filled with a feeling of affection, and leaned in towards John, and then they kissed each other - full on the lips. 

 

*****

 

Later that night Stella returned to her fathers’ apartment, where she was staying that night, before returning to London the next day with them on the Concorde. She had gone out to a club with her cousins after the concert, and had dragged herself into the apartment at 2 a.m. She had been very proud of John and Paul - they had put the very successful concert together and had headlined it in such a perfect way. Now she sat in the darkness of the sitting room, going through her cell phone to see what messages Alasdhair might have sent. He had sent her a series of sweet messages, and she found herself tearing up. She really, truly was done with the single life. She couldn’t wait to get back to London and Alasdhair.

John and Paul had fallen asleep about an hour earlier. They had needed to unwind from the stress and excitement of the last few days. The form of ‘unwinding’ they indulged in involved some very energetic sex. As they were pumping away John suddenly said, “If Howard Stern could see us now, he’d know who was on the bottom!” And that smartass remark almost spoiled the mood.

 

Smile.


	151. Chapter 151

November 2001  
New York City

 

George Harrison had more bad news. The cancer in his brain had not been stopped by the treatment he had received in Switzerland. This was not entirely a surprise, because the doctors had told him it was an experimental pilot, and the odds were not in his favor, but they had hoped it might prolong his life by slowing down the disease’s progress. Unfortunately, the treatment had no noticeable effect. Now it was clear that the odds had won out, and he was left with only weeks to live. 

He and Olivia were mourning this news when George’s doctor called, and said there was another pilot program offered at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City - it was a treatment of radiotherapy for non-small cell cancer. It was highly questionable, this pilot, a literal shot in the dark, but it was the only thing left that might stand between George and the grave. The answer was “yes,” and soon they were on a flight to the hospital, where George checked in using as his surname his wife’s maiden name, Arrias. He was placed in what was mainly a maternity ward to keep tongues from wagging about his cancer. Once in the hospital, he was prepped for what the hospital called “revolutionary” cancer surgery. In medicine, “revolutionary” often is another word for “last resort.” The treatment was stereotactic radiosurgery, a procedure that attacks tumors with high doses of radiation. It was available to patients with large and advanced tumors; in other words: when all else has failed.

 

Unfortunately, all of the security efforts deployed by the Harrisons to protect their privacy were foiled when some individual in the hospital spilled the beans to the newspapers. “He is very frail and gaunt,” the informant was quoted as saying, “The word around the hospital is that the procedure he is having is the last chance of saving his life.”

George was infuriated by this breach of his privacy, and he lodged a complaint with the hospital. But the damage was done. Soon, reporters and photographers were camping out in the hospital parking lot. This would bother anyone, but for someone like George who absolutely hated such attention, it was a quadruple aggravation at a time when he certainly did not need it. (Later, after his death, his estate would sue the hospital for damages based on the breach of his privacy.)

 

*****

 

November 12, 2001

 

George was sitting up in his hospital bed, trying to pull himself together. Today was a Big Day. Today he was going to see all three of his Beatle brothers. Ringo had suggested it of course. Good ole Richie Starkey. At the New York hospital where George was undergoing radiotherapy, a top-secret meeting was about to take place. A security expert hired by Paul McCartney had swept in and organized the meeting so as to keep all non-necessary hospital personnel out of the path of the arriving Beatles. So it was about noon when John and Paul’s car swept up to the designated entry spot, and they both poured out and, with heads down, legged it quickly into the hospital. They successfully avoided all witnesses and press. If there was one thing Paul could do for his dear friend George after all these years, it was to gift him with the deep privacy he so craved in these last days of his life. 

John and Paul followed the hospital director of operations up the freight elevator to George’s floor, and then trailed him to George’s private room, which was way off the beaten path. Olivia met them outside the room.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, fighting back tears. “He is so weak...” She fell into Paul’s arms, and he embraced her while she wept. She hadn’t cried at all in weeks, but seeing John and Paul had set loose the waterworks. 

“Is Richie here yet?” John asked softly, as Paul rocked Olivia back and forth.

Olivia managed to whisper, “No,” in response.

“Ready?” Paul asked her as she moved out of his arms and met his eyes. Olivia nodded her head ‘yes’, and then led the way into the room.

John was just behind Olivia, and saw George first. It was a shocking sight. George was a skeleton, bald and weak. For a moment, John froze in place, but then forced himself to move further into the room. 

Paul caught sight of George a moment later. His heart nearly stopped due to a stroke of unbelievable emotional pain coursing through him. But his legs kept moving, and he strode straight to George’s bedside, and grabbed one of his hands. There were IV lines running out of both arms, and George’s head looked huge on top of his little neck and his shrunken body. Every empathetic impulse in Paul’s body was activated. It reminded him of standing next to Linda’s bedside as she was only weeks away from death. 

“Hey Geo,” Paul whispered. George’s eyes were shut, but he managed to express a weak smile. “It’s me and Johnny.” Paul felt a slight squeeze on his hand. Paul looked behind him and asked John to bring him a chair - not with his voice but with his eyebrows. John understood immediately, and pulled the chair over, and then pulled one over for himself. Olivia had returned to her chair on the other side of the bed, and now the three of them sat around the bed, observing George. Eventually, George realized this.

“You can’t stare me back to health,” George opined in his dry way. This caused everyone to laugh and relax. 

“We can try,” John said hopefully. 

George said softly, “I’m glad you could make it. There are things I’ve meant to tell you.”

Paul was rubbing George’s hand with his thumb. He said, “We have things we need to tell you, too.” 

“I’d better go first, because I might die at any moment,” George quipped. Again, almost against their wills, the other three laughed. 

George gestured for a sip of water, which Olivia immediately provided. “This is for you two,” George began, obviously meaning John and Paul. “As you probably know, I really resented your partnership throughout the last few years I was in the band. I didn’t like being left out of it, so I guess I have been bitter about it.” George paused briefly to swallow, take another sip, and rest for a moment. Talking was not impossible, but it was difficult. “But lately I have come to understand that you and Paul were like the two different plants I had in my garden for years. I planted them too close together as seeds, and as the years passed, their roots became intertwined. But from above they looked like two completely different plants. So when I decided to remove one of the plants because it was crowding out the other, and I pulled its roots out, the other plant came out too because their root-balls had become one. Both plants could live bound together, or they could die together. There were no other options for those two plants. You two are like that.” George stopped a moment to control the tears that were threatening to fall. In so doing, he didn’t notice that John and Paul both had tears streaming down their faces. George took another sip of water, and, exhausted, added, “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”

A deep silence followed George’s extraordinary speech. Paul was softly weeping, so John felt as though the onus was on him. He put his arm around Paul’s shoulders and whispered, “Are you okay babe?”

Paul nodded, and wiped his wet face off with his free hand. Paul said to George, “I have felt so bad for so long. I never meant to exclude you. I’m just dense, you know?”

George laughed, and so did John. 

Paul continued, “You have to hit me over the head with a 2 by 4, as the Americans say, because I don’t always know what I sound like to other people.” 

John and George both whooped, and then George had to cough a little due to the effort. John said, “You don’t say!” 

Paul took a deep breath, desperately trying to restore his equilibrium. He could feel John’s hand, rubbing his back, and was grateful for it.

John said, “Harri, I really appreciate what you said. I was far worse than Paul; I know it. But I had a raging mental illness, you know? I hurt just about everyone I loved, including you, and I’m truly sorry for that.”

“Aren’t we the twee ones?” Paul asked after a respectful silence had passed. His audience of three chuckled affectionately. “Would sugar even melt in our mouths?, as my Irish grandmother used to say.”

George squeezed Paul’s hand and studied his old friend’s face. Tears accumulated in his eyes. The only reason Paul had hurt him so much over the years was that he had loved Paul like a brother. John was an idol who had often let him down, Ringo was his best friend who had never let him down, but Paul - Paul was like a brother. It meant that they might not have chosen each other as friends but for their love of music and adventure, but they were bound by something deeper - by something very much like blood.

“I’m not going to last much longer,” George said, eying Paul closely as he did so.

Paul’s eyes were steady and sure. He had been here before. “I know,” he said calmly.

George was glad Paul made no attempt to deny this obvious truth. He said, “It’s going to be a nightmare, trying to die privately and peacefully. They know I’m here now, and they’ll follow me when I leave the hospital.” George looked very distressed.

Paul put on his business-face. “They can’t follow you once you’re up in the air in a private plane,” he said. “Or, maybe you want to come stay with us in our apartment? We have loads of security there.” 

“I’m leaving here in a few days, when the treatment is over, and I want my palliative care to take place in Los Angeles, at Cedar Sinai Hospital. They have a world class outpatient hospice service there.” George was businesslike too. Olivia, meanwhile, was covering her eyes with a tissue. 

“Well, John and I rent a house in Bel Air - it is extremely private. Do you want to stay there? I can set you up with our security expert, and he can help manage it.” 

“That would be great, if we could,” Olivia said. And George nodded his agreement.

“I’ll have the property manager and Gavin DeBecker, the security expert, set it all up. We have strong security there.” Paul was patting George’s hand with one hand while he squeezed it with the other. He earned a warm smile from George.

It was at that moment that Ringo came in the door with Barbara. There were greetings all around, and then the two wives - Olivia and Barbara - discreetly left the room. Ringo took Olivia’s chair, and looked around at his “brothers.” How sad that this would no doubt be the last time they were all four together. Knowing this was true made each moment bittersweet for Ringo. 

“Can you believe the four of us are here - together - and we’re the same four people who went thru the craziness 40 years ago?” Ringo asked. “It feels surreal.”

John cleared his throat. “I know what you mean, Richie. I feel like those were four other blokes than the ones sitting here now.”

“I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” George said.

“Why not?” Paul asked, sincerely interested in George’s viewpoint.

“We are four different people now: because we grew up and allowed ourselves to change. Not all people subjected to our level of fame managed that.”

“I think we managed it because we had each other,” Ringo opined.

“It’s like that funny thing you said,” John agreed. He looked at Ringo. “Remember when you said that you would look in the mirror and think you were a god - a living god - and then you would go to the studio and there were these three blokes there telling you, ‘nah, you’re not a god, you’re from Liverpool.’” 

They all laughed in acknowledgment and recollection.

Paul said, “I wouldn’t have made it through all that madness if it weren’t for the three of you. That I am sure of.” As he finished this statement, he felt a squeeze on his hand. He looked up and caught George’s eyes, and they exchanged what could only be described as a loving look. Paul’s breath caught in his throat and he gave George a full-on genuine smile, which made George’s face light up. George had never really been immune to the McCartney charm. He had always felt, at his plumb depths, that Paul was solid. Yes, Paul could be peremptory; maybe he was a bit too sure of himself. And, true, Paul could be bossy and perfectionist. But there was something solid about Paul. It was something you could count on, when all else failed. And, despite Paul’s reluctance to confront his own emotions directly, there was a deep empathy and compassion for others’ feelings in Paul. 

“When was the last time you got buzzed?” John asked George suddenly. 

George looked at John as if he were crazy. “You do realize I’m in a hospital getting medical treatments. I’m on death’s door.”

John said, “So why worry about having a buzz? I mean, if you’re gonna die anyway.”

George laughed - it was a kind of weak thing, but only because he himself was weak. He couldn’t muster up a belly laugh. 

Paul had laughed nervously. Joking about death was not one of Paul’s specialties. He supposed this was a remnant of childhood Catholic guilt. 

But Ringo had heard John’s comment and said, “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Barbara will kill us if you drink,” Paul said to Ringo.

“Don’t be a spoilsport,” Ringo pouted.

John said, “I think the four of us need to do some pot. That’s better than alcohol because of Ringo’s situation.”

“In a hospital room?” Paul asked incredulously.

John turned to George and Ringo and said, “I love how he turns into bossy big sister the minute all four of us are together again. He’s never like this when it’s just me around. I say let’s do pot, and he’s a blur trying to get ready for it.”

Everyone laughed, although Paul was a little embarrassed. He’d always felt just a little bit different than the other three. It was like he was the superego of the group - always having to monitor the risk/danger factors while the other three could just be reckless because they knew Paul was there to apply the brakes. He was the designated driver of the Beatles. On one level it was a drag to be cast in that role, but on another level Paul knew that the group had needed him - even if his cautiousness pissed them off.

“I suppose they do use marijuana in medical situations,” Paul said dubiously, giving in to the group dynamic reluctantly. He was a bit worried the hospital security staff might have something to say about it.

“I’m the leader here,” John said with a puffed up sense of importance, “which is why I thought ahead.” He pulled out of his jacket pocket one huge marijuana cigarette rolled and ready to go. “We’ll share it.” He then proudly produced his cigarette lighter. “Ringo, lock the door.”

Ringo got up obediently and went to the door. He said, “There are no locks on this door.” 

“We’ll need a lookout,” John decreed.

“Don’t look at me,” Paul said with a pout.

George said, “I can’t do it. I’m stuck in this bed.”

John laughed and said, “I know, let’s get the wives. They can sit right outside the door and make noise if anyone is coming.”

Ringo agreed and went out to talk to Barbara and Olivia. He gained their amused consent.

Paul, meanwhile, was feeling skeptical. “You do realize that they will smell this all the way down the hall. There’s no smoking in the hospital, let alone pot! They’ll call security.”

“No they won’t babe, because we have a secret weapon,” John said assuredly.

“Oh, and what’s that?” Paul asked, as Ringo sat back down.

“You!” John declared.

“Me?” Paul was confused.

“Yeah. You’re gonna go down to that nurse’s station and you’re gonna sweettalk those nurses, and you’re gonna explain that the four of us need to share a blunt together for old time’s sake. Meanwhile, Ringo - see if you can open that fucking window.”

George was chuckling. This was like old times alright: John bossing everyone around, Paul charming the pants off the authority figures, and Ringo doing gofer duty. And what was he doing? Sitting around watching the three of them and thinking they’re all fucking crazy, but in the most amazing and beautiful way. Just like old times.

Paul was doubtful, but he knew his duty. “What am I supposed to say to them?” He asked fatalistically.

John was a bit impatient with all this lollygagging around. “Just tell ‘em to look the other way. Don’t come down here. Don’t ask, don’t tell. There’s just one reefer, and we’ll do our best to control the smell. We’ll stuff towels under the door, like we used to do in the hotel bathrooms. Ringo, go dampen those towels from the restroom. Oh, Paul, when you get back, you can disable the smoke alarm.”

George could be heard chuckling some more as Paul got up and headed out the door. Paul decided that he was going to have to put on his game face. He swung down the hallway to the nurse’s station, where he leaned on the counter looking as adorably hopeful as he could manage. 

The two nurses sitting there had been gossiping about their boyfriends. They looked up and - holy lord! - Paul McCartney was standing there, looking adorable. Noticing that the women had caught sight of him, Paul favored them with a sheepish and melting smile.

“I need a favor,” he told them, his voice lowered to a very sexy tone.

Both nurses giggled, stood up, and approached the counter. “What do you need?” One of them asked. They were both holding back silly giggles. (They would both later tell each other, “No way is he gay!”)

Paul looked down at his hands, strategically, and then allowed his eyes to look up while his chin was down. He said, “All four of us are in there, you know.”

The women made noises assenting to this information.

“It’s just that our old mate George is dying,” he said softly, looking absolutely miserable.

Both women’s faces drooped until they looked sad and sympathetic. They nodded in gloomy agreement.

Paul allowed himself to look sheepish again. “We have this silly memory - it was kind of something we did when we were touring, back when it was all crazy, to calm down.” He stopped to gauge the effect he had on the two women. They were hooked, so he continued. “We’d lock ourselves in a hotel bathroom and we’d,” he stopped and looked around as if the three of them were conspirators, and the two women leaned in close to him in reaction. “Well, we’d share a joint.” 

The two women giggled. “You had us going,” one of them said. 

“But it’s true!” Paul objected, charm dripping out of every pour. “It was our thought that maybe we could smoke a joint with Geo one more time...just for old time’s sake.”

The two nurses looked at each other. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d looked the other way so dying patients could do some naughty thing with their families or friends. Of course, what if one of the doctors smelled it? One of the nurses said, “I don’t have a problem with a discreet 45 minutes, but if a doctor or security guard comes by, we can’t vouch for what they might do.”

Paul nodded with utter sympathy and understanding. “I see that,” he agreed, “and we will certainly never tell them that we spoke with you. You can act shocked and we won’t blink an eye.” Paul winked broadly after this, causing both women to go weak at their knees.

They smiled and giggled. Paul smiled at them one more time, and as he turned away he said, “Thank you very much for this. It means a lot to all four of us.” He then strolled back to George’s room, leaving two blushing and giggling women behind him.

Paul smiled at Olivia and Barbara, both sitting in the hallway, and entered the room. 

John saw him from his catbird seat near George’s bed. “So what’s the story?” He demanded from Paul.

Paul noted that Ringo was on a chair taking a close look at the smoke detector. Paul said to John, absent-mindedly, “They’ll be cool, but can’t vouch for any doctors or security guards that might come by.” 

“Good,” John said. “If any of them come in, Paul, it is your job to talk them out of the trees.” 

Paul walked over to Ringo and said, “All you have to do is take the batteries out, and then we can put them back in later.”

Ringo looked at Paul as if to say, where the fuck are the batteries? With his eyebrows, Paul persuaded Ringo to climb down from the chair, and then took his place. He quickly found the battery cell compartment, and removed two small batteries. He would replace them later, as soon as they were finished with the joint. He then returned to his seat and looked forward to his first puff on the spliff. He said, “Johnny, I enabled this whole episode, so George goes first and I go second.”

John was feeling generous, so he said, “Sure, why not?”

Satisfied, Paul turned to George and grinned. He noticed immediately that George had a very amused, ironic expression in his eye. Paul winked, and George chuckled. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

*****

 

“Remember that time we lost the talent competition to the sisters who played spoons?” Paul asked lazily. His voice sounded droopy from the pot. 

George and John both guffawed. They were lighting up their second joint. John had lied about how many joints he had brought with him. By the time Paul found out, he was too high to give a shit. Now, deep into the second cigarette, all four of them were feeling no pain. Or, at least, if George felt pain it was clouded by the drug marijuana in addition to the morphine drip.

Ringo grumbled, “I wasn’t a part of the group then. I feel like I missed out on so much.”

Paul said sympathetically, “You were with Rory Storm, and you guys used to win the contests. Our group was always coming in 2nd or 3rd, or maybe the drummer wouldn’t show up...”

“Maybe?” John screeched. “We were always chasing fucking drummers.”

George said, “We had a nerve - calling ourselves a rock band with just three guitarists and no rhythm section.”

John and Paul laughed in appreciation. Ah, their misspent youth!

Ringo said, “I guess I don’t regret my own memories from those days, but part of me wishes that I was part of the rest of you the whole time.”

“It’s a good thing you weren’t, though,” John opined. “We were three bastards to any outsiders. You looked great to us because we had to talk you into joining us.”

George added, “You looked great to us because you were already so experienced and - compared to us - successful. If you’d been with us when you were inexperienced, we would probably not have been so nice to you.”

“Gee thanks for your vote of confidence,” Ringo chuckled, also completely laid back by the effects of the pot. 

“We love you, Rich, and are grateful you were part of us,” John said warmly. “It’s just that the three of us were the three Musketeers throughout our teen years. We were hard on any newcomers.” 

“Except Stu,” Paul said bitterly. Then he caught his breath. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He looked up guiltily and saw that John was looking at him curiously. A quick glance to his right and he could see George peering compassionately at him from amidst his pillows. Ringo appeared to be clueless. Paul schooled his face into a comical smile. It didn’t fool either John or George. Ringo remained clueless. Ringo hadn’t been part of the whole Stu drama. He had been elsewhere having different experiences at the time. But John and George decided to let the moment go. No point in digging up old injuries.

Paul’s sudden memory of Stu had spoiled his high. His shining light went out, and he sat back in his chair and slipped into a deep melancholy. Pot could do that to a bloke. One moment you’re on cloud 9 and the next moment you’re under a dark cloud. I’m John’s second choice was the voice going on inside his head. It didn’t matter that in the end John had settled for him. Stu had been the one to cut the cord when he decided to stay in Hamburg. John had not wanted Stu to leave and had been devastated by it. Paul could not help but feel that he had been John’s consolation prize. Of course, Paul didn’t allow those old, deep, insecurity-driven thoughts to haunt him on a normal basis. But there was nothing normal about what they were going through now in this little hospital room. This little capsule of ‘50s and ‘60s memories had recreated the aura of those earlier times, and had vividly brought back the feelings Paul had so deeply experienced in those bygone days. He forced himself to stop thinking about it, because he would regret it forever if he pouted all the way through his last few hours with George. 

John was asking, “So George - what was your favorite memory from the Beatlemania years?”

George said, “Why you asking me?”

“You’re first. We’ll all go. As you pointed out, you might die at any moment.” John gave George his clown smile.

George acknowledged John’s hit with good nature, and said, “I enjoyed the Maharishi and India. That is where I found my soul and my passion.”

The other three were politely quiet. Neither Ringo nor Paul had enjoyed the Maharishi thing as much as George, and John was probably totally over it. Still, they all meditated from time to time. And three out of the four of them had become vegetarians. Ringo might even be vegan - he had such weird eating restrictions from a lifetime of suffering from a bad stomach. 

John said, “Okay Ringo. You go next.”

Ringo thought about it a bit and said, “It had to be when we landed in New York for our first trip to America. All the people, the press, that press conference, the limos, the hotel rooms. I was terrified at the actual performances, but all that other stuff was great fun.”

There was a general round of agreement with Ringo’s comment, and then John said, “I’ll go next, because Paul’s answer will go on for hours. He’s gonna tell us he loved it from 1963 to 1968, or something like that.” While George and Ringo chuckled, Paul was a bit stung by the comment. John was doing that thing he always used to do in the Beatle years - calling him out in front of the others by making him feel uncool, too enthusiastic, and much too straight-laced. In other words: not like the other three. Paul was surprised to have these feelings wash over him. He hadn’t realized until he’d been out of the Beatles for years how much he had resented being treated like the oddball. The assumption was that he had not been a natural rocker; he was one by association only. These thoughts flew through his brain so quickly, that he only missed the first few words of John’s presentation.

“My favorite part was Paris, when we found out I Want to Hold Your Hand went to number one in America. Remember: Brian wore the chamber pot, and George Martin joined us for dinner that night? In a strange way, for me at least, it was all downhill after that.” What he didn’t mention was the incredible sex he and Paul had that night back in their hotel room in "their" city. He still got hard thinking of that night, as indeed, right at that moment he felt a stir in his nether region. “So Paul - your turn.”

This walk down memory lane was spoiled for Paul. He had managed to push Stu out of his mind, and then he got shoved back in to the Paul is a goody-two-shoes compartment he’d always resented back in the day. So he was subdued. He knew the answer, though. “Writing and recording Sgt. Pepper was my favorite time and memory from those days,” he said softly. John noticed that the spark of mischief and joy had disappeared from Paul’s eyes. He put it down to Paul being unable to think past George’s looming death. 

“Well, that was all pretty predictable,” John pronounced. “So this will be the funner one - what is your worst memory from Beatlemania? George?”

“That’s easy for me. That last tour - ’66 - in Asia and America. Remember the thugs in the Philippines turning off our electricity and chasing us with sticks? And having to give all our money back as a ‘tax’? And then the whole Budukon controversy in Japan. Followed by the Bigger than Jesus controversy in America. Oh, and that horrible ambulance ride out of our last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco? That whole tour was a tour too many - a nightmare. And I was scared someone would kill us.”

Ringo said, “Yeah that was bad. But I hated the Let It Be sessions more. What possessed us to let cameras in? That’s why it all went wonky. We were all acting up for the camera, to exercise our grievances against each other.” 

“That sucked,” John agreed, “but I hated when that jackass Scotland Yard detective decided to arrest all the rock stars for drug possession. They arrested George and Pattie, and Yoko and me. They left you and Paul alone.” John said to Ringo, sounding a little resentful about that.

“It was political, John,” George commented. “I was mouthing off about Indian religion, and you were mouthing off about politics. They were bringing us down. Ringo and Paul weren’t political.”

Ringo said, “I was political; I just kept my big mouth shut. I never thought that - other than to hope for peace and love - my opinions were important enough to bang on about.”

Paul had listened to this whole colloquy and felt ever more isolated from the others. First, of course he had political opinions. He often expressed them in the ‘60s, but he did so with a kind of calm judiciousness that did not upset people. After all, he had been the one who spoke of racism in America, and he was the first one to say ‘ban the bomb’ in an interview. Strange how no one gave him credit for that, especially his former band mates. And, truly, the worst time for him was when they were forcing Allan Klein down his throat, and double-crossing him in business, and forcing him to sue them, and then accusing him of fraud and all other sorts of stuff. And throwing bricks through his windows. But he couldn’t say that here, could he? And the other answer he might have given: “My worst part was when the Beatles ended.” He couldn’t say that either. That would only point out to the other three how unlike the rest of them he was, since they all seemed hell bent on ending the group at the time. Paul settled for the third worst thing the others hadn’t mentioned yet - although it was the precursor to the end of the Beatles and the management dispute.

John hadn’t noticed Paul was quiet. There were so many memories flowing through his head, and he was focused on George and Ringo, who he did not see very regularly. He turned in chipper fashion to Paul and said, “Paul - your turn!”

Paul said flatly, “When Brian died. And the business office was in free fall. We lost our bearings then.”

All three of them stared at Paul and suddenly recalled what he had gone through, as opposed to what they had been through. There was a long, awkward silence. It was George who finally broke it.

“Paul, I should have apologized to you years ago for my part in that whole Allen Klein thing,” he said softly.

“It’s in the past and I forgave you decades ago,” Paul said softly, “but thank you very much for your apology. It means a lot to me.”

Ringo added, “It was just that it was your in-laws, you know? If it had been anyone else...”

Paul kept bitterly silent. How many times had he asked his three friends to consider a third candidate if Eastman was unacceptable? How many times had John and George told him it was Klein or no one, and that was just how it was going to be? Apparently Ringo, at least, had forgotten about those times. Still, Paul said nothing.

John cleared his throat. It suddenly came to him in a flash that Paul was extremely upset. Paul was not having a fun time, sharing memories. Paul was feeling left out and excluded. And Paul was not meeting his eyes. Paul was mad at him for opening that whole can of worms when they were there just to see George. Now John was worried that when they left the hospital, Paul would clam up on him. He sighed. Fuck. As usual, I didn’t think... John noticed he had the still burning spliff and he handed it to Paul as a kind of weak gesture of apology. His worst suspicions were confirmed when Paul waved it away. When Paul said ‘no’ to pot, it was not good.

George noticed this bitter interaction and was visited by a frisson of regret. He shouldn’t have let this ‘memory’ stuff get started. He should have shut that down. Surprisingly, though, he had forgotten all about the end of the Beatles. He had been enjoying the vibe and focusing on when they were still friends. He looked with deep concern in Paul’s direction and reached out his hand toward Paul who, reflexively, grasped it. George squeezed the proffered hand and said, “You’re like a brother to me, Paul. We can fight all we want, but in the end there is nothing but love.”

Paul’s face was pathetically grateful. He nodded, but no words came. He was fighting back tears. This was such an important moment for him. He had wanted absolution for all his sins - real and perceived - from George, and now he had it. He believed George meant it, and suddenly all of the shit he had gone through that evening - the bad memories being stirred up - was worth it. He was still deeply hurt by his memories, but at least talking about it caused this precious moment with George to happen.

Four hours, three pot cigarettes, and many tears and laughs later, John, Paul and Ringo (and Ringo’s wife) trailed out of the hospital. George had fallen asleep, and it was time for them to leave him in peace. Each man had gotten what he had needed out of the meeting, but each of them could not help feeling that he wanted more.


End file.
